By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
March 17, 2000
Now that most of the media pundits have told you that the Tuesday primary elections put both Gore and Bush "over the top" with delegates, what is needed for a win in the general election? We were told by Jodie T. Allen of U.S. News and World Report that the California vote was a "big win" for Al Gore and, a "big enough" win for George W. Jodie Allen tells us "left leaning" Californians will insist on a move to the left by Bush. Bush will have to "move away" from the Right if he dares even HOPE for any kind of victory in November.
David Broder, of the Washington Post, on March 5th, before the California election, that Californians will demand a move away from traditional conservative principles on "guns, abortion and the environment" for the Republican Presidential candidate, pointing out that the Democrats hold a 10 point lead in voter registration in the State.
"It may be a long time before Republicans become fully competitive again in the nation’s biggest state," Broder said. "But at least they have stopped digging ever deeper into the ditch."
The only problem with this doom and gloom approach to what happened to the Republicans in California on Tuesday is that they WON the primary election. There is considerable question whether or not George W. Bush actually NEEDS the Democrats at all in the General Election.
Democrats Al Gore, Bill Bradley and Lyndon LaRouche combined got 43.3% of the of the total 7,084,724 votes cast by Californians in the Primary. George Bush, Steve Forbes, Gary Bauer, Alan Keyes, Orrin Hatch and John McCain (all were still on the ballot) received 54.4% of the total vote cast. The remaining 2.3% of votes were cast by the Reform Party, Natural Law Party, Libertarian Party, Green Party and American Independent Party.
While the dominant media would have us believe that John McCain was the only candidate receiving cross-over votes, on a percentage basis McCain actually received fewer cross-over votes than several minor party candidates received. Donald Trump received 20 cross-over votes for every Reform Party member. John Hagelin, Natural Law Party received nearly 6 votes for every party member vote. Ralph Nader, Green Party Candidate, received 4 cross over votes for every party member vote he received. Howard Phillips received 2 cross over votes for every American Independent Party vote he received. Harry Brown received more than 1 cross-over vote for every Libertarian Party member vote he received.
Among Republicans, John McCain had about 1 cross-over vote, for every two Republican votes. Alan Keyes had one cross-over vote for about every three Republican votes. George W. Bush’s cross-over vote was one cross-over voter for every five Republican votes. However, Orrin Hatch, who dropped out of the race in January, received one cross-over vote for three Republicans; Steve Forbes got one cross over vote for about every 2 Republican votes and Gary Bauer’s cross-over vote was about 1 vote in three Republicans.
There also was a cross-over vote for the Democrats as well. Lyndon LaRouche’s cross-over vote was almost one cross-over to every five Democrats; . Bill Bradley’s cross-over vote was one in four Democrats and Al Gore’s cross-over vote was about one cross-over for every six Democrats.
So, faced with a ballot on election day in November, assuming everything stays the same (which of course it won’t) what can we expect will happen to all those other votes - votes for Bradley, McCain, Forbes, Bauer, Keyes, Hatch and Larouche? Bear in mind that the total number of votes for the Republicans was nearly 800,000 more than for the Democrats. If Al Gore was able to pick up ALL of Bill Bradley’s Democrat party votes, he would have 2,892,516. Where would Bradley’s cross-over votes go? Who knows? But if we give 17% of them to Al Gore that would bring Gore up to 2,917,424.
If George W. Bush only picks up the Republican votes from the other candidates, he would have a total of 3,037,885 votes. It would appear that George W. Bush doesn’t really need ANY more Democrat or Independent votes to beat Al Gore. So, where in the world did David Broder get his figures on Wednesday, March 15th, before the California Elections department had posted the votes that led him to write: "No one is better positioned to validate Bush’s candidacy to the millions of independent-minded voters who are wavering between Bush and Vice President Al Gore than John McCain."
There are simply no reliable figures on which to base such a statement. The Independents are just that - independent. They are not going to be pushed by the media, like a bunch of sheep, into the arms of Al Gore. The actual vote, not some rigged exit poll question, clearly shows that George W. Bush has a greater appeal for Independent voters than Al Gore has.
Broder wrote on March 5th , nine days before the California Primary that perhaps nothing could "deliver Republican victories in California this year." Garry South, who managed Davis’ race in 1998 and now is a consultant to Vice President Gore, says that when focus groups are given what he calls "the facts" about the potential Republican presidential nominees positions and records on guns, abortion and the environment, ‘support for them collaapses.
