Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Post-Election Spin

In Missouri's 7th Congressional District:
  • the party that increases government spending while hypocritically pandering to "moral values voters" got 23.3% fewer votes than in 2004.
  • the party that increases government spending while denouncing moral values voters got almost 14% fewer votes than in 2004.
  • the candidate that promises to cut all government programs and affirms moral values while rejecting government violence and coercion to impose those values received over 1,000% more votes than in 2004.

When I say "hypocritically" panders to moral values, I mean

I believe "moral values voters" are becoming increasingly suspicious of power-holders in both church and state.

Republicans lost 50,000 votes in this district. While Democrats re-gained the House, they lost 12,000 votes in this district. I suspect more Democrats in Southwest Missouri voted anti-Blunt than pro-Truman.

My conceited personal fantasy is that if I could talk to a voter and explain the ideal of "Liberty Under God," that voter would likely be inclined to vote for me, and if not, if I could say, "Tell me why you won't vote for me," and respond to that voter's answer, I could clinch the vote in a majority of cases. The problem, of course, is communication: physically reaching all those voters.

There is dwindling support for the two-party monopoly, with the prevailing attitude shifting from apathy to opposition. Voters are hungry for moral values separated from coercion and political power. I'm already looking forward to 2008.

1 comment:

Kevin Craig said...

A word on my math-spin. In the case of the Democrat and Republican candidates, I took the number of votes cast for each and caculated the percent decrease vs. 2004. But in my case, I calculated the change in the percent of votes received, not the actual number of votes. In 2004 I received .3% of the votes cast, while in 2006 I received 3.1% of votes cast. Now, I admit I learned math in a government-run school, so I may be wrong when I say that's a 1,000% increase. I never did well in percentages.