{"id":26,"date":"2003-12-14T06:09:15","date_gmt":"2003-12-14T11:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/wp\/?p=26"},"modified":"2003-12-14T06:09:15","modified_gmt":"2003-12-14T11:09:15","slug":"the-democrats-need-libertarians-to-win-the-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/?p=26","title":{"rendered":"The Democrats Need Libertarians to Win the White House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The mathematics of the Electoral College may lead to irrational results in Presidential elections, but it &#8211; and demographics &#8211; should make it easier for the loyal opposition to regain the White House in 2004 &#8211; if they direct their resources accordingly.<br \/>\nAnd romancing strongly Libertarian areas like New Hampshire should be part of this strategy.<\/p><p><!--more--><br \/>\nFor the last three years, I&#8217;ve been saying that the fuss over election irregularities in Florida was a waste of time: if Al Gore had won either Arkansas or Tennessee, he&#8217;d have been elected.  But in today&#8217;s New York Times, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2003\/12\/14\/magazine\/14FORGET.html\" target=\"_blank\">Ryan Lizza<\/a> makes a more persuasive argument: forget the South: if Al Gore hadn&#8217;t lost <b>New Hampshire<\/b>, he&#8217;d be President.<br \/>\nMr. Lizza (and others) have calculated that the Presidency will be won in the &#8220;swing states&#8221;.  Experts don&#8217;t agree on which are up for grabs, but Mr. Lizza&#8217;s theory is that the Dems should focus on Ohio, Missouri, West Virginia, Arizona, Nevada and New Hampshire to win the necessary electoral votes.  He reckons that to be 20.<br \/>\nAs it turns out, half of these states &#8211; Arizona, Nevada and New Hampshire &#8211; make up a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.massinc.org\/commonwealth\/new_map_exclusive\/sagebrush.html\" target=\"_blank\">demographic region<\/a> which strongly supports Libertarian and other third party candidates, according to CommonWealth&#8217;s intriguing study, &#8220;The 10 Regions of US Politics&#8221;.<br \/>\nThe reaction to Howard Dean&#8217;s dumb remarks about Southern voters should be sending the message loud and clear: the former Confederacy is no longer a region of poorly educated, low-income underdogs, the traditional Democratic constituency.  Rather, it&#8217;s close to the national average in household income and education, and much more Republican and Christian Conservative than the rest of the US.<br \/>\nSo, forget about the Dixiecrats.  The Dems need to romance people like me to take back the White House.  We have our wish lists ready.<br \/>\nSchool vouchers, anyone?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The mathematics of the Electoral College may lead to irrational results in Presidential elections, but it &#8211; and demographics &#8211; should make it easier for the loyal opposition to regain the White House in 2004 &#8211; if they direct their &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/?p=26\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hendersonbrook.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}