Read this Pew analysis, which works through the exit polls in some interesting ways. A couple of highlights: the "God gap" didn’t really narrow all that much (indeed, in one way of looking at it, it widened); and young (18-29) voters went very strongly for Democratic candidates. Note also that Catholics were the swingers, though those who attend weekly still narrowly supported Republican candidates.
A question about this to which I don’t have the answer: were Democrats more effective than Republicans at revving up young supporters, or has the character of youthful political allegiance really changed that much?
If this doesn’t satisfy your political jones, Jay Cost offers one of his wonderfully wonkish analyses at RCP.
Bad Catholics ("cafeteria Catholics") are Democrats at heart, even if they walk away from their party now and then to vote against an unattactive liberal like Kerry. Young people’s votes are the ones most heavily distorted by liberal propaganda, at least when the machine is cranked up to full blast, as it has been for about the last four years. The Republican needs to focus like a laser on its base.
"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."
I think we in the under-30 crowd have seen enough people our age die in this war to be turned Democratic for the foreseeable future (especially those who, like me, previously supported the President). The fact that the Republican Party seems to only stand consistently for hatred of gays and opposition to modern science doesn’t help either. They ditched Social Security reform as soon as it seemed difficult, and have set up a level of national debt that may tank the economy just in time to render us unable to care for our elderly parents (that would be your generation in 20 years) and put our kids through college. Are we really unjustified in thinking that the Republican Party is bad for young people? At least the Democrats, whatever their faults, will be socially moderate, use prudence and restraint in foreign affairs, and wrestle the budget back into balance.
I would just like to see the "actual" column of the 2006 election predictions page get filled in by some manly blogger here, willing to fully accept defeat.
I’m sure someone would do so, Craig, but it’s actually not part of the blog (despite the address). Only the webmaster can make that change, and he’s swamped at the moment. And I think it’s fair to say, based on the posts we’ve made here, that there isn’t a single one of us who hasn’t accepted the fact that the GOP took a huge beating.
I can be generous enough to accept the "webmaster’s busy" excuse, but not that the predictions were "actually not part of the blog." Not ONLY does the predictions page have a noleftturns address/domain name, but it says this right at the very top:
"No Left Turns - The Ashbrook Center Blog"
Guess it all depends on what your definition of "is" is!
And John, I just noticed that you didn’t even make any of those predictions; any reason for that? (Would you have outperformed the other fortunetellers?)
I meant "not part of the blog" in the sense that the blog contributors can’t go in and change what’s on that page. (As opposed to the main page, where we have free rein to add or edit stuff.) The contributors were asked to make predictions and submit them for uploading.
And as much as I’d like to say that my own predictions would’ve been closer to the mark, all I can say is that I never really tried. I’m a historian, after all, not a political scientist. I’m much more comfortable dealing with the past than the future.