My feelings as for why California will switch this year to Bush:
Bush lost by 1.3 million votes last election, prodiminantly in the districts around San Francisco and Los Angeles. Through recent trends and events over the last four years, I think Bush should be able to pick up an additional 700K votes through these areas. Here is why:
- first off, an incumbant has the advantage of name recognition and familiarity. Though this is sometimes a negative, with how divided the populous is right now, I don't think it will impact Bush much.
- The court cases between FERC and the private power suppliers are coming to an end, and closing the chapter on the energy crisis from 2 years ago. Though not all the funds are being recovered by California, the financial impact is being reduced and new regulations are coming into place to help avoid future cases.
- "Arnold" (multiple subjects): popularity. His popularity has brought a Republican back to the governors seat. With how bad Davis' popularity was at the time he was removed from office, some Independents and others who would normally vote Democrat will probably switch to voting Republican this election.
-"Arnold": finances. He has done a good job of avoiding tax hikes across the state in order to pay of their deficit. If he and Bush can come to an agreement on federal funding, this will be another victory for Arnold. In addition, this will be a boost for Bush for being cooperative and "concerned" about California's well-being.
-"Arnold": campaigning. Arnold has yet to do any campaigning for Bush in the state (for multiple reasons). Though they are two different forms of Republicans, Arnold's spokesperson said he will be making pitches for the President as the election nears, though most likely not together. This, however, will help tie Arnold's success with Bush, giving his a more positive appearance.
-With all the contraversy over gay marriage, we have seen a ground swell in the silent majority lately who are opposed to the notion of legalizing gay marraige nationwide. Many of these protests have occurred within San Francisco of all places. With Bush being firm on position of not supporting gay marriage, and Kerry wavering back and forth on the topic, Bush should pick up some more votes here.
-The economy is recovering quickly this year, where some economists are thinking that instead of fearing another recession, it is rapid inflation that might be on our horizon. However, there are signs that corporations have gone back to hiring. As soon as it becomes more obvious that the job market has recovered (there is a lag between actual economic action and people's perception of that fact), Kerry's platform of "Bush is bad for the economy" will become irrelavant.
-When things in Iraq begin to calm down (for Iraqi's sake, I hope it is soon), we will begin to see the polls shift back over the 50% mark for Bush. We have seen that as Bush's poll figure slips, Kerry's does not rise. Instead, Bush's figures move in relationship to news from Iraq. Any positive movement overseas will be reflected domestically.
-Florida 2000: As we saw from the last election, voter activity was influenced by news coverage of the Eastern states as their polls closed and figures were being released. I recall a reporter in Oklahoma who was observing exit polls that as Gore picked up states, more Republican's came out to vote, and vise versa. With how close the election was, I expect the Pro-Bush crowd to come out in force to ensure that there isn't another close call.
*Note, I sure hope the media learned its lesson from the last election, and will hold back on releasing polling data until a) they are sure there is a clear winner in that state, and b) most polls across the US have closed. Releasing polling information while other polls are still open taints the process and disenfrancises voters on the West Coast.*
I have a few more points to make, but I need to get to work. I'll add them this evening when I get home. Just a quick summary though: It won't take a whole lot for Bush to pick up the extra votes needed this year to win California.
Again, this is just my observations. No one will know for sure until the polls close as to which way the state does go. It's too early to say definitely if Kerry or Bush will carry California, but my surprise prediction is that Bush will.
and you are completely ignoring the fact that California is a very socially liberal state that includes many people who will not vote for Bush based on that alone. I mean seriously, you're basically saying that lots of Bay Area voters are going to change their votes to Bush based on the fact that economy isn't too bad anymore. Give me a break. Bush will probably do even worse in the Bay Area this year due to rampant ABBism.
And it doesn't matter one iota how popular Arnold is, Gov. Henry in Oklahoma is according to recent polls very popular, but that doesn't mean Kerry has a snowball's chance in hell of winning Oklahoma. Tony Knowles was a popular governor in Alaska and Pataki was popular in 2000 yet Gore still got over 60% in his state. A popular governor doesn't matter in a state that's out of reach, and that's the case here.
