"Poll: Voters Staunchly Back One Candidate" (Think this is true?)

[GreenPartyVoter]

WASHINGTON (AP) - An overwhelming majority of voters say they never changed their minds about whether they would support President Bush or Democratic candidate John Kerry, a poll found.

Only 16 percent of those who voted for Bush said there was a time when they thought they would vote for Kerry, according to the National Annenberg Election Survey. And 15 percent of Kerry voters said there was a time when they thought they would vote for Bush.

The Annenberg findings lend support to the decision by the campaigns to spend more time on base voters than going after the other candidate's voters, said Adam Clymer, director of the Annenberg survey.

The poll of 8,664 adults who had already been interviewed once before Election Day showed little evidence of the opposing sides coming together after the election. More than eight in 10 Kerry voters did not agree with the statement: "Even though I voted for John Kerry, George Bush will probably be a good president in his second term."

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20050109/D87GADI01.html

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[jmowreader]

1. The numbers are probably low, but I'd agree with the premise

The number I most question is the "over 80 percent" who disagree with the statement about Bush being a good president in his second term. If someone thought Bush was going to be a good president in his second term, they probably would have voted Bush. An election with a sitting president as a candidate is supposed to be a referendum on the sitting president.

I think this number is somewhere in the low to mid nineties.

I saw five basic classes of voter this election:

Die-hard Republicans--they knew they were going to vote Bush from day 1; he could have eaten puppies on national television and they still would have voted for him.

Soft Republicans--they were probably going to vote Bush, unless he did something really bad like Getting Caught, or the Democrats put up a very appealing candidate.

Undecideds--you have four subgroups: ones who decided to vote for Bush within the last week of the campaign, ones who went for Kerry in the last week, ones who went into the voting booth undecided, and ones who didn't vote for president at all, but voted for other offices.

Soft Democrats--unless he did something really bad, they would go ahead and vote for Kerry.

Die-hard Democrats--Kerry could have set a flag on fire then put out the flames by pissing on it and they still would have gone for him.

When Kerry's people decided not to attack the Swifties, decided not to attack the Bushies as they impugned his patriotism, service and valor, he definitely lost the soft Republicans, he definitely lost the undecideds and he lost some of the softer soft Democrats. All the SBVT ads made it seem like Kerry did something really bad when in reality he didn't. By going after the Swift liars, Kerry could have made Bush look really bad and pulled the softer Republicans into our column.

To Mr. Shrum and Ms. Cahill: Our guy lost because Bush lied and you let him get away with it. Please work for Republicans next time.