The day after

Well Kerry has conceded and is expected to do a speech in the next few minutes.
And it really was a stunning win for Bush, with a margin of 3.5 million votes and gains for the repubs in Senate & House.
I went to a democrat party last night which was tense but hopeful / confident early on because of the exit polls. One campaign worker told me he had seen exit polls from around the country and it was looking 'pretty good'.
Of course, something turned out to be pretty wrong with the exit polling.
The ground games cancelled each other. For every new Democrat there was at least one new evangelical christian or conservative hispanic turning out for the first time and voting for George Bush. The legend of Karl Rove (Bush's main campaign strategist) will grow enormously after this effort. He effectively masterminded a strategy that beat the Dems at their own game.
Same sex marriage was the big issue for many 'middle' Americans. In the 'red' states, moral values was a top issue in the exit polls and the people who said it was a top issue voted for Bush by 4 to 1. The top moral issue was same sex marriage. Which many people see as a threat to the world as we know it. I heard someone on radio talking about the importance of being able to pass on heterosexual marriage to their children and grandchildren. The republicans had an anti same sex marriage measure put on the ballot paper in eleven states just to focus the mind for some of these folks.
No matter how much Kerry said he was opposed to same sex marriage, his own views expressed over a period of time, and those of many of his party colleagues, meant that no-one much believed him.
Iraq was only a big issue in NYC and northern California, and there's a lot of discussion here this morning about people in these areas - which predominate media & blogging - living in a bubble.
But I think a lot of it was also due to the fact that Kerry was a poor candidate. The Democrats don't seem to have a candidate who can reach into the south & middle - the way Bill Clinton did.
Energising the base just doesn't do it. That's what the democrats relied on and it didn't work.
And that's the lesson from this election for the Australian Labor Party. There are echos in the US result of Latham's disastrous greens strategy (and the earlier recruiting of Peter Garrett and the preference deals). Winning means building a broad coalition.
In addition, the dems made the election a referendum on Bush's leadership because they thought he was deeply on the nose but the outcome that he is not on the nose with the great mass of middle America - just as Howard is not on the nose with middle-class outer suburban and non-urban Australians as the ALP seemed to think he was.
I think both the ALP and the Democrats need to re-think the way they analyse these issues. Polls, focus groups etc may have their role to play but nothing actually beats having a political machine which reflects the broad mass of the population.
The ALP and the Democrats have become isolated from much of their respective nations voters and that's a recipe for disaster.
(Posted at the Apple Store Stockton Street San Francisco)

Comments

[genevieve]

Trevor have you seen this analysis and what do you think?

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-36.htm

[Trevor Cook]

Looking at the US electoral system up close makes you realise just how great the Australian system is. I don't think exit polls are that reliable - they are after all opinion polls, not the real thing, with the usual margin of error. Secondly, there is vote spoilage under any system. A lot of the dems I've met in the past few days have been chattering about this stuff, but it sounds a little paranoid to me. You'd need to see more evidence, at the moment its mostly extrapolation from a dubious propoation about the accuracy of opinion polls.