NYT,pg1: Bush Secured FL Victory Veering from Beaten Path (rural,suburban)

[DeepModem Mom]

Bush Secured Victory in Florida by Veering From Beaten Path
By ABBY GOODNOUGH and DON VAN NATTA

Published: November 7, 2004

This article was reported by Don Van Natta, Abby Goodnough, Christopher Drew and William Yardley, and was written by Ms. Goodnough and Mr. Van Natta.


LAND O' LAKES, Fla., Nov. 5 - Pasco County might be unheard of outside Florida, but that did not stop President Bush, Rudolph W. Giuliani and other Republican luminaries from visiting as Election Day approached.

This rapidly growing place north of Tampa, where shopping centers, road extensions and subdivisions open by the month, supported Al Gore in 2000 and Bill Clinton in the two previous elections. But since Mr. Gore's bitter defeat, thousands of middle-class families, many of them Republican and independent, have joined the many Democratic retirees who used to dominate here, making it a prime target for Gov. Jeb Bush, his brother and a vast army of Republican volunteers eager to erase the stain of the 36-day stalemate of 2000.

Their efforts paid off. While Democrats placed their emphasis on the state's urban centers and dispatched thousands of lawyers in a defensive effort to avoid mistakes they made four years ago, the Bush campaign concentrated on the new face of Florida, winning a margin of nearly 20,000 votes in Pasco and racking up many thousands more in counties like it....

***

What happened in Pasco County is what happened in suburban and rural communities throughout Florida. The Bush campaign lavished these communities with attention while Senator John Kerry's campaign and the independent groups working on its behalf invested most of their resources in cities like Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and Orlando.

The Republican strategy succeeded most along the Interstate 4 corridor in central Florida, where Mr. Bush's pledges to quash terrorism and promote traditional values appealed to the mostly white, middle-class, religious-leaning population....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/politics/campaign/07florida.html?pagewanted=all&position=

[DemoTex]

1. Bush Secured FL Victory by Ballot-Box Fraud

That's all you need to know.

[mia]

2. Willl you love me in October as you do in April?

Crucial corridor
Some analysts and Florida politicos say that the battle for the state will largely be fought in the Interstate 4 corridor that stretches from Tampa on the west through Orlando to Daytona Beach on the Atlantic coast.

According to Kane, the I-4 corridor now outweighs the heavily Democratic trio of south Florida counties, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade, in the total number of votes cast. Kane says voters in I-4 corridor are not case-hardened partisans; they are open to considering a candidate if exposed to a skillful ad campaign....

He added, “They are up for grabs. Not only are they undecided potentially, but they are undecided about whether to actually vote. So there are two huge variables there and those variables don’t exist either in north Florida and the south. If it’s a totally negative campaign in central Florida, these are the kind of voters who may say, ‘I don’t like either one of them.’ There’s a big variable in terms of turnout.”

But Maddox dissents from the view that I-4 corridor will decide the outcome. The Florida winner, said Maddox, "will also be decided by turnout in southeast Florida, in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, and by swing voters between Lake City and Panama City" in the Florida Panhandle.


I wonder if the high percent change rates are also in those counties that border the I-4 corridor.

[leesa]

3. Bush secured Florida and Ohio by stealing them

[noamnety]

4. Don't just whine to us

Take a minute and send a comment in to them.

Every article we see with a headline like "Bush secured victory by Veering From Beaten Path" needs to be countered with LTTE or emails to the author entitled "Bush secured victory by Veering from paper ballots." And a short summary of what we know so far.

I've been on the washington post this morning doing that, and the BBC.

We need to respond, but not with a debate about tactics and morals, only a debate on whether he even won at all.