The Kavanaugh Effect

Nobody sane has ever accused National Public Radio, aka NPR, of favoring Republicans. Or of the lesser charge of being even-handed for that matter. Their well-known progressive bias makes this story even more poignant.

The article reports results of a recent NPR, PBS News Hour/Marist poll, summarized as follows:

Just over a month away from critical elections across the country, the wide Democratic enthusiasm advantage that has defined the 2018 campaign up to this point has disappeared.

In July, there was a 10-point gap between the number of Democrats and Republicans saying the November elections were "very important." Now, that is down to 2 points, a statistical tie.

With Democrats already fired up for this election, the Kavanaugh confirmation fight has apparently had the effect of rousing a dormant GOP base.

"The result of hearings, at least in the short run, is the Republican base was awakened," noted Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll.

This is good news for, as my father - a lifelong Southern Democrat - said in frustration all those decades ago, "Those darn Republicans all go vote." I like to think he'd have become a Reagan Democrat had he lived that long. Most Southern Democrats became Republicans about then and never looked back.

Later ... people have written that the accusations against Kavanaugh will motivate women to vote Democratic. Don't you think most such women were already motivated to vote against Trump, before anyone had heard of Kavanaugh?

I believe you cannot further motivate someone already fully committed to voting a particular way. The real difference will be to motivate pro-Trump women, and men, to vote to frustrate Feinstein, Booker, Blumenthal, Harris and the super-sleaze twins Schumer and Pelosi.