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Ohio voter turnout falls short of expectations (Less not More: Did conservatives stay home?)
Ohio.com ^ | Nov 05, 2008 | Stephen Majors

Posted on 11/06/2008 5:52:55 AM PST by xzins

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To: what's up

it was frustrating, but at least in SW Ohio, turnout was high - except for Steve Chabot’s race.


41 posted on 11/06/2008 6:19:30 AM PST by Blogger
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To: xzins
The timing of the crash/bailout deserves study. Could it have been coincidence? Sure.

I suspect that if McCain had voted against the bailout, that he would have won this election. But he panicked and mortgaged our future, like the rest of the RINOs. On ecomomics the only difference between Obama's economic plan and McCains, was that Obama had a plan.

42 posted on 11/06/2008 6:19:38 AM PST by P-Marlowe (LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*)
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To: xzins; LS
I live in Putnam County, in the very conservative western part of Ohio. Turnout here was on pace with 2004, but McCain got nearly 20% fewer votes than did President Bush. The same pattern was apparent all across the GOP counties in Ohio.

Conservatives turned out, but some crossed over or just didn't vote for McCain. And, he has only himself to blame; his campaign was disorganized and lacked the efficiency and passion of the Bush 2004 effort.

I still thought McCain would win, and I know LS can tell you that they were thrilled with the heavy turnout in the GOP precincts of bellwether counties, until they started counting the votes. :) Then they saw McCain's chances evaporate with a large crossover vote.

43 posted on 11/06/2008 6:20:31 AM PST by TonyInOhio (The people have spoken, the bastards.)
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To: All

Conservatives’ votes were depressed and suppressed. The media destroyed their will to vote. GW Bush got more national votes than Obama. Obviously McCain did not appeal to conservatives and he never tried to. He stuck a thumb in their (our) eye at all key milestones (e.g. immigration, cap & trade, drilling esp. in ANWAR, campaign finance “reform”, judges [Gang of 14], education, military strategery [always on Rumsfeld’s butt], etc etc.).

I voted, but McCain was just not a sure fire draw. Maybe Romney was but the media raped him over his religion. Maybe Huckabee was but the media would have trashed him too, just as they did Palin.


44 posted on 11/06/2008 6:20:35 AM PST by shalom aleichem
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To: xzins

Well, Schumer made some odd comments earlier in the year, Fannie and Freddie were Dem to the core, and Soros, Buffet, Gates, Paulson were all Obamabots. It isn’t that they caused the bubble for this to happen, but they COULD have tried to control WHEN it popped. If they knew it was going to happen in the next 6 months...why not help it along?

MASSIVE shorting of financial companies sped this up, otherwise they could have hung in there longer. Just a matter of timing.


45 posted on 11/06/2008 6:21:45 AM PST by Crimson Elephant
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To: Rumierules

Nationally, McCain did not touch conservative issues in any real sense.

Abortion
Marriage
Guns
Vouchers
Self-sufficiency

Where were they?


46 posted on 11/06/2008 6:22:25 AM PST by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain Pro Deo et Patria)
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To: xzins
Did conservatives stay home?

More likely the tens of thousands of bogus and multiple time Acorn registrants either did not show up or only voted once.

47 posted on 11/06/2008 6:24:04 AM PST by JimRed ("Hey, hey, Teddy K., how many girls did you drown today?" TERM LIMITS, NOW AND FOREVER!)
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To: Rumierules

Amen to your ideas. Look, I am from North Carolina. If I am the Senator Richar Burr, who will be running for reelection in 2010, he needs to get his butt off and start organizing at local levels. For god sake, we lost North Carolina because of just 3 counties. In most of this counties, there was not even a precinct chairman and the vote margins was 75% to 25%. If you are a democrat, you work on three counties and you win the whole state.

We need to do the reverse engineering. Get into these heavy democrat counties and reduce the margin by 15 to 20%. It is not rocket science.


48 posted on 11/06/2008 6:25:44 AM PST by Ranjit
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To: Rumierules
How about a strong conservative from the get go?

The system we used favored the moderate. Too many conservatives had them splitting the vote, and when added with the winner-take-all system, that meant they slowly had to drop out.

Better a system of primary delegates apportioned proportionally state-by-state. They'd still be splitting the vote, but they wouldn't be getting so far behind, either.

A conservative caucus within the party would also help. They would endorse up to only 2 or 3 true conservative candidates per primary season.

