More real politics
Since folks seems to have more time than I have today for deep political thought, I may be doing some extensive quoting.
This is Hesiod, from Counterspin Central:
FINAL UPDATE: A huge reason why Gray Davis lost: Democratic voters didn't show up to the polls.
"That's too much to overcome," said pollster Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California. "Davis needed to get the Democrats to oppose the recall as strongly as the Republicans were in favor of the recall. He wasn't able to do that because he wasn't able to get the overwhelming support of union households and Latino voters that make up the core of the Democratic electorate."
That's a 7 point advantage for Republicans. The recall was supported by about 55% of the voters. Do the math.
The Democrats better damn well get the message from this.
That's two elections in a row in which the Democrats lost because they couldn't motivate their voters to show up.
One reason why Howard Dean might actually be a better candidate against Bush than people think.
FINAL, FINAL UPDATE: Guess what...despite all the hype, voter turnout was actually LOWER than the 2002 California Gubernatorial election.
Once again, Democrats lose when they can't get their voters motivated to go to the polls.
The Democrats have to find a way to motivate the base next year, or this will happen again and again.
