Continuing 538's interview series, today we feature Ruy Teixeira, one of the premier political demographers in America today and co-author of the highly acclaimed--and 2008-vindicated--book, The Emerging Democratic Majority. He is senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and The Century Foundation.
I asked Ruy to discuss recent demographic trends, some great reports he recently issued, and what his takeaways were from the 2008 election. As ever, his answers are as detailed and rigorous as the many reports he produces every year, many of which are linked to below and which I highly recommend.
Fivethirtyeight.com: First, your book with John Judis, The Emerging Democratic Majority, received significant validation in the 2008 election results. If you don’t mind taking a bit of a victory lap, how did you and Judis forecast the emergence of this Democratic majority seven or eight years ago, when few others could?
Ruy Teixeira: Perhaps it helped that John and I both read a lot of history, a habit that encourages one to take the long view and look for underlying patterns of change. Many political observers and analysts are concerned to the point of obsession with what just happened and what will happen very soon. That is, their preoccupations are short term and their explanations of politics are similarly short-term. Some of this is useful, of course, and I think a fair amount myself about what is going to happen in the next vote in Congress and or in the next election.
But those short-term preoccupations can get you into trouble when trying to think more broadly about where the country is going. Short-term analyses can wind up dominating the way you think about the future; it becomes harder to look beyond short-term outcomes to factors that might be fundamentally reshaping the political terrain.
Thinking about these underlying factors is what drove John and I to write the book. The more we considered these underlying factors and sifted through the relevant data, the more it seemed like the country was evolving in a way that, on net, was very good for the Democrats and very bad for the Republicans. Demographically, geographically, economically, attitudinally—the effects of what you might term the transition to a postindustrial society were all pointing in the same direction.
This led us to believe that, despite Bush’s so-called victory in 2000, the country was headed in a pro-Democratic direction that would likely lead to electoral dominance by Democrats within the decade. And we stuck to our guns even in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, which we fully realized would be highly beneficial to Bush and the Republicans for some time. But we did not think that 9/11 could reverse the long-term effects of the underlying trends we had identified. We maintained that position through the 2002 and 2004 elections, the latter of which sent many progressives into paroxysms of despair. Rove and the mighty Republican machine will rule forever! Democrats are doomed! We did not share these sentiments. Indeed, Bush’s victory in 2004 was unusually weak for an incumbent President, especially one who could pose as a wartime President. We believed underlying trends would assert themselves in Bush’s second term and they did.
538: You recently put out a report summarizing some key developments of the 2008 election cycle. Can you highlight one or two that are the biggest takeaways from that report?
RT: Yes, that report is New Progressive America, from the Center for American Progress' recently started Progressive Studies Program, which I co-direct with John Halpin. I do not believe you will find anywhere a more comprehensive, detailed treatment of the trends that have tilted America progressive.
As for takeaways, there are many, but here are some of the most important. Start with this one: between 1988 and 2008, the minority share of voters in presidential elections has risen by 11 percentage points, while the share of increasingly progressive white college graduate voters has risen by 4 points. But the share of white working class voters, who have remained conservative in their orientation, has plummeted by 15 points. Want to know why McCain’s strategy failed in Pennsylvania? Same story: white working class voters declined by 25 points between 1988 and 2008, while white college graduates rose by 16 points and minorities by 8 points. Or in Nevada: white working class voters are down 24 points over the time period, while minority voters are up an amazing 19 points and white college graduates by 4 points.
More generally, progressives are doing very well among almost all growing demographic groups, while conservatives are retaining strength only where the country is stagnating or declining. One of the more dramatic manifestations of this pattern is the rise of the Millennial generation (those born 1978-2000). Millennial adults voted for Obama by a 34-point margin, 66 percent to 32 percent, compared to a 9-point margin for Kerry among 18- to 29-year-olds in 2004 when that age group was not exclusively Millennials. Between now and 2018, the number of Millennials of voting age will increase by about four and a half million a year, and Millennial eligible voters will increase by about 4 million a year. In 2020—the first presidential election where all Millennials will have reached voting age—this generation will be 103 million strong, of which about 90 million will be eligible voters. Those 90 million Millennial eligible voters will represent just under 40 percent of America’s eligible voters. (Much more on this generation’s size, voting behavior, demographics, and views on cultural, foreign policy, role of government, and economic issues may be found in my Progressive Studies Program report with David Madland, New Progressive America: The Millennial Generation.)
The geographical takeaway is the close relationship between pro-progressive political shifts and dynamic metropolitan growth areas across the country, particularly within contested states. Progressive gains have been heavily concentrated in not just the urbanized cores of these metro areas, but also in the growing suburbs around them. Even in exurbia, progressives have made big gains. Only in the smallest metro areas and in small town rural America were progressive gains minimal. And only in the most isolated, least populated rural counties did progressives actually lose ground. As with demography, where America is growing, progressives are gaining, while conservative strength is associated with stagnation and decline.
538: In terms of demographic groups and performance, what from the 2008 results caught you by surprise because it was unexpected?
RT: I was most surprised by the extent of the distributional shifts in the electorate, which exceeded my expectations. Between 2004 and 2008, the share of white working class voters decreased by 4 points, while the minority share rose 3 points, which is quite a bit faster than historical trend.# It will be interesting to see if this rapid pace keeps up in 2010 and 2012.
538: Same question, but in reverse: what didn’t happen that you expected to happen in 2008?
Based on pre-election polls, I expected Obama to do better than he did among white working class voters—he lost them by 18 points on election day. Thanks to the distributional shifts mentioned above, very strong performance among minority voters and a sharp progressive shift among white college graduate voters, Obama was still able to achieve a solid victory. Moving forward, however, this poor performance among white working class voters represents a serious progressive vulnerability.
But help may be on the way. Not only did Obama win white Millennials overall, he also won both white Millennial college graduate and noncollege voters (by 16 and 6 points respectively). Some may question the significance of the latter finding since the 18-29 year old noncollege white group contains a considerable proportion of students and is therefore a flawed representation of the young white working class. However, if analysis is confined to 25-29 year olds to eliminate the problem of mixing students on track for a four year degree with other white noncollege youth, the results are even stronger. Obama won 25-29 year old white noncollege voters by 12 points, 54-42, a stunning 40-point swing relative to Kerry’s 35-63 drubbing among the same group in 2004.
The strong support of white college graduate Millennials for Obama is consistent with the continuing shift of white college graduates toward progressives and should strengthen that already-existing trend. But the support of white noncollege Millennials for Obama could indicate a new trend. As relatively progressive white working class Millennials replace older white working class voters in the electorate, the white working class as a whole could become less conservative and more open to progressive ideas and candidates. Given Obama’s big deficit among the white working class in the 2008 election, this would be a significant development, mitigating progressives’ main demographic weakness and adding to their burgeoning coalition.
538: Catholics have long been a bellwether of presidential results, and were again in 2008—Obama carried them and he won. Is there a particular demographic subgroup pundits may not be paying close attention to that you think will emerge as a key bellwether in the coming decades?
RT: Well, I don’t know about bellwethers—a group that points in the winning direction every election. I’m more interested in groups whose movement tells you a lot about where American politics is going, regardless of whether they do or do not point in the right direction all the time. Some groups, for example, can be counted on to generally vote conservative, but the magnitude of the conservative margin is of considerable interest.
One such group is whites with some college, whom I have termed “America’s most under-rated demographic.” They form a critical part of the white working class and get very little specific attention as group. They are about 40 percent of the white working class today, a percent that has been growing over time. Moreover, whites with some college have been stable as a percent of the overall electorate, while the rest of the white working class has been declining sharply.
