Spin Cycle

.... “There’s a lot of excitement.” Party leaders said turnout could top 50 percent. That’s colossal, compared to some contests, even national ones.

Democratic turnout in Nassau hit 47 percent in 1988, dipped to 22 percent in 1992 when Bill Clinton fought off Paul Tsongas and Jerry Brown, and 20 percent in the Gore-Bill Bradley contest of 2000, according to Nassau Democratic election commissioner William Biamonte.
By 2004, what proved to be a relatively low-stakes faceoff between John Kerry and John Edwards, with Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton also on the ballot, drew a pathetic 14 percent of eligible Democrats to county polls.

But there are sharp differences now from April 1988. For one, Clinton, as a New York senator, has a more obvious claim on her party’s state apparatus and political dealings than did front-runner Dukakis. For another, Jackson had a union-backed get-out-the-vote effort, which Obama does not.

Ethnic borders are less defined this time. Most African-American elected officials committed themselves early to Clinton, knowing that a year from now she will be either the president or still a senator. And Obama has many more outposts of support among whites than Jackson had.

Also, there are more than 20 states voting on this “Super-Duper” Tuesday — which has all the campaigns focused on bigger, multistate strategies.

Obama partisans are hoping that an informal straw poll he won among Democrats at Temple Beth Am in Merrick the other night signals something bigger. Clinton supporters, whose candidate is still polling strong in the state, say it does not.

Rudy Giuliani’s withdrawal this week promises to depress New York’s Republican turnout from earlier expected levels. Romney’s campaign seems absent, with strategists probably having written off New York earlier as Giuliani country and now as McCain country. One GOP activist guessed Republican turnout could range between a mere 10 and 20 percent of those eligible.