Wash. Post Entrance Poll results - VERY interesting!

[mb7588a]

One thing I did for weeks after the 2000 GE was pour over state by state exit poll results, because I find them extremely interesting and the best gague of public opinion (public opinion only matters if those people participate - as seen tonight, imo.). I know these polls can sometimes be questionable, but usually they are right and are the best indicators we have for demographics etc. This poll makes it obvious to me that Kerry has the right message, the right experience, the right broad-based support and electablity to be the next President.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/graphics/entrancepoll_011903.htm

Interesting points:
Dean won among "very liberal," but couldn't win among "strong democrats." Figure that one out.

Edwards did better among women (I had a professor once claim and FIRMLY stand by his idea that "10% of every GE are women choosing the most handsome candidate.")

Dean did not win among the youngest age group (This reflects my own group of 18-22 year old friends who are strong Kerry and Clark supporters, big distrust of Dean.)

Kerry whupped on first-time caucus goers, and even Edwards did better than Dean in this.

Kerry had the best showing in labor households and people making under $50k/year. (He stole Dean's, Gep's, and Edwards's base!)

[hlthe2b]

1. the 18-22 year olds is the group that surprises me most...

I thought they were the group that Dean had brought into the process. Of course this may just be an Iowa anomoly.

[mb7588a]

3. Well I'm not sure...

When I think of the Iowa college crowd there is mostly a picture of the ultra-liberal small-town type who would probably support Kucinich. A friend at Grinnell told me the precinct she observed went to him.

Grinnell, Cornell, Drake all seem to be ultra-liberal. I don't know how the state schools sway though.

[bearfartinthewoods]

15. in general. the new people didn't go to dean which sort of explodes

some of the rhetoric we've been fed around here about NBD with the new voters.

[AP]

22. I saw an article in the midst of the Dean hooplah which said that

Dean was NOT popular with that demographic.

And remember the Rock the Vote debate in Boston. I think the questions he was asked and the reaction to him among the college students was a good indication that he was having a problem with that demographic. They were chilly towards him.

They should be.

His education plan is lame beyond belief. It's just a promise of more debt for students.

I would have been surprised if Dean did well with that demographic. I've always thought his appeal to 18-22 y.o.'s was a myth. I think his base is 25-35 y.o.'s

[aldian159]

2. Kerry's always gotten solid working class votes

but for the rest, thanks for filling me in.

[oasis]

4. The folks in Iowa are highly educated. Kerry succeeded in getting his

message out to them on many issues.

[Paragon]

5. And if they didn't vote for Kerry, they're uneducated.

Nice.

[oasis]

7. Evidently they took their time before coming to a decision. That's what

educated people do.

Of course, some voters are guided solely by their emotions. In many of those cases it's from a lack of education.

[Paragon]

13. Wow, I didn't think you could get more offensive...

...but congrats! :eyes:

[AP]

23. This is actually why Bush is trying to destroy public education.

The less educated you are, the more likely you vote conservative.

It's just a fact.

[Paragon]

25. Fine, but we were talking about the Democrats

They're at a Democratic caucus - I'm already assuming they're intelligent. But apparently, the less intelligent people did not vote for John Kerry. :eyes:

[AP]

29. Not all Democrats have the same levels of education.

if it's the case that the more educated you are, the more like you voted for Kerry (is this conjecture or fact?) then you could make a good argument that people were responding to his ideas more than to whatever idea-less emotions motivated voters with less education to vote for other candidates.

[Paragon]

35. *sigh*

Never mind. As the Chemical Brothers once said, "Dig Your Own Hole."

[AP]

38. Look, I know what you're saying.

You think this subthread is arguing that dumb people don't vote for Kerry, which would be a nasty thing.

But the fact is, uneducated people DO tend to vote more conservatively not because they're stupid but because they tend not to understand the issues and they get their information from the worst sources (CBSNBCABCFOX and Rush).

So there IS a real issue here. Ignore that one at your peril.

[Yupster]

27. 2000 Exit poll results

Presidential votes by education

Did not graduate from high school
Gore 59 %
Bush 38 %

High School Graduate
Gore 48 %
Bush 49 %

Some College
Gore 45 %
Bush 51 %

College Graduate
Gore 45 %
Bush 51 %

Post-Graduate Degree
Gore 52 %
Bush 44 %

[AP]

30. Generally, the more education, the more likely you vote for ANY democrat.

Gore might be an anomally, for instance, because the younger you were, the more likely you only knew of a Democrat as president.

It would be like, in 88 you're young, you vote for Bush because the only president you ever really knew was Reagan.

