[lbo-talk] Stop Flogging the Dead Donkey and Own the Power of a Spoiler

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Wed Jan 12 06:57:26 PST 2005


Jon Johanning zenner41 at mac.com, Tue Jan 11 19:15:47 PST 2005
>But then the question arises, what really distinguishes Kerry voters
>from ABBers? ABBers said, "We'll vote for anyone but Bush." Kerry
>was nominated, thus becoming the "anyone but Bush." The sin beyond
>forgiving (sin against the Holy Ghost?) of the ABBers was that they
>supported Kerry rather than Nader (or maybe some other third-party
>candidate). So did all the Kerry voters.

In the exit poll, most Kerry voters didn't say that they were voting for Kerry to vote against Bush. When asked if "your vote for president was mostly for your candidate or against his opponent," only 25% answered "against his opponent." Kerry's share of the 25% of voters who said they voted against his opponent was 71%. That means the Anybody But Bush voters was roughly 18% of the popular vote, a minority of Kerry voters.

The majority of Kerry voters voted for him either (1) because they agreed with him on all or most of his positions or (2) because, having misunderstood some or all of his positions, they thought they agreed with him. Kerry voters in the category (1) are most likely richer than Kerry voters in the category (2).

The Anybody But Bush voters, in contrast, were mainly leftists who (being media junkies) knew where Kerry stood, disagreed with him on all or most of his positions (especially about Iraq), and yet managed to convince themselves that it's a sin to "spoil" the presidential election.

Can leftists, whether they voted for Kerry or Nader or any other candidate in 2004, stop flogging the dead donkey and (like Frederick Douglass) resolve to own the power of a spoiler from now on? -- Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * "Proud of Britain": <http://www.proudofbritain.net/ > and <http://www.proud-of-britain.org.uk/>



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