Bob Kerrey Quotes

The main source of Republican votes was Anglo White males. However, the demographics of the nation had been changing for a few decades where the non-Whites are the fastest growing demographic subgroup. The projection was clearly that Anglo Whites would cease to be the majority in the coming years and each year they became slightly smaller. This caused many of the Republican politicians to redouble their efforts to appeal (sometimes pander) to non-Anglo White males in order to gain a majority. However, many of the positions that appealed to White Males—like immigration control and deportation of "illegals"—often offended many of the new growing demographic groups who voted in larger numbers against the Republicans. The money and manpower that was needed to try and produce a slim majority gave fewer and fewer resources to those Republicans who wanted to campaign heavily with the current minorities and to be majorities in order to get an even higher percentage to non-Anglo White Males. So each year Republicans were losing more and more ground with the very groups that were becoming a larger and larger voting bloc. Hence the "Death Spiral".

Historically, there has been a tendency to make it difficult for the poor to vote and having election day during working hours on a weekday was a very effective day of doing that. In modern times voting hours have been extended to 9 PM in some states so that working people could more easily vote. However, in modern times calls for weekend voting or Internet voting has been difficult to produce bipartisan support as increasing turnout tends to favor one party—the Democrats—over the other.

Description of the 1876 race between Samuel J. Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes. This election was very similar to the 2000 Bush v. Gore election. Tilden received more votes and there were shady dealings in Florida and other states which went to Hayes. Instead of the Supreme Court making the final decision as in 2000, a special Congressional Commission gave the Presidency to the candidate for whom fewer people had voted.

Al Gore had substantially won the popular vote but needed Florida to win the electoral vote. There had been a series of vote counting irregularities with many people being denied the right to vote to the point that no one was sure who had won Florida. The election moved from the ballot box to the courts and the Florida Supreme Court ruled that there should be some recounts in areas where Bush had supposedly won. The Bush forces and the Republicans appealed to the Supreme Court where the judges all reversed their traditional positions to support the party who had nominated them. Liberals who usually voted to have the Federal government override the states, voted for Florida to be upheld. Conservatives who usually supported the right of the States to decide such things without Federal Interference, voted to overturn the State Supreme Court. There were 5 Republicans and 6 Democrats and George W. Bush won the election by one judge’s vote.