The Elections In California

Ca voter demographics on wiki:

URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_locations_by_voter_registration

this is old data (2013), but the cities in O.C. that are “blue” the margins are slim, and in the most part are working class cities within O.C., thus these working class voter populations don’t have the time to vote. Similar results apply in other counties in CA.

I think making election days similar to “jury duty”. …. show proof to your employer that you voted to get paid for the “civil service”.

It was 30-45 minutes of work to prepare to vote this time.

Anybody can vote by mail. I’m a permanent absentee voter (that way I avoid the long lines of illegal aliens George Soros pays to vote multiple times).

It isn’t time.

It’s that the issues are complex, and the information provided is incomplete (many candidates make generic statements that don’t mean anything, and many don’t provide any statement at all). This is something I would address if I was in power. I would require more information. As it is, how are we supposed to know whom to vote for in down ticket races? How is anyone supposed to know how to vote for a judge or sheriff when they are on the ballot?

The issues are complex, and the reading level is too high for most Americans, so they just don’t do it (or vote based on advertising).

waterfield wrote:

I suppose my question is this: if “the issues are complex, and the reading level is too high for most Americans” why is it that on a percentage basis the Republicans have more of their constituency voting than the Democrats? And by a lot.

Good question.

My first armchair guess would be that older, whiter, more affluent voters are more likely to feel like they have a stake in the outcome whereas younger, minority, and poor people are more likely to feel like it doesn’t make much difference.

But I don’t know. Democrats should really figure this out, though. The lack of turnout for them to midterm elections and special elections is the reason that Republicans control the country disproportionately.

waterfield wrote:

Zooey wrote:

waterfield wrote:

I suppose my question is this: if “the issues are complex, and the reading level is too high for most Americans” why is it that on a percentage basis the Republicans have more of their constituency voting than the Democrats? And by a lot.

Good question.

My first armchair guess would be that older, whiter, more affluent voters are more likely to feel like they have a stake in the outcome whereas younger, minority, and poor people are more likely to feel like it doesn’t make much difference.

But I don’t know. Democrats should really figure this out, though. The lack of turnout for them to midterm elections and special elections is the reason that Republicans control the country disproportionately.

Yeah-I’m not sure either. But the Democratic leadership needs to focus on this turn out issue or were assured of more what we have now. I recently read Chris Matthews book on Bobby Kennedy. Granted this before the net and social media, etc. but he had a way of connecting to the individual so that the person thought he really cared about them. His older brother had some of that but not nearly as much as Bobby. When I’m around my Republican friends my wife says I talk down to them like I’m an elitist and it puts people off-so she says. She’s likely right.

To me, the whole “elitist” thing is nonsense, and a manufactured narrative designed to help Republicans. Not that it doesn’t exist. But saying it’s somehow exclusively the domain of Dems, liberals, leftists, the coasts, etc. is absurd.

The narrative basically narrows the concept down to one’s education or professional status only — just that — forgetting that economic elitism is far more devastating. And it’s not close. But it works for Republicans. It works to be an elitist, as long as you wear a cowboy hat and drive a pickup truck. The Dems don’t know how to make their own form work.

Obviously, exceptions occur all over the place, but, generally speaking, the Dems have placed their bets on the “elite” from professional ranks, who count on academic advancement, primarily, to gain the upper echelons of those ranks. Thomas Frank talks about the dark underside of this bet in his recent Listen, Liberal.

Republicans, OTOH, see business owners as their key constituency, and their rise up economic ladders via the ownership of businesses. Anyone who has ever spent any time working for others, dealing with CEOs, working, say, in country clubs, with an array of business owners and their families, knows that “elitism” is alive and well in that community too.

The Media want a horse race. They don’t want one party to dominate. So they concocted this nonsense to even the playing field. And, speaking of Chris Matthews, he’s in on the game too. He’s long ranted about Democratic Party elitism, and did so the other day on Morning Joe, saying he was actually rooting against the Dems because of it.

Personally, I find the economic form not only insulting but dangerous. The academic kind is much easier, IMO, to deal with.