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March 06, 2004
Logic Anyone?
Expect more and more articles about Democrats' inability to compete in the South, like this Washington Post one.
Here is what irks me. The article goes on and on about how hard it will be to win the Presidency without winning a Southern state. Then it says:
[not winning any Southern states] would require holding every state won by Gore in 2000 while picking off a Bush 'red' state outside the South, such as Ohio or Arizona, a daunting prospect against an incumbent president.Where exactly does this argument make sense? The Post is saying that a Democrat must find out a way to win a Southern state, which overall voted pretty heavily for Bush in 2000, because winning a non-Southern state that gave Bush a smaller margin of victory might be impossible.
Let's see here:
Looking at this chart, if, according to the Post's logic, a Democrat can't win in Arizona, Nevada or Ohio, each one a state where Gore finished within 7% of Bush, why even bother writing an article about states like Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina where Bush's margin of victory was over 10% (blowouts each) and where Democrats have actually lost ground in terms of governors and senators since.
A better, and harder, article to write might delve into the differences between the Deep South (Miss, Alabama, Ga, SC & NC) and the outer Southern states and how Kerry might try to win these outer states (Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennesee, Virginia) with a strategy that recongizes that demographically Ohio, Pennsylviania and Michigan (all key states) are more similar in demographics to the outer South than deep Southern states.
Journalistic Request: To me, it seems just as dumb to write a "Democrat can't win in the South" article as it would be to write a "Republican can't win in the Northeast/California." Both have about the same number of electoral votes and cancel each other out, more or less. And both regions used to be solid for each respective party, but now they're not. I don't want to see those Northeast/California aritlces, or the South articles.
I'd much rather see an article that points out that the swing states this year are more or less Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Without these states, Democrats have a whopping 233-170 advantage. If they hold all of the Gore states, they'll be just 10 votes shy of winning. New Hampshire looks ripe for the picking, and thanks to the steel tarrifs fiasco West Virginia looks set to return to the Democratic column. At that point you've got a tie. Which states might shift columns? My head tells me it's probably a tossup at this point, but some good reporting could shed some light on this question. Unfortunately we'll probably get more reporters sent to the Deep South to find out why Kerry isn't popular there. After all, everyone loves to read a good story about some bigoted hick interviewed at the local Huddle House.
Posted by Chris at March 6, 2004 01:39 PM
Comments
Great comparsion graph, and that probably didn't take too, too long to compile, huh? Too bad the mainstream press, supposedly so left-wing biased, doesn't do this sort of basic reportage, research, and analysis often enough.
Read this blog first after Kaus's mention; now I'm a regular. Keep it up.
Posted by: Josh at March 6, 2004 03:25 PM
Very fair criticism. I think perhaps the wording in the WaPo article was a bit incompetent, but what they meant was keeping all the Gore states is hard against an incumbent -- let alone winning anything else. It would be downright stupid, as you explain, to mean anything else.
Posted by: Ben at March 6, 2004 05:33 PM
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