Curb Your Enthusiam

At NRO, David Freddoso urges us to take all this talk about "record turnouts" among Democrats in the primaries and what it implies for the general election with a grain of salt:

In the open election of 1988, 23 million Democrats voted in primaries, as did 12 million Republicans. Yes, you're reading that correctly. Nearly twice as many Democrats voted. That was a precursor to President Michael Dukakis's election.

In 1980, Democrats actually had an incumbent president, who was challenged by Ted Kennedy. Republicans, meanwhile, had a competitive primary between Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Democrats cast 16.1 million votes in their primaries that year, compared to just (corrected) 12.7 million for Republicans. We all know what happened in Jimmy Carter's second term, don't we?

The only times Republicans have outnumbered Democrats in primaries in the last 35 years were 2000 and 1996--both years when Republicans were sick of being out of power. Even in those years, Republican turnout was only slightly higher than Democratic turnout.

This doesn't mean the the turnout and enthusiasm on the Democratic side this year doesn't matter. It's just good to keep things in the proper historical perspective.