Bill Schneider : Little evidence of Republican 'strategic voting' in WI

He said that based on CNN's exit polling, the vast majority of Republicans who crossed over to vote for Edwards did so because they LIKED him. He said there is no evidence of 'strategic voting'. :)

even if he is correct, will raise some interesting questions

He didn't bring it up on his own. :)

>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<

And that a further 36%, who are enthusiastic Bush administration supporters, voted for Edwards.

I like Edwards more than I like Kerry.

this is how you win elections.

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It doesn't make it a lie, however.

There is NO WAY to tell what the intent of these folks was. If they are disrupting, certainly they won't mind obfuscating on the exit poll if they just finished doing so at the ballot box.

There is no conceivable evidence that could dissuade people from this conspiracy theory. That's awfully discouraging, especially in light of how many people are spreading this meme and how much energy is going into the effort to smear Edwards supporters.

to wait patiently for the Dems to pick the strongest candidate to run against Bush.

The GOP wouldn't DREAM of interferring.

Newsflash! Interferring in Primaries is an old trick in the Political Book. The Republicans rely on them.

While it's obviously a good thing that Edwards is appealing to Independents and Republicans (from a general election perspective), do we really want the Republicans to help choose our candidate?

Why is it, per se, a BAD thing? :shrug:

is usually very small, and is canceled out in large part by Repugs who are disgusted with their candidate. Usually, these groups together are a very, very small percentage of voters in a Dem primary. You have to be extremely motivated to drag yourself out on a winter evening to vote in the other guy's primary where most of the other guys don't even bother to show up. Of course, in Wisconsin, there were other issues to bring Repugs to the polls.

If there is a wide, deep disgust among moderate Repug voters with their candidate, a few more than usual may show up. I think that group of Repugs are sufficiently likely to vote for a Dem in the GE, so I don't mind a bit of participation from them.

I welcome the views of independents. Again, I think only the more motivated ones will show up for a primary. We need these people in the GE, so why not hear from them early on?

In a perfect world, I'd say only Dems should vote in a Dem primary. But I think that winning the GE is so important that we should keep an eye on the preferences of those non-Dems who may very well give us those winning votes. IMHO, the best way to do that is with at least a semi-open primary.


Amanda

On edit--those damned typos

....how they're registered. Being an open election State, it doesn't show that there's some sneaky Republican candidate-picking scenario occuring.

Fact: Wisconsin voted majority Republican BOTH times for Ronald Reagan. Since, and including 1988 election, however, Democratic candidates have won WI's electorates in each of the four (4) elections. I would be hard pressed to believe that there were massive amount of Wisconsin residents CHANGING their official party affiliation--their State runs their elections so that they don't have to!

By the way: 3 or 4 States on Super Tuesday hold "open" elections. This bodes well, histrorically, for John Edwards!

Why, for example, is anyone who declares that they are happy with, and supportive of, the Bush Administration voting in a Democratic primary?

Those people voted overwhelmingly for Edwards and Dean over Kerry.

If the roles were reversed, what possible reason could you or I have for voting in a Republican primary if we're happy with the current Democratic administration?

I can think of exactly one.

you are now going to go with what he has to say?

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https://contribute.johnkerry.com/

Can't have it both ways.

Thank you for pointing that out.

36% of voters who were 'enthusiastic about Bush' voted for Edwards
32% of voters who were 'enthusiastic about Bush' voted for Dean
10% of voters who were 'enthusiastic about Bush' voted for Kerry
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/primaries/pages/epolls/WI/index.html

I hope we don't make the mistake of nominating someone who appeals to Dems, Reps and Indy's in November--- God forbid, we might WIN if we did that! :eyes:

They are crossing party lines to skew our nomination process. Remember something Edwards has virtually no experience in domestic or world affairs. I have personally asked you to provide information showing the opposite.

The repukes are using the same plow they ised to pump Dean up before he imploded! Except it because this is why 10% of his total vote count in Wisconson was repuke!

Sometimes the reason your team didn't win is because they didn't play better than the opponents. Not all losses can be explained away by some "evil intentions" of someone.

goes against the way you wish to view an open discussion. That is something for you to work on. In the mean time provide a link ( as asked here at DU more times then I can think of ) showing the vast experience Edwards brings to the table for leading the greatest country in the world! Many of us have been waiting a long time for this info.

P.S. If you so feel up to the challenge, please don't provide a link back to his own site. You know the site that once claimed he finished "TIED" with Clark in Ok. even though he lost by thousands of votes!

His point was there were some "enthusiastic" Bush supporters who voted for Kerry. Are they also disrupters, seeking to secure a Bush victory by voting for the person they believe to be the weaker candidate (i.e. Kerry)?

Please also explain the Indepedents, people who are not committed to either party. Are these people, who strongly went to Edwards, also "disrupters?" And if these Edwards-voting Independents are so committed to securing a Bush election, why won't they bother to register as a Republican?

What we have here is cognitive dissonance. Kerry supporters do not like the results, so they invent conspiracy theories to explain them away. Note, however, that the conspiracy theories do not fill in all the gaps. Once these Kerry supporters begin to realize that fact, then they'll be on the road to accepting the bold truth which has been staring them in their faces all along while they curse and deny its existence: "Kerry has no crossover appeal. Edwards does."

Well....? *waits*

This is where Cheney comes out of his hole to give speeches--his favorite venue.

LOL...

Just kidding - sort of a Madison joke...

It's almost true though...

... when people can't logically or factually attack the message, most times.

Isn't that EXACTLY the question at issue?

Edwards voters were 55.3% Dem, 33.4% Ind, 11.2% Rep, whereas the total Rep percentage was 9.

nm

... and it wasn't because anyone from the DNC phoned and said, "Hey, we'd like your help derailing Bush's nomination." In fact Bush beat McCain pretty handily in the VA primary. No, I voted for McCain because I had lived in Arizona while he was a senator and had a certain respect for his integrity and independence despite disagreeing with his politics. I wanted, in November, a choice between two candidates I could respect, not between Al Gore and someone beneath contempt.

It takes time and effort to vote in a primary. If independents and crossover voters do, in most cases it's because they actually want to make a difference in who governs them. Open primaries may be a bad idea, but I think it's a red herring to see all sorts of conspiracies in their outcomes.

fully expecting to vote for Wilder in the general, which I did. The choice was sincere, though-- if we were doomed to have a Republican governor I'd prefer a moderate one. (Coleman ended up getting the R nomination and losing to Wilder, BTW.)

what constitutes "little evidence" for Bill Schneider? How much evidence does he ned to call it "some evidence"? Isn't "little evidence" the same thing as "some evidence"--or even "evidence"?


On edit: Sorry. There seems to be some confusion. Is there "little evidence" as the thread's title says or "no evidence" as the first post says?

When he elaborated further, in response to Wolf's "Explain that, Bill", he said that none of the exit polls indicated that there was any evidence of a 'strategic vote' effort by the GOP in WI, and that analysis of Edwards' Republican support indicated that they voted for him simply because they liked him and his positions on major issues.

...a "Fellow" at the American Enterprise Institute.

He doesn't even try to hide his bias - his credibility is nil.

The numbers don't lie. Edwards also got a HUGE percentage of the Independent vote. This can't be credibly spun as anything other than John Edwards has BROAD appeal to likely GE voters.

He's the worst, most biased political pundit on TV today ("Candy-addiction" Crowley is a close second). In his CNN bio, it says:

The Washington Times called Schneider "the nation's election-meister"

This doesn't have any bearing on Senator Edwards' credibility, but I thought everyone should know where Schneider is coming from...

n/t

...they seem to think he's one and the same.