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Thursday, November 04, 2004

On Flying Under the Radar

Two thoughts on the success of the GOP's anti-gay-marriage tactic:

We keep hearing that this was missed by the pundit/political class because it was all "under the radar". I wonder if the people this appealed to managed to escape the pollsters' nets for months, or what? They're certainly not the cell-phone-using urbanites we were hoping would turn up and surprise pollsters -- whose average 2% or so lead for Bush during the final month of campaign wasn't too far off. And while we're on that, what happened in both camps that made it sound like Bush was toast on Monday night? I can't believe there's any advantage to pretending you're about to lose, and reporting from the Bush plane was that they were not at all happy. Are we to think that Rove was flying under his own radar? Vote fraud charges don't answer the question, since, again, if true, it wasn't a secret from the fraudsters.

Having said all that, if there is an under-the-radar effect, it's the kind of thing that will be hard for the Dems to match, because the Democratic electorate lives in places that are full of reporters. (In fact, the Democratic electorate is full of reporters. OK?) Where are we going to get the equivalent of a church-based "moral values" campaign that the other side won't notice?

- posted by Don Porges @ 11/04/2004 08:17:00 PM

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