49 posted on 11/06/2008 6:27:18 AM PST by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain Pro Deo et Patria)
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To: xzins

Trust me, it will work out if conservative like Bobby Jindal gets into the primaries. When there is a real conservative, primaries will be over soon. People like him have huge organizational skills and work in building the party at local levels.


50 posted on 11/06/2008 6:31:07 AM PST by Ranjit
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To: P-Marlowe

McCain’s entire history was too much like Obama’s. When the coal bankruptcy stuff hit, the libs were able to say, “McCain supports the same thing.” That was the story time and again: Coulter has an article on it today.

McCain was a liberal, and it was hard for him to get distinguished from Obama. And what did it get him: bupkis.

McCain didn’t vote against the bailout, because at heart he’s a liberal, and his first impulse was to use the government.


51 posted on 11/06/2008 6:31:15 AM PST by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain Pro Deo et Patria)
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To: Ranjit; P-Marlowe

Duncan Hunter was a true conservative. He had zero organization and cash, but he wasn’t exactly a media-savvy communicator. A conservative caucus endorsement would mean that they had weighed those kinds of things prior to putting a candidate forward.

The truth is that McCain was merely and average communicator...especially in the debates in my opinion.


52 posted on 11/06/2008 6:35:15 AM PST by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain Pro Deo et Patria)
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To: xzins
I noticed one thing real interesting in Ohio. I was a poll watcher and went to several areas. Turnout was very heavy early, but extremely light after about 12 noon. There was no late rush which really shocked me.

About 50% of the voters I saw were black. A lot of people probably early voted or absentee voted. If we are going to go after vote fraud, we need to concentrate on absentees and early voting.

53 posted on 11/06/2008 6:36:04 AM PST by Darren McCarty (Don't blame me. I voted for McCain/Palin)
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To: xzins

From all the numbers I can gather:

Catholics flipped to Obama.

Conservatives stayed home. (Several groups: gave up, some fiscal soured by bail out, some just could not get excited for McCain even with the alternative - people {the normal ones} did not see Obama as bad as he is.)

Evangelicals showed in good numbers if you discount
Catholics - actually up some in spite of Catholic defections

Small increase in number of youth voters - no more than 1-2%


54 posted on 11/06/2008 6:36:17 AM PST by Ingtar (For the first time in my adult life, I am NOT proud of America.)
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To: Ingtar

We need to have some kind of organization in the university campus. Just a mere presence will reduce the impact of liberal standing in the college. Students are very good in volunteering without pay. Catholics will come back when a candidate like Bobby is in the ticket.


55 posted on 11/06/2008 6:41:47 AM PST by Ranjit
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To: Ingtar; Salvation; NYer

Good summary. Thanks.

I’ll never understand Catholic voters. They make me pull my hair out.


56 posted on 11/06/2008 6:42:48 AM PST by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain Pro Deo et Patria)
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To: TonyInOhio

I used to live in Putnam County....Continental. Great place. Mind boggling farms and agricultural economy.

I’m sure some McCain voters flipped to the down-ticket parties. I support the CP myself. I just didn’t vote for them this time. I thought McCain had a shot at pulling it off. Now, I realize that he didn’t really try, so I’d like to pull my vote back and give it to Chuck Baldwin. However, the bottom line is that this needs to be fixed the next time around. The organizing by McCain was lousy in Ohio. His message was off for Ohio.

All that said, I still deeply respect his service for our nation.


57 posted on 11/06/2008 6:47:38 AM PST by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain Pro Deo et Patria)
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To: xzins
"Bush/Cheney/Rove ran an infinitely better organization and ground game."

That was my impression too. A lot of very young rookies (I know their heart was in the right place) running things here in Colorado. It seemed chaotic.... I had to go 3 times to get yard signs, and then finally got them at the Palin rally.....even there I had to stand in line to buy them.

58 posted on 11/06/2008 6:48:47 AM PST by cookcounty ("A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not why the ship is built." ---Governor Sarah Palin)
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To: xzins

At this point its pretty obvious conservatives sat out this election. Not all of course, but enough... We didn’t GOTV.


59 posted on 11/06/2008 6:51:30 AM PST by HamiltonJay
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To: Ranjit

Surprisingly, I’m beginning to wonder if Huckabee might have been our best choice if victory were the only consideration... followed by Thompson, rather than the other way around.


60 posted on 11/06/2008 6:51:50 AM PST by Ingtar (For the first time in my adult life, I am NOT proud of America.)
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