Whites with some college have, by definition, more education than the rest of the white working class and tend to have more skilled jobs and earn higher pay. They are the most upwardly mobile portion of the white working class. For many elections, the GOP has captured the loyalty of these aspirational voters. In 2004, this group voted for George Bush by 25 points. In 2008, Obama managed a fairly solid 7 point improvement in the progressive deficit among these voters. But he managed only a 3 point improvement among the less educated segment, those with only a high school diploma or less.
This result is consistent with research I did with William Frey before the election, where we found this group trending strongly toward progressives in many swing states over the 1988-2004 time period. If this trend continues, conservative margins among the white working class will be substantially narrowed with big implications for American politics.
538: The Democratic congressional majorities are basically 60 senate seats and 257 House seats. Do you think we’ll see much movement in those totals in 2010, and why or why not?
RT: I don’t think we’ll see much movement—a reasonable expectation is a midteen loss for the Democrats in the House (the post-World War II historical average loss for the President’s party in the first term midterm election is 16 seats) and perhaps a few pickups in the Senate for the Democrats, given the distribution of 2010 Senate races. That said, to the extent there is potential for big change, it is clearly on the downside given the state of the economy. This will come as no great revelation to anybody that much depends on the state of the economy around the middle of next year. If it’s more terrible than expected, especially on the unemployment front, there could be big Democratic losses in the House. On the other hand, if the recovery exceeds expectations and indicators are sharply improving by that time, the Democrats could hold their own in the House and do a little bit better than current expectations in the Senate.
538: Those 2010 results will have some bearing on the control of redistricting. Do you have any sense of which party stands to benefit the most from redrawing the House maps for the coming decade, and why?
RT: That is an interesting question and frankly I really don’t have a good sense of it. There are a number of variables and they don’t all go in the same direction. First, there will be a net gain of around 7 in the number of House seats and electoral votes located in red states (as operationalized by the 2008 election results). That’s good for the GOP. On the other hand, the same trends that are driving population growth in seat/EV gaining red states are also turning these states purpler (Arizona is a great example of this; see my study of the Intermountain West with William Frey for more). That’s good for the Democrats. And, in terms of House seats, where those seats are added within states has to bear some relationship to where the growth is actually taking place. For example, in Texas, which will probably gain 4 seats, candidates for additional seats include Democratic-trending metros like Dallas, Austin and Houston and Democratic south Texas, not super-conservative white rural and small town areas. That’s also a plus for the Democrats.
And then of course there’s the whole messy business of redrawing district lines when seats are added and subtracted. Famously, this redrawing can be gamed for partisan purposes by state legislatures and governors which typically have a major role in the process. Overall, Democrats now control 27 state legislatures and the GOP just 14. This advantage extends to the states that are expected to gain or lose seats: Democrats control 11 state legislatures and the GOP controls 6. So that’s good for the Democrats. But to add in a complicating factor, the states controlled by the GOP will add around 9 seats, while the states controlled by the Democrats will lose 8 seats. And the results of 2010 election could reduce Democrats’ current advantage in state legislatures and governorships. So it’s a bit murky.
Plus, remember what happened the last time we redistricted. The Republicans were thought to have done very well for themselves. But over the course of the decade political change and demographic trends drastically reduced the partisan effectiveness of the new boundaries. The same thing could happen after 2010, regardless of which party seems to benefit initially from reapportionment and redistricting.
538: You recently finished a new report on what you see as the end of the culture wars. Tell us please what your key findings are in this new report.
RT: Yes, that new report is The Coming End of the Culture Wars. In the report, I argue that the culture wars as we have known them are likely coming to an end. Demographic change-- the rise of the Millennial generation, increasing religious and family diversity and the decline of the culturally conservative white working class--is undercutting both the level and salience of conservative cultural views, thereby reducing the effectiveness of such politics. That will not prevent conservative activists around particular culture wars issues from continuing to press their case. Indeed, reaction to their current desperate plight may lead them to intensify their efforts in some states, especially where demographic change has been slow or where local right wing culture war institutions retain strength. But there will be diminishing incentives for politicians to take up these causes for the very simple reason that they are losers.
One great example of how demographic change is undercutting the culture wars is gay marriage. Millennials are so much more favorable to legalizing gay marriage than older generations that, by sometime in the next decade, there will be majoritarian public support for legalizing gay marriage as Millennials fully enter the electorate and take the place of much older, far more conservative voters. Other areas where big demographic effects can be observed is on gender roles and family values, and on race, where rising demographic groups’ proclivities will tilt the country even farther toward tolerance, non-traditionalism, and respect for diversity.
Immigration is yet another issue where demographic change will mitigate culture war conflict. For quite a while, polls have been showing public support for immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship, and a relative lack of enthusiasm for an enforcement-only approach. That support should grow over time, as should positive feelings about immigrants and immigration, since the white working class, which has relatively negative feelings in this area, is being supplanted by groups like Hispanics, white college graduates, and professionals, whose feelings about immigration are far more positive. And then there is the rise of the Millennial generation. About three quarters (73 percent) of 18-29 year old Millennials supported giving illegal immigrants “the right to live here legally if they pay a fine and meet other requirements” in an April 2009 Washington Post/ABC News poll, which is 31 points higher than support among seniors.
The winding down of the culture wars will certainly not stop those with progressive and conservative cultural views from clustering at the progressive and conservative ends of politics. It will still be the case that voters will be attracted to the political “home” where they feel culturally most comfortable. Conservatives will attempt to capitalize on this by giving a cultural overtone to non-cultural issues such as taxes and government spending. But the aggressive use of specifically cultural issues to divide voters will become less and less common. And the country will be a better place for it.
538: Let’s role play a moment and pretend you are the Ruy Teixeira of the right, not left, and Michael Steele calls you into his office and says, “Ruy, map us out a path to return to power.” What advice would you give him?
RT: OK, here’s my off the hook advice for Mr. Steele and his beleaguered party.
1. Move to the center on social issues. As noted in my previous answer, the culture wars may have worked for awhile, but shifting demographics make it a loser for the party today and moving forward. A more moderate approach would help with Millennials, where the party must close a yawning gap, and with white college graduates, who still lean Republican but just barely. The party also needs to make a breakthrough with Hispanics and that won’t happen without shifting its image toward social tolerance, especially on immigration.
2. Pay attention to whites with some college and, generally, to young white working class voters. The party’s hold on the white working class is not secure and, if that slips, the party doesn’t have much to build on to form a successful new coalition. And that probably means offering them something more than culture wars nostrums and anti-tax jeremiads.
3. Another demographic target should be white college graduates, especially those with a four year degree only. The party has to stop the bleeding in America’s large metropolitan areas, especially in dynamic, growing suburbs. Keeping and extending GOP support among this demographic, who increasingly see the party as too extreme and out of touch, is key to starting to take back the suburbs.
4. Besides social moderation, one way to reach these and other important demographics is through a judicious use of anti-government populism. Despite general public support for the stimulus package and Obama’s budget, there is considerable disquiet about the effects on these spending measures on the deficit and not much belief, so far, that these measures have had a substantial, positive effect on the economy. In addition, public support for the bailouts of banks and insurers has always been very shaky, with Americans convinced that these firms have gotten too much money and been treated too leniently. So, there is an opening for a populist attack that argues all this—including the impending health and energy bills--is too much money for too little payoff and represents the priorities of elites not the people.
