The reason Daschle lost
By jannelsen Posted in Elections — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Morality.
And the CNN exit poll proves it.
Twenty-five percent of the voters rated "moral values" as the most important issue in the South Dakota Senate race. (Iraq was 21 percent, and terrorism was 18 percent.)
For this 25 percent "moral voter," 81 percent voted for Thune. Eighty-one percent! Thune, in comparison, 19 percent.
Doing the math in a rough, spitballing fashion, that means that 20.25 percent of South Dakota voters based their vote against Daschle, or for Thune, primarily on the basis of morality. Total votes for both candidates were 391,093. Thune's margin of victory was 4,535.
But 20.25 percent of the total votes, 391,093, is 79,196 votes. Seventeen times Thune's margin of victory.
Daschle was held accountable for his dissembling on abortion, pretending to be an anti-abortion candidate while raising money for NARAL and Emily's List, his faux Catholicism, his going to a friendly judge on election eve to block Republican observers, his Washington, D.C.'s mansion and tax deduction, his decision to welcome DSCC ads after complaining for a year about third-party campaign commercials, and on and on and on.
In a conservative state, it just got to be too much. And Thune and Dick Waldham, Thune's brilliant campaign advisor, recognized that reality and campaigned accordingly.
P.S. The CNN exit polls are great.
P.P.S. I've already praised the S.D. bloggers over and over again. I think this is the first statewide election to have been shaped decisively by blogging.
« Question and answer time: the Wes Clark thing. — Comments (50) | Discuss . . . — Comments (11) »
The reason Daschle lost 5 Comments (0 topical, 5 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Checked on Rhode Island, which was as urban of a state as I could think. Or New Jersey, I suppose.
Ninety-three percent of Rhode Islanders do not consider themselves white conservative Protestants. Same percentage as New Jersey.
I initially drew the same conclusion, but then I realized that the "Most important issue" question pertained to the Presidential race, not the Senate race (the fuller header is, "Which ONE issue mattered most in deciding how you voted for president?" as is seen in NBC's copy of the exit polls here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5297340/).
I'm sure that moral values are part of the reason that Daschle lost, but unfortunately, these numbers aren't the ones we're looking for.
I hear you...Moral values, terrorism and Iraq were defining issues for Bush, too. It was a presidential year, and he could well have had coattails.
But, I think you should recognize the unique nature of the "moral values" question in South Dakota. The thrust of most of the campaign criticism against Daschle was that he had abandoned his S.D. roots, his moral foundation learned growing up in South Dakota.
Hence, the moral values question breaks toward Thune.
As I said initially, I completely agree with the notion that the moral values issue cost Daschle the election. A door-to-door kid tried to convince my wife that "Tom" was pro-life back in September, and I had the same experience with a young woman calling on the phone.
My only point was that the actual numbers in the exit poll pertained to the presidential election... I was really hoping to be able to say that twenty-some percent of South Dakotans saw moral values as issue #1, but that number is for the other race. Who knows, maybe it's higher... I wonder if there was any exit polling done with those questions asked regarding the senate race in particular.
I haven't checked all the polls, but I'm just wondering about this question they asked to S.D.ers:
Do they ask:
In Big Cities?