Reply #3: yep, that's the newest Gooper talking point [View All]

Saw Bill Schneider making exactly the same 'argument' on CNN yesterday. A clear reminder that Analogy is the last word of science and the first of Faith.

The difference between 1988 and 2004 is a ~12%-15% change in the electorate. About 40% of the electorate was liberal-leaning enough in 1988 to convincedly vote Democratic then; Dukakis had to appeal to conservative leaners. That's why he had to be so utterly mushy and try the retro thing- to get aged conservative Roosevelt Democrats back. That got him an additional 6% for 46% but obviously fell short.

We've gained 3% nationally every 4 years since 1988. But our side's earlier generation of incumbents aged out and retired mostly in the middle '90s while Republicans unified the conservative opposition. In 2000 we had a 49/48 advantage (3% consistently stay AWOL from the core conflict) but the R's had the massive structural advantages in place to take advantage of any Gore or Democratic apparatus fumbling.

Now we have an electorate that is 51%-52% liberal or liberal-leaning and 46% conservative/conservative-leaning. Republicans have aging incumbents in the Senate and live by their advantages in House gerrymanderings- they are overrepresented in nearly every single state delegation south of the Potomac or west of the Alleghenies up to the Sierra Nevada/Cascades. (Texas was the last one they didn't have.)

Kerry has to run a competent and clear campaign and the Presidency is his. Gore only undershot his real upper limit in the electorate by about half a million votes, Kerry has a far greater margin of error and the possibility of a decisive majority representing a mandate.

In Congress the Republicans really have only a few opening Old Democrat Senate seats to jump into and a couple they may just barely defend in Democratic states. In the House Democrats are on the verge of breaking out into marginal Republican seats. In both cases 2006 looks pretty good for recovering majorities in both chambers.