Are there really more of them than us, and how much more?

[Sliverofhope]

l thought we had a pretty anti-Bush thing going. Did we overestimate it? The polling results suggest we did.

But another part of me never saw Kerry as being able to win this election nomatter what. Something would have come up to prevent Bush from losing. So in actuality, I'm not surprised.

I just really want to know, with as much accuracy as possible:

1) was there fraud

2) how outnumbered are we?

As far as personal anecdotes, today I just heard one liberal who was surprised and arguing with a conservative who said he wasn't surprised. I don't know about others. Is there a consensus that people didn't want Bush, or have we totally really misread this?

And this isn't just conspiracy theorizing for the sake of it, either.

Any way you look at it, we need to define numerically how behind we are in order to correctly diagnose and treat the problem, starting with 2006.

[fishwax]

1. I don't think there are more of them than there are of us

but there are a lot of folks in the center who might be swayed to side with them. In looking at the results of this election, the only conclusion I can come to is that one single argument pushed a few million people in bush's direction, and that argument was that we shouldn't change our leader in this time of war/uncertainty. I think it is a totally bogus argument, but I can't come up with any other explanation besides that and fraud.

Some in the media are calling it a mandate for his agenda, but how could it be when he didn't even run on an agenda. He just ran on terra terra flip-flop terra.

[Eye and Monkey]

2. It was fraud. And they knew this would happen.

They knew that if they just brazened it out, sheeple would believe that they are in the majority, because they WANT to believe it.

There are more of us and there are of them. The fraud was not only to steal the election, it was at minimum a two-fer - a very big benefit is to instill the misperception that they represent the majority, when they do NOT.

[angee_is_mad]

3. No

but more of them voted this year!

[leftofthedial]

4. "they" are several smaller groups, about 22% of the population

They would NEVER vote for a Democrat.

"we" are two groups: one of about 11% of the population (who vote) and another of about 10% of the population (who sometimes don't vote). These groups would rarely if ever vote for a repuke.

then there is a third group of about 15% of the population who might vote if someone kicks their ass or invites them to a free chicken dinner at the church or threatens them in some way. They are mostly too stupid to make a rational decision so you have to appeal to them emotionally. Both sides fight over these people.

the fourth group, 42% of the population, don't vote and don't care.

42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

[phish420]

5. No, 18-30 yr olds - NO INCREASE IN TURNOUT

Either there is a really good programmer that has the machines throwing out the 1-30 yr old vote, or they just didn't show up like they said they would. 17% in 2000, 18% this year... the difference is natural population growth. We should have had closer to 20-25% of the vote.
I think my roomate was one of them. I asked if he voted...he paused and said yes...but I dont have a reason to doubt him or question him...he said he voted, I could only assume he did...afterwards I saw a look on his face when I heard the above mentioned stat and said "I want to find the fuckers that couldnt wait 2 hrs in line to save our democracy!"....it was a really guilty look. But what can ya do? I know I got him as fired up as I could and had no doubt that he would vote...I offered to go down with him for early voting and wait in line with him, but he said he would go after work...
Anyways, I just have a feeling there are a lot more people (people that aren't as active in politics as the people on these boards) who really wanted to vote, but they saw the lines and said...'maybe Ill go back later', then when it was still long they just said 'well, high turnout=kerry win, so I dont need to vote' and just went home and said they voted.
The long lines were evangelicals apparently.

[Awsi Dooger]

6. According to exit polls, 33% conservatives and 21% liberals

Kerry won moderates by a nice percentage, 55-44, and more conservatives actually voted for Kerry (16%) than liberals defected to Bush (13%). But that damn 12 point liberal/conservative gap killed us, and will continue to do so unless it's slightly reeled in.

[American Tragedy]

7. I didn't dare say it

But deep in my heart I always knew that Bush would stay in office somehow.