Ronald Reagan: 62% of Virginia's Vote in 1984

By: Lowell
Published On: 6/2/2006 9:26:52 AM

Next time Harris Miller disses Jim Webb for his past support for Ronald Reagan, he might want to consider the following election results: 

In 1984, Ronald Reagan won 1,337,008 votes in Virginia - 62.3% of the total.  Walter Mondale won 796,250 votes, or 37.1% of the total.

In other words, Reagan won 540,000 more votes than Walter Mondale in Virginia in 1984.  Now, I personally didn't vote for Reagan (I voted in Connecticut that year), but lots of Virginians did.

Is Harris Miller saying that all those Virginians - many of whom considered themselves to be Democrats - are/were "not real Democrats?"  Is that the way to "win friends and influence people?"  I don't THINK so!

By the way, what on earth is Harris Miller's vision for America?  All we hear in his mailings is that Jim Webb used to vote for Republicans.  Yeah, we got that one, Harris.  You got anything else in your quiver, cuz that one's getting real old, real fast.

[UPDATE:  The view on this from a conservative perspective: "Coming on a day when a Quinnipiac University poll confirms that Reagan was the best President since 1945, Harris Miller ought to think twice about attacking a man so adored, even among some Democrats in conservative Virginia."]

Comments



Machine Democrats (Teddy - 6/2/2006 9:50:07 AM)
This is the primary which Miller is targeting, meaning he is going after the traditional Democratic activists who vote in primaries and who have invested their time, money, and hearts in sustaining the Democratic Party during all these recent lean years. There is a very deep well of bitterness in this group over Webb's past pro-Republican statements and his endorsement of Allen last time around, the very man about whom he now says he made a mistake and wants to replace. Never mind that, to win the election in Nov, Miller will have to soften his Democratic activism and make a right turn to win in Virginia.

This group is protecting its own turf, its own cozy nest that they have created for themselves over past years, and, yes, the accommodations they have made with fellow activists on the Republican side... and they are going to vote for Miller because he does not threaten their cozy nest. Reagan is 25 years or so in the past, but he signaled the start of the Great Democratic Die-Off, and so they resonate to Miller's attacks on Webb's long-ago connections to Reagan. The rise of grassroots, netroots people's activists for Webb, and his own populist approach to politics scares the living bejeezus out of the machine Dems and certainly threatens to upset their applecart.  It's once again The People vs The Establishment.

I sincerely hope Mr. Webb's campaign advisors have recognized this factor and have in place a strategy to de-fang this factor, remove the sense the machine Dems have of being threatened. Do they?



Miller scares me. (loboforestal - 6/2/2006 10:10:39 AM)
Miller's Republican past scares me.  Miller is a neocon in foreign policy and economic policy.  If that doesn't scare Democrats, then we're in trouble.  This is why Webb can easily overcome Miller; Webb just needs to emphasis the facts in Miller's shady past.


yabbut (Kathy Gerber - 6/2/2006 10:25:19 AM)
This is the primary which Miller is targeting, meaning he is going after the traditional Democratic activists who vote in primaries and who have invested their time, money, and hearts in sustaining the Democratic Party during all these recent lean years.

Teddy, this is a diverse group of folks you're talking about, and their years of tireless work is more than commendable. The insider/ outsider paradigm is a bit of a false dichotomy.  I know many longterm Democratic activists who are less than impressed with Miller's nasty approach.

Keep in mind, that Miller's divisiveness and deception is legendary and has resulted in a large scale highly publicized mutiny in his local committee that weakened Democrats in the long run.  That's the man's real legacy.  Why do we keep forgetting to mention this?

I agree that cozy nesters as you so well describe them certainly exist, but their power and numbers are certainly inflated.

Furthermore, contemporary public awareness is extremely sensitive to deception right now, and that is much to Webb's advantage.



Not related - but you reminded me of something. (Kathy Gerber - 6/2/2006 11:11:25 AM)
This is a pretty good metric for comparing web interest in Webb v. Miller campaign web sites.

Here's a snapshot from http://www.alexa.com
Visit the site for more detailed explanations of the numbers.

The 1 week traffic rank for webbforsenate.com is 526,128 a significant increase over the 3 month figure of 709,439.

The 1 week reach score is 2 up from 1.  And the pageview score has dropped from 3.8 to 2.8.

These compare very favorably to the numbers for miller2006.org whose 1 week average rank is only 1,446,428. This represents a significant drop from the 3 month average of 1,390,040.

Miller's reach score has slightly improved to 0.5 for the weekly, from a 3 month score of 0.4.  Neverthless, Webb's weekly reach is now 4 times that of Miller's.

The weekly pageview score for Miller is the lowest possible score, 1, a drop from 2.8 on the 3 month score.



That is really interesting. (DemTilDeath - 6/2/2006 11:21:49 AM)
I wonder how many of those views of both candidates' sites are from IT workers across the country keeping tabs on the race in the hopes of a Miller defeat?


Go to google. (loboforestal - 6/2/2006 12:23:26 PM)
Type in "harris miller".  Click on his paid for link.  Harris pays for that click.


Ha! (Eric - 6/2/2006 1:06:01 PM)
Even our very own community blog, RaisingKaine, is ranked higher than Miller2006 in the 3 month average.  Ok, so it's only by a little (RK-1,342,207 to Miller-1,390,040), but were not trying to run for Senate.

So again, the IT guy falls short in the real IT world.



Made the same point a while back (Craig - 6/2/2006 12:09:21 PM)
I refuse to believe that all the Democrat gains since then are just a result of more peoplr moving to the state.  Some of those Reagan voters must have switched back to the Democrats.  And to tell them they aren't "real Democrats" just because they arrived late to the party is, in a word, stupid.

I hope Miller realizes that this tactic essentially destroys any chance he may have at a November win.



Totally Disagree (not gretchen bulova - 6/2/2006 1:26:51 PM)
This is a Democratic Primary, not a Reagan love-fest.  Miller is right to bring this up.  Under your logic, we shouldn't make fun of someone for supporting Jerry Kilgore in 2001 because he got 59% of the vote.  That makes no sense. 

A Dem supporting Kilgore in 01 is just as bad as a Dem supporting Raegan, both deserve to be whipped.



Totally disagree with you, as well. (phriendlyjaime - 6/2/2006 1:40:01 PM)
Whipped?  Ouch, you're tough on people making their own decisions and not drinking the party kool aid.


nope (not gretchen bulova - 6/2/2006 1:41:17 PM)
I'm just saying you can't have your kool aid and eat it too. 


::goes to type something back:: (phriendlyjaime - 6/2/2006 1:43:41 PM)
::realizes it is a lost cause, and not worth anytime; picks nose instead::


What if Miller supported Kilgore in 2001? (not gretchen bulova - 6/2/2006 1:44:09 PM)
Lowell is saying that should be off-limits to attack on.  That's ludicrous.


Rewind. (jwc52 - 6/2/2006 2:29:13 PM)
"Is Harris Miller saying that all those Virginians - many of whom considered themselves to be Democrats - are/were 'not real Democrats?'"

I think that Harris Miller is saying that Jerry Kilgore, for instance, citing that 62% of Virginians having supported President Reagan more than two decades ago as undeniable proof of his inevitable victory would have been dismissed by most people on this site as - shall we say - "fucking retarded."

(Also, bothering to take any basic poli sci class would turn you on to the fact that popular vote and approval ratings.)