On his blog Polysigh, my favorite political scientist, Phil Klinkner, ran a simple exercise. Multiplying the turnout among a certain group by the percent who went for Bush yields a number electoral statisticians call "performance." Among heavy churchgoers, Bush's performance last time was 25 percent (turnout, 42 percent; percentage of vote, 59 percent). This time out it was also 25 percent—no change. Slightly lower turnout (41 percent), slightly higher rate of vote (61 percent).Glad we got that settled.
Where did the lion's share of the extra votes come from that gave George Bush his mighty, mighty mandate of 51 percent? "Two of those points," Klinkner said when reached by phone, "came solely from people making over a 100 grand." The people who won the election for him—his only significant improvement over his performance four years ago—were rich people, voting for more right-wing class warfare.
Their portion of the electorate went from 15 percent in 2000 to 18 percent this year. Support for Bush among them went from 54 percent to 58 percent. "It made me think about that scene in Fahrenheit 9/11," says Klinkner, the one where Bush joked at a white-tie gala about the "haves" and the "have-mores": "Some people call you the elite," Bush said. "I call you my base."
So they proved to be. The two issues he mentioned in his post-election press conference had nothing to do with succoring God-fearing folk; instead he mentioned only "reforming" the tax code, and "strengthening" Social Security—issues of particular concern for the haves and the have-mores.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
It's the Wealth, Stupid
Via Tim Dunlop. Rick Perlstein finds the real root of the Bush win.
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There's no mistaking the exceptional generosity of the financial industry in supporting Republicans generally, and Bush most especially, with campaign money. The list of top contributors reads like a Wall Street business directory.
Could there be a bigger payback than shuttling money from millions and millions of workers into the funds run by Goldman Sachs and all the others, to go on for decades per worker, on into forever? The term "windfall profits" doesn't begin to describe it.
And, of course, because these investments will not be run or secured by the U.S. government in any way, and because past performance is no guarantee of future gains, etc., the financial industry wins no matter who or how many millions of Americans lose significant portions of their hard-earned nest eggs.
It's the perfect Bushwhack scenario: screwing millions of the gullible nonwealthy, across the land and down the generations, to the ultimate obscene benefit of an extremely wealthy few.
There's no mistaking the exceptional generosity of the financial industry in supporting Republicans generally, and Bush most especially, with campaign money. The list of top contributors reads like a Wall Street business directory.
Could there be a bigger payback than shuttling money from millions and millions of workers into the funds run by Goldman Sachs and all the others, to go on for decades per worker, on into forever? The term "windfall profits" doesn't begin to describe it.
And, of course, because these investments will not be run or secured by the U.S. government in any way, and because past performance is no guarantee of future gains, etc., the financial industry wins no matter who or how many millions of Americans lose significant portions of their hard-earned nest eggs.
It's the perfect Bushwhack scenario: screwing millions of the gullible nonwealthy, across the land and down the generations, to the ultimate obscene benefit of an extremely wealthy few.
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