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The Substance Election
LiberalOasis : The Blog — ... and beyond, along with a renewed military focus on Al Qaeda. In doing so, Obama was taking positions supported by the liberal progressive base of the Democratic Party, but also held considerable support among self-described moderates. Following the Democratic primary, Obama never needed to "pivot" significantly towards a mythical center. His core positions already represented the common ground shared by America's progressive majority. In yesterday's exit poll, voters expressed the desire for government to "do more" by an eight-point margin. Much ...

Bill Scher: The Substance Election
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... and beyond, along with a renewed military focus on Al Qaeda. In doing so, Obama was taking positions supported by the liberal progressive base of the Democratic Party, but also held considerable support among self-described moderates. Following the Democratic primary, Obama never needed to "pivot" significantly towards a mythical center. His core positions already represented the common ground shared by America's progressive majority. In yesterday's exit poll, voters expressed the desire for government to "do more" by an eight-point margin. Much ...

Big Government Conservatism
Matthew Yglesias — ... I see exit poll data showing that 60 percent of the public was worried about rising health care costs and that 66 percent of those people backed Barack Obama. Presumably not because they thought the Republicans had been insufficiently vigilant about blocking pork barrel spending (it was John McCain after all) but because they thought Obama’s big government health plan spoke to their concerns while McCain’s small government alternative didn’t. I see that 50 percent of voters said they’re “very worried” about economic conditions and 59 ...

McCain Increased Gay Vote Margin for GOP
GayPatriot — ... Exit polls show Sen. John McCain received at least 1.3 million votes from gay and lesbian Americans—more than any other Republican Presidential candidate has ever received.  He garnered 27% of the LGBT vote, an increase from 19% support for President Bush four years ago. ...

Bozell Says Obama Was A Far-Left Candidate, Seconds Later Says He ‘Won As A Conservative’
Think Progress — ... , and sixty percent of these voters supported Obama. A majority of voters felt the government “should do more” rather than less, and 63 percent ...

Rich: The Moose Has Left the Building
Hoffmania! — ... pandering to socially conservative blacks and Hispanics with yet more hyperventilation about same-sex marriage. Weird though it may be, gays were the sole minority group that actually voted slightly more Republican this year (though still going Democratic by 70 to 27 percent). Pitting blacks and Latinos against them could open up a whole new bloody front in the G.O.P. civil war. ...

The GOP gaze at their navel; Oregon hopes for more
BlueOregon — ... pandering to socially conservative blacks and Hispanics with yet more hyperventilation about same-sex marriage. Weird though it may be, gays were the sole minority group that actually voted slightly more Republican this year (though still going Democratic by 70 to 27 percent). Pitting blacks and Latinos against them could open up a whole new bloody front in the G.O.P. civil war. ...

The Fake Liberal Ideological Gap
Open Left - Front Page — ... Although it is more expedient in terms of public polling to simply ask people if they are liberals, moderates or conservatives, a more accurate reading would involve a battery of questions about general worldviews and specific policy inclinations. For example, the more accurate ideological reading of the electorate in the 2008 exit poll came not from the ideological self-identification question, but instead from the following classic public vs. private sector question: ...

Paul Jenkins: GOP: Imploding, Meaningless, and Run by Crazies, But not Dead
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... 62 in the House; 19 to 7 in the Senate) but that is far less of an advantage than the Democratic Party's in the Northeast and the West Coast, for instance. Those members of Congress from the South represent nearly half the entire GOP representation, and it is not an exaggeration to call the current Republican party a regional one. This in itself is a severe problem for the GOP, especially as the West is actually a faster-growing region, but other demographic data from exit polling should be even scarier for party leaders. Losing the youth vote is ...

Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up
Daily Kos — ... say that Obama should fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw US troops from Iraq within the next 16 months; why did exit polls from the presidential race show a majority wanting the government to do more rather than less; and why did just 3% say in the latest NBC/WSJ poll that taxes are the most important economic issue facing the country?) ...

Electorate Becoming Increasingly LGBT
Open Left - Front Page — ... and 2008 exit polls both confirm this), and will rise to at least 6% by 2028 at the latest. Further, it is possible that the electorate could become 7% self-identified LGBT at some point in the 2030's. Given the widely differing partisan tendencies of the LGBT and non-LGBT population, this 2-3% increase represents a not insignificant impact on national election results. ...

Picking on Cliff Clavin
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right — ... So there you have it. If the private carriers could afford to deliver everywhere for one flat rate and still turn a profit, they'd be doing so. But they can't. And that means that, in terms of redistributive nature of the USPS, at least insofar as redistribution occurs from one segment of the American population to another, some portion of that redistribution goes from urban and suburban areas to rural areas. Maybe rural voters--who tend to vote Republican, and preferred John McCain over Barack Obama last year by eight points--ought to keep that in mind the next time they ...

Democrats as a whole becoming more like the Progressive Caucus
Open Left - Front Page — What percentage of Democratic voters are one or more of the following? Self-identified not-"white non-Hispanic" (39%) Self-identified non-Christian (28%) Some form of vegetarian? (14%*) A union member (13%) Not self-identified heterosexual (7%) (* With 10% of the country following some form of vegetarian diet, this number is based on the assumption that vegetarians break Democratic 3-1, which is a margin very similar to the LGBT community, non-Christians, and not "white non-Hispanic." ...