Anyway, you have a cite for those stats?

[Yupster]

36. Just the plain old VNS exit poll

http://www.udel.edu/poscir/road/course/exitpollsindex.html

High school dropouts has always been the Democratic Party's strongest supporters percentage-wise. It makes sense because income and education correlate pretty well. The poorest people don't vote Republican in real high numbers.

When you say the more educated vote Democratic, you may be referring to the post-grad degrees, which heavily measure educators, since they get the bulk of post-grad degrees in America. Yes, teachers, any kind of teachers vote heavily Democratic.

[AP]

39. Yes, the more years of education you have, the more likely you vote Dem.

It's the second highest correlative for voting Democratic after race.

[Awsi Dooger]

6. Edwards can reestablish the gender gap

My father is a retired sociology professor and an Edwards supporter (like myself) who cites an opinion virtually identical to your old prof's.

A tidbit of proof: my apolotical younger sister is suddenly an enthusiastic Edwards supporter after asking, "That guy is running for president?" when I attached a photo of Edwards to an email last year. At DU we need to realize that type of reality is much more general election vital than hatred for GW or his conflict.

If young unmarried women can be inspired to vote in numbers comparable to their male counterparts, we win. Period.

I scour exit polls myself, and was extremely surprised at Kerry's wideranging support. He really didn't lag anywhere, and many of those numbers indicate he might be able to pull more than the 36% of white men than we have been getting lately. Still, more states needed in the sample.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Please

don't tell me you believe that a significant number of women vote strictly on a candidate's appearance. What I'm hearing on NPR is that people voted Edwards because they were tired of attacks between Gephardt and Dean. This makes more sense.

[bearfartinthewoods]

16. have you read any of the "my candidate is soo dreamy" threads?

it's a factor...sad to say

[jonnyblitz]

18. yeah. the clark threads

i thought they were tongue in cheek and didn't think they were serious. they weren't serious were they? :scared:

[AngryAmish]

20. I agree

From where I sit there was a lot a cross-fire between the candidates. I have been to Iowa and the people there are nice. Really nice. I always have had the impression that people in the rural midwest are really nice to each other because they lack to anonymity of more populous areas. Or I could be completely wrong. But, in general, Iowans are really nice.

Edwards did not go negative on other Democrats. It may be that Iowans did not like the perceived nasty campaigning of the other candidates.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[AP]

24. Men and women vote on appearance. Men might not be willing to admit it.

However, in edwards's case, which I've argued in the longer post below, he is employing symbols and language in his campaign which are meant to reverse Bush's anti-feminist backlash.

His wife's role in the campaign, and the use of workds like "our" and "working together" and "we" are carefully designed to convey that he believes in reaching ACROSS race, class, and GENDER divides, and he's arguing we're all better off when we're all better off.

Bush tries to convince you that if you're not doing well, it's not the government's fault, it's because a woman, a black person or an immigrant got something they didn't deserve (even though they're working hard).

Edwards's message is so geared towards women thinking this guy, unlike Bush, isn't going to make me walk ten paces behind him and he's not going to only let me say three sentences a month -- he actually thinks I'm part of the solution and not part of the problem.

[spooky3]

33. Excellent analysis, AP!

[AP]

40. Why thank you spooky. This is way beyond conjecture, by the way.

This is quite obviously what this campaign is doing.

[stickdog]

8. Kerry did his best with older, conservative candidates.

Also with those looking for the best resume.

He's on a head on collision course with Clark.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. Veteran vs Veteran

Should be an interesting matchup. Clark can say that he has more executive experience, being a senior officer, but Kerry can say his three terms in the Senate give him experience working in government, which is different than the military. Both can be considered heros, having won medals and Purple Hearts. Personally, I hope they focus on the issues and tell folks how their plans for America are different from each other. I also want both of them to keep hammering Bush-as hard as they can.

Anyone know if either has a response ready for the SOTU?

[Justice]

11. Clark Does

Manchester
8:30 pm - State of the Union Watch & Response
www.clark04.com


ABC
ABC interview with Peter Jennings to follow the State of the Union speech

Edit to add ABC appearance

[blm]

12. I'm glad a REAL liberal won. This is a great day for longtime libs.

.

[Paragon]

14. *cough*IWR*cough*

:silly:

[bearfartinthewoods]

17. 15% cough cough 15%

[Paragon]

19. who farted?

:D

[AP]

26. cough. single issue. cough.

