> He maintains that both parties are focusing on extremely negative
> campaigns. The goal is turn off voters. Each party wants to reduce the
> electorate to their core constituents, each side believing that they
> will win that way.
>
> If what's he is saying is correct, and he's pretty astute when it
> comes to these things, then Shrubya doesn't give a flip about the far
> rightwingers or the xtian fundamentalists and Kerrybot doesn't give a
> flip about left wingers or even disaffected independents and
> republicans. When those people vote, they're just going to fuxor up
> the works.
Well, that's a hypothetical explanation of the observable facts that has some plausibility, and I can't right now think of a way of falsifying it. Certainly this strategy would be cost-saving, since it's damned expensive to run those get-out-the-vote campaigns.
But if both parties are using this strategy, Gawd help the DP; it appears to me that, at this point, its core constituency is a lot smaller than the GOP's. Another theory which might also account for observations is that both W and K don't care much about their right and left flanks, respectively, because they're both trying to get at the swing voters in the middle. But if that were W's plan, I'd expect him to raise the dynamics on the "compassionate conservatism" theme in his symphony. I suppose Rove has given up on that one, though, and they expect to win on the "wartime Prexy" approach.
In any case, I agree with Mike from Down Under (I suppose that down there they call *us* "Down Under") that the non-voters are not exactly flaming radicals.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit, 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live the more fool am I. -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)