The Reality of 2012 Voter Turnout: The White Voter

Battleground Watch:

The largest divergence among conservative and liberal polling critics this election is the debate over who will actually show up at the voting booth this November. Differences between the amounts of Democrats versus Republicans included in the poll are frequent. But embedded in each of these assumptions are questions on the racial make-up and how that varies from election to election. Democrats consistently talk about the “coalition of the ascendant” where the fastest growing segments of the population are minorities. As such they make up an ever-increasing segment of the voting population but also vote overwhelmingly in favor of Democrats. With a shrinking white population and a growing minority population Democrats argue demography as destiny and count on political majorities for the coming generation. That may be true if everything in life moves in a straight line (it doesn’t) but is that true today?

This is the bone of contention between the competing Presidential campaigns and critics of today’s polls. Democrats want to argue the steep increase in minority percentage of the voting electorate from 2008 election was a fundamental shift in the electorate whereas Republicans want to argue the steep increases were a one-off bounce. Both agree on the general direction of the trend. Neither agree how severe that trend will be in 2012. This disagreement is the basis for Democrat over-confidence and lopsided polling today in an election where the two candidates are most likely within 1-2% of one another.

What’s missing in all this analysis is who did not show up in the 2008 election: White voters. Looking back at those results, every voter turnout rate by race (relative to eligible population) was up versus 2004 except the white vote according to Pew Research (April 30, 2009). Blacks were up +4.9%, Hispanics were up +2.7%, Asians were up +2.4%. But the percentage of White voters who showed up at the polls relative to who was eligible dropped -1.1% (Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, May 2010). This has nothing to do with minorities making up more or less of the electorate. This is simply saying from 2004 to 2008 White voter registration (which actually dropped 104k) and actual turnout of White voters (which increased 500k) did not keep up with voting age White population increases.

Within this drop of White voter turnout, over 3x as many men as women comprised those voters staying home in the election. This happened for any number of reasons ranging from a disinterested national party to a disorganized Presidential campaign to a demoralized voting block–all are true. But the bottom line is one of the advantages Barack Obama enjoyed in 2008 was that a meaningful percentage of white voters simply stayed home in 2008. Side note: for anyone who wants to pin the depressed turnout on racism, wouldn’t the opposite have occurred in 2008 if racism really were a motivating factor in the white turnout?

Where this trips up the Obama campaign.

In 2008 Democrats achieved incredible levels of voter registration and turnout of this “coalition of the ascendent” such that Blacks, Hispanics and Asians made up 24% of the voting electorate — all historic highs. Bolstering the appearance of Democrat advantage are countless media stories reporting on Mitt Romney’s struggle appealing to minority groups. Little attention is paid to Barack Obama’s (and Democrat candidates before him) difficulty appealing to White voters who made up 74% of the electorate. Such historic minority levels for the composition of the electorate are predicated on a demoralized and ineligible (meaning unregistered) white population much like in 2008, as demonstrated above.

If John McCain achieved a white voter turnout rate equal to George Bush in 2004, that would have meant 1.7 million more White votes. While all of these votes would not have gone to McCain (nor were they all in battleground states), a super-majority of these voters likely would have voted Republican considering the make-up of the missing voter (white male — Obama’s worst demographic) and the motivated nature of the Obama voter in 2008 (i.e. if they were Obama supporters, only a scant few percent would have stayed home). Those missing votes would have been more than enough to flip the results in any of North Carolina (14k), Indiana (28.5k,), Nevada (121k), Iowa (146k), Colorado (195k), Virginia (234k), Florida (237k) or Ohio (260k) where Obama’s victory margin (in parentheses) is based on a 43% vote share of a decreased turnout.

