“For the first few hours I probably saw one Kerry sticker for every 20 Bush stickers… I did not make it to the political party booths until later in the evening... By the time we made it near that side of the grounds, I began seeing a Kerry sticker for every 2 or 3 Bush stickers. When I finally made it to the Republican booth, I learned that they ran out of Bush-Cheney stickers and signs around 5 p.m. People were still lining up though, waiting to get stickers for the various Republican state candidates to stick on their shirts and jackets and backpacks and strollers. The Kerry-Edwards booth, by the way, did have a few people around it, but no line and plenty of stickers and signs.”
My observations foretold the election outcome when Bush-Cheney carried North Carolina comfortably. That might seem a “no brainer” now, but with NC’s John Edwards on the ticket, there were some polls showing Kerry closing the gap to the low single digits in the final weeks of the campaign.
In 2004 it was easy to see the trend in my unscientific poll since there was high interest in the election, with many fairgoers wearing candidate and party stickers and buttons. This year, since very few people “stickered up,” what I learned was that here in North Carolina, since there are is no race for Senate or Governor (and obviously no Presidential one), there are not nearly as many people in full campaign mode as in previous years. At least not a lot of them outside of those like me who are always interested in politics. It will likely follow that voter turnout will be, as is typical in mid-term elections, fairly low.
I am sure that is not the case in a state like Virginia where the high profile race between George Allen and Jim Webb for Senate has drawn lots of national attention and has subjected television watchers in the state to a heavy barrage of campaign ads. But in other states like North Carolina, who wins or loses control of the House will be all about who has the best get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort. Maybe that is why President Bush and Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman have seemed so optimistic lately in the face of so many discouraging polls. Or maybe Karl Rove has done some undercover reconnaissance at the state fairs. Come to think of it, I did see someone strangely familiar in the funnel cake line.