Jan 28 2008
Nice Guys Finish Last?
I think there may be some magic in the air for FL tomorrow. One thing we saw in the SOTU this evening was a class act from Bush, with a reminder of how important our economy is (tax cuts), life is (embryonic stem cell research) and being strong against terrorists and Surrendercrats (Iraq). Bush doesn’t bicker or lash out or snip. He is not in the mud like Obama, Clinton, Romney and McCain. And neither is Rudy:
Giuliani clearly hopes to take advantage of the mud wrestling match that has broken out between Mitt Romney and John McCain in recent days and that intensified even further this morning.
“I am sick and tired of all this name calling,” Giuliani said. “This is no way to conduct a presidential election. I believe the people of Florida are going to look at all that name calling and say ‘No, No, No. We want a bold leader who has a positive vision. We want leader who can accomplish things that other people thought were impossible.'”
Bush has done that – especially on Iraq. It will be interesting to see how the SOTU plays out on all those late deciders in FL. That and the early voting efforts and the GOTV ground game by Rudy could make FL a bit of surprise. I was going to go out on a limb and predict a three -way tight race or Rudy in 2nd. But this electorate is so fickled and so sick of bickering I am not sure now. Could be anything tomorrow.
OK, Mitt getting on Fox railing against the “amnesty bill” after SOTU is going to hurt him in FL. Dumb move.
I support the concept of tax cuts and believe there are many areas that still need to be looked at in this area offset by spending cuts especially on programs that have proven themselves failures over the long term and which should have been unsettled long ago.
However this recovery had as part of it’s genesis a massive reduction in interest rates which in my judgment were held artificially low for way to long and even when they started back up moved in to small of increments to do the moderation to the economy that would have been a wiser choice of action. Yes I believe the initial levels were likely correct to do the jump start that was required based on the economic realities of the day, but after that is where I diverge from the history. If more restraint had been exercised, we would not be having the issues we now are currently having to deal with.
With over 1 million absentee ballots and early voters already in the can we will also have the issue of discarded votes for Fred and many voting for Rudy while he was stronger in the polls.
Also there is a major property tax issue on the ballot that is driving a lot of this turnout on the Dem penalty box side as well as for the independents who voted early.
If the polls are off by a mile and the exit polls show a lot of young voter turnout, then we will be seeing at least the third confirmation that the polls themselves are being skewed by the cell phone only generation.
Also with the large early voting, you can’t exit poll that, only analyze it after the data is available.
It all depends on turnout at the polls today. The polling companies plan on doing exit polling by phone of the early voters. How accurate that is we will find out tonight. On the turnout issue, there are about 10 million registered voters in Florida and both primaries are closed. So there are 4.1 million democrats and 3.7 million republicans. . In 2000 the turnout was 15% combined. If the early and absentee approach 1.5 million that will pass the total turnout for 2000.
The early/absentee voters could turn out to be 30% of the total votes. AJ’s theory has merit on that point, however the poll reports I have read show Romney leading the early voting with around 31% and Rudy at around 19%. If those polls are wrong and Rudy can pull in 50% of the early votes that would give him 20% of the final total before today’s voting starts.
In conclusion, I’m dubious of AJ’s theory. But at least AJ gets you thinking.