On Nov 8, 2006, at 2:47 PM, Julio Huato wrote:
> oug replied to my remarks:
>
>>> stopping the war in Iraq,
>>
>> Not necessarily - they just want a little less of it. Lamont lost and
>> Lieberman won in a liberal state. Immediate withdrawal gets little
>> support, and a lot of the Dems who won were chosen by Emmanuel
>> because they weren't seriously antiwar.
>
> I think *this* is going to be the contentious issue in interpreting
> the outcome. What was it -- the handpicking ability of Emmanuel and
> Schumer or the turnout?
We both could be right - the liberal/activist base was energized (which, by the way, is the Dem version of Rove's strategy: energize the base, and the hell with the undecideds), but so were the "moderates" and "independents." Independents went Dem by 18 points, the beset showing in 20 years. Some classic "Reagan Democrat" demographics - like white Catholics, who went Dem by 2 points - swung to the Dems in this race. Whites overall still voted Republican (by 4 points - it's all Protestants!). In other words, a big chunk of Middle America went Dem because they thought the Reps had gone too far. While this is a lot better than nothing, and something activists on the left can work with, I would't get carried away with the "sea- change" rhetoric that some liberals are spouting.
Doug