Why did Bush win the elections of 2000 and 2004?  Okay, I know the standard responses, and they will include Diebold, butterfly ballots, hanging chads, SCOTUS stopping the recount, the Nader factor, voter intimidation, etc etc.  All valid reasons.

But there's another MAJOR factor, probably THE MOST DOMINANT FACTOR as to why Bush took the office in 2000, and stayed there in 2004.  And that is that he was the candidate of choice for some 45% of voters.  Of course all the factors in the first paragraph unfairly gave him enough of an edge to claim office, and surely we need to fix all of those problems.

But the fact of the matter remains that some 45% of voters in these elections did want to vote for Bush.  If we're going to win in '06 and '08, we need to understand WHY these people voted Republican, and more importantly convince them WHY voting Republican is NOT in their best interests at all.  Follow me below the fold, as I try to analyze some of the reasons this block of voters consistently votes Republican.

Finally, the whole Stephen Colbert serving of Truthiness to the White House Press Correspondents gets some major play.  The article is on the Front page on the New York Times, baby (at least the NYT web page).