> According to the American National Election Survey,
> about 75% of voters in 2004 saw a clear difference
> between the two parties, and about 80% cared who
> won - both the highest levels since the question
> was first asked after the election of 1952. * * *
> Most radicals who take the not a dime's worth
> of difference line seem to think they're speaking for
> the masses, but evidently the masses don't agree. So
> how to reconcile?
To refer to "the masses" might suggest the desirability of correspondingly referring to . . . well, . . . numbers in mass; and in this connection there appears to be a poll of much more significance than an opinion poll -- namely, the votes in the 2004 election itself.
In mass numbers, this was pretty much in equipoise except for a slightly more than merely 2% tipping in the popular tally of about 62 million votes.
Granted, one can play with the numbers to try to break out differing degrees of ardor (or not) for the Republican Party or for the Democratic Party candidate within the respective groupings (not to dwell on the comparatively tiny percentage of votes for others); but . . . again . . . mass numbers, a near equality, hardly suggest more than what metaphorically is referred to as a dimes worth of difference between the parties or their candidates.