h/t Legalinsurrection
Posted on 10/28/2012 2:30:11 PM PDT by markomalley
The GOP ground game in Wisconsin is well oiled. We all know people on our lists who we need to contact to vote. And talk radio is a huge GOTV effort for us here. Plus Paul Ryan’s congressional district leans Dem, and all Paul has to do is convert a few of those people.
Final note, Bush lost here in 2000 by only 5,000 votes. And lost in 2004 by only 12,000 votes. Both out of approx 2.5 million cast.
Not saying Wisconsin is safe for Romney. Not at all. But if Romney loses Wisconsin, it means the Obama wave showed up again. And if they show up again, we’re also losing OH, MI and PA.
Most of your switch hitters are actually members of a faction based on occupation, wealth, geography, race, religion, etc. that's transitioning from one party to another to get a better deal.
There are so few independents they aren't worth knowing about ~
For several decades Democrats have been working on a theory that the best way to increase their turnout is to get NEW VOTERS from previously unregistered adults ~ usually youth, but also socially and/or religiously conservative people.
Four years ago they made great strides in that regard and then followed that up with a major get out the vote campaign that brought out 10 million of their first time registered voters to vote for Obama. During that same period the Republican party forgot about turnout again and ended up with fewer voters in 2008 than they'd gotten in 2004.
50 years ago one of the popular ideas was that there was a broad middle which had a lot of moderate or independent or undecided voters who could be persuaded to vote for Democrats, or Republicans with sound reasons and attractive political platforms or inducements.
Barry Goldwater saw through that problem and recognized there are only two major coalition parties, and that's all there's ever been ~ and there's no 'normal curve' showing a continuum of American political thought.
LBJ also understood the theory, agreed with it, and used that theory to beat Barry in one of histories major blowouts!
Richard NIxon saw the idea in use and adopted and won twice, as did Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush!
For some reason we continue to have Republicans who persist in the erroneous belief about the 'normal curve'. They are almost doomed to lose up against a campaign with a strong component of increasing Democrat turnout.
Romney doesn’t need OH if he gets WI, CO and then any one of NH, IA or NV. He should definitely keep leveraging Walker and Ryan’s influence and get WI in the bag.
h/t Legalinsurrection
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