The 2004 Election
What Happened and Where to Go?
A Statistical Analysis and Opinion based on CNN Data

By Nessim Watson
November, 2004

Voting results based on a very wide range of demographic and other variables can be found (at least for now) on the CNN site.

What happened?
A lot to pour over, but quite interesting. The Kerry campaign failed on a lot of fronts. The agenda for the voters has secretly shifted. Morals matter more than Iraq, terrorism or the economy?! I'm more worried about what those "weekly church goers" are hearing than having kids see Janet Jackson, hear Howard Stern, or violate any of the other thought policing that's been the last few years. Can we get a freakin' journalist into these churches? Remember when Dan Rather revealed the Nation of Islam "secretly seething in our own cities" several decades back? What the hell is going on in those white (and Hispanic) churches?

Kerry also got only 37% of the votes of white males. Country music anyone? Betcha aggression rock makes a comeback too.

Even scarier -- Bush got 50% of women. It seems that "fear and obedience to violence on one's behalf" is becoming the "correct" feminine response to terrorism, especially if a woman has kids. There's a real crisis of feminism in this one. Women are choosing to adopt the "be tiny, loud and cling to your football player boyfriend" role. It's the perfect mix of Ann Coulter and a social life; and women are apparently eating it up.

Income didn't make the difference that it ought to. Only 45% of the voters made $50,000 or less. I believe the vast majority of Americans make $50K or less. And a lot of them stupidly stayed home, were turned away by the 9-hour line in black Ohio neighborhoods, or were not sharp enough to see how their economic location in America ought to be guiding their concerns. (The fact that the TV news is showing the long lines in Ohio to be almost entirely people of color, but are still reporting that "in some places everyone waited in long lines" is a problem that must be addressed by more than just the black leaders relegated to C-Span. White people need to complain loudly about this, and someone in the Ohio government should be charged with voter obstruction).

In fact the majority of voters thought that neither Kerry nor Bush could handle the economy. Voodoo indeed. Credit-card culture rules.

52% of voters still think war on Iraq was a good idea, and 55% think it is part of the war on terror, even though only 46% think that war has made us more secure. So we have a growing sense that even if Iraq isn't helping our situation now, the general idea of expansionist roll-out and regional conversion seems to be in favor. Now that's dangerous. It means we can choose any target at will and fit it into the Bush discourse. Just be sure that the country isn't white.

Across the questions if you look at the "illogical responses" (like Republicans who vote Kerry, or people who disapprove of Bush but vote for him anyway), the numbers voting illogically for Bush are larger than those voting illogically for Kerry. In other words, there's a 10% of Bush's vote that is very forgiving of his transgressions. Look at the evaluations of Bush's intelligence in "most important quality"... The phrase "yeah that was a mistake, but I'm still voting for the President" seems to have been key across a number of issues. This is the effect of war on the obedient, and it is enough to swing an election.

So if we've got a fatalistic approach to the economy... and we despise anything that isn't straight male and white... and sexuality is a general no-no... and we see violence as the way to get the Wrong Ones in line... and we forgive the Leader at all costs... then tell me again why we hate Islamic fundamentalism?

Where Do We Go from Here - An Opinion
Bush won because people feared what they thought Kerry was. Karl Rove's genius was not in making Bush look good (despite all the work that went into the 9/11-Iraq bait-and-switch to make Bush look good). The real genius was in making people fear Kerry. If the red state people don't think that a candidate shares some of their "values" then they won't listen to any of the candidate's ideas. Most Bush voters made up their mind long before the Kerry campaign began based on Rove's work with phrases like "the Senator from Massachusetts" which was heard by the red states as "the shifty lead recruiter of Gay MTV America".

The red state churchgoers are insecure people. Their security comes from having someone to look down upon and to define themselves against. (Note that God "looks down" upon all, there's a reason mythology put him in the sky). The trick to moving them is shifting the target that they consider "bad" on the basis of this amorphous thing called "values". (In reference to these people I would call their values a "handle" by which they can be easily redirected like little marching wind-up toys). These folks won't be accepting gay people anytime soon. The strategy there is to get them to ignore gay people and their civil rights issues (despite my support for gay rights). If 2% more had ignored, we'd have had his election. They were driven to the polls by their homophobia.

So how do we move the red folks now? Changing them through things like education and critical awareness may in fact be the wrong path, (and yes, I'm a professor). In fact, Kerry/Gore's attempt to do this helped to solidify the red folks' notion that Kerry/Gore is "bad" and "not like us". We wonder why they reject intelligence and logic... wrong question. Realize the statement: "They do reject intelligence and logic." Rove knew enough to work with this, rather than try to change it based on what's "really true." (All our work against the misleading statements of the Bush administration was based on recovering the Truth). Truth matters not.

How about this: If the Kerry campaign had focused on making Bush "bad" in a "values" way, at least 2% would have moved and the election would go to Kerry. "Honesty" is a value that no one can say they dislike. If Bush had been shown as "dishonest" somehow, some values people would move against him and hear everything Bush says differently. Another value to pin on him might be "lazy" which red folks would again rail against. This is tough given Bush's choice to lead a superficially pious life (after his "permanent record" of youth was destroyed), but it is the task nonetheless. "Hypocritical" is a good one, as in why won't we supervise Palestinian elections to go with the Afghan and Iraqi elections? All of these approaches involve shaping the media's discourse on these matters.

The red values people need to be worked, not persuaded. I realize that this doesn't sound nice, especially to progressive Unitarians. But if you want strategy and analysis, this is it. Target: Republicans. Shape the whole party in the voters' minds and it won't matter who they run in '08. You can do this by "promoting good values" as Unitarians are apt to do, but I would advise not to forget the underlying strategy I'm talking about here. It is the consciousness behind the Machiavellian/Sun Tsu notions that determine whether they are good or bad.

Change comes only by reshaping ideas ... including our own.

Nessim Watson is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Westfield State College