I would be very surprised if Gore won the electoral votes without winning the popular votes. That’s very hard to do nowadays. That would require Gore to win a lot of big states by small margins or Bush to have overwhelming support in only one region.
When this last happened, in 1888, Cleveland (a Democrat) lost, but at that time, Republicans garnered very few votes in the South, creating the disparity between the popular and electoral votes.
1876 was a similar situation and that election had plenty of fraud to go around on both sides.
1824 also had the same setup, but that was a weird election with no parties and no clear favorite.
[hijack alert]In addition to the points cited above, there are a couple other things to take into consideration re the 3 cases where the winning candidate did not receive a plurality of the popular vote.
In 1876 and 1888 elections there was widespread violence, intimitation and terrorism to keep black voters away from the polls. At that time blacks were strongly commited to the party of Lincoln, and would have voted Republican overwhelmingly. If allowed to exercise their right to vote, they probably would have supplied enough to give the Republican victors a popular plurality also.
The case of 1824 is unique for another reason besides the 4 way race and lack of parties. If you consult reference works you do not find any popular vote totals for presidential elections up to and including 1820. That is because up until then most states did not choose their presidential electors by popular ballot, but by vote of the state legislature. BY 1824 the move to popular ballot was well underway, but it was not complete. Fully 25 % of the states did not hold popular elections for presidential electors that year- thus, the reported popular vote totals may be misleading. [end hijack alert]
So the concensus of opinion is that liberal issues combined with redistricting has caused the Dems to lose the south.
It seems interesting to me that the black districts that are allowed by law are the inner-city focused districts. This seems to result in the congressional black cacus representing a large percentage of intergenerational welfare reciepients. This pushes the Democrat party as a whole to the left, and leaves the more conservative rural black population with no significant representation. (Note: I’m implying that rural blacks are more conservative than city blacks based only on my personal experience. I know of no data to support or deny this.)
A few seperate thoughts…
I just want to go on record that I never meant to imply that we roll back civil rights, or give up on the ideas of equality. I was only saying that affirmative action, as currently implimented, is unpopular. We could, for example, have a aff. action program based on income level (class). And then institute a federal matching funds program to start high quality math and science schools in the inner cities. This should insure that when young blacks get to colledge or the work force they could compete on an equal basis, and not need race based aff. action.
We could also start a national abortion reduction program with an emphasis on adoption as the better choice. There could be a nation adoption database, and funds available to families who adopt a unwanted child.
As far a gun control the Dems could stop focusing on gun bans and registration. They could instead focus on gun buy back programs in the inner cities and a voluntary national please use gun locks campaign to raise gun safty awareness. Most gun loving people don’t have a problem with gun safty and voluntary programs.
Oh well, I guess I just wishing for a return of the good old days when the Republicans were the “bad guys” and the Democrats were the “good guys.” Now days it’s more of a “who would I rather be screwed over by for the next few years” kind of situation.
And if this conversation is going to go on (its a great one, by the way - I love politics), I say we go state by state (in the South). Here’s my initial thoughts.
State – Votes – '96 – my thoughts for this year
Alabama - (9) — R – same
Arkansas- (6) — D – same
Georgia - (13) — R – same
Kentucky- (8) — D – switch
Louisiana (9) — D – switch
Mississippi (7) – R – definitely same
N. Carolina (14)-- R – same
S. Carolina (8) – R – same (could be close)
Tennessee (11) – D – same
I didn’t include Texas or Florida, as I don’t consider those southern states. Florida voted Dem. last time. For shits and giggles, I’ll have them vote Rep. I also think Michigan, Arizona, New Jersey and Pennsylvania will switch to Rep.
I think Jersey’s going to go Gore this year. I think I get my reasoning from a David Broder column (I can’t remember where I get anything these days, but I’m pretty sure that’s it.)
He said that with the Lieberman pick, it’ll take Connecticut out of contention (8 electoral votes) and give Gore a stronger lead in New York. And if Dubya thinks Gore has a lock on NY he’ll pull some of his ads from expensive NY television…and New Jersey gets most of their TV from New York and Philly.
As for the South: it could go either way in North Carolina or Georgia, although it will be about 60-40 odds in favor of going to the Governor. My bet is that South Carolina is going to vote for Bush.
And TampaFlyer, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a Gore victory and a close race. He may have been behind the entire campaign, but soon he’ll get his own post-convention bounce and in the debates he is absolutely going to murder Bush.
If I remember correctly, up until 1994, the Dems had a serious majority in Congress… its only in the past 6 years that they’ve really been playing spoilsport.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but even under Reagan, there were enough “Reagan Democrats” to keep things humming in Congress…
Of course, I could be completely wrong, my memory is a bit fuzzy, since I was all of 6 when Reagan was prez
Reagan Democrats were democrats that were swayed to vote for Ronnie and the GOP back in 1980, putting a few more Reps. into Congress, but not enough to create a majority. It didn’t apply to (or at least was very seldom used to describe) elected democrats.
That’s an idea, tho in most cities (I’ll use Jackson for an example) the schools are A: Poor already and B: Majority Black, so what’s the point of creating new schools? You’ve got the raw tools right there. Given Jackson, I’d MUCH rather see M&S schools for all, which would draw whites back into the public schools, which would give white parents a reason to take interest in them once again.
Oh, and I didn’t mean to imply you were implying we roll it back. Just a cautionary statement, from a southerner. You know how everyone considers us racists. (/sarcasm)
Heck… I’ll have to do this later… Wife’s Mom just died.
I meant that Gore would win a plurality, but not a majority, ie the 3rd & 4th, etc parties would suck maybe 10% out of the total vote, with Gore 46% and Bush 44% or something like that.
Still feel Gore has it by state. South is split, Pacific coast is Gore, Northeast is Gore, SW is Bush, Midwest is split.
And Lieberman is who made Fla possible for Gore. Otherwise, Bush.
I think it’d be the height of irony if Gore won Texas, and no other state.
That being said… I’ve seen several “surveys” of state preferences. The most conservative (found by my ultra-conservative Mormon father) claims that Bush has at least two dozen states locked in, while Gore only has “slight support” in four. Another claims that Gore can carry the election no prob. My analysis? Each camp makes their own surveys and puts 'em into mass production, hoping to sway all those people that want to vote for the winning side.
Spoofe, that’s a very interesting comment. Now that I think about it, I bet a lot of people decide their vote based just on who they think is going to win. Probably gives them a sense of security. I bet Bush will get a lot of these votes.
