By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
March 13, 2000
"Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush scored overwhelming victories Friday in Colorado and Utah primary voting.,' one report gushed after last Friday's votes in the Western States Primary. Another reported: "Gore and Bush won predictable landslides in Colorado and Utah." One headline blared: "Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush won uncontested victories in the Colorado and Utah presidential primaries."
On Saturday, as the Western States Primary results were announced, ABC news gushed: "In a sharp reversal of fortune, the 2000 general election campaign begins with a newly invigorated Al Gore a half step ahead of George W. Bush - the vice president bolstered by his sweeping primary victories, Bush battered by his far tougher nomination fight."
BUSH was battered? And GORE was AHEAD of Bush? Well, let's see about that.
In Utah Al Gore trailed Alan Keyes by 6920 votes. He trailed George W by 44,961 votes. Gore got 12,428 votes compared with Alan Keyes 19,348 votes and George W's 57,389 votes. And BUSH was battered? Of the candidates running Friday, he came in fourth, behind John third place McCain who had pulled out of the race. Alan Keyes came in second in the Utah Primary race. Put another way, of the total 106,232 votes cast, Al Gore received 11.7% compared with Alan Keyes 18% and George Bush's 54% of the total votes cast. Exactly how does this put George W. Bush and Al Gore in a tight race and give Gore "sweeping primary victories?" One would think that the pollsters believe that those who voted in the primary for Alan Keyes, John McCain, Gary Bauer, Steve Forbes and Bill Bradley voters are all going to switch to Al Gore. Even if they did, which is highly unlikely, that would still leave Bush at 54% and Al Gore at 46%. And that's not about to happen. Put another way, if Alan Keyes was on the ticket as Vice-President with George W. Bush in the general election, at least in Utah, the Republicans as of right now would end up with 72%. of the Utah vote.
With 944 precincts out of 946 precincts the Utah Elections Department reports the following results:
REPUBLICAN
Bush 57,389
Alan Keyes 19,348
John McCain 12,651
Steve Forbes 858
Gary Bauer 426
Total: 90,672
DEMOCRAT
Al Gore 12,429
Bill Bradley 3,131
Total 15,560
Almost universally the news reports dealt with percentages, not actual numbers, which totally masks the sparse turnout of Democrats. When we look at the actual figures as a whole, we find that a total of 106,232 voters voted in the State of Utah primary. Of that total, only 16% voted Democrat and 84% voted Republican. Since Utah in the 1996 election gave Bill Clinton only 33.3% of the total vote, some might dismiss that figure as being unrepresentative of the nation. However, it is only a more pronounced version of what we have been seeing in all the primaries to date.
In fact, the Western States Primary continued a trend I first wrote about in January following the Iowa Caucus. The number of Democrats participating in their Caucus was a fraction of the number of Republicans participating in Iowa's Republican Caucus. Then, on February 2nd, following the New Hampshire Primary my analysis of the New Hampshire vote was entitled, "Where Were the Democrat Voters in New Hampshire Yesterday? (see: http://www.originalsources.com/OS2-00MQC/2-2-2000.1.html)
In that analysis I pointed out that the percentages masked the fact that almost two-thirds of those voting in New Hampshire voted Republican:
"Of the total number of votes, 370,060 cast, 228,717 were cast for one of the five Republican candidates and 141,343 were cast for one of the two Democrats. Put another way, of the people who voted in the New Hampshire Primary, 62% of them voted Republican and 38% voted Democrat."This compares with the 1996 Presidential election in which 490,140 votes were cast with 40% going to Republican Bob Dole in the Presidential election, 50% going to Bill Clinton and 10% going to Ross Perot.
"Were there a lot of Independents and Democrats voting Republican yesterday to select the least conservative of the Republican candidates to assure liberal candidates in both parties? Or, does it mean that in the intervening four years from 1996 approximately 22% of the New Hampshire electorate has moved from the Democrat side to the Republican side?"
"There is something strange about 62% of the New Hampshire voters voting Republican. Perhaps it's a remarkable move to the right by nearly a quarter of the people of New Hampshire."
In 1996 New Hampshire voters gave Bill Clinton 49.3% of the vote; Bob Dole received 39.4% of the vote with Perot getting 9.7%.