Today Barack Obama receives approximately 40% of the White vote in polls but often dips below this level especially when polls fail to massively over-sample Democrats. The President is also facing an increasingly enthusiastic bloc of White voters motivated to vote against him (this shows up in every survey) based on his poor record in office. Additionally, Republicans have aggressively targeted the above mentioned states with voter registration efforts reversing or seriously muting the registration advantage Obama enjoyed in 2008. Net gains for Republicans voter registrations in Nevada (53k), Iowa (140k), Colorado (91k) and Florida (240k) all speak to a very different and Republican electorate in those states. On top of registration, voter contacts from the Romney campaign surpassed 26 million eligible voters across the battleground states to date. This is as much as 10-15x as much as the McCain 2008 campaign. This does not dismiss the aggressive and active Obama re-election effort but it simply points out that compared to 2008 he is no longer battling an unarmed opponent.

All of this is to say when David Axelrod or similar Obama campaign talking heads argue aggressively for polls with a racial composition at meaningfully greater minority levels than the 2008 historic turnout, there is another side of that coin and it works heavily against the turnout models of both the Obama campaign and of the vast majority of polls being published today.

Want things to change? Help educate people and help get out the conservative, independent, evangelical and white vote!! Many are not registered.

Related:

Romney Double Digit Lead? 

‘Unskewed’ polls show nearly 8-point Romney lead

Race beginning to look a lot like 1980? What might Ronald Reagan’s victory path mean?

Calling All Concerned Americans to Stand-Up

Does Obama expect to lose? – Secret retirement plans

A Must Watch Before Voting…

Must Reads Before Election 2012

Technorati Tags: whites,polls,white voters,voter registration,voter turnout,voter fraud,Election 2012,2012 Election,Mitt Romney in 2012,Romney-Ryan,conservatives,independents undecideds,evangelicals,Christians,educate yourself,get involved,Caucasians

Flashback: Obama Urged Prisoners To Vote For Him

n archive of a 2008 New York for Obama website urges those in jail and prison who have not been convicted of felonies to vote for Obama via absentee ballot. This is perfectly legal. However, given that Obama was accused of massive voter fraud in the 2008 Democratic Primary, in which many delegates voted illegally, the question becomes: how many people in jail and prison who were convicted of felonies voted for Obama? As Florida is currently doing with their voter rolls, going name by name to see who is eligible and who is not, each vote that Obama received in 2008—both the Primary and General Election—should be gone over with a fine-toothed comb to determine whether Obama actually won the election.

**We now know that there was enough voter fraud on the left in Minnesota alone to falsely elect and seat Al Franken. He was put over the top by the slimmest of margins after a recount based on voter fraud… by felons voting with several since admitting they voted more than once.  Franken’s one vote might have kept ObamaCare from passing and kept us from going through all the related fights and issues since and in the future if ObamaCare is not overturned.  My question is why wasn’t he unseated, why wasn’t there an interim election held… and why was ObamaCare allowed to stand with his illegal vote making the difference. Why?

Wake up America before they do it again. AM~**

h/t to Western Journalism

Technorati Tags: Al Franken,election fraud,election games,felons voting,Florida,Minnesota,ObamaCare,Obamaland,voter fraud,Election 2008

Pulling No Punches

John McCain is red in the face and hopping mad. I’m sitting in his office in the Senate Russell Office Building, and he’s just rushed in after delivering a speech on the Senate floor where he seethed about the earmarks in the Homeland Security Bill.

“Can you believe they are putting $6 million of pork into Homeland Security?” he asks with his trademark clenched-fists. “They promised they wouldn’t do that. Ben Nelson [the Democratic senator from Nebraska] just inserted a $200,000 museum in Omaha into the legislative branch appropriations bill. These earmarks are a creeping disease. First members condemn them, then they condone, then they embrace them.” Then Mr. McCain adds, “Eight or nine Republican appropriators routinely vote for this pork.” Shaking his head he says, “It’s killing our party.”

If you thought that the senior senator from Arizona would ride off into the political sunset last November, inconsolable after losing his bid for the presidency, think again. He’s over it. And he’s as energized and spry as ever I’ve known him.

I interviewed John McCain for these pages four years ago when he was just launching his presidential campaign. Now I’m here to see how he is coping with defeat, and what his priorities are this year.

Many feared he’d become the Obama administration’s ambassador to the Republican Party, cutting deals to get things done. On the contrary: He’s emerged as one of the lead critics of Obamanomics.

He says he has worked to keep his relations with President Barack Obama “cordial,” but he pulls no punches criticizing the president’s economic policies. “Never. Never have I seen such a transfer from the private enterprise system to the government of such massive scale,” he says. He goes through the list: car companies, banks, insurance firms owned by government, and he especially grimaces when he mentions the $787 billion stimulus package.

Terry Shoffner

Not much has improved because of the stimulus. Mr. McCain scoffs, “And now, the answer is, according to the Obama economists, we didn’t spend enough.” He’s referring to the notion that we should have a second stimulus. This is not something the senator favors.

Asked about the deficits, his response is blunt. “I think it’s the biggest problem we’ve ever faced.”

Ever? “Yep,” he replies. “The only time where we amassed greater debt was during World War II, and that was temporary spending. We won the world war and then cut back. But now . . . the spending is permanent.”

“Look, this is a very popular, attractive, and eloquent president,” he continues. “But I think he was elected to govern in a centrist fashion. And instead,” he says, the administration is “governing from the far left.” Mr. McCain thinks this approach will capsize. “They don’t get that this is a right-of-center nation. Sooner or later, it becomes increasingly clear to the American people that he’s out of sync with the majority.” The latest polls are already showing some of this slippage: Mr. Obama’s favorable rating is now just over 50%, down from 70% his first weeks in office.

Will Mr. Obama ever move to the center as President Clinton did? “He will try to, but he’s got an overwhelmingly liberal Congress and his political instincts are to move to the left. It’s not an accident that he has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate,” he says, reciting a line from his campaign. On health-care reform, Mr. McCain calls the Pelosi bill “a fish in the sun” that smells more rotten the longer it sits. But he’s worried that this may end badly. The administration has “co-opted the hospitals, he’s co-opted the pharmacists; he’ll co-opt AMA [American Medical Association]. And by the way, if the pharmaceutical companies can save us $100 billion, why don’t they do it now? For the love of God, doesn’t this mean that they’ve been ripping us off?”

In the 2005 interview, Mr. McCain told me rather famously that “I don’t understand economics very well.” The Obama team echoed that phrase throughout the campaign. It’s still stuck in his craw, and it’s one of the first topics he brings up.

“Could I mention, Steve, that I kept hearing during the campaign the stuff about McCain being weak on economics. They obsessed about this in the media. They never said Obama is weak on economics. I came to Washington as a Reaganite limited government tax cutter.” He’s right about the media treatment. Neither candidate had a strong command of economics—certainly not Mr. Obama, as events have shown. Mr. McCain was simply being honest.

He seems perplexed that his pals in the media turned on him in 2008 after years of worshipful press treatment. “In 2000 [when he ran against George W. Bush] I used to go chat with reporters on the back of the bus, and we would have these long, pleasant conversations . . . . I was the underdog clawing my way up. But then in 2008, I noticed that it would be kind of a gotcha session with the press—a totally more hostile attitude.”

Yet conservatives had warned Mr. McCain that he would remain a media darling up until the moment he won the GOP nomination, at which time they would rip him apart. I’m only surprised that he was surprised this happened.

Mr. McCain is initially reluctant to talk about the campaign, but he provides me with snippets of what went right and wrong. He believes that he could have won the election had it not been for the market collapse in mid-September. “We were three points up on September 14. The next day the market lost 700 points and $1.2 trillion in wealth vanished, and by the end of the day we were seven points down. We lost the white college graduate voters, who became profoundly disillusioned with Republicans. And by the way, that was the way it ended up. We lost by seven points.”

He certainly was dealt a lousy hand. But I challenge him on whether he might have played that hand better. During the first days of the financial crisis, Mr. McCain looked indecisive and worse, a creature of Washington insider politics. Why did he suspend his campaign, and why did he vote for the $700 billion bank bailout plan, which was wildly unpopular with voters?

