What Major Demographic Shift?

American Thinker ^ | 11/8/2012 | Tara Servatius

[Qbert]

Conservatives need to take a collective breath and look closer at the numbers before they buy into the idea that GOP nominee Mitt Romney's defeat was due to some kind of national demographic shift that now makes Democrat presidential candidates' armor impenetrable. Before you give in to the hysteria, here are a few things to keep in mind.

First, Barack Obama's re-election showing was actually pretty unimpressive for a guy whose philosophies voters have supposedly adopted. As of this writing on Wednesday, Obama's vote total stood at an unimpressive 60,119,958. That's about what John Kerry got in 2004 (59,028,444). President George W. Bush actually did far better than Obama in his 2004 reelection quest, posting a vote total that was about 2 million higher (62,040,610) than what Obama got on Tuesday. That's hardly a remarkable finish in a country with a population that has increased. In fact, it's a decline of 9 million votes from Obama's 2008 total.

Had Romney (57,425,441) done as well as McCain did in 2008 (59,934,814), he and Obama would have run neck and neck, virtually matching each other's vote totals. That's hardly the stuff of demographic ruin.

The question Republicans and conservatives need to ask is not why voters showed up for Obama, whose turnout wasn't exactly extraordinary, but why millions of their own voters, people who had pulled the lever for Bush and McCain, didn't do the same for Romney or simply stayed home.

Why did Romney get a full 2 million fewer votes than McCain did? Why did those voters pull the lever for McCain, but not for Romney? Who were they and where did they go? That is what Republican and conservative strategists need to find out.

Is it possible that Republicans and conservative leaning independents just weren't that wild about...

[Wuli]

“I personally believe it’s going to be a long shot to coax Ohio to vote Republican in a presidential contest again. And we all know what that means...”

it might mean that, like Illinois, Ohio quits growing, or has some population decline, and some of it’s jobs, and its workers move to places like Indiana, or Wisconsin; eventually making it less important electorally and strengthening how red other states are

[Wuli]

“Here in Michigan Debbie Stabenow got more votes than Obama”

yes in many races, “all politics are local” reigns over party affiliation, party loyalty or party-line voting

without detailed analysis, it could appear as if either Hoekstra lost some GOP votes to Stabenow, or Obama lost some Dim votes to Romney, or some part of both of those things happened; suggesting some component of chosing NOT to vote the party-line on all the races