REDSTATE - The reason Daschle lost By: jannelsen · Section: Election 2004
Morality.
And the CNN exit poll proves it.
redstate.org
Twenty-five percent of the voters rated "moral values" as the most important issue in the South Dakota Senate race. (Iraq was 21 percent, and terrorism was 18 percent.)
For this 25 percent "moral voter," 81 percent voted for Thune. Eighty-one percent! Thune, in comparison, 19 percent.
Doing the math in a rough, spitballing fashion, that means that 20.25 percent of South Dakota voters based their vote against Daschle, or for Thune, primarily on the basis of morality. Total votes for both candidates were 391,093. Thune's margin of victory was 4,535.
But 20.25 percent of the total votes, 391,093, is 79,196 votes. Seventeen times Thune's margin of victory.
Daschle was held accountable for his dissembling on abortion, pretending to be an anti-abortion candidate while raising money for NARAL and Emily's List, his faux Catholicism, his going to a friendly judge on election eve to block Republican observers, his Washington, D.C.'s mansion and tax deduction, his decision to welcome DSCC ads after complaining for a year about third-party campaign commercials, and on and on and on.
In a conservative state, it just got to be too much. And Thune and Dick Waldham, Thune's brilliant campaign advisor, recognized that reality and campaigned accordingly.
P.S. The CNN exit polls are great.
P.P.S. I've already praised the S.D. bloggers over and over again. I think this is the first statewide election to have been shaped decisively by blogging. |