5. This kind of populism is something the party is comfortable with. But here’s something they’re uncomfortable with. It’s not enough to just denounce the other side and what they have done/propose to do in populist terms. The party has to have serious solutions of its own to propose that go beyond cutting taxes to using government to address problems, but in ways that reflect conservative values and principles. It is necessary to go beyond being the Dr. No party. That might help the party make some gains in 2010 but it will not be enough to get it back to a majority status. For that, a conservatism must be built that is not allergic to government spending when needed and even to taxes when there is no responsible alternative. Paradoxically, the party must combine an anti-government populism with a pro-government conservatism.
This sounds and is different from what the party has done in the past. But there is no alternative moving forward. The country has changed and the old playbook just won’t work.
#This sentence was incorrect in the original posting because of my transcription error, but has since been corrected.
7.20.2009
Teixeira Says Culture War Ending, GOP Needs "New Playbook"
@ 9:01 PM
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58 comments
How is a 7 point gain solid when he outperformed kerry by 10 points overall?
With the demographic and cultural changes detailed here, the future is truly bleak for the GOP. At its core, the party's central goal really is to increase the wealth of the wealthiest Americans (via lower taxes on the top tax bracket(s) and capital gains; promoting pro-business legislation while fighting to weaken labor, etc.). This is NOT a winning strategy in a democracy, and never will be. So the party's only path to success was the culture wars/race bating. That's how Republicans can consistently get working-class whites to vote against their economic self interest. But with the muting of race/religious issues, the GOP really has nothing to offer the majority of Americans. I truly don't know how the Republicans can overcome this without changing the central goal of their philosophy.
Teixiera said that one of the things the GOP needs to do is to utilize a judicious use of anti-government populism. They're not going to be able to do that for the foreseeable future. The entire platform of the Bush presidency was based on unquestioning loyalty to the state and that to question the decisions of government was unpatriotic. Reversing that position now would be a massive flip-flop and would shatter the party. It would be an outright denial of the last eight years. In order for it to work, the GOP would have to abandon the southern religious conservatives on which the current party's core is built around. They cannot do it. They lack the political courage to do so. If they tried it would break the party apart, even though it desperately needs to be broken apart and restored back to its limited-government roots.
The GOP's problem is that they would rather lose the country than admit to the mistake that switching their ideology from limited-government conservatism to police-state totalitarianism was bad for both the country and the party. That is what is going to be their ultimate downfall. The Christian "conservatives" and their anti-conservative policies destroyed the party but without them the Republicans don't have a party anymore.
This all assumes that racial and economic groups will vote the same way in comming years. I don't see why that's going to be the case.
I understand we all want the GOP to lose, but just projecting out current demographic trends and assuming they will vote the same way is quite simplistic. Turn it around, what if white people start feeling pressed by growing amount of hispanics in the US and feel like their social security benefits are being threatened by Hispanics drawing on government benefits?
Furthermore, I'm tired of the word "populism," it's vastly over-used and indicitative of someone with a political axe to grind. When conservatives point out bailing out Chrysler was a big loss, or that the Stimulus was expensive and not working (so far) it's populism? But when Obama tells everyone they are going to get health care, it's sensible politics? Weak.
And Steelers, GOP has nothing to offer? What about Obama's inane-energy policy. Renewables don't work, as Germany has demonstrated. Sessions called for 100 nuclear plants - that's something good they are offering. We need to get past blind party politics, because if we don't hold Obama accountable then we'll suddenly discovered that the Republicans are.
And race baiting, please, that's an equal opportunity game.
Also, let me be clear, I'm not saying Hispanics are "using up" government resources. I'm just saying that that is an angle of attack that could pay off so we can't be so clear about predictions.
Drew:
He didn't. Kerry got 47%, Obama got 53%, a six point pickup.
Here is what I don't get about Republicans:
As a general rule you wouldn't hire a CEO for a company who said upfront that (s)he wanted to dismantle most of the company and get rid of it.
How about a job applicant for school principle or college president who said (s)he wanted to dismantle the school?
What about a librarian who said (s)he wanted to cut the size of the library in half, reduce the number of books on the shelf and lay off some employees.
Granted, there might be specific economic circumstances that might call for the company, the school or the library to consider such a course of action, but as a general rule we wouldn't hire someone to run an institution if their stated purpose was to destroy the institution or significatly damage it (remember Grover Norquist wanting to 'drown it in a bathtub.')
So why do voters about half the time vote for people to run the Government who are committed to dismantling it? I just don't get it.
More bad news from a Census Bureau press release.
"The voting rate for non-Hispanic whites decreased by 1 percentage point."
MPR has this take on the report:
"The bureau released figures today showing a smaller percentage of registered voters went to the polls last November than in 2004. Even in voting-intensive Minnesota, more whites stayed home.
According to the national data, more older whites opted to stay home compared with 2004, citing little interest in supporting either Barack Obama or John McCain."
Also consider this:
"The state with the biggest drop in white voters was Ohio, which saw 537,832 or 11 percent fewer white voters casting ballots this year, according to Project Vote. Ohio saw 65,922 additional African American voters, a 13 percent increase; it had 39,578 more Latino voters, a 23 percent increase. Overall, Ohio had 441,000 fewer voters in 2008 compared to 2004."
So we had an election where the Republican "base" clearly made Obama's race into a major issue, and where conservatives were desperately counting on racism (Bradley Effect) to prove the polling wrong, and a post-election analysis from Republicans about their great strength among whites - and it turns out that this last desperate refuge of Republican strength is less interested in voting than they were in 2004.
Despite a major push to get back to their "roots", the Republicans are viewed even worse in current polling than Bush was when he left office.
The fringe of the Party is getting crazier by the day. The Party leadership can't control their own ranks, and at some point there will be violence that will discredit the Party severely. The mystical pendulum may be swinging, but it's not swinging in the Right's direction.
The fringe of the Party is getting crazier by the day. The Party leadership can't control their own ranks, and at some point there will be violence that will discredit the Party severely. The mystical pendulum may be swinging, but it's not swinging in the Right's direction.
What a bunch of rubbish. Violence will discredit the party? They denounced Van Brun. It sounds like you're saying they'll lose, not because of their policies, but because they'll be blamed for the actions of other people or policies they don't actually hold. Did the Democrats lose after the weather underground took actions, no. Did the Republicans lose because of the Okalahoma city bombing. No. There's just no way you can predict how violence is going to play out, unless you're talking about some event like the burning of the Reichstag where you've already planned your response.
The quality of the commentators here has really gone down hill since the election, btw. Just checked back here the first time since last year.
@ Todd
The state with the biggest drop in white voters was Ohio, which saw 537,832 or 11 percent fewer white voters casting ballots this year, according to Project Vote. Ohio saw 65,922 additional African American voters, a 13 percent increase; it had 39,578 more Latino voters, a 23 percent increase. Overall, Ohio had 441,000 fewer voters in 2008 compared to 2004
Doesn't that kind of, you know, undercut your argument? Obama only won Ohio by 262K votes. If 538K stayed home - and if whites typically vote Republican (even in '08 they voted 56-43 for McCain) - then that implies that if only those disillusioned whites showed up to vote - McCain would have won in Ohio.
And Florida, Indiana, North Carolina were all closer than Ohio. If the disillusioned whites simply showed up as they did in 2004, that alone would have allowed McCain to net another 73 electoral votes without even making any overtures to woo minorities.
And I don't agree that the Republican "base" made race an issue. The media made much more of Obama's race as a sort of "breakthrough" than the Republicans ever spoke of his blackness as some sort of pejorative.
Teixura's right that the GOP has a demographic problem - but he's also right that the GOP can ameliorate this (in the short term, at least) by appealing to educated whites of various stripes. Every time a party loses and election it has a demographic problem.
The Emerging Democratic Majority seems to be going back into its shell!
LOL
Healthcare reform is dead, Cap and Trade a club to beat weak Dem House members up over in the midterms.
Y'all were elected to bring hope and change, not this crap.
The people are getting wise and Obama is looking like he has seen the zenith of his power and popularity.
From this vacuum a new leader must emerge.
petekent01 (on twitter)
@adam
First good post in this thread. Thanks for restoring some of my confidence in the readership of 538, I was beginging to think this had become of an offshoot of DU.
Whites are already morelikely than not to vote GOP, as a general rule. If those that stayed home disproportionately did so because they thought McCain wasn't conservative enough then there is no doubt he would have won Ohio.
I really don't think the Republicans need to move more liberal on immigration issues. Bush's plan wasn't popular by the polling, and neither was the McCain-Kennedy plan. Indeed, McCain's stance on immigration may have been perceived as too liberal by those conservative whites in Ohio who stayed home.
Abortion's support seems to be remarkably stable, at least in the past 15-20 years with the numbers swinging back-and-forth a bit. However, gay marriage shows a long-term trend of liberalization.
And as whites' share of the electorate declines, there may easily be a nationwide backlash against affirmative action programs. This has already happened (through state ballot initiatives) in relatively blue places like California, Michigan, and Washington.
Amnesty is a loser. Period. There are not enough Hispanics in enough places that count to support amnesty. If the Democrats push it next year (as one commenter on another thread suggested) the Republicans will be able to use it as a bludgeon and just another tool in their arsenal in addition to the climate bill and the stimulus bill and unemployment numbers.
You can make all kinds of clever arguments about immigrants building this country and how harsh rhetoric hurts the GOP in the long run with Hispanics - but the bottom line is that, for the next decade at least, the public support for anything other than Enforcement First - THEN we talk about guest worker programs and path to citizenship just isn't there.
And when millions swim across the Rio Grande every year it's hard to claim that enforcement is there. It just isn't going to sell.
Adam,
The problem though is that there are a lot of families on both sides of the border. My father's side of the family goes all the way back to Plymouth rock. My cousin (on that side) is married to a man from Central America. He is here legally (though he is not a citizen.) Their kids are citizens and her oldest voted for the first time last year (for Obama.) Her husband has other family members here. Some of them are citizens. Some of them may be undocumented (I choose not to pry since it's none of my business but I've gotten that impression.) My cousin's in-laws are happy where they are and have no desire to move to the United States. Other family members have been here and returned, some plan to go when they are old enough and others don't intend to go.
There are many, many other families in a similar position. What immigration has done is turn many of them against the GOP because they see it as an attack on their family.
And the irony is this: Many Hispanics are culturally conservative Christians, work hard and want to work their way up in the world, and have a hawkish view of the foreign policy and support the military. In other words, without immigration on the table they are naturally receptive to a Republican message. That showed at the polls in 2004, when George W. Bush got 44% of the Hispanic vote nationwide (and that was momentum, the highest ever for a Republican.)
With the assault on immigration, many of them see it as an attack on their family (I've talked to some who do, and not just my relatives.) And family is very strong in the Hispanic community so even very conservative Hispanics tend to put aside their misgivings about liberalism (and they have plenty) to vote against people who they feel endanger their family or their family members.
Hence, McCain dropped 13% compared to Bush-- about double what he dropped overall-- among Hispanics and got 31%. And even that was better than Republican congressional candidates who have gotten in the low to mid 20% range from Hispanics nationally the past two elections.
Texeira is right about immigration. The truth is that the Hispanic vote will continue to grow (and it would even without immigration since Hispanic women have a fertility rate of 3.1 vs. about 1.9 for non-Hispanic whites and African-American women.) For Republicans to be successful they have to turn the volume down on immigration and then let those Hispanics who are naturally conservative (and there are many) be drawn back to the GOP.
"They're not going to be able to do that for the foreseeable future."
What country do you live in? In my United States, candidates regularly run on platforms with very little connection to the facts of history. The GOP has been running on small government and fiscal responsibility for decades, despite the fact that Richard Nixon was the last Republican president to run a federal surplus. Does this hurt GOP presidential candidates? Not in the slightest. Because all that matters is whether you can sell your platform at any given moment. You've already seen the Republicans trying desperately to disown Bush, saying that he wasn't a real conservative, etc. By the time 2012 comes around, this will seem like a plausible enough argument to a fair number of people in the center because, let's admit it, they will have been hearing it over and over again for four straight years. Sure, they'll say. We should throw our support behind a REAL conservative.
Remember that Nixon resigned in disgrace in 1974 and that November, Democrats ended up with 291 seats in the House and 61 in the Senate. Six years later, here comes the Gipper. Speaking of which, I was talking to a 21-year-old college student recently (I won't say which school, but it's a very large and well-known public university in the South), and he couldn't name the man who was President when he was born. Long story short, for many American voters, four years ago might as well be Colonial times.
Or, put more succinctly:
The flaw in the Republican immigration policy is to assume that there is one pool of people who are undocumented immigrants (and therefore can't vote) and another pool of people who are American citizens and can vote, and there is little or no contact between the two pools.
But that is false. Through, marriage, adult children and strong family bonds there are many contacts between them. That is how they have alienated a whole bunch of people in a very ham-handed way.
It should be interesting when the immigration debate starts. With how things are looking, it should be in the heat of it either around the start of the 2010 or a bit after.
Republicans better tread carefully there. Talk about being on the wrong side of history on that one. They're liable to lose Texas in 2012 if they get too hostile.
The truth is that the Hispanic vote will continue to grow (and it would even without immigration since Hispanic women have a fertility rate of 3.1 vs. about 1.9 for non-Hispanic whites and African-American women.) For Republicans to be successful they have to turn the volume down on immigration and then let those Hispanics who are naturally conservative (and there are many) be drawn back to the GOP.
But what if, say next year, there is some kind of momentum in favor of amnesty - sort of like the push from McCain and Bush in 2006? The Democrats are going to have total control of the government. I guarantee that many of the new Democrats elected to the House in 2006 and 2008 are going to be getting quite an earful from their constituents about how a vote or citizenship with no strings attached - or a reward to those whose first action in the United States is to break the law - isn't going to fly.
The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of Democrats from moderate, white-bread districts that habitually vote Republican or are swing districts on the national level - and amnesty is not going to be easily sold. If the Democrats try it, all the Republicans will have to do is wait for some Democrats to take a hard-line stance as a matter of political survival. Some will. Is there any doubt about it? How many Democrats won in GOP-leaning districts in Appalachia in 2006 and 2008? They didn't win by running as full-blown liberals. And Appalachia just isn't that diverse, to put it mildly.
Then the Democrats are going to be no better than the Republicans - and all else being equal - Hispanics will shift toward the Republicans.
Nothing is etched in stone. I agree that the party has to do better among Hispanics in the medium or long-term. But the Democrats might easily become victims of their own success. And if that happens then Texira's arguments aren't going to seem nearly as salient.
Adam,
The Democrats are going to have total control of the government. I guarantee that many of the new Democrats elected to the House in 2006 and 2008 are going to be getting quite an earful from their constituents about how a vote or citizenship with no strings attached
I'd point out that the bill two years ago that the GOP scuttled was a comprehensive immigration bill, likely what will come up the next time. I'd also point out that Obama is smart enough that he's put off some of the more politically dangerous issues-- immigration, gay marriage-- until after health care is done.
However, you fall into a very common trap among conservatives. It is true that non-Hispanic Americans oppose amnesty by like 3-1 (at least if it is phrased that way, but it would be.) On the other hand, pollsters also measure which issues are important to voters and among non-Hispanics immigration is more important than the economy, health care, the wars and energy among less than 5% (in fact if I remember right it was more in the 2% area.) Among Hispanics immigration is likely to be rated a first tier issue just as much as the above.
What that means is that while more people numerically may agree with an anti-immigration politician than a pro-immigration politician, it is more likely to be a decisive issue among Hispanics, which augurs well for the pro-immigration politician.
This is the flip side of why so many Republicans thunder on the abortion issue while Democrats want to change the subject away from abortion. Most polls show that more people (at least by a plurality) believe that abortion should remain legal, but for many of them it is way down the scale of importance, while for some single-issue voters (especially many anti-abortion voters who vote in Republican primaries) a candidate's position on abortion is the be-all and end-all of whether they will support that candidate or not.
Just looking at a poll and the percentage 'in favor' often does not tell the whole story, and politicians know that.
Unfortunately for the GOP, anti-immigrant activists and nativists loom larger among the GOP primary electorate than they do in the national electorate.
What that means is that while more people numerically may agree with an anti-immigration politician than a pro-immigration politician, it is more likely to be a decisive issue among Hispanics, which augurs well for the pro-immigration politician.
Yeah. So if Democrats from red states or districts are forced to distance themselves from the national party if it pushes for amnesty (especially if Dem politicians need to take a hardline stance and raise their rhetoric) against a bill for political survival - they might find themselves in agreement with the GOP. If you take the immigration issue away (because in this case, both parties would be opposed to an open borders stance) then those Hispanics that might be inclined to vote on social issues may move back to the GOP.
Unfortunately for the GOP, anti-immigrant activists and nativists loom larger among the GOP primary electorate than they do in the national electorate.
Ah, but the Democrats may find that unfortunately for them, anti-immigrant activists may loom larger among their new Appalachian and Southern constituencies that gave them their majorities in 2006 and 2008 - than in the liberal enclaves Democrats have habitually won in 2004 and years prior.
?? Appalachian and Southern constituencies??
That's news to me. As Nate has pointed out (and Jay Cost over at RCP seems to point out ad nauseum) the one part of the country where Democrats lost ground over the past couple of cycles is an arc extending from West Virginia lengthwise through Kentucky and Tennessee and the northern parts of Alabama and Mississippi through Arkansas and Louisiana into Oklahoma and east Texas.
It is true that Democrats carried Virginia for the first time since 1964 but the decisive demographic change there was the growth and liberal trend of D.C. suburbs in the north which have both boomed the population in Fairfax county and spread into surrounding counties. In fact, Republican Virginia state senate candidates tried to harp on immigration during the off year election of 2007 and ended up losing control of that body.
Democrats also barely carried North Carolina. But they lost ground in the Appalachian part of the state, they carried the state because of a huge turnout of African-American voters combined with a more liberal tilt in the 'research triangle.'
They improved in, but did not carry, Georgia. This was because of increased African-American turnout (augmented by former Louisiana residents who have resettled in and around Atlanta.)
Obama won Florida, but this isn't surprising since Florida is less a southern state than it is a swing state.
Keep in mind that African-Americans are among the most loyal of Democratic constituencies and won't go anywhere.
There are very few Democrats representing non-African American districts in the deep south (like Travis Childers), and those who are will probably vote with the GOP, but we are a long time removed from the days when Dixiecrats could jump back and forth between northern Democrats and Republicans and essentially run the show.
If Democrats have discovered some new Appalachian and Southern constituencies I'd love to know where they are. The only Democratic constituencies I see there are African-Americans and upwardly mobile college educated whites, neither of which are likely to switch to the GOP over an immigration bill.
And, as I said before, Obama is an adroit politician.
Until he is done doing his main priorities (health care, climate bill, economic recovery and maybe Afghanistan) I don't see him rushing to put immigration on the plate. In fact, he gained a lot of mileage with Hispanics just by Janet Napolitano's recent revocationof the local immigration enforcement laws plus Sotomayor, so if anything they are less chomping at the bit on immigration than, for example, gays are. Plus, construction of the border fence is already slowing down, so it may be that for awhile immigration will see a status quo (and until the economy improves, immigration will remain slow anyway.)
@Adam:
The relative numbers of anti-amnesty Republicans and Democrats is important, as well. A significant number of Democrats may defect on the amnesty issue (significant in the sense of getting a majority vote in either House of Congress). But that would still be no more than 20% of all Democrats, whereas the number of Republicans to oppose amnesty is likely to be in excess of 60%.
This may come as a surprise to you, but Hispanics can count.
"Among Hispanics immigration is likely to be rated a first tier issue just as much as the above."
I remember reserach that indicated educatio was first, followed by healthcare, then economy, then immigration, then Iraq. Immigration wasn't first for Hispanics in anything I read, that's or sure.
Adam said...
@ Todd
The state with the biggest drop in white voters was Ohio, which saw 537,832 or 11 percent fewer white voters casting ballots this year, according to Project Vote. Ohio saw 65,922 additional African American voters, a 13 percent increase; it had 39,578 more Latino voters, a 23 percent increase. Overall, Ohio had 441,000 fewer voters in 2008 compared to 2004
Doesn't that kind of, you know, undercut your argument? Obama only won Ohio by 262K votes. If 538K stayed home - and if whites typically vote Republican (even in '08 they voted 56-43 for McCain) - then that implies that if only those disillusioned whites showed up to vote - McCain would have won in Ohio.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Whereas Ohio had @ 5.6 million votes split between both parties in both the 2004 and 2008 elections for president and I don't argue the above statistics one must also take into consideration the Robert Taft effect in electing Sherrod Brown, Strickland and Obama ie Taft did for the OH Rep party what cheney/bush did for the national Rep party.
Also, there's a certain symmetry between OH and FL as in Ohio in the past lost much of it's population to folks moving to FL, nowadays Ohio is mostly losing eligible young voters to NC, SC, AZ and NM, I digress.
What I'm trying to say between 2004 and 2008 the Reps lost many more older white voters to death because more older white voters, men in particular, vote for Reps than Dems and this will continue of course thru 2012, 2016, 2020, so yes the Reps have an old age problem as well as a dwindling demographic problem.
Mentioned Ohio and Florida because both these states have much older populations than the state averages along w/PA. And as mentioned between 2008 and 2012 many more older white voters will be passing away and many more young voters will be registering hence, ergo, therefore the Rep's er Part of No !!! problem in a nutshell.
If they don't start reaching out to the more rational voters ie independents and minorities they are doomed as there aren't enough religious right evangelicals to put them over the top any more ie god, gays and guns and the politics of fear doesn't work anymore and the Rep's have shot their wad re: hate issue ballot initiatives ie gay marriage, etc.
Basically their base is diminishing/dying and the Dem base: young voters, minorities etc. is expanding.
Every state is unique, but the trends aren't good for Rep's, plus their fund raising, always the Rep's strong suit has diminished greatly after (8) years of cheney/bush.
and again, the irony of a young, relatively inexperienced, bi-racial Communist, Socialist, Islamo-Fascist, Marxist, wealth distributor, Satan, the devil incarnate, the anti-christ, who palled @ w/terrorists and father was a Muslim from Kenya totally discombobulating the party of Lincoln. My oh my oh my!
ciao
p.s. and it didn't help that they picked a total idiot, Michael Steele, as RNC chairman.
?? Appalachian and Southern constituencies??
That's news to me. As Nate has pointed out (and Jay Cost over at RCP seems to point out ad nauseum) the one part of the country where Democrats lost ground over the past couple of cycles is an arc extending from West Virginia lengthwise through Kentucky and Tennessee and the northern parts of Alabama and Mississippi through Arkansas and Louisiana into Oklahoma and east Texas.
Jay Cost's point, if you bothered to read the article, was exactly mine. Even though those South-Central areas have trended GOP at the presidential level, there are still Democrats representing those areas in congress. And though the Dems will want to lurch further left because of their majorities - the House members might find themselves increasingly vulnerable because their constituents are quite a bit to the right of the national party.
Where do you think Zack Space (OH-18), Charlie Wilson, (OH-6), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-3), Jason Altmire (PA-5), Tom Perrillo, (VA-5), John Yarmuth (KY-3), Parker Griffith (AL-5), Travs Childers (MS-1), Bobby Bright (AL-2) came from? Out of thin air?
If Democrats have discovered some new Appalachian and Southern constituencies I'd love to know where they are
Well there you have it. That's just for startes. And all of those new Democrats come from GOP territory AT THE PRESIDENTIAL LEVEL meaning that amnesty ain't going to sell and if the national party tries to push it - those Dems are going to find themselves in trouble. There are a few districts in Upstate NYS, Michael Arcuri (NY-24), Scott Murphy (NY-20) that will be in the same boat. Ditto that for Chris Carney in PA-10 and for that matter even Jack Murtha is going to be in trouble soon as McCain was the first Republican to carry PA-12 in years. So there is over a dozen off the top of my head. And then there are the senators in WV (Byrd isn't going to be around too much longer - but his successor could easily be a Republican, considering the hard right turn that WV has taken), AR, LA that would not want to get on the wrong side of the immigration debate.
It's not as much of a slam-dunk winning issue for Dems as you point out.
If they don't start reaching out to the more rational voters ie independents and minorities they are doomed
But polling shows that Independents are moving to the Republicans. And, independent voters, as a group, is still larger than the minority share of the vote. I am not saying the GOP doesn't have a longer term challenge of getting minority votes. I'll I am saying is that some of you Obama pushers are making the situation seem worse than it is in the short term.
In fact, according to Rasmussen, Romney and Obama are tied - and this is even with the GOP's Hispanic problem. Even if you don't buy Rasmussen's numbers, Public Policy Polling shows the GOP candidates gaining ground on Obama in hypothetical matchups, and it shows Obama losing ground among whites.
Maybe instead of the death of Obamacare, Nate and Company can write a post about how reports of the death of the GOP are greatly exaggerated.
Anyway, I've got to run. But it's been fun.
...is what drove John and me to write the book.
Todd Dugdale said...
Also consider this:
"The state with the biggest drop in white voters was Ohio, which saw 537,832 or 11 percent fewer white voters casting ballots this year, according to Project Vote. Ohio saw 65,922 additional African American voters, a 13 percent increase; it had 39,578 more Latino voters, a 23 percent increase. Overall, Ohio had 441,000 fewer voters in 2008 compared to 2004."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Actually, upon further review no, Ohio had @ the same # of voters in 2004 and 2008:
2004:
Bush ~ 2,859,764
Kerry ~ 2,741,165
~~~~~~~~~
5,600,929
2008:
Obama ~ 2,933,388
McCain ~ 2,674,491
~~~~~~~~~
5,607,879
So my analysis would be many white older Rep voters died between 2004 and 2008 ~ Obama and the Dem party registered many more Dem voters in that time period and of course a certain # who voted for Bush in 2004 either crossed party lines or independents went for Obama over McCain to a greater degree.
As an aside, I'm an independent liberal from Ohio who usually votes Dem, voted for Voinovich one time, anyway I despised John Kerry, but voted for him anyways, 'cause hey, you have to choose someone or not vote. It's no surprise to me that Kerry lost OH considering the god awful campaign he ran, plus he couldn't shut up! his wife Teresa Heinz lol.
And although Sec of State scumbag Ken Blackwell did disenfranchise many minority voters in 2004, it was the gay marriage hate issue initiative in 2004 that defeated Kerry more than Blackwell's fraud! Plus the Rep's were better at registering more new voters and getting out the vote. This of course was before rove/cheney/bush destroyed the Rep party ;)
ciao
What a load of academic piffle. We live in a country where the GOP is pretty much always going to get 45% of the vote, Democrats will pretty much always get 45% and the remaining 10% - moderates and independents - will split according to job performance and the macro state of the country. 2004's, 2006's and 2008's results were all products of Iraq- and finally Bush-fatigue, with the economic meltdown putting the final nail in any chances for a very weak McCain-Palin ticket. Such was the 45-45-10 landscape of yesterday, such is the same landscape of today and such will be the same landscape tomorrow.
Preposterous policy overreach and a complete lack of understanding of market economics has Democrats now headed for electoral hell. Moderates and independents did not vote for the radical left-wing governance that they're now getting and with all of the Democrats' eggs placed neatly in the economy-killing baskets of a Keynesian stimulus, cap and trade and Obamacare the new party of dominance will find itself with one of two outcomes manifesting itself first in the 2010 midterms and then even more harshly in 2012.. pass either carbon-capping or nationalized healthcare legislation and U.S. GDP will immediately beeline for a black hole that will make today's economy look like a party. Or, fail to pass the hallmark domestic priorities of the Obama administration with huge majorities in both houses of Congress, exposing Dems as a party utterly incapable of governing. Either way the 10% in the middle will have long known by next November and even more so by 2012 that the left in full charge is an unmitigated disater for our country. And that doesn't even take into account the Democrat-owned, $787 billion Keynesian train wreck masquerading for a stimulus, that will have us well in excess of 10% unemployment soon with no bottom in sight.
Look for a sea-change in the mid-terms - perhaps not to the point of majority reversals, but a substantial reduction in Nancy's and Harry's political capitalization. 2012 will finalize the American repeal of Hopenchange, quite effectively repudiating pretty much everything the left stands for and that senor Teixeira has written and believes.
It's coming folks. Prepare yourselves.
Did any of you guys read the reports put out about the Millennial Generation that Teixeira cited? In order to understand the future of politics, you had to get an idea of the voters of the future in comparison to past/present voters. Simple as that. Most voters don't have opinion reversals as they get older, even though they may not change. To simply attribute GOP losses to Bush fatigue, economic meltdown, etc is an uninformed argument.
Todd Dugdale said...
The fringe of the [GOOPer] Party is getting crazier by the day.
Such as this one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNjLpWDWCaE
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
I think the GOP need to forget the whole 'this is a center right country' that they use to justify not moderating more conservative positions. I have kind of spoken about this on the boards before, but the GOP has to realise it can't make people think differently, so it has to work out what are non negotiable Republican values, that we would rather lose an election that drop, and which positions can be moulded.
Take healthcare. They can complain all they like about the Democrats not playing the bipartisan game. But you don't hear GOPers talking sense about root and branch reform. Mitch McConnell was on MTP at the weekend giving basically 'reform but not really' answers on healthcare. I think they genuinely need to think about how to moderate their position to allow for a public option (not what I am expecting) or to realise that access is the key. And access is a tricky problem to solve without looking at a public option. They have got too caught up in the 'socialized healthcare' meme to really succesfully moderate that position.
One thing is for sure, they won't be able to make Obama the villain as easily as they made Bill Clinton the villain. I think Obama is a bit more 'teflon' than Clinton for that.