What's more conservative? A guy who speaks passionately about redistributing political, ecoomic and cultural power down and out and will stake his presidency on doing that? Or a guy who wants to saddle the middle class with taxes, can't admit it to the public the degree to which he will do that so that he won't release his tax plan before the first primaries, and tries to distract you from that fact by arguing vociferously that the IWR is the ONLY issue that matters.

Tack on to that the fact that his education plan is a gift to Wall St, he governed his state in way that was extremely pro-corporate, with an extremely regressive property tax structure, and that he's all for the 87 bil Iraq allocation if the budget is balanced (ie, he doesn't have a problem giving away the wealth of the nation to private companies if doing so balances the budget!).

Yes, I'm MORE afraid of the guy who angrily tells you IWR is the only issue as smoke and mirrors so that you don't care about the pro-corporate crap on his resume, than I am of a Democrat who's is liberal on the most important issues.

[Paragon]

28. I think you're confusing Dean with Clark.

Glad I could help.

[AP]

31. Not sure what you're arguing.

[blm]

32. cough *played out* cough

The truth shall set you free. IWR supported a resolution that allowed use of force as a LAST resort. Blame Bush. If the iWR had been implemented as written, there would have been no war.

Blame the IWR or blame Bush. That's what it really boils down to.

[AP]

41. Not one Iowa voter at the caucuses uttered the phrase "I blame

{fill in Dem's name} because of the War in Iraq. So caucus with K, or caucus with D."

Not one.

[Bucky]

37. *cough* *cough*

I'm not being sarcastic. I'm really coughing.

(and yes, when I clear my throat I involuntarily type astrixes and the word "cough", you got a problem with dat?)

[AP]

21. I think people who identify themselves as very liberal...

...are actually single-issue voters who think that their passion on a single issue makes them very liberal. These people might think Andrew Sullivan is 'very liberal.'

However, Andrew Sullivan is rooting for the upward distribution of political, economic and cultural power just as strongly as anyone in the Bush cabinet, so, in my mind, his single issue "liberalism" is a cloak for, in his case, an intense conservativism bordering on fascism.

I suspect that many people who consider themselves very liberal are in fact much closer to the right than they know if their single-issue liberalism is an issue that has little in common with the overarching project of liberalism which is to give more people a chance at achieving political, economic and cultural power.

A few other points:

- Edwards didn't do well among women just because he's handsome. It's because of his message. Remember that article at Buzzflash about how Bush appeals to white men who want to blame everyone else (women, immigrants, blacks and muslims) for their problems? Well, Edwards is appealing to a different sentiment -- the opposite sentiment. The roll of Elizabeth Edwards in this campaign and his "working together" and "OUR" time is now strap lines are clearly designed to reach across race, gender, generational and national lines and bring people together and tell people that all boats are lifted by a rising tide, and that all of us our better off if the least among us is better off. Women, after watching Laura Bush for three years, are responding to those words and symbols.

- It's amazing that fist timers went with Kerry and Edwards over Dean after everything that Dean promised. If that doesn't tell you who has the superior messages, then I don't know what.

- Kerry's low income demographics I think are a reflection of the fact that people who care most about the war and terrorism (which I'm only guessing is a concern among that demographic because that is Bush's key demographic too) are really embracing what Kerry stands for in their minds. Good for Kerry.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

42. in this case "very liberal" means

"secular warrior" and "libertarian". Bohemian bourgeois. Culturally liberal, socially liberal, and economically reactionary, due to their education/socialization and libertarian economic/moral theories.

These people are the "Perfect Enemies" of the Christian Right, and are in fact a mirror image of them (imo).

[AP]

43. "libertarian" -- you got me nodding at my computer screen.

You're exactly right. Libertarians are bigger obstruction to the downward and outward flow of cultural, economic and political power than many people realize, yet they're embraced by many as being liberal based on an amalgam of a few "single issues".

[spooky3]

34. Did Edwards suddenly change his appearance 10 days ago?

Then I don't see how that accounts for why women (or men) are in his corner. Appearance is always a plus, but if it were extremely important, he or Clark would have gotten all the votes from Day 1.

Edwards has a strong platform, he is an excellent speaker, he is intelligent and caring. He just simply could not get the media to take him seriously until Des Moines Register stepped up to the plate. Once that happened, people of both sexes began to listen, and some women liked what they heard (as did some men). Women Democrats also like to see men who are married to strong and intelligent women, particularly those with careers, because they are more likely to "get it" when it comes to the workplace challenges women continue to face.

[AP]

44. Ain't nothing changed but his haircut.

Interestingly, it's more than just because his wife was a professional woman, which people seem to like.

It's that they seem to be working together on so many fronts -- family AND career -- and that they both seem so interested in working with US.