NYT's Timothy Egan: The Electoral Wasteland

[Scuba]

This should be good for President Obama, and by extension, the American People.


http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/the-electoral-wasteland/?ref=opinion

You would not know any of this looking at who is voting in one of the strangest presidential primary campaigns in history. There is no other way to put this without resorting to demographic bluntness: the small fraction of Americans who are trying to pick the Republican nominee are old, white, uniformly Christian and unrepresentative of the nation at large.

None of that is a surprise. But when you look at the numbers, it’s stunning how little this Republican primary electorate resembles the rest of the United States. They are much closer to the population of 1890 than of 2012.

Given the level of media attention, we know an election of great significance is happening on the Republican side. But it’s occurring in a different place, guided by talk-radio extremists and religious zealots, with only a vague resemblance to the states where it has taken place. From this small world have emerged a host of nutty, retrograde positions, unpopular with the vast American majority.

...

So far, three million voters have participated in the Republican races, less than the population of Connecticut. This means that 89 percent of all registered voters in those states have not participated in what is, from a horse-race perspective, a very tight contest.

[LonePirate]

1. Their beliefs and positions are also much closer those of 1890 than 2012.

It's no wonder their voters resemble those from the late 19th century.

[rfranklin]

2. Could this mean an unprecedented whooping for the Republicans?

Or will they manage to fool enough of the people some of the time?

[The Blue Flower]

3. Egan's a favorite of mine

I highly recommend his book about the dust bowl, "The Worst Hard Time."

[davidpdx]

4. I read somewhere that the counties Romney won in Florida

had lower turnout in the 2012 primary then in 2008 and the ones Gingrich won had higher turnout. I think it was Politico and I have no idea if that's true or not.