July 20, 2010

The GOP Choice: Now With Added Science!

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Last night I suggested that whenever Republicans do something that excites their tea party base, it scares off independent voters and actually helps Democrats. But all I did was eyeball a couple of Gallup charts to come up with this theory. Political scientist Phil Klinkner decided to run some numbers, which he emailed to me:

I correlated partisan levels of enthusiasm with independents’ support for Democrats in the generic ballot. Here are the results:

Dem Enthusiasm -0.05
Ind Enthusiasm -0.1
Rep Enthusiasm .17

So, Democratic and Independent enthusiasm has no relationship with Indendents’ generic ballot preferences. On the other hand, as Republicans become more enthusiastic, Independent support for the Democrats goes up.

This may be the key to a Democratic victory. Get Republicans so ramped up that they drive Independents into the D column. A quick estimate says that if 100 percent of the GOP is very enthusiastic about voting, then Independents will favor the Democrats by 3 points, in which case the Democrats should win by about 11 points.

Phil goes on to joke that Democrats should “buy blocks of TV time and give them free of charge to Joe Wilson, Michele Bachmann, and Mark Williams.” In any case, I just wanted to let everyone know that my gut feel is now Backed Up By Science™.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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