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OSolid88%
TX: 21.32%
MS: 16.91%
SC: 15.93%
KY: 15.13%
AL: 14.88%
NC: 12.83%
GA: 11.69%
VA: 8.04%
LA: 7.68%
AR: 5.44%
TN: 3.86%
FL: 0.01%
Now in 2000 Moore was elected with 54% of the vote out of 1,614,282 votes cast on a turnout of 66%...in his home state with a lot of media coverage that while it will turn off moderate independent voters will seem to appeal to the hardcore conservative voters who lets say account for around 20% of the Solid Republican” which in turn is about 40% of the entire electorate (the rest being say 5% Republican leaner's, 10% independents, 5% Democrat leaner's and then 40% “Solid Dem”) so national that’s 8% who would agree with Moore and be tempted to vote for him…now lets say that a bit over around half (perhaps optimistic but hey I support Edwards) 4-6% do actually vote for this guy (I would imagine that southern, conservative, christens would in particular be tempted) what impact might that have?
Firstly the Moore vote is likely to be concentrated in conservative, typically republican states where Republicans usually garner around 55% of the vote and this conservative bloc will be bigger…so lets assume that in the Deep South this hard-line Conservative core accounts for say 10-12% of the vote, in the rocky mountain states it accounts for 6-8%, in the Midwest, south west and mid-Atlantic its around 3-6% and finally in the north east and on the west coast (stronger on the west coast I would imagine) this vote for Moore is around 1-3%...
so where Moore to get that proportion what would be the impact well firstly the Constitution Party would emerge as the dominate far right party within the United States… the reform Party would all but collapse and what remained of it would be quickly swallowed up by the Constitution Party, the likes of Pat Buchanan and Alan Keynes might well actually join this new party with its 5% nationwide and it federal funds…
In the actual election (assuming a Kerry/ Edwards ticket, with Kerry alienating some southerners and Edwards partially compensating so that a net effect of the Dem total in the southern states going down by between 3-1% this would mean based on the 2000 results that….
1.) If we assume that Moore gets a big vote in AL (say 19-20%) the Dems then win Alabama!
2.) Arkansas, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Virginia are all now competitive with a strong Moore run…
3.) Bush would be forced to the right to protect against Moore however this would present Kerry and/or Edwards with the chance to paint Bush as an extremist and so it is very possible that Bush would in the end adopt a halfway measure that would fail to address either the threat of Moore on the right or Kerry on the left.. hurray!
NOTE; This is all assuming a very good run for Moore which is unlikely however not impossible even a more realistically weak run by Moore would in all likelihood siphon sufficient votes from Bush to make a number of southern states close at the very least and might very possible present the potential for a string of upset Democratic wins…
Sorry this might seem like a rather rambling analysis…but hey…its my two cents…
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