>expanding on a post of mine from about a month ago:
>
>Curtis Gans -- the 'dean' of experts on the American electorate -- was
>interviewed on C-SPAN on Sept.10.
>Among the things he mentioned:
>
>1 He's estimating a turnout of between 58 and 60 % (between 118 and 121
>million voters). This would be the highest turnout since '68, and would
>be significantly higher than in recent elections.
>2 He said the election could be close, but if it wasn't this would be to
>Kerry's benefit (i.e. Kerry would win big).
>3 Women will probably have a 4% greater share of the vote than men (this
>is because there are 2 % more women in the population to begin with, and
>because a greater percentage of women vote than do men).
>4 Every poll of voter interest shows 10-15% higher than at this time four
>years ago. He attributed this to, "the Bush administration has served as
>a lightening rod. There is a polarized public around the president's
>policies."
>5 "It is almost INCONCEIVABLE that people will not come out. It is an
>emotional election. It is despite the campaigns, a big picture election."
>(an exact quote).
>
>There have beem various reports recently of unprecedented numbers of
>people registereing to vote for the first time, and that the overwhelming
>majority of these people are being registered by Democratic Party activists.
>
>The 'anecdotal' -- i.e. non-poll -- evidence points to a good possibility
>of a Kerry landslide.
>
>ira glazer
There was a John Zogby article posted here that came to much the same conclusion. Several months ago I came to expect this as the probable outcome as well. We will soon find out. It is always so interesting how people interpret the same data in such different ways. Was the data available much different three months ago vs. five months ago? Somewhere within that time frame I switched from thinking W would probably win to expecting Kerry to win with a good possibility of a landslide.
John Thornton