Democrats all around Wednesday were astonished on Wednesday.
The momentum seemed to be with Kerry. Every electoral rule seemed to be favoring Kerry. The early exit polls on Tuesday were favoring Kerry. There appeared to be a large turnout. It seemed inevitable that John Kerry would become the 44th President of the United States.
Now, those Democrats who aren’t still in shock or trying to figure out if there was any possible way that Kerry won Ohio, are looking ahead to 2008.
So where did Bush’s votes come from? Bush received nearly 9 million more votes in 2004 than he did in 2000. That’s an almost 20 percent increase. Eighty-six percent of those who cited terrorism as their top issue voted for Bush, but that was to be expected.
The big surprise came, however, in which issue was cited the most as the voter’s top issue – moral values. “Moral values” was an issue which polls showed to be a non-issue before the election, yet 22 percent said it was their top issue when voting and 80 percent of those voted for Bush.
One has to ask what “moral values” these include. Abortion doesn’t seem to be the issue. Fifty-four percent of voters said that abortions should be either “always legal” or “mostly legal.” Only 16 percent thought that abortions should be “always illegal.” One curious fact, though, is that a quarter of those who said that abortions should be “always legal” voted for President Bush, despite the fact that he has made clear his stance against abortions.
The issue of same-sex couples is a complex one. Someone can look at the numbers and say that 60 percent of Americans are for legal recognition of gay couples in some way. However, another person could look at the data and say that 72 percent of people are against gay marriage.
However, even out of those who said that gays should have no legal rights voted 70 percent for Bush – still short of the 80 percent of the “moral values” vote Bush received. Perhaps it was a combination of abortion, gay marriage and the effect of the swift-boat ads. We may never know.
For Democrats, the most disturbing number deals with how voters in 2000 turned out in 2004.
About 19.6 million people did not vote in 2000. Those broke for Kerry by 9 percent – 54 percent to 45 percent with one percent going to Nader.
Ultimately, this number has to be looked at as the reason why Kerry lost the election.
In fact, the ones who seemed to cost Kerry the presidency were Democrats themselves, who, for whatever reason, decided not to show up.
Democrats must now ask themselves how they wish to target the 2008 elections, and how to make sure that everyone votes in the next election.

Author