Interesting article in the New Yorker today..

[jbm]

I looked to see if this has been posted yet and I didn't see it anywhere. I've asked myself "why don't they see what I see" so many times that I'm always really glad when I find a potential answer.

<snip>

To voters who identify strongly with a political party, the undecided voter is almost an alien life form. For them, a vote for Bush is a vote for a whole philosophy of governance and a vote for Kerry is a vote for a distinctly different philosophy. The difference is obvious to them, and they don’t understand how others can’t see it, or can decide whom to vote for on the basis of a candidate’s personal traits or whether his or her position on a particular issue “makes sense.” To an undecided voter, on the other hand, the person who always votes for the Democrat or the Republican, no matter what, must seem like a dangerous fanatic. Which voter is behaving more rationally and responsibly?
<snip>


http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?040830crat_atlarge

[jbm]

1. I'm kicking,..

because I I just realized that the hurricanes and locusts really may work in our favor. This was from the article also:

<snip>

And voters apparently do punish politicians for acts of God. In a paper written in 2004, the Princeton political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels estimate that “2.8 million people voted against Al Gore in 2000 because their states were too dry or too wet” as a consequence of that year’s weather patterns. Achen and Bartels think that these voters cost Gore seven states, any one of which would have given him the election.
<snip>

I've also long believed that voters will vote for a 'novelty' candidate, and that the novelty of having Bush the son follow not far behind Bush the father probably appealed to many voters for no reason except that it was'cool'. I don't thinkt he novelty effect carries over into the second term.