Saturday, February 23, 2008

8 Million More Democrats Than Reps Have Voted

political writer rhodes cook was on NPR this morning. this is some of what he had to say about the election:

23 million democrats have turned out for voting so far. 17 million was the record.

he didn't say but about 14.5 million republicans have voted so far.

he attributes the turnout in part to the excitement generated by obama.

part?

i think that's wrong. i'd also attribute high turnout to hillary clinton, and primarily the race between them.

he said the bigger reason for the turnout is that there are so many early primaries by big states and people feel like they have had a voice.

I'd say that's the smaller reason.

on the repubican side, turnout has historically always been lower than democrats. more seem to becoming independents.

i think being an independent or in my case, "decline to state" in california, is to demonstrate that we don't care about the party as much as we care about the candidate and the issues. by declaring ourselves independent it says to the candidate: don't take anything for granted.

he said there's a possiblity that people who vote in the primaries won't vote in the general. i think he's wrong again there. this is going to be the biggest general election ever.



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