Give Me a D? - Reporters analyzing the election sound more like Kerry cheerleaders

Wall Street Journal ^ | Tuesday, July 13, 2004 | BY BRENDAN MINITER

[So Cal Rocket]

Rah rah John Kerry!

If only for entertainment's sake, it's worth getting in the spirit of what the news cycle has in store for the soon-to-be Democratic presidential nominee from now until his party's convention in two weeks. Even coming out of that Boston "D" party, the story line for the John-John ticket is going to be that liberalism has a real chance of winning this time out.

But cheerleaders aren't a good predictor of a team's performance. And by the looks of it, Team Kerry isn't walking onto the field from where Team Gore stepped off. The story the media may be missing this year is that the electorate is not nearly as evenly divided as it was in 2000. The success of President Bush's policies, Sept. 11 (which wiped away the claim that he didn't have a mandate to govern) and the war in Iraq have all changed the political landscape.

[sarasota]

Count me out of the election coverage and the resulting legal actions. I don't have enough barf bags.

[Mr. Mojo]

The left is going to freak when W wins comfortably.

[EllaMinnow]

Let's start where the last presidential election ended--Florida. The Sunshine State is becoming increasingly Democratic as more middle-class seniors retire there from the Northeast.

I'm not so sure I agree with this part of his analysis. It looks to me as if Florida is trending more GOP because the Mid-western retirees moving to the Gulf coast are younger and more conservative than the Northeastern retirees who settled on the Atlantic coast. The NE liberal retiree group gets smaller every year.

[Mr. Bird]

I agree with you; the analysis is presented as if Florida became a political entity in the 80's. While recent history shows FL as a conservative state, its full history is solidly Democrat. It's not as if people just started retiring to Florida. I'd say the empirical evidence suggests that as the population of Florida has increased, its electorate has tilted more to the Right.

[Christian4Bush]

BTTT

[George W. Bush]

This writer might be a bit premature. I think there's still some life left in the Left.

[SunkenCiv]

George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent