Enthusiasm gap? turnout among registered republicans could be off 40% tonight compared to '08

[book_worm]

Just think what their turnout would be without Ron Paul:

Although the polls made pretty good predictions of the election outcome tonight, forecasting turnout is harder. So far it looks like rumors of a record Republican turnout in New Hampshire were greatly exaggerated.

With 85 of 301 precincts reporting, 52,191 voters have cast a ballot in the Republican primary so far. That projects to about 185,000 votes statewide, as compared with about 240,000 votes in the Republican primary in 2008.

The drop-off in turnout looks worse for Republicans since a higher fraction of voters - about half this year, compared to 37 percent in 2008 - are independents. That means that turnout among registered Republicans could alone be off by nearly 40 percent from 2008.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/live-blogging-the-new-hampshire-primary/?src=twt&twt=fivethirtyeight#turnout-in-g-o-p-primary-tracking-well-below-2008-pace

[craigmatic]

1. So I guess this means we're going to win the general election.

[book_worm]

2. It's just pointing out that the GOP voters don't seem as excited as they were in 2010

[rustydog]

3. This should be a slam-dunk for Willard yet only 35% of republicans approved of his message

35%. How is job-killer going to impress independants and Progressives come November. Especially after Newtered's half-hour hit piece hits the airwaves!