Naysayers: Voter dissatisfaction indicates it won't be close

Voter dissatisfaction indicates it won't be close
Byron Williams - byronspeaks.com
10.15.04 - Conventional wisdom suggests this year's presidential election will be close. Practically every poll taken has the race within the margin of error.
At the risk of looking like a fool, I am prepared to respectfully disagree with conventional wisdom to offer the following contrarian perspective: The election will not be close.
Before you sit down to your computer to begin your "Williams, have you lost your mind?" rant, hear me out. I have reached this conclusion for two reasons. My first reason is shaped by what polls cannot see.
When I was in Philadelphia last week, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story in the local section that addressed increased voter registration. The final day of registration in Pennsylvania and New Jersey last week brought huge crowds to registration offices. As of September, Philadelphia had received 219,000 applications from either new voters or those who had moved or had been stricken from the rolls. With some 60,000 applications arriving on the final day, it is possible the city's volume this year could break the record of 293,000 applications set in the tension-filled mayoral race of 1983 between Wilson Goode and Frank Rizzo.
This trend of increased voter registration is replicated, in particular, in a majority of the battleground states.
According to the New York Times, voter registration campaigns in heavily Democratic areas have added tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge that far exceeds the efforts of Republicans in both states

More: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=17880

supremely PO'd.

I know several people my age 40s) who have NEVER voted, but are this year.

They aren't real happy, I can tell you that.

ers that have switched to Kerry, or refusing to vote for Bush. Bush can not fail miserably in every aspect of his administration and expect the people to elect him.
1 Million lost private sector jobs.
Average income is thousands less that four years ago and declining
1.3 Million people added to the Poverty rolls
5 Million people losing their Health insurance.

How does The Idiot Bush expect his Dad to Fix this?

Kerry in a landslide.
Bush has his hardcore supporters (mostly the evangelical right) but beyond that I can not believe that your average republican is all that motivated by him. Whereas the people that want him out, really want him out and are highly motivated.
Don't forget that he lost the popular vote last time around and I have to believe that many of the independents that voted for him in 2000 are going to switch to Kerry.

...he says that Bush is a dictator and that the Bill of Rights is going down if he is re-elected. He says that of all the Republicans he knows, only one will vote for Bush. This guy is a political animal, addicted to politics. He has connections in three major Florida metropolitan areas with lawyers and local political office holders. He is very conservative, has pictures of Reagan and Bush on his office wall. He says if the Democrats won't get rid of him, the Republicans will have to "hold their noses and vote for Kerry."

I would like to believe it's true. But the free FEMA credit card I got in the mail today, tells me it ain't so. The government is giving away money down here like it's going out of style in an attempt to buy popularity. I guess I can spend the almost $500 credit they gave me before the election. Still doesn't make me want to vote for chimp.

Anyway, I hope you're right.

I was in that bad flood in Reno a few years ago. Believe me, we didn't get free credit cards. It wasn't as bad as the hurricanes of course, but it was still pretty bad. I've never heard of it after tornados either. Free money, wow. Do they always do that after hurricanes?

Everyone around here is going to public places being announced here and there, mostly by word of mouth, and supposedly qualifying for FEMA handouts. No documentation required. You tell em your losses, food, fences, shingles, carpets, walls whatever and they calculate some amount of money for you, supposedly based upon income and send you a piece of government plastic that you can use for food stamps or cash.

I've been eating my storm losses for decades, this is a first for me. I think repukes know they're vulnerable because of the insurance laws they passed after Hurricane Andrew with a large, new per hurricane deductible. I saw John Ellis Bush and other repukes choking on it when they were asked about it by reporters, before during and after hurricanes 2, 3, and 4.

I was remembering I moved to the Oregon Coast during a flood time too, one flood to another. No FEMA give-aways then either. I don't remember hearing anything like this during the Mississippi flood either. Unbelievable. Wonder what the rest of America would think if they knew.

this time, and as you say you've been eating your losses for years. But $500 is enough to shut some people up for a while. It will still be interesting to see how long it takes to get everything cleaned in FL. When we had that huge flood in 2001 in Houston (Tropical Storm Allison), there were people still waiting to have new drywall installed in their homes a year later.

Our losses were calculated at about $2500 more or less, not counting labor costs. It evens up somewhat with the fact that a few hundred dollars worth of tools and materials are left to be used next season.

Quite of few of my neighbors lost their roofs and sustained internal water damage. Their losses range from 6000 to 35,000. New roofs are being put on some homes in my neighborhood now. More have yet to begin to repair their rooves and other structural damage because the adjusters haven't come yet. Retirees with savings and people in the construction trades are not waiting for the adjusters, it's too risky. Every time it rains the damage worsens.

One of my co-workers got a $6500 roof estimate. It is well within his 5 percent deductible. When I see him I'd be interested to know what he got from FEMA.

even if he's wrong about what his Republican friends will do, he's probably right about the Bill of Rights. The Patriot Act, for example ... that's gotta go. I fear more of that if Shrub is re-selected.

-Laelth

I have the same thoughts, I don’t think people register to vote in these numbers and not show up on Nov.2. I also don’t think that there are that many Bush supporters that are not already registered.

try at stake.

I live in the Reddest of Red, and people were streaming into the city's 24-hour Main Post Office on registration deadline day, filling in forms up until midnight. Haven't seen a crowd like that since April 15.

People want their voice heard even though the state will go Bush*.

People who are not wrapped up in the political scene see what is happening in Iraq and have now, FINALLY, been informed by the media that all the commissions involved with Iraq have come back and said the premise for war was incorrect. Mix that with a "War on Terrorism" which has no end and is already short of troops and a draft becomes more and more obvious.

So what has happenned is the Democrats have all gotten fired up. The moderate voter is unhappy with what (s)he is seeing. The moderate Republican is not too happy with deficits and the President's wishy washy stance on stem cells and abortion.

The only hurdling blocks really left for the Kerry campaign are the slimy smear tactics which are about to reach ludicrous perportions. He has to deal with the Swiftees again, Teresa's taxes being attacked, the compliment he passed to the Cheney family thing, and who knows what else.

Kerry won the war of issues and facts. Unfortunatelly not everyone votes on who has the better stance on the majority of important issues. Voters many times vote for who wins the WrestleMania portion of the campaign.

That means we don't have to do anything...

We can just sit back, taking it easy, cause this guy says "it ain't even gonna be close", whew, and here I was getting all worked up because the last time they stole the damn election.

One thing though...... how do we know all these new people are gonna vote Democratic?
Are ya telling me that the pukes haven't been working their asses off getting other pukes to vote?

But hey, this guy says we won already, so that's it. Take it easy, no sweat, we've got it wrapped up.

Somehow I just don't trust that... sorry.

of all those hyperventilating over the polls. Polls have been proven worthless time and time again. If they said that Kerry had a 15 point lead, I still wouldn't trust them enough to relax. Get a grip, everyone.