On Oct 3, 2007, at 1:33 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
> Carrol, I believe, made the point earlier that there is less to votes
> than meets the eye. In particular, votes cast in a safely lost cause
> are largely a matter of playing to the gallery without any risk
> of upsetting the angels who are funding the production.
But that's probably always been true, so the change is still real.
> I might have to concede that D's and R's are marketing themselves
> to non-identical though extensively overlapping demographics within
> the corporate/financial elites.
But they can't win elections without winning popular support. The R's pitch to bigots and the petite bourgeoisie; D's to the working class. They've got to throw some red meat to these constituencies now & then.
At the elite level, there's overlap for sure, but there are also some sectors that are pretty partisan: extractive industries to Reps, Hollywood to Dems. Finance is way more Dem than retail or mfg.