That brings one image to mind...
Posted on 07/06/2004 9:52:18 PM PDT by Reagan Renaissance
Part 2 of the inteview with Michael Moore about his movie was aired tonight on Charlie Rose. During the interview, Moore tossed out a statistic about Republican voters during a discussion regarding Moore's opinion about President Bush's intellect. Moore, like most liberals, always underestimates Bush. It was interesting that Moore attempted to transfer his opinion to conservative Republicans. The statistic that he tossed out was that something like 47% of Republicans would never vote for a Democrat regardless of the circumstances or the candidates. Moore was suggesting that this reflects a lack of credible thinking on the part of those Republicans in that category.
Michal, you can count me as a part of the Neanderthal group that would never vote for a Democrat. And Michael, if your IQ is higher than a turnip, maybe you should ask yourself why a fairly significant number of Americans would never vote for a Democrat? Leave current affairs and the day to day business of the country out of the discussion. Focus on the big picture that frames the foundation and core belief structure of the Democratic Party. Is it possible that the most of the belief structure and core values of the Democratic party are fundamentally wrong? The bottom line Michael is socialism. At its fundamental value, the Democratic Party is the dominant socialist party of America. Socialism is a failed economic model. Socialism is not compatible with freedom Michael. Nor is socialism compatible with capitalism or free markets.
Michael, there is a reason that the core conservatives that make up the right wing of the Republican Party would never vote for a Democrat. It is not possible to be informed and intelligent and vote for a lie. Michael, socialism is a lie.
We are also going to discuss the far more important issue of what socialism is going to do to America unless we find a way to stop it. Stopping it is the real purpose of the series. If you get the chance, invite Michael to drop by. I have no expectation of changing Michael's mind, but it would give me some pleasure if we could raise a few points that might keep him awake at night.
Michael Moore on Charlie Rose? That's a disgusting mental picture! :)
That brings one image to mind...
You Sir, have a sick mind. :-)
Thank You! :)
By the way, give a cheer and round of applause for the other Neanderthal voters in the right wing, the one that keeps the Republicans aloft, of the Republican Party. It was heart-warming to me to learn that there could be a many of us as 47% of Republicans. I would have still had doubts if he had said a total of 47, because I would have not been sure where the other 46 are hiding.
And before some Freeper throws some stones about prior posts that are critical of Republicans or selected Republicans, I am not in the group that will vote for a Republican regardless of his positions or prior voting record. There is a world of difference between never voting for a Democrat and always voting for a Republican. I think there are some sound reasons why always voting for the Republicans is only slightly smarter than Michael.
And 94% of blacks will only vote democrat. No matter what! Evan for KKK Byrd. Does he mention how stupid they are?
Tonight my family and I went to see Spiderman. MM's movie wasn't playing at this theater. I bought five tickets for Spiderman from the box office employee, a young man. When he gave me my change, I said that I WAS going to ask for five tickets for F911 and paused; he grimaced, and I continued, "but I wouldn't pay good money for propaganda...." His grin grew so wide and he said, "I hate that guy! I'd have to quit if they made me sell tickets to his movie!" He laughed and told me to enjoy my night. He was probably in his late teens, early twenties. There is hope!!
"Part 2 of the inteview with Michael Moore about his movie was aired tonight on Charlie Rose. During the interview, Moore tossed out a statistic about Republican voters during a discussion regarding Moore's opinion about President Bush's intellect. Moore, like most liberals, always underestimates Bush. It was interesting that Moore attempted to transfer his opinion to conservative Republicans. The statistic that he tossed out was that something like 47% of Republicans would never vote for a Democrat regardless of the circumstances or the candidates. Moore was suggesting that this reflects a lack of credible thinking on the part of those Republicans in that category."
I think that Moore was saying that around 45% of the voting electorate was Republican and that that block of voters would never vote for a Democrat, not that 45% of the Republicans would never vote for a Democrat. Anyway, he is almost correct historically, given the history of the "popular" vote in U.S. presidential elections since the founding of the Republic. The number closer to the point Moore was so clumsily trying to make is 37% (± 3%) , and it works both ways. There is always around 37% (± 3%) of the voters who will never vote for the other side, no matter what. When there are just two major parties, with no third-party (or temporary split in a major party) to distract voters, that's just the way it is... It seems to hold true in the past with the Federalists vs Democratic-Republicans, Democratic-Republicans vs themselves, the Democrats vs Whigs, now again with the current Democrats vs Republicans.
