More on Clark County
Slate magazine's analysis of international newspaper opinion regarding the US poll holds The Guardian to account:
As the world settles in for four more years, however, readers of this column are surely wondering—as are the British Guardian readers who participated in the paper's "Letters to Clark County" campaign—how did the good people of Clark County, Ohio, vote? A quick look at CNN's breakdown of the votes in Ohio shows that Bush beat Kerry by a margin of 51 percent to 49 percent.
So much for the influence of well-meaning Brits who hoped to cure America of its Bush-loving ways. Or, in the words of one young man named Matt who posted a comment on the Guardian's newsblog: "Just wanted to thank the Guardian for helping deliver Ohio to Bush. Cheers!"
This is too generous an assessment of The Guardian's influence. My guru on all matters to do with elections and polls, David Boothroyd (author of the exhaustive Politico's History of UK Political Parties and creator of an invaluable site on UK election results), has sent me further analysis.
The certified election result in 2000:
Al Gore (D) 27,984 48.6%
George W. Bush (R) 27,660 (48.1%)
Ralph Nader (Green) 1,347 (2.3%)
Pat Buchanan (Reform) 221 (0.4%)
Harry Brown (Libertarian) 202 (0.4%)
John Hagelin (Natural Law) 94 (0.2%)
Howard Phillips (Constitution) 51 (0.1%)
The 2004 result (precinct count only, and so not including some late results):
George W. Bush (R) 34,444 (51.0%) + 2.9
John Kerry (D) 32,824 (48.6%) - 0.1
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) 183 (0.3%) - 0.1
Michael Peroutka (Constitution) 144 (0.2%) + 0.1
David observes:
The overall vote change in Ohio was Bush up 1.0%, Kerry up 2.2% on Gore. Clark County therefore had a shift to Bush compared with the state average.
Commenting on the overall vote for Bush, another British newspaper not normally noted for its qualities of critical reflection devotes its front page today to the rhetorical question "How can 59,017,382 people be so DUMB?" The Mirror should be assured that the award for outstanding stupidity - and condescension, ineptitude and arrogance - in the US poll in fact belongs on this side of the Atlantic.
UPDATE: The revisionism starts. A contributor to the semi-academic weblog that believes not only the Democrats but also the Abolitionists have gone down to George Bush maintains that The Guardian's campaign was an astute and deliberate ploy to boost brand-awareness and on-line traffic. The age of irony is not quite dead.
