Let's Talk Sense...

Monday, October 9, 2000 Volume XXV, No. 32
Roswell, New Mexico

In this issue:

Who's Going to Win?
--------Part 4-------
Electoral College Analysis---
State-by-state

· The Midwest (It's Gore!)
· Popular vote to Exceed 101,000,000
· Electoral College Recap
· Where Does This Leave Bush?
· It doesn't have to end this way!
· LTS...Formula for victory
· Republican Media Consultants and
· built-in conflict of interest
· suspicions grow

The Midwest

Gore wins it 68-44!

Unfortunately for America (and the world for that matter) this will likely mean a Gore presidency. Bush is simply unable to develop the kind of Reaganesque appeal necessary to cut through the great muddled middles of Wisconsin and Michigan---his must-win states if he is to overcome the loss of Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. (More on those two later.)

Bush will do unusually well in parts of Minnesota, Iowa, and other places he has no chance to win. He'll do this based on the remarkable decency of thousands of solid Lutheran and faithful Catholic voters who know deep in their Democrat souls that Gore is a consummate liar and that Bush, while inept in speech and all manner of communication (as is his entire family) is still a decent human being who will not sell his soul for power.

It won't be enough though.

(8 states----112 electoral votes)

Ohio (21), Michigan (18), Indiana (12), Illinois (22), Wisconsin (11), Minnesota (10), Iowa (7), Missouri (11).

29 days out, this is the way we see it:

(Popular vote, in 000's)

23,960,000 votes

Popular vote to Exceed
101,000,000

We project the national turnout to be about 5 million more than voted in 1996, but still around 3 million fewer than the 1992 vote totals.

Final Popular Vote (000s)

Gore will likely win the national popular vote by approximately 1 to 1½ million votes, or by a margin of about 1.4% over Bush.

Electoral College Recap

Where Does This Leave Bush?
It doesn't have to end this way!
LTS...Formula for Victory

As last time, nothing in the way of intel (that's information about what's going on inside the Bush camp----not a computer chip company in Rio Rancho) has been gleaned about where the Bush2000 team is focusing its efforts.

We do have a suggestion however. If we were in the Bush campaign we would schedule not one, but two three-full day stays (not swings---stays) in Pennsylvania. Start in Lancaster County with a rally there (which would draw 25,000 people, and hold repeated rallies in York, Cumberland and Dauphin counties (in and around Harrisburg).

The next day he should take an old historic train ride through Chester and Delaware Counties holding whistlestop rallies in those suburban areas, before arriving for a major rally in Philadelphia (this is the only one which would not be aimed at votes---he's not going to move many in Philadelphia County but for the news coverage in the region, and the symbolism, backdrops for which are in an overabundant supply in Philadelphia). To close out the day Bush would then move on to Montgomery, Bucks, Berks and Lehigh Counties. That's about 5 whistlestop speeches and 5 more major rallies in one day.

The third day of the first swing would move to Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Williamsport, Altoona and Johnstown.

About a week later Bush should begin a new 3-day stay by traveling to Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), where there was a 61,000-vote swing in favor of Dole in 1996. The rest of the day should concentrate in Beaver, Lawrence, Westmoreland and Armstrong counties where there was another combined 42,000 -vote swing toward Dole. The next two days would be filled with rallies throughout western and central Pennsylvania.

RATIONALE: Bush must have Pennsylvania!

Our calculations, previously published are well within our own margin of error in the Keystone State, .36%, or 36 hundredths of one percentage point (for those of you who aren't that good at math). Pennsylvania is imminently winnable---with clear movement toward Dole in 1996. Whereas, Michigan and Wisconsin and most of the rest of the nation moved toward Clinton.

Most of the counties and cities mentioned either moved significantly toward Dole, or reasonably maintained the support that had been there already. This is significant because in about two-thirds of the country Dole ran even weaker than President Bush had in 1992. So in places like Pennsylvania, which is one of only 18 states where there was any improvement at all it is important to go back in and play to the latent strength.

Clearly in much of Pennsylvania---from the "Dutch Country" to Beaver County on the Ohio border, there is a yearning for a return to the values and decency which is so much a part of rural Pennsylvania.

Six days of campaigning in Pennsylvania could focus attention on one state like no campaign has ever done---it could hearten, galvanize and turn out the decency vote: Mennonite, Roman Catholic, Lutheran--- all the Protestant denominations---as well as those everyday Steeler, Pirate and Penguin fans who want to do the right thing and who are instinctively (they don't know why exactly, but they feel it) turned off by the weasely Gore, and his total, almost effeminate, failure as an "alpha male."

Too much time in one state? No way. There are still four weeks to go. They should even consider 9 days in PA. Drop Illinois, cut bait in Michigan. Campaign in Pennsylvania, and three more days each in Tennessee, Arkansas, New Mexico and Florida, with four more days in Missouri and Louisiana. Go back to New Hampshire one more time, he might make it happen there. Touch down in Kentucky, do more stopovers in Ohio and Arizona. If there is time and a way to do it, a quick trip to Oregon, Nader could be eating in enough damage there.

Campaign where it counts now.

Republican Media Consultants and built-in conflicts of interest
We are getting suspicious

It will be a shame if we learn that MEDIA BUYS placed by prominent Republican consultants drove the train in this election to the detriment of the Bush Campaign.

This had better not be a case of losing the election while wasting money where there was no chance to win---all brought about by conflict of interest-laden Republican operatives who put their own finances above the best interests of the GOP, and ultimately the nation.

There are those who believe these motivations are behind the millions being spent in Illinois, California and other environs. If that is true, we should all sit up and take notice.