[Marxism] Is it really just a "liberal stampede"? The youth shift from Bush 2000 to Kerry 2004

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect and others on the list often describe the hostility to
Bush as a "liberal stampede" for Kerry.  One thought that occurs to me
is why liberals would require a stampede to support a Democrat against
Bush-Kerry, and why a "liberal stampede" would be enough to put Kerry
ahead in the polls, even shakily.

Frankly, the intensity of hatred and dislike for Bush has been evident
since the earliest antiwar demonstrations, among youth, among Blacks and
a growing number of Latinos, among Jews (who despite the usual rumors
about their swing to the neocons will probably vote Democrat at more
than the 70 percent rate they did in 2000), among unionized workers,
etc.   "Anybody but Bush" is a liberal operation, but not "I hate Bush"
or "Bush is really evil," to quote a worker who signed an SWP petition
in the Midwest (and was firmly taken to task by the editors for her/his
pains).  That comes from much broader strata.

Here are some statistics on the  youth vote, which tended toward Bush in
2000 but is swinging hard for the Democrats today.

I have been arguing for some time for recognizing the anti-Bush
sentiment as a progressive one and solidarizing it, and differentiating
it from the Nobody But Kerry operation of the Democratic Party -liberal-
anti-Bush wings of the ruling class machine.  For one thing, it is the
popular anti-Bush sentiment, as far as I can tell, that is getting left
candidates on the ballot in many areas.  (The Militant, shaking its
editorial head in dismay, makes this clear.)

So many on the list seem to assume that those who are rejecting Bush and
voting for (as Alarcon correctly point out) the only realistic
alternative being offered by the system, are just a bunch of fools and
panic-stricken suckers, not people who have LEARNED SOMETHING in the
past several years.  They assume that the people who may have had hopes
in but now see through Bush are sure to fall like a ton of bricks for
Kerry when he carries out the same policies.  List members treat them as
though they were a bunch of editorial writers for the Nation or similar
incorrigibles.  I think this attitude is dead wrong.
Fred Feldman





WashingtonPost.com
The Poll Watchers
Youth Is Fleeting for Bush

By Richard Morin, Claudia Deane and Christopher Muste
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 12, 2004; 8:00 AM


Of course it would never happen like this, but it should: President Bush
and political guru Karl Rove are enjoying a quiet evening together in
the private quarters of the White House. Suddenly, Rove looks up in
horror from his computer printouts and asks:

"George . . . where are the kids?"

Where, indeed. And we're not talking about Jenna Bush or her sister
Barbara, but millions of other younger voters who supported Bush in 2000
but currently plan to vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry.

Surveys suggest that Bush's popularity has plummeted among 18- to
29-year-olds in the past four months, posing a new obstacle to the
president's bid to win reelection and an immediate challenge to
Republicans seeking to win over impressionable and lightly committed
young people during their upcoming convention.

Four years ago, network exit polls found that Bush and Democrat Al Gore
split the vote of 18- to 29-year-olds, with Gore claiming 48 percent and
Bush getting 46 percent -- the best showing by a Republican presidential
candidate in more than a decade.

But that was then. In the latest Post-ABC News poll taken immediately
after the Democratic convention, Kerry led Bush 2-1 among registered
voters younger than 30. Among older voters, the race was virtually tied.


Bush's problems with younger voters began months before the Democratic
convention, Post-ABC polls suggest. The last time Bush and Kerry were
tied among the under-30 crowd was back in April. In the five surveys
conducted since then, Bush has trailed Kerry by an average of 18
percentage points.

Virtually every other major poll conducted in the past month confirms
Kerry's newfound and perhaps transient popularity with voters under the
age of 30. The size of this advantage varies, due in part to the
relatively small number of younger voters and correspondingly large
margin of sampling error in each survey.

A Newsweek Poll conducted on July 29-30 found Kerry with a 51-32 lead
among 18- to 29-year-olds. The CBS News/New York Times post-convention
survey of registered voters showed Kerry with a 50-31 advantage among
this group.

Kerry also led among young adults in most surveys conducted during the
weeks leading up to the convention. The combined data from surveys of
2,891 registered voters conducted by the Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press in May and June showed a 15-point Kerry lead, but
its mid-July survey found the race tied. A Newsweek poll exclusively of
younger voters interviewed in mid-July found Kerry with a 48-41 lead
while a Post-ABC News survey put the Democrat ahead by 9 points on the
eve of his party's convention.

Taken together, the post-convention surveys suggest that if the election
were held today, Bush would do about as badly among younger voters as
Republican Robert Dole did in 1996 when he lost to incumbent Bill
Clinton by 53 percent to 34 percent in this age group. Dubya's dad was
more popular with younger voters in both 1988 and 1992: The elder Bush
split the young vote in 1988 and lost to Clinton by 9 percentage points
in 1992. Of course the Reagan era marked the recent high-water mark for
Republicans with younger voters, who gave the Gipper his biggest victory
margin of any age group in 1984.

Tyler McLaughlin, 27, of Georgetown, Tex., didn't vote four years ago.
He supported Bush during the first years of his presidency. "But after
two years of war, I became anti-Bush," said McLaughlin, a project
scheduler for a computer firm. "This seemed like a guy . . . who made a
decision and won't go back on it."

The latest Post-ABC News survey found that Kerry consistently topped
Bush by double-digit margins as the candidate young adults trusted to
deal with every major issue, including the economy, Iraq, education and
health care. The Democrat also was viewed by substantial margins as best
able to handle the campaign against terrorism and taxes, issues in which
Bush still had an advantage among all voters.

The issues motivating younger voters are not much different than those
on the minds of all Americans. The war in Iraq and the economy lead
their list of top voting concerns in recent Post-ABC News surveys -- not
surprising because it's young people who are fighting in Iraq and
hustling to keep or find jobs in this uncertain economy. Education ranks
somewhat higher as a voting issue for young voters, not unexpected
either, since many of them are still in college or just out of school.

One surprise: the campaign against terrorism is less of a voting issue
for younger voters than for the rest of the country. In the most recent
Post-ABC poll, only 9 percent of all 18- to 29-year-olds rated it as
their top voting concern compared to 20 percent of all voters.

"The war -- definitely," said Becky Hibma, 24, homemaker, in Dorr,
Mich., when asked what her top voting issue is this year.

Hibma says she is concerned about terrorism. She was on her honeymoon at
Disney World when the Twin Towers fell. But for her, Iraq is the more
immediate and tangible problem. "It could have been handled very
differently. We jumped in too quickly .. . . A little more thinking
would have been great."

Like many of her friends, she says she's torn between the two
candidates. She's "more Bush" at the moment, largely because of the
president's leadership after Sept. 11. "But there are days when I
totally agree with everything Kerry says."
[snip]


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