I saw this today on the DB, a relay of a new piece up in WaPo. Someone (reporter Dan Eggen) is watching the numbers, while we debate these wonderful social issues.
We already knew this: this GOP contest has drawn a smaller set of voters, so far in state after state. Turnouts are down in most of the primaries and caucuses, for the GOP even lower than their very “off” year of 2008. Now comes news about the money. It is showing up there, too.
The embedded link in this quote was there in the article. It works, leads to fresh info about the “superPACs”.
Lost amid all the talk about millionaires influencing the 2012 election is a striking fact: The Republican primaries are shaping up as the cheapest and most financially depressed presidential nominating contests in years.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and the other Republicans vying to take on President Obama in November have raised and spent about half as much money as the GOP field did four years ago, campaign disclosure data show. The trend doesn’t stop there: Republicans in 2000 and Democrats in 2004 posted stronger financial numbers than this year’s crop of GOP challengers have.
Even adding this year’s spending by super PACs — a new kind of independent group that can raise millions of dollars at a time — the Republican contenders spent more cash in 2008 all on their own.
Now there are some facts, pesky things as usual, to chew over.
And it seems to be infectious. NYT Poll
Curiously only the highest earners displayed increased approval of the president.
Anyone know why that might be? Natasha? Kevin?
Mind you never trust publicised polls
More highly educated?
Jim, as a resident of Silicon Valley where Obama is still popular, might I offer the following theory. The Democratic party is the party of urban professionals who work in nice clean environments. Poor work conditions around here mean no onsite gym or upscale cafeteria. There is little manufacturing left, though Tesla is trying to give it a go up the other side of the bay. The famed Santa Clara Valley orchards are largely gone, though someone does run cattle on property owned by Stanford. There’s not much residential construction over the past several years relative to population growth, but construction workers are getting busier with renovation work (politically acceptable), but please get those trucks back across the bay after 5. It would be surprising if the lower income types were more approving of Obama. It shows they are brighter than they are often credited.
T’dog, the smart well-educated folks in the Bay Area know a good president when they see one, and they also see a god-bothering anti-science anti-choice crusade when they see one, too.
As for the blue-collar construction guys, they tend to listen to Rush too much. That may change as the women in their lives explain a few simple facts of life to them, between now and Election Day.
The thumpers are working to get a “personhood” initiative on the CA ballot for this November, which will confirm the irrelevance of the Republican Party in your state for at least two more election cycles.
The machinery of the CA GOP is controlled by the thumpers. They took over in the 1990′s, I was there and watched it happen. That was the primary motivation behind my own political activity – the obvious lunacy on the ‘other side’.
Remember a guy named Bill Baker?
Wednesday AM followup:
I just checked and no independent reports are yet available on the voter turnout in the events this week, in Samoa, Hawaii, Mississippi and Alabama.
Once clue: the RNC issued a brag about “record turnout” in the Southern states, which to me, signals that the reverse is true and they are trying to get the fiction established first. A columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times reprinted the thing, and from her other posts it appears she is hostile to the President.
Later today, Wednesday, we will have facts.
Kev,
A record low is still a record…
Bluthner:
now that is a good point. Yes, indeed.
Here is one article from a very right-wing news source, they do base it on facts and those facts agree with other sources I’ve seen. The turnout for the GOP in Nevada’s caucuses was lame, down by one-fourth from last time at just 8.3 percent.
One article in “The Hill” reported light turnout in the supposedly exciting contests in Alabama and Mississippi. No hard numbers are out yet, but the Hill article tried to blame the weather for the light participation. Well, OK, if that excuse works for y’all . . . .
OK here’s an update.
From an AP story on Thursday, the GOP turnout was higher than in past years in both Alabama and Mississippi. The bulk of those voters were the thumpers, turning out for one of the non-Mormons. So this could be classified as a “local effect” of Bible Belt Bizarro behavior, and it explains the “victory” by Frothy.
Many expressed their intense intention to see our President removed from office. Yeah, we expected that from the Redneck Demographic. No surprises here.