From a posting on another FreeRepublic thread came some similiar comments and my response.
Originally posted by SamAdams76:
With respect to politics, it is generally accepted that 40% of the population are die-hard conservatives, 40% are die-hard liberals and the other 20% are somewhere in between. Any political analyst will tell you that in a general election, the Democrat and Republican are always guaranteed 40% of the vote and so the battle is always for that 20% in the middle. No matter how unpopular the candidate, you can pencil in about 40%. Mondale got 40% in the 1984 blowout and even George McGovern got close to 40% in the biggest landslide of all back in 1972. This is because die-hard Republicans and Democrats alike are loyal to a fault.
Okay, so we've established the fact that 40% of this country are die-hard liberals who would never, ever consider supporting the Republican candidate no matter how contemptible their own candidate might be.
Good observation. This trend usually holds true in most elections, that even the loser in an electoral college blow-out still gets around 37% (± 3%) of the "popular" vote nation-wide. Which ever way the election goes, I cannot see John Kerry getting less than 40% of the "popular" vote in 2004. American voters have historically been divided into roughly 40%-40%-20% factions after the elections of George Washington. The biggest "popular" vote winner by percentage was LBJ in 1964 with 61.05% of the nation-wide vote. So in 1964 Democrat LBJ got his solid 40% base, added the 20% middle scared of Republican Goldwater and probably got a few East coast RINOs of the day.
It is history...
Notes: (1) No nation-wide "popular" vote before 1824 election.
(2) The 1860 and 1912 elections had the Democrats and Republicans with split parties.
(3) There have been 13 out of 54 contests where the loser had less than 40% of the "popular" vote.
(4) No third-party candidates/votes are shown.
Source: Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Source of data for above table.
Hope this helps.
dvwjr
The numbers for Washington / Adams don't look correct. The percentages add up to >100%.
"The numbers for Washington / Adams don't look correct. The percentages add up to 100%."
Ah, you've just discovered the 'quirk' in the original pre-12th Amendment Constitutional electoral college voting process. This 'quirk' holds true for the first four presidential elections in 1789, 1792, 1796 and 1800. The percentages add up to 200% for those elections. Here is a partial data table for the first five presidential elections, the one occuring first in 1804 being the one we use today, the others being the original Consitutional presidential election process.
Notice how the first four elections have the electoral college percentage add up to 200% ???
In today's 'modern' presidential voting, electors have two votes: one for President and one for Vice-President per the 12th Amendment. Thus all the electoral votes for President add up to 100%, and all the electoral votes for Vice-President add up to 100%. In each case a majority (50% + 1) must be had for any candidate to win outright election in the electoral college.
Pre-12th Amendment presidential elections had electors with two votes for President only, and the elector had to vote for two Persons, that is only one vote for each Person. An elector could NOT cast both votes for one candidate. There was no voting for Vice-President, if one candidate recieved a the votes of a majority of the electors, whomever received the second highest number of electoral votes for President became the Vice-President, unless there was a tie for second place, in which case the Senate would select the Vice-President. Gee, what a consolation prize...
Now given that each elector had two presidential electoral votes, but that winning the Presidency only required a majority of "the whole Number of Electors appointed" this explains why the total percentage of electoral votes is 200%. Let us use the election of 1796 as the example. The electoral college percentage data is listed in the table above. In the election of 1796 there were 138 electors appointed by the several States, which meant that it took at least 70 electoral votes to receive a majority. However there were 276 electoral votes (2x138) for president which were cast by the 138 electors. Given that any single candidate could only receive ONE vote from each elector, that means the maximum vote any single candidate could recieve in 1796 would be, of course, 138 votes. Yes, that is only 50% of the electoral votes cast, but represents 100% of the number of electors, which is the maximum possible vote that any one candidate could recieve. What actually happened was that John Adams(2) got 71 electoral votes, Thomas Jefferson got 68 votes and all the other candidates got 137 electoral votes combined. This is why those early electoral college percentages look strange today, since back then a complete sweep by a candidate of all possible electoral votes would only be half of the total electoral votes cast.
So in the pre-12th Amendment days, the rule was one had to receive the vote of a majority of the appointed electors, not a majority of the electoral votes cast. Quirky, but true...
dvwjr
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.