Of the total, the graph legitimizes the use of the 40/40/20 rule to analyze the electorate.
It says that of the 13157 people polled:
39% self-identified as Democrats.
35% self-identified as Republicans.
27% self-identified as Independents.
(Not far off from the general framework of the 40/40/20 rule.)
Of the "independents":
45% voted for Gore.
47% voted for Bush.
(Roughly half each, as the my analysis pointed out would be the case.)
However, as it related to Nader:
2% of self-identified Democrats voted for Nader.
1% of self-identified Republicans voted for Nader.
6% of self-identified independents voted for Nader.
If we project these percentages to the 2000 election numbers, they tell us that:
There were 40,560,000 Democratic votes available. (I used "40 million" in my analysis) 104m X 39%
There were 36,400,000 Republican votes available. (Wow, weaker than I thought - again, I used "40 million" in my analysis) 104m X 35%
Nader got 811,200 Democratic votes. 40.56m X 2%
Nader got 364,000 Republican votes. 36.4m X 1%
Nader got 1,684,8000 "independent" votes. 28.08m X 6%
(Not far from his total take of about 3 million, so it looks right so far)
Unfortunately, I don't think the "vote by ideology" numbers are as useful as they would be if they were broken down
by affiliation, but let's take a crack at it.
First of all, "moderate" used by a Bush voter probably means "more liberal" and "moderate" used by a Gore voter probably means "more conservative" than the candidate they voted for (or that's what they thought the question was that was being asked).
So, projected to the numbers:
20,800,000 self-identified "liberals"
52,000,000 self-identified "moderates"
30,160,000 self-identified "conservative"
Gore got 16,640,000 liberal votes.
Gore got 27,040,000 moderate votes.
Gore got 5,127,200 conservative votes.
Nader got 1,248,000 liberal votes.
Nader got 1,040,000 moderate votes.
Nader got 51,272 conservative votes.
In my bell curve analysis, I proposed that Gore got "40 million" core votes (these would be people who in the above example self-identified as closely related to what they thought the "middle" would be), and then under the rule he got 5 million votes from people who thought he should be more "conservative" and 5 million from people who thought he should be more "liberal."
I projected, based on the 40/40/20 rule that this would be the "shape" of the bell curve, but the numbers from your exit polling data present an even more shocking conclusion - the bell curve is even
flatter and even more
sloped to the "left".While the number of self-identified "Democrats" isn't far off the mark from where the 40/40/20 rule proposed it would be (and Bush and Gore both split each other's take, cancelling out each other's affiliation vote), the ideology numbers in the Gore column are really telling.
Fully
35% of Gore's voters identified themselves as to the "left" of the "core" if that is what they perceived as "liberal" in the question of ideology - I'd say it's reasonable, as I mentioned above, to relate the meaning of "liberal" to be relative to vote cast.
In my example, I projected that 5 million, or 10%, of Gore's take voted for him wishing he were more "liberal or populist."
Only
55% of Gore's voters equated themselves with the "core" if by that is meant "moderate" (again, relative to vote cast).
In my 40/40/20 rule analysis, the "core" or "center" of the bell curve is worth 80% - the bell curve is clearly much flatter than the 40/40/20 analysis alone was able to pick up.
Only in the tally of the "conservatives" was my analysis practically
spot on. Exit polls show that about 5 million voted for Gore wishing he were more "conservative" and that's almost exactly what I said it would be.
My analysis, putting Kucinich as the strongest candidate, supposed that Kucinich would get
all Nader's voters.
From the above numbers, let's shave off the "conservatives" for Nader - if Kucinich takes the 2,228,000 "liberal" and "moderate" Nader voters (remember, I said 3 million), then Kucinich is almost exactly where I said he'd be.
And the exit polling numbers put 5.1 million votes into the "conservative voted for Gore" pile - these are the votes that people say are the "at-risk" voters who wished Gore were more "conservative."
So Kucinich turns out to be almost exactly where I said he'd be based on the 40/40/20 rule analysis - gaining about 3 million (exit poll = 2.3 million), and making the battle with Bush
entirely a battle for 5 million previous Gore voters (exit poll = 5.1 million).
All-in-all, this data provides an explicit proof of my contentions:
1. The "progressive" bell curve is flatter and more sloped to the "left" than the DLC and the "centrist conservative" Democratic candidates want us to believe, and
2. Kucinich is still the candidate positioned best to pick up Nader's votes and therefore is the ONLY candidate who can make the fight against Bush entirely a battle for 5 million previous Gore voters - not needing ANY previous Bush voters to beat Bush decisively.Thanks for providing the link to the exit polling data at:
http://www.udel.edu/poscir/road/course/exitpollsindex.htmlDan Brown
Saint Paul, Minnesota