about the "if not for
__(name your minority)" spin, and particularly the Tom Davis quote:
Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), former head of the Republican House campaign committee (NRCC), told The Hill, "If you take out the Indian reservation, we would have won."
I'm currently reading Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud, and just last night got to Ch 12, concerning the 2000 election. (more)
On pg 215, Unger writes:
According to an exit poll of Muslims in Florida conducted by the American Muslim Alliance, 91 percent voted for Bush, 8 percent for Ralph Nader, and only 1 percent for Al Gore. Likewise, the Tampa Bay Islamic Center estimated that fifty-five thousand Muslims in Florida voted and that 88 percent of them favored Bush.
88% of 55,000 is 48,400. Even if we give all the remaining 6,600 votes to Gore (highly unlikely, given the AMA estimate), Bush had a net gain of at least 41,800 votes among Muslims. By Davis's logic, if you take out the Muslim vote, Gore would have won [by a margin that couldn't have been bush-whacked].
On the positive side, I have to wonder if Florida Muslims still feel so great about Dubya? So I'll try my first poll: