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The Real Issue
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15 October 2004
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Kerry and Bush Must Now Get Out the Vote
The American electorate seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief late Wednesday when President Bush and Senator Kerry concluded their third joint press conference. The speed with which remote controls the nation over switched to the National and American League Championship games tested the limits of known physics. The pundits quickly declared a draw in this non-competitive event and announced that the final days of the campaign will focus on “Get Out The Vote” efforts. Every election hinges on GOTV efforts; indeed, that's been the whole point all along.
For the next two and a half weeks, the news will be full of the latest polls, which in turn will simply be full of it. In a federal system that relies on an electoral college, nationwide polls are meaningless. Moreover, state-by state polls aren’t relevant outside a dozen or so swing states. In fact, the three largest states in the nation don’t count because their electorates are so one sided. California and New York will go Democratic; Texas will go Republican. Running up an extra 2% or so in these states might make local politicians feel good, and might affect local races, but will have no impact on the final outcome.
The best guide to finding out what is happening is to watch where the campaigns spend their final ad dollars. As “Deep Throat” told Messrs. Woodward and Bernstein during their investigation of the Watergate scandal, “follow the money.” For example, Missouri is in the Bush camp as of now. The Kerry people have stopped buying airtime, effectively conceding the state. The Bush team have followed suit – there’s no point in spending money in a state they’ve got wrapped up. Nevada and Colorado are definitely in play despite being fairly conservative and pro-Bush.
In 2000, some 105 million Americans voted. That was the “Seinfeld” election because like the eponymous television comedy, it was an election about nothing. In 2004, both parties expect an increase because this is the “most important election of our lifetime.” The GOP expects 110 million votes to be cast, and the Democrats think they can boost the total to 120 million. Psephologists believe that a higher turn out favors Mr. Kerry because the challenger usually benefits from large numbers of voters, and because higher turn out usually reflects soft Democratic voters turning up to vote. The reasoning is not air-tight, but there is something of a correlation.
To get a read on the final number of voters, absentee ballots are a reasonable indication of final turnout. Since these must be mailed out to voters, there is an application deadline in most states several days before November 2. An increase in the applications will be a tolerable indication of final turnout. However, there is not a perfect correspondence in these numbers. Florida, which has been hit by four hurricanes, may see an increase in absentee balloting because too many polling places and homes got hit – yet that wouldn’t necessarily mean more voters turning out on election day.
© Copyright 2004 by
The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without
written consent.
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