On February 9th, I pointed out, in an analysis entitled "Delaware Republican Primary Should Worry the Democrats" (see: http://www.originalsources.com/OS2-00MQC/2-9-2000.1.html) a very similar phenomenon in the Delaware primaries: In the Republican Primary, a total of 27,781 people voted. In the Democratic Primary, only 10,814 people voted. In other words, 71% of the voters voted Republican and 29% voted Democrat. In 1996 51.8% of Delaware voters voted for Bill Clinton, 36.6% voted for Republican Bob Dole and Ross Perot received 10.6%.
In 1996, the State of Delaware gave Bill Clinton 51.8% of the vote, with Bob Dole getting only36.6% and Perot 10.6%.
The State of California in 1996 gave Bill Clinton 51.1% of the vote, Bob Dole 38.2% of the vote and Perot 7%.
In last week's California primary, 51% of the votes went to Republicans and 49% to Democrats. From 38.2% to 51% is an 11.8% spread. Of course, in the next eight months anything can happen, but at this point, there is no neck-in-neck race evident, yet:
The Associated Press reported Saturday that "Bush and Gore were evenly matched in a CNN-Time poll released Friday, Gore with the backing of 48 percent of registered voters and Bush with 46 percent. The poll, taken after Tuesday's results, also showed the two candidates closely matched on public perception of their strengths as candidates." The poll apparently asked voters about their "perception" of the strengths of the candidates, not how they would vote! And that is supposed to be news?
That statement seems to be quite a bit at odds with how the public is actually voting in primaries. Either quite a few Democrat voters are staying at home, or they are cross voting. In spite of continued statements that Gore represents the "center" of the Democrat party, there are quite a few Democrats who are not satisfied with what they consider his views to be. Also, contrary to the media label given Alan Keyes, a growing number of people do not consider him to be a "right wing conservative." What they like is his relating his views on nearly any subject that comes up to the Constitution of the United Sates. He's considered by those who hear him as a Constitutionalist, not a "Right Winger." In an environment where the Constitution has often been considered an embarrassing document not to be discussed, Keyes' forthright use and defense of it has intrigued many - not just Republicans. For example, one of my readers wrote over the weekend:
Just read your very thoughtful commentary on the Los Angeles debate. Your last paragraph said it all for me... having Mr. Keyes join Mr. Bush at the top of the Republican ticket would almost restore my faith in politics. America needs to hear Mr. Keyes, and the vice presidency would serve as a "bully pulpit" for his message.I was disappointed that Mr. Keyes did not fare better on Super Tuesday. I hope it was because most people did not wish to vote for a candidate "who can't win", but I fear that it was because moral principle has gone "out of style" in America.
After many years as a registered Democrat, I have switched my voter registration for the privilege of voting for Mr. Keyes in the Pennsylvania primary. I'm pleased to see he intends to push on to the convention.
Congratulations again on a fine article.
John C. - Allentown, PA
John is not the only disgruntled Democrat who has written to me. Yet, I haven't heard it mentioned in the so-called "dominant media." First, only a small minority of registered Democrats came out to vote for either Al Gore OR Bill Bradley. As a former Democrat, I suspect that may be because the "Blue Dog" Democrats, who tend to be socially conservative, are not happy campers right now. They have been terribly embarrassed by their chief in the White House, Bill Clinton. They don't want a repeat.
Also, many of them don't really believe that wanting some of their own money back in a tax cut is all that terrible and, as loyal Americans, they are troubled by what they see as their party's cavalier attitude towards illegal fund-raising and nuclear weapons secrets that seem to have found their way into the hands of those contributing to the Clinton-Gore campaigns. Quite a number of them seem to have voted for John McCain. Perhaps many of them were spoilers wanting to choose the Republican candidate.
However, many may very well may be voters who are too conservative for Bradley and Gore's left-wing agendas. But, none of this seems to be reported. I can well imagine what the stories would be like if the REPUBLICANS were only getting a few thousand people out to vote in their primary. I don't think we'd be hearing about any Republican "landslide" victories.
Perhaps we need fewer Democrat cheerleaders and more real journalists who report actual facts in the American media.
mmostert@originalsources.com
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