Is Missouri Lost for Good?

[liberalpragmatist]

My own guess is a tentative NO. The demographics of Missouri still pretty cleanly match the country as a whole. The thing about Missouri is, it seems to follow national trends. Right now, let's face it, Republicans are in ascendance in Washington, and they're in ascendance in Missouri. In the mid-90s, with Clinton and new Democrats (at least before and after the '94 debacle) in ascendence nationally, they were in ascendance in Missouri.

In other words, my own belief is that Missouri flows with the rest of the country. If we revive nationally, we will revive in Missouri.

BUT...the other interpretation is that the state is becoming more like West Virginia and Kentucky before it - moving solidly Repuke. So which is it?

[geek tragedy]

1. Slightly more GOP than the national average, but within reach.

Definitely more available to us than WV and KY.

[nixonwasbetterthanW]

2. Missouri goes for the winner nearly every time

Stevenson carried it in '56. Otherwise, a perfect record all the way back to 1904 ... and please spare me the obligatory "but the real loser carried it in 2000"

[sonicx]

5. but the real loser carried it in 2000

sorry, i couldn't resist...

[LondonReign2]

3. I've been saying yes, it's gone.

Missouri used to be the swingiest of the swing states, but I don't think it is anymore. (IMO, Wisconsin probably gets that designation in terms of being "middle of the road" for the entire country).

The rise of the radical fundies in Missouri has, I think, more or less permanently swung it Red.

I belive WV would be far easier to swing back to Blue. All we need is a pro-gun rights candidate that will talk to the blue collar workers there. KY is gone, but AR could easily go back to Blue-- they are about the most progressive of the deep south states (damning with faint praise, I know).

ON EDIT: I don't think looking back to Clinton in '92 or '96 does us much good. The rise of the radical fundies throughout the Confederate Theocracy has changed the map. Missouri is infected, Ohio is catching it, as is western Iowa, and Indiana has long been a fundie enclave.

We can take back the southwest -- AZ, NM, CO, and NV, but the next best places are VA and AR.

[Awsi Dooger]

23. I completely agree; West Virginia will rejoin us before Missouri

For one thing, the self described party ID in Missouri as of Tuesday was 35 Dem, 36 GOP. In West Virginia it's still 50 Dem, 32 GOP. They voted our governor candidate, Manchin, into office by a 63-34 margin in an open race. The ideal candidate can still win West Virginia.

I don't agree with the original poster that Missouri mirrors the nation in demographics. A full 89% of the voters this time were white, with 33% from rural areas and only 16% urban. We have almost no shot with a breakdown like that. Luckily, white males in Missouri are not as blatantly Republican as most of the nation.

Missouri has almost no Hispanics. Only 1% in this year's exit polls, compared to 8% nationally. Also just 8% African American voters, while it's 11% nationally.

[DaveinMD]

4. MO

is still a winnable state with the right candidate and right message.

[demgrrrll]

6. I don't know what to make of this but as you know the new Governor of

Missouri Matt Blunt had money earmarked for upgrading certain aspects of the election process and that money is still sitting unspent in a bank account in Jefferson City. He also had an e voting plan with the military? which some found suspect. They had plans and contingency plans and plans on top of that. We had tremendous turn out in my precincts but there were some who did leave because of the hour and 1/2 wait in the morning. I suspect if some of that money had been used to smooth the process in the overcrowded precincts the result might have been closer, I am not saying that Bush would have won but I am saying that we need to have more integrity in the voting process here in Missouri.

[iwantmycountryback]

10. It's a state Mark Warner could definitely win

Along with states like Arkansas, Colorado, his home state VA, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, and perhaps W.Virginia.

[Neecy]

7. hard to say

The conventional wisdom has been: the rural areas are of course strongly Repuke, the cities are solidly democratic, so like always, Missouri is a battle for the suburban vote.

Given the margin in MO (8%, the last I saw on the MO SofS site) I'm not sure if this is still true. One would think that Bush would have had limited appeal in the more moderate suburbs, but in areas of Jackson county outside of KC he won by a quite a bit. I did some phone banking to voters in Independence - home of Truman - and it's really become freeper central up there.

I just hope the party here does some serious work in the next few years, before the attitude becomes completely entrenched and we turn into the next Alabama.

[Tweed]

16. Alabama had more blue counties than Missouri

[RummyTheDummy]

8. Frankly

I'm surprised we do as well as we do in Mo. There's no real explanation for it.

[Keirsey]

9. Robin Carnahan is the newly-elected Secretary of State

Robin is the daughter of Mel Carnahan, the man who died in a plane crash and still beat Ashcroft for the U.S. Senate. (Remember that bit in Fahrenheit 9/11?).

