One important thing to keep in mind is that while the conservative evangelicals (evangelical=/conservative as 25% voted for Kerry) aren’t the Republican Party, if about 25% of voters thought moral issues were number one priority and 25% were largely overlapped with white protestant evangelicals with some conservative Catholics thrown on top, what’s going to happen to Republican primaries when these folks come out in bigger numbers each primary than they have in the past? Better get Keyes out of here before he runs for something again.
In Illinois, the numbers were slightly lower due to demographics, but that also means that there are fewer Republicans in total.
Maybe Illinois Republicans looked at Bush and saw George Ryan. Across the country, people didn’t have that frame of reference.
“Maybe Illinois Republicans looked at Bush and saw George Ryan.”
Nope.
Alan Keyes and the degeneration of IL republican party is the real reason.
I bet if Rayan, who is by all accounts a decent guy, was running against Obama, the outcome would have been better for Bush.
why would you expect this given the results for Bush-Kerry are almost identical to Bush-Gore in Illinois other than a general uptick in participation? Bush didn’t do significantly better in other safe Democratic states.
Everywhere I went in WI the refrain was “Kerry wants to take away our guns.” In WI ads from the NRA were running every 15 minutes. Saw nothing from Kerry explaining in very very simple words how this was a fallacy. One guy told me while canvassing, “Kerry may be hunter, but he sure don’t look like it.”