"It may be a long time before Republicans become fully competitive again in the nation’s biggest state."
He couldn’t have been more wrong. George W. Bush is already 8 percentage points ahead of Al Gore, according to the March 14th vote. Broder used, incredibly, as a "reason" for Bush to "extend himself in salving the wounds of his hard-fought primary battles with John McCain is the speech that McCain can give at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia next August." Of course, Broder observed, there might have to be a bit of a discussion with John before the Convention "McCain would have to agree not to use his prime-time appearance to take another bite out of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, lest there be a lynching party formed on the floor of the convention."
Besides, Broder went on to say, "Look at the nominating speach Mark Salter (McCain’s Chief of Staff) wrote and McCain delivered for Bob Dole at the 1996 Convention - far and away the best speech of that week."
We are discussing a speech writer to liven up the Republican Convention - and not even MENTIONING the best speech giver in modern politics in any party - Alan Keyes? Alan Keyes doesn’t need a speech writer. He speaks from the heart and he speaks from an incredible store of knowledge of the founding documents and history of the United States. What is the determined stance on the part of writers like Broder to pretend that Alan Keyes doesn’t exist? Broder said, in the same column:
"There are two - and only two- speeches in Philadelphia that will draw big television audiences. One is the acceptance address Bush will give. And (assuming someone other than Colin Powell is the vice-presidential nominee) the other is the McCain speech. You think millions of Americans are going to tune in to watch Trent Lott or Dennis Hastert?"
I wonder if Broder was on the same planet I’ve been on for the last four months. If it’s big television audiences you want, George Bush needs to give Alan Keyes a prominent role at the Republican Convention. Why in the world would anyone be talking about Colin Powell as an aid to the Republican campaign? He’s pro-choice, and pro-affirmative action, two prominent Democrat positions, has, never campaigned before, and although he’s a nice guy, we know nothing of his views on other issues.
We know Alan Keyes’ positions and we know he inspires audiences and we know, in spite of an almost total media black-out, he has brought a lot of people into the Republican party and that 34% of those moving to his side are not Republicans. He’s a Harvard Ph.d and probably the most knowledgeable man in America in foreign policy. In a world full of millions of people yearning to be free, he can inspire them and repair the incredible damage done to America’s image by Bill Clinton’s policies and immoral behavior. And we know that he managed to stay in the race because he was able to raise money from small donations from many thousands of people on the Internet. Alan got more votes in several states than John McCain got - and it simply hasn’t been reported!
Broder wrote that "McCain can raise the tone of the Convention and lift the level of the campaign by the quality of his rhetoric." That "rhetoric" he then went on to say came from a speech writer. Left to his own devices, McCain insults farmers in Iowa, the Christian Right in South Carolina, tries to start a religious war inside the Republican Party by encouraging Catholics to stake out a claim on victim status.
There is no more dangerous time than when the news gets boring. That’s when some folks will do whatever they can to stir up a story. That’s how we got involved in the Spanish American War. There was a news war going on in New York between two papers - William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer of the World.
They, followed by other papers, sent hundreds of correspondents to Cuba to report the "war." One of them, an artist named Frederick Remington, found little to report on when they arrived. "There is no war," Remington wrote to his boss. "Request to be recalled."
Remington's boss, William Randolph Hearst, sent a cable in reply: "Please remain. You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." And he did, with a series of fabricated stories not at all unlike the fabricated stories that got us into a war with Yugoslavia last year.
I think we may be in a similar period of time now. There’s not much exciting stuff going on. No war. No really interesting political stories. The media seems to fear the prospects of eight more months of trying to write stories about Al Gore and George W. Bush. No impeachment. No stock market crash. Just, boring, boring, boring. Boring brings out the worst in some newspaper editors.
The McCain story seemed more designed to sell papers than to report a political story. It never was that good a story, and, had it been anyone else trying to create a religious war among various faiths, the very newspapers using those stories to bolster the McCain campaign would have been criticizing his actions.
If someone besides George W. Bush is going to choose the Republican Vice President (no one seems to care who the Democrat will be) the voters ought to have a chance to be heard. If you have a preference, for either party, send me an e-mail at www.originalsources.com and let me now who you would pick.
To send this to your members of Congress, favorite Talk Show Host or State Party headquarters, find e-mail addresses at: the People’s Lobby at: http://www.originalsources.com/PLobby/TableofContents.html
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