[SaintLouisBlues]

31. And brother Russ took Gephardt's old 3rd district seat

which is mostly suburban these days.

If the next 4 years are as shitty as the last, MO could flip back.

[Awsi Dooger]

37. We do better with white males for some reason

I have no idea why. But it holds up every time. This year they went 55-45 for Bush. Not great, but much better than the 62-37 national number. If we lost white males only 55-45 nationally, every election would be a cruise.

For reference purposes, white women favored Bush 59-40 in Missouri. That's remarkable. It's extremely rare for a Democrat to fare better with white males than white women, especially 4 full points.

[liberalpragmatist]

39. 62-37 nationally's a bit high

I think. Where's the source for that? I heard Kerry lost by 9 among white men.

[Awsi Dooger]

41. Kerry lost males 55-44; among white males it was 62-37

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

The early exit poll number on election night had Bush winning males by 9, 54-45. It changed to 55-44 when the full sample came in on Wednesday. That is perfectly normal. In fact, I'm sure some of the numbers will continue to change slightly.

I believe Bush won white males 60-36 in 2000.

In fact, a brief glance at 2000 and 2004 screams where this election was lost: white women, scared security moms. Here is the basic breakdown:

White Males:
2000: Bush 60 Gore 36%
2004 Bush 62% Kerry 37%

African Americans:
2000: Gore 90 Bush 9%
2004: Kerry 88 Bush 11%

Hispanics:
2000: Gore 62 Bush 35%
2004 Kerry 53 Bush 44%
(note: big change, but Hispanics are only 8% of the voters, up just 1% since 2000)

But now here's the killer:

White Women:
2000: Bush 49 Gore 48%
2004 Bush 55 Kerry 44%

That's the entire election. When you forfeit 10% among the largest voting block, a full 41% of the voters, no chance to make it up elsewhere. I checked every state in regard to exit polls and white women abandoned us nationwide. I really don't understand all this Diebold craze. Unless it only alters the votes of white females, via DNA or chromosone detection.

[TheWebHead]

11. depends on the repubs '08 nominee

and ours.. I think Bayh or Warner would hammer Giuliani and compete well against a Frist or Jeb. Hillary wouldn't give us a chance in hell there. But I think republicans are also soul searching as they become more and more attached to evangelicals, putting them in a box as to who they could nominate.

[Cleita]

12. Although this is the state that gave us Harry Truman,

I lived in Kansas City in the late fifties and found that Missourians and Kansans were extremely racist. Although at that time Californians had a long way to go themselves to reconcile racial conflicts, we were light years ahead of Middle America in giving minorities basic rights. I was really shocked at how blacks were scapegoated for every crime committed, denied service in restaurants and many other places and made to keep inside their own neighborhoods after dark.

I think the right wing appeals to the deep seated prejudices of the white people in the red states. Then they throw in religion to make it righteous and acceptable. It really is a poisonous cultural stew. This is what we are really up against and of course the hate is fueled on a daily basis by the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity.

[PSU84]

19. Yes, I think you are right.

Americans are in love with a number of myths about themsleves. They ignore the ugly truths. But the ugly truths are there, all the same. They've only been softened a little around the edges.

[Julien Sorel]

13. The Republicans are getting the rural people.

And apparently there are a lot of them.

[pstokely]

30. none of the big city papers endorsed Matt Blunt

even the News-Leader endorsed McCaskil, most the Blunt's endorsements came from small town papers

[CMO]

14. I don't know...

but I think it may be. I live just west of St. Louis and I don't know many dems (other than my family members and a few co-workers). I know the city is hugely dem but I think the red necks across the rest of the state are uneducated and republican. I really felt like an outcast during this election. The repukes were coming on strong! :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: I think I am going to move across the river to Illinois because it's a blue state. The more dems that move to blue states, the more electoral votes they will have!

[gordianot]

15. The new Republican Governor, House, Senate

Will thoroughly Republican (for me the word "Republican" is a curse word) up the State

[neener3]

17. Kerry wearing a Boston cap...

... during the world series against St. Louis didn't help.

[pstokely]

29. he had given up on Missouri by that point

nt

[neener3]

35. he had given up on Missouri by that point

And he was trying to shore up his lead in Masssachusetts?

Look at the MO voting map from 200 and 2004 and you will see the impact on the St. Louis area. He lost ground precisely in St. Louis, the Democratic core of the state.

Bad move for the future and MO is often a state that votes for the winner.

[PSU84]

18. Definitely not lost for good

St. Louis, Kansas City, and Columbia can be won by large enough margins to carry the state with the right candidate. Someone from the South or Midwest would have a good chance to carry Missouri.

[usregimechange]

20. Run a moderate in MO and you will have it!

Jesus, we about carried the entire state this time with 3 blue counties!

