*Patterico has a tremendous idea: Senate Republicans should introduce a non-binding resolution of support for each of the filibustered judicial nominees, so as to put on the record the fact that they would be confirmed if granted a floor vote. Would the Democrats filibuster this as well, so as to prevent the public from finding this out? (Link via Bashman).
*If you liked my marginal vote analyses, Patrick Ruffini has a map that captures a lot of the same type of stuff in graphic form. I take it that some of the swing towards the Democrats in Montana may have been aided by the victory of the Democratic gubernatorial candidate there.
*Speaking of cool charts, check out this piece with its charts of blog activity during the campaign.
*This “Email of the Day” to Andrew Sullivan pretty well captures the Democrats’ image problems.
*Two more from Ruffini, who’s on a roll: first, this:
President Bush carried 97 of the nation’s 100 fastest-growing counties, most of them “exurban” communities that are rapidly transforming farmland into subdivisions and shopping malls on the periphery of major metropolitan areas.
The counties with the most population loss (from people picking up and leaving) voted for Kerry 68.6% to 30.4%.
Mmmmm, 2010 census. And Ruffini also has a link to this must-read analysis over at Kos’ place:
A top Kerry staffer (one of five who had been with Kerry from the very start of his primary campaign and who claimed he talked with Kerry almost daily on the phone) told me: “To be blunt, this is a fat-cat top-down campaign. The campaign staff doesn’t really get grassroots.” Those were his exact words (I wrote them down because I was startled he would admit this–I haven’t told ANYONE this quote because I didn’t want it to get into GOP hands prior to the election). He did think a grassroots strategy was crucial, but he may have been among the very few Kerry staffers there at the time to think that way; he and one other staffer were pushing to get me hired and create a real grassroots strategy. He called me daily with updates. On the fourth day, he apologized that Mary Beth Cahill was concerned I could be a “Republican mole.” He told her I had been a volunteer with the Dean campaign and that he trusted me based on our phone conversations, but that didn’t prove anything to her. She couldn’t imagine hiring someone who lived in California that she’d never met. Instead, she hired a former Emily’s List staffer with experience sending direct mail to big donors, whom Mary Beth had worked with previously.
This, of course, echoes many of the things the GOP side was saying before the election. Did McCain-Feingold actually succeed in hamstringing Kerry? Then again, the turnout and exit poll numbers do suggest that Kerry’s side didn’t do so badly in turning out the Democratic base and swinging Nader voters; where they lost was in high GOP turnout and, perhaps most of all, the defection of something like 10% of the people who voted for Gore in 2000. You win them back with the message and the candidate, not by digging deeper at the roots. Plus, the Republicans have an advantage: new GOP voters tend to stay put in their homes with their children, whereas the Democrats’ newly registered voters are often transients – college students, new immigrants – and even if you can still find them four years later, they may start to lean more Republican as they set some roots down, which means the Dems need to reinvent the wheel every four years with their register-young-voters push.
Check out my analysis of the Bush/Kerry States at https://threerunjimmyjack.blogspot.com/2004/11/election-results.html
Basically if your state has anything good going for it, it voted for Kerry.