Friday, January 04, 2008

Democrats energized, Republicans dispirited

239,000 Iowans attended Democratic caucuses last night, while only 115,000 showed up to vote Republican. Young people, first-time caucus attendees, independents and cross-over Republicans swelled the Democratic ranks.

Some conservative bloggers have recently been trying to take comfort from poll results showing that Congress is unpopular to try to claim that the Democratic Party is in as much disfavor with the voting public as the Republicans. Iowans have shown how wrong that idea was.

Read Michael Moore’s analysis of the results of the Iowa caucuses.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Well said, Bro!

Dave Barrett said...

My brother emailed me the following comment. (He cannot post comments directly to the blog because blogger.com does not seem to like him.)

If the Republicans had had such a powerful showing in Iowa, the media would have been reporting it again and again and again. We observed that 4 and 8 years ago when the Republicans had some positive indicators. But now, they are so silent about strong indicators and want to pretend that they have no indicators.

I wonder how many primaries Obama or Edwards will have to win before the media will be forced to stop ignoring them and give up on Clinton, the candidate Republicans feel they can most easily defeat.

I believe Republicans fear Obama most because he will steal from them these voters of the religious right who are honest and will actually vote for the more moral candidate. There are a bunch of them. And they are pretty disgusted with the Republicans right now.

Dan Barrett

josh curren said...

You certainly will not accept this explanation, but I do think that it is accurate...

Republicans (1) have busier schedules and more (and better things) to do than to spend 2-3 hours at a caucus, and (2) they weigh the time against the value of a caucus that means so little in a State that means so little to the overall picture.

Dave Barrett said...

josh,
You have got to be kidding! Republicans have more things to do on a Thursday night and busier schedules than Democrats?!? You seem to be in serious denial. Republicans found other things to do because they were not excited about their candidates or their party's prospects.

Unknown said...

I will say this about Barack Hussein Obama, Says that he is against the war in Iraq but then votes for $300
billion to fund it — that's not change.

I think Hillary is our candiate for change!

Machinists President Chides Obama for Maytag Remarks International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 — The president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is urging Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) to dry his crocodile tears over the loss of more than 1,600 jobs when Maytag moved from Galesburg, IL, to Reynosa, Mexico.

"He didn't lift a finger to help those people when they needed help the most," said IAM President Tom Buffenbarger, whose union represented the workers at Maytag. "Even now, he doesn't have a clue and thinks those jobs went overseas and not to Mexico."

In recent campaign speeches, Sen. Obama has repeatedly cited the plight of Maytag workers in his bid to win sympathy and support from union members battered by factory closings and lost jobs.

josh curren said...

Sorry Dave, but the Democrats have always had substantially higher turnouts for the Iowa caucus.

But I did suggest that you would not agree with the theory, which is certainly your right.

Matt said...

Josh -

can you show me some numbers that show Dems have always had higher turnouts at the Iowa caucus? I lightly/quickly looked around online, and the numbers I've found show otherwise in 2000, and 1996 (have not looked prior to '96). i'm not trying to have this lead into some larger issue/proving some larger point. I just thought your comment sounded off, and wanted to bring it up.

josh curren said...

Matt,

My quick surfing identified a pretty consistent 125,000 number for the Democrats and a consistently 100,000 number for the Republicans - a 25% difference.

Matt said...

Strange. I've come across several sources that showed the 2000 caucus at about 87,000 Republicans and about 59,000 Democrats. I also found a source that shows the '96 caucus figures at 96,000 Republicans and 50,000 Democrats:

http://www.drake.edu/journalism/CyberCaucus2000/history.html#1996

in all seriousness, am I overlooking something?

Matt said...

(one minute later...)
I'm a moron, aren't I.
one word: incumbent.