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By David Rogers
November 8, 2004
The New Editor
The explanation being pushed by the media elite and the get-out-the-vote specialists (read:
Karl Rove) is that Republicans simply did a better job of getting out their base vote than ever
before. The Economist, a fair barometer of mainstream journalistic opinion, said that the GOP
victory at every level across the country “reflects the party's greater success at get-out-the-
vote (GOTV) efforts.” Hence, the party identification of actual voters this year switched
from 39% Democrat and 35% Republican in 2000 to 37% of each.
Maybe it was more efficient Republican GOTV that got out an additional 5 million voters for
the president this time around. OR MAYBE THERE ARE JUST MORE REPUBLICANS.
I’m going with Occam’s razor on this one – the simpler explanation is more likely to be true.
Why? Why would Democrats switch parties? And why would they do so in overwhelming
numbers? (Since Kerry beat Bush by 9 points among the 11% of first-time voters, that
means that Kerry lost 3, not 2 percent of voters who previously identified as Democrats –
almost 10 percent of his entire party. On top of that, Kerry lost 15 percent of all voters who
still self-identified as Democrats.
Why? Why would Democrats abandon John Kerry like the plague?
Because he was going to get them killed.
To paraphrase the French-looking candidate who, by the way, served in Vietnam -- he turned
his back on his country and abandoned his comrades as a young man, and as president, he
would turn his back on his country and abandon his comrades again.
“Cut-and-run” Kerry was never, ever, ever going to be president.
Surrender on the field of battle is not an American option. But for John Kerry, the first
Democratic presidential candidate to embrace Jimmy Carter since 1980, surrender is always
an option.
John Kerry cheered America’s defeat in Vietnam, and he was cheering for America’s defeat
again today. Today, America is cheering his defeat.
It ain’t rocket science. But you won’t see it in your local daily.
David Rogers is a contributing editor for The New Editor.
Paul Geary
David Rogers