“You have no idea the pressure I was under,” he says. “I remember being on the phone with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the Treasury secretary and [Fed Chairman Ben] Bernanke. They assure me the world financial system is going to collapse if I don’t vote for the bill. So I do the impetuous and rash thing by saying, look, I have got to go back to Washington and see how I can help. And by the way, so did Obama—but it was McCain that was the impetuous one. Obama came back to Washington.” Mr. McCain grumbles, “He was at the White House with me. But he wasn’t impetuous.” This is the only time in our interview he shows any bitterness about the campaign.

He feels he was misled by the Bush economic team. He wanted the focus of the rescue plan to be on housing and home owners under water—not the lenders or the big banks. “Paulson and Bernanke both told me on the phone, our primary focus is going to be on the housing crisis. That’s our primary focus. And then three days later they switched their whole priorities around.” Instead, the Bush administration got a $700 billion check from Congress to save banks, investment houses and eventually car companies.

Had he been president, Mr. McCain says he would have done things differently. “Small business has been ignored in this whole bailout. You know, I hate to use the word but it seems to me that the philosophy of Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke is trickle down, you know? Save Wall Street, save these financial institutions and then maybe they’ll have enough money to loan to the small business person. Wall Street seems to be doing okay. The executive salaries are fine.”

He continues: “But I just came from driving down Central Avenue in Phoenix and saw closed up storefronts because they’re too small to save, but these giant banks are too big to fail.” This is vintage John McCain, the economic populist fighting for the little guy.

If the market crash was the low point, I ask him for his best memory from the campaign. “The high point, I think, was the convention, the selection of Sarah Palin, and the enthusiasm that was generated all over the country.” His fondness for Mrs. Palin and her family strikes me as from the heart; he believes she was a net asset for the ticket.

“Let’s face it,” he says, “she galvanized our base in a way that I couldn’t. Everywhere she went she drew enormous and enthusiastic crowds like a rock star.” He says his only regret in selecting the Alaska governor was that no one on the campaign predicted the ferocity of the assaults against her. “To the liberal left, particularly the feminists, she is their worst nightmare.”

Since Mr. McCain was the co-sponsor of the McCain-Lieberman bill last year to limit CO emissions through a cap-and-trade system, I ask him about the climate change bill that passed the House last month and he surprised me with his opposition. “I believe climate change is real . . . but this 1,400-page bill is a farce. They bought every industry off—steel mills, agriculture, utilities,” he says.

So you wouldn’t vote for the House bill? “I would not only not vote for it,” he laughs, “I am opposed to it entirely, because it does damage to those of us who believe that we need to act in a rational fashion about climate change.”

A s Mr. McCain keeps circling our discussion back to fiscal responsibility, I ask him if the trillion dollar deficits are a sign that America is an empire in decline. “I think there’s a risk of that . . . unless we change. I’m a student of history. The shift in power from the British to the United States took place when the economy and the world’s gold reserves shifted and Britain went from the world’s [creditor] to a world debtor. The same thing could be happening now. I emphasize ‘could.’”

My last question is about the possibility for a 2012 rematch against Mr. Obama. “No chance,” he says.

But the good news for those who admire this maverick is that he’s likely to stay in the Senate for years and is focusing single-mindedly on holding back Obamanomics. For now, that means trying to stop budget busters like ObamaCare, but also saving a few million dollars at a time by cancelling museums in Nebraska, turtle crossings in Florida, and the endless flow of dollars to Democratic Rep. John Murtha’s airport to nowhere in Johnstown, Pa.

And then Mr. McCain is out the door—running to vote on another anti-pork amendment.

By STEPHEN MOORE - a senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal.

Newsmax Poll Shows Strong Support for Sarah Palin in 2012

An Internet poll sponsored by Newsmax.com reveals that nearly 4 out of 5 respondents would support Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for president in 2012.

A slightly larger majority believe the then-Alaska governor helped John McCain in the 2008 presidential race — while only 31 percent think McCain did a good job running for president.

The poll drew more than 600,000 responses, and Newsmax will provide the results to major media and share them with radio talk-show hosts across the country.

