Typical elections, especially Presidential elections, are usually focused on how to get the largest portion of the populations to vote for you. Yes there are nuances due to the electoral system that makes a Presidential election a bit more like a bunch of individual state elections, but at a macro level, it’s still about getting more votes than your opponent.
The 2008 election, one that now appears likely to be between John McCain and Barack Obama, is shaping up to be nearly the opposite of traditional focus. Rather than getting the most people to vote for you, the McCain/Obama contest looks to be more about getting the fewest number of people to not not vote at all or to not vote aganist you.
On the Democrat side we’ve been seeing stories for a few weeks about one camp’s voters not voting for the other candidate if they should win the nomination. The exit polls from Tuesday’s West Virginia primary continued the trend as the AP reported:
Barely a third of Clinton supporters say they’d vote for Obama over John McCain in a November matchup. As many claim they’d vote for Republican John McCain and a quarter said they would not vote for president. If that horse race were Clinton vs. McCain, half of Obama backers say they’d vote for Clinton, about three in 10 say they’d back McCain and the rest would stay home.
On the Republican side while initially rejected, there had been a gradual acceptance of McCain as the nominee. As various blog sites still had animated discussions about whether McCain was a conservative or if his various cross party endeavors had eliminated him from the use of the “True Conservative” moniker, most who did not originally support McCain had come to a point that they believed the greater good was served by supporting McCain. But then McCain made his environment speech in Oregon. Subsequent to that speech, the conservative blogs have become littered with comments such as:
His speech was the last straw. I am a conservative and John McCain WILL NOT get my vote. His global warming position is down right scary. I’ve tried really hard to get in the he’s “my guy” mindset and it’s just not going to happen. Every time I get close he opens his mouth.
So who will win? Well, it looks like it will be the candidate who gets the fewest of the folks who can’t stand them not to not vote for them.
Ain’t politics great!
This will be interesting.
The no-Obama Dems, the no-McCain conservatives.
Is it possible that the election will have only 50,000 votes?
Dad29,
that’s what I was thinking. All the hype about all the new Dems registered but I think it’s shaping up to be one of the lowest voting turnouts, for President, of recent times.