ok Wes Clark CAN help bring in crossover voters

[JI7]

i was looking at the numbers again in tennesse and virginia. and in tennessee kerry won the democratic vote while he almost tied with edwards in independent votes. but Clark won the republican votes there.

in virginia kerry won the democratic votes and the independent votes while edwards won the republican votes.

i have included the numbers below with the candidates initials and the percentage they got for each party voter next to it. the percentages in paranthesis after the party are the percentage of voters that were of that party. for example, in tennesse 75 percent of the voters were democrats, 5 percent republican 20 percent independent.



tennessee
WC HD JE JK DK AS

Democrat (75%) 22% 4% 25% 46% 1% 2%
Republican (5%) 30% 4% 26% 20% 2% 5%
Independent (20%)25% 7% 32% 31% 1% 1%

virginia
WC HD JE JK DK AS
Democrat (73%) 8% 7% 23% 57% 1% 3%
Republican (5%) 13% 13% 48% 13% 0% 4%
Independent (22%)12% 8% 32% 41% 2% 3%



http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/primaries/pages/epolls/VA/index.html

as you can see kerry does very well among democratic voters and pretty well among independent voters. but he needs a little help with republican voters. i believe these are voters who view kerry as too liberal and would feel better voting for kerry based on vp. they are most likely not happy with bush but don't hate him personally. these are the ones who help kerry gain with mccain on the ticket.

[Renew Deal]

1. Edwards repubke vote is a scam.

They voted for him to keep the primaries alive.

[Leprechan29]

2. Thats what I run into

I would definitely support Clark, but I cannot decide whether Clark or Edwards would be a better move for Kerry's running mate. The CNN 'veepstakes' seemed to agree - It came down to Clark and Edwards, though Edwars ended up winning.

[JI7]

3. what will help bring the republicans who don't like bush to the ticket ?

we already know kerry does well among democrats, and polls show him doing well among independents.

but there are some republicans out there who are not happy with bush, but they still question kerry. he is from massachusettes and they worry he is too liberal for them. i think they need something to make them feel "comfortable" voting for the ticket. mccain does this of course because he is a republican himself. but i would rather have a democratic candidate who helps with it.

[Kahuna]

5. Edwards was also winning the MSNBC veepstakes. Clark is winning it now..

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4565073/


Once again the lesson here is: THINGS CHANGE.

[Padraig18]

6. Yup, online polls certainly do change... n/t

[Kahuna]

8. ALL polls change. Remember when Dean was a "sure winner?"

And Kerry was down and out? How soon they forget. :eyes:

[indepat]

4. Wes Clark could utterly destroy all the neocon chicken-shit-hawks for:

he could literally shoot a plethora of proverbial rockets up each and every one of their asses, figuratively blast every one of them out of the water by exposing every chicken-shit lie they tell and have told and exposing every idiotic military fantasy they espouse. Hopefully Kerry realizes or will realize this in time.

[Lefty Pragmatist]

7. He doesn't need to be VP to do that.

And in fact opening up yet another front for the GOP to have to smear, by having Wes hit hard from the bleachers, is a great idea.

[Jai4WKC08]

13. No, it isn't

Because the media will not carry Clark unless he's the VP. Right now, they do, mostly because the Kerry campaign is presenting him as Kerry's surrogate. But even now, you almost never see Clark on the broadcast networks, and never at night. Only the cable news, who have a lot more time to fill. And believe it or not, there are a LOT of voters who don't or can't watch CNN, MSNBC, FOX etc. But once Kerry has a VP, whoever it is will be the only "surrogate" the media takes seriously.

That's not to say Clark still won't help out if he's not VP. He has a book planned to come out in Sept, for example, that I am sure is planned to make an impact on the election. He will likely continue to campaign for Kerry around the country. And if Kerry does choose to announce a "shadow cabinet" I suspect Clark will be in it, and that will likely help too in getting people to listen. But his message won't reach near as many people, and he won't debate Cheney, if he isn't the VP nominee.

[Scoopie]

