Dick Morris: Obama's Turn-Out Efforts Worked

Morris has a vested interest in believing this -- as he's looking for a reason why his mega-wave prediction didn't come to pass -- but it is persuasive. And there are polling numbers that indicate it's correct.

Basically, voters who kept saying they were undecided -- even right before the election, the generic ballot would be like 52 R to 40 D, with 8% undecided -- broke big for Democrats right at the end. Dick Morris swipes at them by calling them "low information" and "downscale" voters, which sounds like sniping, but it's sniping I can get on board with.

These were liberal-leaning statist-loving voters, we can imagine, who were unenthused about the elections because Obama hadn't delivered results -- these voters, we can guess, are among those most hurt by the recession, and thus, while ideologically in favor of socialism, were a little disappointed by the effects of socialism on their own lives.

But, in the end, Obama and the Democrats managed to turn them out (punish your enemies, yo!) and thus turned a blowout for the ages into merely a blowout for the decades.

Fortunately for the GOP, only 8 percent of the electorate were late deciders. A full 46 percent were early voters.

These Democratic late deciders were all straight from the party's base:

• 15 percent of single voters decided late, and singles voted 64 percent Democrat.

• 14 percent of under-$25,000-income voters decided late, and voters in this income category voted Democrat by 59-36.

• 20 percent of voters 18-29 decided late, and this group backed Obama by 56-37.

Obama knew if he could get them to the polls, they'd vote Democratic, in the main; but he had to get them there, despite their reservations.

Turnout is what it's all about. We need to remember this in 2012.

posted by Ace at 11:24 AM

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