McCain also ran to the right when the election came around while Obama ran to the center. The reason for this is pretty obvious; Obama had his base sewn up (PUMAs not withstanding) and was appealing to moderates while McCain had a shaky relationship with his base.

Obama has shown the power of simple symbolism. He gave the people what they wanted. He is the anti-bush. He speaks well, hates war, and says he loves the working class.

We were reminded last night of the power of passion and emotion. There is no rational argument for Barack Obama. But who needs rational thought when you can scream ‘yes we can’ and hear the roar of a crowd do the same?

Whoever emerges as the next Republican nominee (and every Republican candidate for any office) better know how to speak, how to inspire, how to be a symbol.

Because every candidate from the Left for the rest of time is going to try and emulate what Obama just did.

If the plurality of Americans are either center right or left, then these results make perfect sense. The Bell curve (model, not great book by Charles Murray) never accounted for the closeness of some, but not others, in the intermediate between 1980 and 2002.

Products of broken homes. No real curiosity.
Reading and phonics tossed out in 70′s
Too many broken traditions to list
Too much broken trust in the system
Too much corruption
Too much Ganja.
Too much beer.
On and on…….

Umm. If you’re truly a rational thinker, you’ll recognize there is a much simpler explanation that doesn’t require you to invalidate an entire theory or to invoke a preposterous statement like ‘I suspect voters are not rational centrists’. I guess you didn’t vote?

That is: you must be farther from the center than you would like to believe. The Bell Curve theory is fine and it’s telling you that. Even if the distribution is more accurately described by a bimodal curve, there is still an average and a median in a bimodal distribution. The ‘center’ is, by definition, where the median lies.

Maybe we should split the Republican party into 2 parties: The Rv1 party, who are Republicans who believe that their views define the center, and the Rv2 party, who are Republicans who believe the center is where the median is.

The average voter just votes for who they like.

Don’t underestimate the power of the American electorate to realize that the mommy party makes one feel all warm and runny, but the daddy party will have its time again and the country will be screaming for it like they did in 1980.

First, the voters in this election were just plain outright uninformed. If they really knew what Obama stood for, they would not have voted for him. The media in this country is simply nuts. My friends on the right always told me that, but I didn’t believe it until this election. I am sure others came to this realization too (highest ratings for Fox News, Drudge, etc.). The problem is that still not enough people know who Obama is, or that Bush is NOT Satan’s Twin (if you read the NYT, you will believe that). Second, the real problem the Republicans have is that they are NOT the party of small government anymore. Obama ran on Bill Clinton’s balanced budget record. Being a charlattan, he managed to convince people that he was going to do the same. Third, Republicans need to be principled. John McCain should have opposed the bailout. He should have said “no handouts”, but the govt. will invest in the banks and allow them to work their problems out. The govt. will make money (like it did in Chrysler) and intervention would be limited. McCain did not do this. THIS is the point when he started losing support. He was actually up by a sizeable margin after the convention. He started losing support after his reaction to the bailout. If he were principled, he would have opposed the bailout. The majority of this country did. The bailout is simply as unAmerican as all your railing about welfare, govt. subsidies, social engineering, etc. When McCain supported the bailout, he was just another Washington hack. People lost interest in him at that point.

Here is the deal. About 35% of the electorate is HARD CORE lib or conservative. They will vote for their “banner” regardless of candidate. The 35s will go up or down a few points. For you math challenged, that leaves about 30%.

Another about 10% on each side are pretty reliable but some of those will move onto the 35s some will move onto the remaining 10% depending on candidate and current issue of most importance. EVERYONE in this 20% is a single issue or candidate image voter because these voters don’t add up the pluses and minuses.

The last 10% are the Jaywalkers and uninvolved. Pollsters call them undecideds becasue they are too stupid, ignorant or lazy to make up their frickin minds until something relatively unimportant clicks with them.

The unfortunate aspect of this is that our presidents get elected by this floating scum that happens to reside in a few states.

On a bell curve, this scum is the center and what “clicks” with them is not a bundle of centrist issues.

Look at the numbers. Obama only got about a million more votes than Bush did in 2004. McCain got 6+ million less.

It wasn’t that the people wanted Obama, they didn’t want McCain. This is primarily because he is too old. As I said back in the primaries, what would you hire a 72 year old to do?

ROFLMAO!

If the bell theory doesn’t apply then why did Obama make as a centerpiece of his campaign a TAX REDUCTION platform?

Why did California vote FOR a ban on gay marriage?

The bell theory depends on perfect information: voters know accurately which candidate stands where. For Obama we simply do not know where he stands. He changed positions like the wind changes direction.

This nation is still center-right. They also are easily duped. How many politicians break promises BEFORE the election and still get elected? At least this one.

won this election for Obama. The new political reality of our day is that large numbers of people don’t vote on the issues – they vote on “feel”.

Younger voters and Hispanic voters in particular do not share the same history with many of those who honored and voted for McCain. Many of them were either unborn or not in the country during the Vietnam war.

I can’t tell you how many people I have spoken with (particularly the young) who voted for Obama because “he is cool” or “he is young” or “I like him better” irregardless of any position he holds.

In many states today personalities are every bit as important – if not more – than positions and we would do well not to forget it.