9. I think this may be the thread to tell my story

and why I'm so adament that the Edwards support in Tennessee was bogus Republican support - in other words that they were just voting for him to keep the miltiary guys - Clark and Kerry - out of it. Keep in mind that Tennessee is known as the Volunteer State because we've had so many young people voluteer to join the military. Republicans here didn't want to see someone with military experience going up against Bush.
There are several incidents to which I can point, but, for space I'm going to limit it to three.
1.) Virtually no visible Edwards support. I never saw a yard sign. I never saw a bumper sticker. I was out campaigning and probably would have had the opportunity to see these things, even more so than the average person. And I never saw ONE sticker, yard sign or whatever, for Edwards. I saw tons for Clark, plenty for Kerry and one or two for Dean, and, gosh, even a few for Kucinich, but NONE, ZERO, ZILCH for Edwards.
2.) On election day, one of my co-workers, who is a solid Republian, told me that he was going to go vote in his local, non-partisan school board race and, while he was voting, he was going to vote for Edwards. Perplexed, I asked why he - a staunch Republican - would vote in the Democratic primary. He said he didn't want Kerry to win and that Edwards would be weakest against Bush. I then asked him what would happen if Edwards actually did get the nomination and, because he was so loved by the media, actually beat Bush. He paled - and voted for Clark because he said he would be comfortable with him if he beat Bush. (Weird, huh?)
3.) On the day of the election, I heard from others working the polls that they were running into similar stories regarding Edwards - Republicans turning out en masse to vote for him. We had other elections going on that day - school board and city elections - so it wasn't as if these people got off their duff to make a trip down just to screw up the Democratic primaries, but, while they were out voting for their school board represenative, they also decided to do that very thing - screw it up. These people weren't voting for someone whom they would then vote for in November against Bush - they were voting for the weakest viable candidate. They knew Dean was done, by this point.

If I had seen even a modicum of support for Edwards, then I wouldn't have necessarily jumped to this conclusion, but there wasn't and I did. Couple that with the half-dozen or so conservative websites that promoted this idea and the run-down of the exit returns, and I'm sure that I'm right.

[Tom Rinaldo]

10. I thought you might find this article interesting

Seems in some conservative states some folks actually still think Clark IS Republican lol. Actually I think this is great (aside from being disturbed about the quality of education going on nowadays). Doesn't matter HOW Progressive Clark actually is, some people insist on thinking of him as moderate to conservative BECAUSE for God's Sake he's a General! Clark is our Trojan horse for God fearing rural America.

From a Montana newspaper: http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2004/05/28/newsbutte_top/hjjfjehbihhbfb.txt

Kerry tromps Bush (at East Middle) - Students put Babb, Lynch onto chief executive ballot in the fall

BY BARBARA LABOE of The Montana Standard - 05/28/2004



"If East Middle School students had the vote, John Kerry and Wesley
Clark would trounce their opponents in the primary, and J.D. Lynch and Paul Babb would face-off for chief executive in the general election.

Those are the results of a mock primary election held at the school Wednesday and Thursday. All 700 students voted, casting sample ballots in social studies classes.

In the presidential category, Kerry received 300 votes compared to 167 for John Edwards. Republican Wesley Clark also defeated incumbent President George Bush with 135 votes to 89..."


By the way, thanks for being among those here at DU who keeps an open mind, and is looking for good data no matter where it might lead you.

Edited to provide link

[Scoopie]

11. I also think the more telling

aspect of those exit polls are those that poll people on how they feel about the Bush Administration and how they voted...
Just a thought.

[Jai4WKC08]

14. Definitely, Scoop

The main point I've seen made here is not whether more Repub and independent primary voters voted for Clark or Edwards. It was that of those voters, when they were asked how they felt about the economy, Iraq and other issues, those who voted for Edwards were MUCH more likely to say everything was good or great under the Bush administration. THAT was the basis for claiming that Edwards' cross-over support was "mischievous" and did not indicate how they would vote in the general election.

[cosmokramer]

15. You hit the nail on the head.

[cosmokramer]

12. Clark was enormously popular here in Ohio...

...among the retired military, active duty, seniors, college students, and independants and republicans. He IS an alternative who persons from other parties will surely vote...and more importantly, he is the authority on what needs to be done in Iraq. Ohio remembers him from the Dayton Accords, as well (it was a huge deal here in the Buckeye State).

Remember on CNN his commentary during the war...Everything he said came true. Clark was RIGHT about what would go wrong. Folks remember that, especially the military folks. This will go a long way in winning MEGA votes for Kerry/Clark in November. Clark makes solid Kerry's military record, and has the added benefit of being a terrific negotiator and diplomat. Kerry/Clark would trounce Bush/Cheney all day long.

[Darkamber]

16. Both Clark and Edwards can bring in swing Republicans...

I'm convinced more then ever before that if we support one candidate that we tend to have friends who hold the same values as us. For example my family are all Republicans..McCain type from Arizona and I have Republican friends in WA, IL and WISC. When I spoke to them about the primary and talked about the issues they all said they liked Edwards and if Edwards was picked they would probably vote for him over Bush. My parents had some very unpleasant things to say about Clark and I never mentioned him to them at all, but they liked Edwards.

So...I think both Clark and Edwards can bring in Swing Republicans and Independents. I know too many Republicans who really like Edwards and wanted a chance to vote for him in the General to believe that some how it was rigged vote.

The point I think of which one could bring in the most Swing Republican votes isn't that important as I think they both can do it.
In the end, Kerry will have to make the decision on which one he wants to go with or if he wants to go with someone completely different.

One thing I'm pretty sure of is Kerry will make sure that both of these men have a place in his administration. The Democrats need both of them for now and for the future.