Here are the poll questions and results:

1) What is your opinion of Sarah Palin? Favorable: 83 percent Unfavorable: 17 percent

2) Do you believe Sarah Palin as a running mate helped or hurt John McCain? Helped: 80 percent Hurt: 20 percent

3) In the election between McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden, who did you vote for? McCain-Palin: 81 percent Obama-Biden: 16 percent
Other: 3 percent

4) Would you support Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for president in 2012? Yes: 78 percent No: 22 percent

5) Do you believe McCain did a good job running for president? Good Job: 31 percent Bad Job: 69 percent

6) Do you believe Barack Obama "bought" the White House by outspending McCain? Yes: 72 percent No: 28 percent

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Related Resources:

• We Figured Him Out - Ben Stein
• Obama Told Us This Was Coming… America Wasn’t Listening

It's Over, Or Is It??

The election is over. Senator Obama has turned into President Obama. The country has voted, the world has gasped, and the Republican Party has been dealt a major blow in years. It’s over. Is there anything left? Yes. You. And the millions of Americans who yesterday didn’t give their votes to Obama.

Think about it: years of unpopular Republican presidency, George Bush’s approval ratings hitting all times low, years of war, the global financial crisis, huge troubles with economy, and . . . McCain gets 46% of popular vote against Obama’s 52%. And this is despite Obama’s most expensive campaign in history, despite his unprecedented spending on TV time, despite open pro-Obama bias of every major media outlet, despite McCain’s age, despite Obama’s charm, despite celebrities swooning about him, despite polls predicting 10 point lead, despite all of this — Obama still gets only 52%? If there’s a reason to hope that America hasn’t lost its spirit, it’s the one.

Yesterday, in his acceptance speech Obama promised to be a president for all America. It will be our job to hold him accountable for delivering on that promise. It will be our job to make sure different views are well represented in Congress and in state governments across the country. It will be our job to concentrate on things that matter, to demand accountability from the government and media, to be thoughtful about electing our leaders – first of all the leaders who claim to represent us. The times of hoping that someone somewhere will elect the right people to represent your views and beliefs are over. In democracy only those who are truly involved make the difference. This election has made history and is history. Our reasons to stand up for what we believe in are not.

Source:  Dr. Slogan's Prescriptions

Thought For The Day 8.29.08

"The First Requirement To Be A Successful Politician Is Thick Skin! No Matter What You Do Or Say, It Will Be Criticized By Someone... Or Many Someones...!!"

Barack Obama Gave A Great Nomination Acceptance Speech Last Night At The Last Day Of The Democratic Convention... 10 Minutes Later I Was Hearing It Was Insincere and He Tried Too Hard

John McCain Is Often Accused Of Being Old School And Against Change...Too Much Of The Same. He Chose The First Woman Ever And A New Face Instead Of A Washington Insider For His Republican Vice Presidential Running Mate, Who Is Both Successful and And Everyday Real American Mom And All We've Heard Is That She is Too Inexperienced In Foreign Policy

Barack Obama Tried To Reach Out To Everyone With His Speech Wrapping Up His Demoractic Nomination... Immediately After His Speech Two Leading Afro American Commentators, On The Tavis Smiley Show, Essentially Criticized Him For Not Being "Black" Enough (And Will Someone Please Remind Them That a President Has To Represent Everyone... Plus Obama Is Genetically Just As Much White As He Is Black).

John McCain Has Today Chosen And Announced A Vice-Presidential Running Mate Who Has Worked With And Met With National Guard Troops From Her State, Has A Son In the Service, Has Shown Her Ability To Multi-Task, Learns Quickly, Works Well With Both Parties In Her State, Is Fiscally Responsible And Has Effected Change For Alaska... Yet The Obama Campaign, Including Obama Himself, Who Has Continually Argued That Inexperience Isn't A Problem, Has Spent The Day Attacking the Choice On The Grounds Of Her Inexperience.

Alaska governor to be first female Republican vice presidential nominee