I'm sorry folks, but one of the great fallacies of this website is that demographics are destiny. No matter how poorly the Dems govern, it is assumed that minorities and young people will bail them out, as if blacks will continue to vote 9 to 1 for them (even as racism continues to fade) and hispanics 7 to 3 (even as the Dems fail to deliver on their promises to hispanics). But the dems performance among those groups (and the youth) is issue based and cyclical. It is also particularly strong at the moment because of a natural pendulum effect. The swing back to conservatism will occur slowly, if Obama governs well, and quickly if he does not. In other words, demographic break downs like this are not causal - they reflect temporary victory in political argument, temporary political tendencies, and so forth. If Obama's policies don't lower unemployment, or court inflation, or weaken our defense, the youth vote won't save him.
By the way, the social issues line has been often peddled but is unconvincing. Abortion? Gun rights? School choice? Judicial activism? Immigration is a difficult one for both parties. There does seem to be some movement on the death penalty and gay marriage, but the country is still conservative on both, and the trend lines aren't necessarily permanent. The economy always trumps social issues, and is now. But it will be a long time before Dems go out and campaign positively on social issues. The proof is in the pudding.
Bottom line? Demographics are the security blanket of readers for this site. When the policies start to go pear shaped, and when Obama's inexperience and legislative ineptitude start to get exposed, they always reach for it. But it's not nearly as significant as they think.
Conservatives just won`t face the music, this country will not vote for a hardcore conservative. Even Bush ran as a more or less moderate in 2000.
The bottom line is the democrats have won the popular vote in every election since 1992 except 2004 and then the GOP only won it by a couple of %.
Unless Obama totally ruins the country, conservative republicans
are dead electorally on a national level. Keep in mind the % of white voters is dropping every election, the GOP must adapt or die.
Adam wrote:
"Doesn't that kind of, you know, undercut your argument? Obama only won Ohio by 262K votes. If 538K stayed home - and if whites typically vote Republican (even in '08 they voted 56-43 for McCain) - then that implies that if only those disillusioned whites showed up to vote - McCain would have won in Ohio."
The point is that "those disillusioned whites" didn't show up to vote in an election that was tailor-made to capitalise on their race, and one in which the Republicans pulled out all the stops on fear-mongering.
What makes you assume that "those disillusioned whites" would have voted for McCain if they had actually bothered to show up?
So it doesn't "undercut my argument". The number of whites actually voting declined nationally. You choose to believe that this shows a potential for the GOP, but the actual facts are that the GOP's strongest race demographic is showing declining participation, especially in a swing state like Ohio.
Look, the Republicans screamed "socialism" every day for months on end. They lost. Now conservatives here are contending that "socialism" will be a winner next time. Aside from their demographic difficulties, the Party seems to have a rhetorical difficulty as well: simply repeating losing talking at a higher volume does not make those points more credible or persuasive.
Jeff wrote:
The swing back to conservatism will occur slowly, if Obama governs well,"
Perhaps, over decades. But you seem to assume that the Republican Party represents "conservatism, which it doesn't.
Unless, of course, you re-define "conservatism" as nativism, jingoism, fundamentalist Christianity, and fear-mongering, with a dash of "police state" for flavour.
Or unless a third Party arises that is genuinely conservative, of course. But that would be the death of the Republican Party.
The Culture War is a losing issue, and not just based on demographics. But the Republicans kept screeching about "revolutionaries" in the Seventies that nobody under 40 could connect with. The Weather Underground is no more, folks. Railing against them and the 'threat' they posed only has a chance of being effective on those who recall it, and many of those just wish to forget those times. Likewise, the names Huey Newton and Stokely Carmichael tend to elicit blank looks rather than fear. You might as well employ the names Sacco and Vanzetti or John Brown.
@Adam
Your conclusion re:Ohio is incorrect. Had the 538K voters showed up, they'd have had to vote for McCain at a 74% clip to offset the 262K margin of victory.
It would have been closer, sure, but the Dems still would have won.
Pete L,
Sure. That's the math. But why wouldn't 74 % among whites be attainable? All throughout the 2008 season it was common knowledge that the GOP was depressed while the Democrats were energized. It's not impossible to believe that 74 % of those whites that stayed home would have voted GOP. After all, we know that blacks vote 9:1 Dem and Hispanics vote 5:2 or 3:1 Dem. So 3:1, while high, is not unreasonable. Disaffected whites that voted in 2004 but not in 2008 are more likely than not to be GOP-leaning, given the intensity or enthusiasm gap between the two cycles.
GOP typically pulls in high 50's to low 60's. Even if you dispute that 74 % - with a little bit of diligent GOTV effort among whites, that 74 % could have easily been brought down. The overall point is that it wouldn't have taken much to flip the state - and several others. And this is despite subtle demographic shifts over time.
markymark said...
One thing is for sure, they won't be able to make Obama the villain as easily as they made Bill Clinton the villain. I think Obama is a bit more 'teflon' than Clinton for that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Obama is much like Reagan, likable and following a failed presidency and yes teflon, just like Reagan which is driving Reps/Cons/Foxnews crazy!
Re: older white voters, a study just came out saying that as a group their turnout diminished in 2008 because they did not like either candidate ie McCain: too old, too risky/flaky ie "let's stop the campaign" and cheney/bush did a very good job in 2000 painting McCain as a RINO. Obama: too young, too inexperienced and bi-racial.
How many Dems and Reps stayed home because of racism? We'll never know, but clearly the Rep's were counting on the "Bradley Effect" as their only hope.
And speaking of likability, which leader, and I use that word loosely, in the Rep party is likable "enough" to be elected president, hmm.
Yes, much can change in (4) years, but you have to have a rational opposition, and the Party of No! hasn't quite grasped that idea.
Reps won 7 of 10 elections and could have possibly won the other (3) ie Carter blew a (30) pt. lead and Bush 41 was totally out of touch w/the Perot factor and Dole was totally out of touch, too old w/the Perot factor, but the Dems, as a party, were totally out of the mainstream and they kept nominating far left Libs who were also god awful candidates.
generically in 2006 the Dems beat Reps by (6) pts. in 2008 it was (10) pts. obviously 2010 is significant, and trends are important, but, but, but in the final analysis becoming president has more to do w/the individual candidate and money, money, money!
America elected a country bumpkin from TX twice w/a little help from the Supreme Court ;) mainly because he was likable and his daddy was a former president and his grandaddy was a senator ie name recognition and the Bush machine behind him.
Obama crushed the 'Clinton machine' so the times may be changing for the Dems, Reps ?!? wouldn't surprise me if Jebb Bush is the 2012 rep nominee, hey, look at the sorry ass rest of the Rep field.
ciao
@Adam:
I have to disagree. Getting 74% of the vote amongst those who didn't show up seems relatively impossible to me. If that were the case, then polls of Americans vs polls of LVs/RVs should have indicated a McCain tie (at least), but they didn't. Moreover, 74% of people who chose to show up in 2004 but not in 2008 would have voted GOP if McCain was only more conservative? Really? McCain IS conservative; he's also a maverick, which means he often votes differently than the party would like, but not consistently more moderately/liberally.
Assume that these white people who didn't show up were disproportionately on the right. Does it make more sense that they wouldn't see a clear choice between a man who is CONSISTENTLY labeled a "socialist" by the right and their own guy? They might not have relished the choice, but they would have HATED the perceived alternative.
I think a much more plausible story is that these folks were unhappy with both choices (or wanted to put in the hours at a job in a failing economy rather than vote), and that nobody the GOP nominated could have been more appealing. Bush's approval numbers were in the 20s, so assuming 74% of ANY population would have voted GOP in 2008 seems kinda silly. Bush ruined the brand. Yes, these people might be Republicans when they show up at the polls in the future, but after Bush, a lot of your less loyal Republicans just wouldn't have voted for ANYONE. They couldn't pull the lever for a Dem, but Bush also a poison the GOP couldn't escape.
