[lbo-talk] Republicans see opportunity in split

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thu Jul 28 09:39:27 PDT 2005


Michael Hoover wrote:
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> fwiw: some mainstream poli sci people claim there is little difference in political attitudes of voters and non-voters, thus, they assert that markedly higher turnout would produce few differences in already existing outcomes... michael hoover

One problem with this, as I've noted before, is that 'something' has to happen for non-voters to become voters. That is, the mainstream claim may well be true of non-voters so long as they remain non-voters, but events that would move them to become voters might well _also_ motivate them to change the vote they "would have" cast had they not voted! Contrary-to-fact conditionals are never easy to interpret.

If I remember correctly, the number of black voters increased greatly in the 1936 election -- which also was the election which saw a huge shift in black voter preference from Republicans to Democrats. That is, previous non-voting (black) Republicans became voting (black) Democrats.

The present (especially as caught up in a snapshot of opinion) offers a very uncertain prophecy of the future.

Carrol



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