[jbm]

21. if we can counter the fundies and gun nuts..

but I'm not sure if that's possible. In my town the week before the election the repubs sent out flyers in the mail with pictures of a cute toddler that said, "this little guy hopes you vote republican". I actually studied that one quite a bit trying to figure out what the implication was, and finally decided the message was that the kid was worried the dems were going to abort him even though he was like two years old. The fundie churches had their sunday school kids plastering car windshields with the dumbest bunch of right wing religious fundie talking points I've ever seen..and I've seen lots of em! On election day the local newspaper was delivered wrapped in a plastic bag paid for by the NRA and covered with the usual bunch of nonsense. (I was very proud of many dems here, cause they promptly cancelled their subscriptions. I would have to..but I'd already cancelled mine over past nonsense).


Ministers were preaching from their pulpits that if you voted anything but repub you weren't a christian, and on election day I saw one minister and his wife delivering their people to the polls. Even the mainstream churches were getting into the act. I went to a thing at one of the Lutheran churches here a few weeks before the election, and when the minister gave the final prayer he said something like, "guide your people to choose wisely and according to your laws" and tossed in some other stuff I can't remember, but it was impossible to not know he was saying that a vote for Kerry was a sin. It was all I could do to not jump up and demand equal time for a rebuttal.

I've been wondering all day if what happened here with the church involvement is going to become a trend, or if a few months from now when things settle down, maybe the people will feel ashamed for having gotten caught up in the moment and going over the top. I dunno...

[Swede]

22. I was watching a TV commentator

he said that historically,whenever St.Louis gets 60% of the vote would win Missouri. He then said Kerry just got 62% so Missouri should now be a blue state. I wonder what happened?

[liberalpragmatist]

25. No, it was +6% in St. Louis County

St. Louis county, which contains most of St. Louis inner suburbs, is a swing district. Apparently the general rule of thumb is that if the Democrat wins by more than 6%, they'll carry the state. Kerry for awhile during the count was 6% ahead, so it looked like there might be an upset.

Ultimately, though, he lost St. Louis county and the state.

At the same time, the county did elect a liberal black man as it's county executive (Democrat).

[JPJones]

27. No, Kerry won St. Louis County by almost 10 percent

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/MO/P/00/county.004.html

[FeelinGarfunkelly]

32. Normally that would hold up..

But this election got out a lot of the religious zealots like in 100 counties that weren't StL, StL city, or Jackson (KC) county. Same thing happened in the August primary when we had the gay marriage thing on the ballot.

[SaintLouisBlues]

33. St. Louis City and County vote totals were up around 74,000 from

the 2000 election, but the state was up 363,000 votes. I didn't look
at Kansas City, but most of the increase had to be from Red Missouri.

Did the Turd Blossom actually deliver the 4 million fish head (fundie)
votes he was bragging about ( I heard Ohio went to 25% rural votes, increasing from 15% four years ago)? Or can the crooks cite these 4 million fundies as cover for fraud?

[ikojo]

24. There are a bunch of fundies in MO, especially St Charles County

St Louis, being more urban, is more Democratic. St Charles County is very Republican even though many people have union jobs. Many of the people who live in St Charles County previously lived in North St Louis County. Whites moved to St Charles County when blacks began moving from the City of St Louis into the northern suburbs like Florissant and Hazelwood.

Race plays a huge part in party politics, especially in the far west suburbs, St Charles and the rural areas. What I cannot understand is why. If white working class people could get over their dislike of blacks and work together with black working class people, that movement would be a force to be reckoned with.

[zulchzulu]

26. 2006 is going to be a GOP bloodbath

Once seniors wake up and see what's going to happen to their healthcare in 2006, anyone with a GOP logo on their name is open game.

Even the Fundies will revolt.

[pstokely]

28. it's only lost if we don't reclaim it

and prevent BBV from taking it over

[LSdemocrat]

34. Note: NO national org. (DNC, DCCC, DSCC) put any real effort into MO

Missouri could have easily been within reach had the Dems nationally put any real effort into Missouri, but instead the DNC wasted ads in Virginia and North Carolina in the last few days of campaign.

I don't understand why the national Dems gave up on Missouri so soon (DNC basically pulled out in July and DSCC never gave any help to Nancy Farmer)

[ComerPerro]

36. Matt Blunt didn't win by very much

So, I would say not just yet.

[pstokely]

38. he won just enough of the urban vote

and almost all of the rural vote

[Anarcho-Socialist]

40. No it is not lost

If Blunt doesn't do a good job he's gone. Four more years of the Bushistas will have people out for GOP heads in MO. Obviously discounting voter fraud.

[SemperEadem]

42. I can't take anyone seriously who's last name is slang

for marijuana wrapped in a cigar leaf.