But He’s the Only ELECTABLE One! | Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler

Yeah, we highlighted that particular bit since it seems rather important, now that we’ve heard time and time again that the base just has to shut up and eat the shit sandwich because Mittens the Fair Haired RINO of Taxachusetts is all about the Independents!!!11!1!1!

You know, “it doesn’t really matter what the worthless, dependable slaves on the plantation think, we have to get the independents.” How’s that working out for you, Mr. Electable? Because it seems to us that, even if you assume for the sake of discussion that that’s true, dropping 20 points because you’ve shown yourself to be a carbon copy of he inexcusably vile leftists among said independents isn’t exactly, how can we put it?, WINNING!

One of the things all the Gentry GOP moderate losers miss entirely is that the so-called independent vote isn’t monolithic. It has preferences and tendencies it follows as well. And guess what?

Ezra Klein – Research desk responds: How partisan are ‘independent’ voters?

Research on this question suggests that there are, in fact, swing voters, but that they are far fewer than they’re made out to be. The defining work on this subject is Bruce Keith et. al.’s “The Myth of the Independent Voter,” published in 1992, which broke down independent voters into three categories: independents who lean Democratic, independents who lean Republican, and pure independents. The “leaners” voted for Republican and Democratic candidates with about the same frequency that self-identified Republicans and Democrats did. Only pure independents were unpredictable, and amounted to just under 10 percent of the electorate. These were the true swing voters, but there were not that many of them.

The book’s findings have held up since its publication. In the 2008 election, “pure independents” made up only 7 percent of the electorate, and leaners still voted overwhelmingly for the candidates of the party they identified as leaning toward. This behavior holds up even between elections, in things like presidential approval polls. George Washington University’s John Sides analyzed ABC/Washington Post presidential approval polls from 2009 and broke them down based on whether respondents were pure independents, leaners or partisans:

Democratic leaners are barely distinguishable from Democrats, Republican leaners are barely distinguishable from Republicans, and pure independents — representing all of 7 percent of the electorate — were the only group to go from approving to disapproving of Obama.

So the Crap Sandwich Republicans want to toss conservatism down the rathole in order to scrabble for some portion of seven percent of the vote?

Figures. They aren’t just the stupid party. They’re the suicidal party.