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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Dale Baker who wrote (12802)2/20/2006 2:25:09 PM
From: carranza2  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 541703
 
Well, no. The argumentation was that:

It's safe to say that at the presidential level, neither side is "winning." It's, basically, a 50-50 proposition.

There are two responses to this argument.

First, at the presidential level, someone has to win. It's binary.

The Florida example is irrelevant. If this were an appropriate way to look at things, I'd be justified in claiming that if the Cook County votes had been counted properly in 1960, Nixon may have won. I don't dare make this argument and don't consider it a good one.

These are hard binary results. Either or, and the reasons therefor are not really relevant since the discussion is about wins and losses, success and failure.

Secondly, the fight is about the tiny sliver of voters who make and break elections, so saying it's more or less or 'basically' 50/50 is not correct, either, since it is that tiny 'more' which is the difference between winning and losing. Success at woing this sliver is critical; the GOP has shown itself much more adept at winning this horribly important sliver than the Dems, certainly on a long term trend basis, i.e., the last few decades.



To: Dale Baker who wrote (12802)2/20/2006 3:13:32 PM
From: JohnM  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 541703
 
There are no firm, comfortable governing support bases in the US electorate on either side. Hence the vital importance of the swing vote in the center.

That's a terribly important point. Hard to see, as we've said to one another repeatedly here, how to get from here to there.