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my study…

Posted on Wednesday 6 February 2008

I enjoyed watching the returns last night. It was like the Superbowl, as I mentioned. What that means is that I didn’t care about the outcome. I prefer Obama, but I like Hillary too. I’d be pleased to have either one of them at the helm. I used to like McCain, before he jumped on the Bush wagon. The more he talks, the more I worry that he’s really not who I thought he was. So he scares me. This morning, I thought about why I was light-hearted last night instead of tangled in a knot as I was all through 2004. It’s because the specter of Bush/Cheney was temporarily out of my mind. But it’s back this morning. There was nothing last night that reassured me that America realizes what a horrible mistake the last two votes really were. Not Liberal vs Conservative. Not Democrat vs Republican. More like Tyranny versus Government.

So I did a review of the voting [numbers from CNN], knowing full well that my little study was going to be so unscientific that it should be discounted [even by me]. But I did it anyway. I added up the votes in the States that had Primaries. Caucuses didn’t matter to me because I don’t understand them and they aren’t ‘people’ votes. So here are the totals from last night of how many people voted Democratic versus how many people voted Republican, independent of who they voted for. The reason I went to the trouble was that the Primaries were weighted towards "Blue" States. The fourth column has the Electoral Votes available for the State. The last two columns are how those States voted in the 2000 and 2004 General Election.

State Democrat Republican Electoral Votes 2000 2004
Alabama 525,656 550,573 9 Bush Bush
Arizona 369,504 439,347 10 Bush Bush
Arkansas 273,449 199,091 6 Bush Bush
California 3,902,543 2,176,872 55 Gore Kerry
Connecticut 350,595 150,159 7 Gore Kerry
Delaware 95,979 50,062 3 Gore Kerry
Georgia 1,040,873 952,504 15 Bush Bush
Illinois 1,937,730 873,365 21 Gore Kerry
Massachusetts 1,244,131 496,068 12 Gore Kerry
Missouri 820,453 584,618 11 Bush Bush
New Jersey 1,104,094 554,894 15 Gore Kerry
New York 1,720,146 601,266 31 Gore Kerry
Oklahoma 401,230 329,843 7 Bush Bush
Tennessee 612,791 548,783 11 Bush Bush
Utah 122,617 283,759 5 Bush Bush
 
  14,640,975 8,847,049 194/24 144/74  144/74 

So, there’s my unscientific, don’t-believe-a-word-of-it study. It made me feel better anyway. Of course there’s no evidence that total votes in Primaries correlates with total votes in General Elections. Of course there’s no evidence that Party Affiliation is the only factor in how people will vote given specific Candidates. Of course there’s no way to predict how Women, Religion Voters, Afro-Americans, or Hispanics will vote given the ultimate slate of Candidates. And who knows what will happen in the next 274 days?

It still made me feel better. I would have felt awful if it had come out the other way. And I took no small amount of pleasure knowing that these are the kind of numbers Karl Rove and his clones look at. I enjoyed the thought that they are squirming, because they are vulnerable to continued investigation with a Democratic President and Congress, and they may skate with another Republican Administration…

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