November 2004's Greatest Hit!

The Conventional Wisdom of voter turnout.

An excerpt:

The GOP throws it out the window.

The CW on voter turnout is large turnout favors Democrats. In fact in the past typically if a Democrat was within 5% points of their Republican challenger the Dem won. Why? Last minute voter turnout aka "Get out the vote" (GOTV) favored the Dems due to labor unions. Many unions have bargained election day off into their contracts and use that already organized force to perform last minute get out the vote operations. Many Republicans also IMO disdain this work as being contrary to a battle of beliefs.

The CW on 2000 was the President was cruising to a comfortable win then the press busted the OWI October Surprise at the last moment. I don't buy it anymore, it was a reflection of Dem GOTV operations.

November 3, 2004 Blogger Beer - The Conventional Wisdom of voter turnout.

I still think this is true. Unless the machine set up by President Bush falls into disrepair (always a possibility) then voter turnout favors neither side. Of course, that can also happen to the Democrats and as time goes on the unions become less and less of a factor. Also working for the Dems is the fact they have hoodwinked the youth on college campuses across the nation.

Tomorrow: December 2004's greatest hit.