In the end, this is also why I disagree with Teixeira. I agree that the demographics are generally positive for Dems, but demographics change glacially. NO Republican could have won in 2008 unless they faced a Kucinich or Gravel...that's a Bush/economy/war effect. If the economy remains bad, it's VERY possible Obama loses in 2012, despite the slight advantage Dems have demographically. If I were to place a bet on the 2032 elections, I'd bet Dem. But, I wouldn't bet much, because the economy and wars trump all, and I have no idea who wins in 2028 or what the economy will be like 2031.
Conventional wisdom is that a very good "ground game'" can add 5%, but expecting 20% from GOTV is unrealistic.
If those white voters won't turn out for a race-charged election such as 2008, it's hard to imagine what kind of racial appeal would work in 2012.
Adam wrote:
"And I don't agree that the Republican "base" made race an issue."
Whatever. Black candidate vs. white candidate is a pretty good test for the kind of race appeals that people such as Buchanan are proposing as a 'solution'. It got 56% (as you state), with a whole lot of white voters not even intrigued enough to turn out.
Beyond putting on sheets and caling for a return to segregation (or worse), I can't really imagine what kind of race-based appeal would work on whites that didn't bite at the chance to vote for the white guy against the black guy. Affirmative action just isn't that big of an issue.
Conservatives, of course, are optimistic for the midterms and beyond - but they always are. After the 2004 elections, conservatives were pumped up about the big gains they anticipated in 2006 due to the "success" in Iraq. After the 2006 elections, we again heard optimistic forecasts for 2008 as the "war hero" would smash the "communuity organiser". And now, once again, we hear "wait until the next election" from the fist-shakers. "Socialism" will be the hot issue that will win the day, we are now told, as if nobody brought that up in 2008. Remember Joe the Plumber?
Anything can happen, but the reasons being thrown about for a Republican win sound very out of touch with reality.
This is something really minor, but it bothered me. When he says "RT: OK, here’s my off the hook advice for Mr. Steele and his beleaguered party."
I think he actually means "off the cuff".
Conventional wisdom is that a very good "ground game'" can add 5%, but expecting 20% from GOTV is unrealistic.
Who suggested that 20 % could be gained from GOTV? Certainly not me. The math was such that given the number of people who voted in '04 and stayed home in '08, McCain would have needed 74 percent to win. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that the GOP could have, in a better political environment, recruited ENTIRELY NEW VOTERS, just like the Democrats did with minorities in 2008. Had the GOP done that, then instead of 74 % of the hypothetical 538K, assuming those voters come out in the future, with NEW VOTERS it wouldn't need to be 74 %.
You know, just because the Democrats increased their share of the vote quite a bit between '04 and '08 doesn't mean that the GOP can't do the same between '08 and '12. Even if you assume that the GOP is entirely "the white party", there are still a hell of a lot of whites that could be recruited to vote.
Whatever. Black candidate vs. white candidate is a pretty good test for the kind of race appeals that people such as Buchanan are proposing as a 'solution'. It got 56% (as you state), with a whole lot of white voters not even intrigued enough to turn out.
Or maybe those folks just aren't making nearly as much of a fetish out of race as you are. Why do you automatically assume that those one-time voters that sat out in 2008 are bigots? Maybe they were just generally Republican but put off by Obama and not enthusiastic about McCain.
Anything can happen, but the reasons being thrown about for a Republican win sound very out of touch with reality.
Until they're not. Republicans were within 5 points in OH, FL, IN, NC and won CO, NV and VA just four years ago. Independents are moving to the right as Obama's policies become less and less popular. I'm not going to predict a Republican win in 2012 but to suggest that thinking it could happen is out of touch with reality is a pretty obtuse position to take.
Adam said...
Or maybe those folks just aren't making nearly as much of a fetish out of race as you are. Why do you automatically assume that those one-time voters that sat out in 2008 are bigots? Maybe they were just generally Republican but put off by Obama and not enthusiastic about McCain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
or maybe as Peggy Noonan said, cheney/bush has destroyed the Rep party and many die hard Rep stayed home 'cause they were just totally depressed re: their party in general.
McCain got (2) million less votes than Bush which probably indicates stagnation or regression in the party. Let alone the declining power base of older white Rep voters as they pass away.
I would suggest the 2004 election was telling in that the Rep base was totally motivated ie the far right evangelicals/wing nuts because they liked cheney/bush and rove's true genius was registering more Rep voters and getting out the vote, nothing more, nothing less. And it also helped that the gay marriage hate issue was on the ballot in (8) states, Ohio being the key state.
but as Noonan stated, after the party has been destroyed it's very hard to recruit new members, eh and picking a moderate African-American fool as RNC chairman ain't the way to pick up the pieces, eh and start from scratch.
The Dems problem in 2004 was a god awful candidate, regardless of the fact that no war time incumbent president had ever lost a presidential election. Kerry could have won that election imo, but he was such a bad/weak/clueless candidate and rove was sooo good at getting out the vote and registering new voters in FL and OH, the key battle ground states that Bush won by default!
ie
Paul Begala ~ If he's a miserable failure like Bush, we'll re-elect him anyway!
ciao
It's blindingly obvious that lots STILL don't understand what Teixeira is talking about and discount it!
Any argument that includes the word "Obama" or "2012" entirely misses the point! That's SHORT-TERM thinking.
The hard fact is that Obama just won by 6% essentially with the McGovern coalition! Single-women, urban dwellers, labor, non and seldom church-goers, minorities, college educated and the youth vote.
In 1972 that was the McGovern coalition, and it got him only 35% of the electorate. 36 years later it was 53%.
So, what happened? Notice Ruy's key language: "between 1988 and 2008, the minority share of voters in presidential elections has risen by 11 percentage points, while the share of increasingly progressive white college graduate voters has risen by 4 points. But the share of white working class voters, who have remained conservative in their orientation, has plummeted by 15 points."
That's the part that always gets right-wingers to go ballistic!
America is becoming a MAJORITY MINORITY Country and they hate that! But, idea that demographic groups jump back and forth based on personalities of the candidates or election issues is just flat false!
White working-class voters, regular church-goers, married women, rural voters, started voting hard REPUBLICAN in 1968 and HAVE voted overwhelmingly REPUBLICAN in every election since! They elected Richard Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II.
That didn't change over 40 years, so why would the NEW DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES alter now? Are conservative rural voters going to suddenly start voting Democratic? Not-likely.
So, why would urban dwellers suddenly start voting Republican? It's just not going to happen. Never has, never will. All that changes long-term is the underlying makeup of America.
Urban America is not going to suddenly start becoming MORE Republican any more than rural small-town America is going to go Democratic!
You can talk about Hispanic voters switching back over to the Republican party, but YOUNGER Latinos are much more Democratic than their elders. So WHERE are these Hispanic swing voters going to come from in the future?
Unless something totally FUNDAMENTAL happens the demographic trends that have been going on now for 40 years or more are NOT going to change.
That means that Republicans are going to have to figure out ways to lure more than 30-40% of blacks, Asians and Hispanics or they are going to continue to lose elections -- PERMANENTLY.
They WILL eventually learn of course, but right now that's impossible because their base don't WANT to change!
Adam?
Do you have memory problems? You don't remember how the GOOPers CROWed and CROWed about their GOTV effort in Ohio to win the state in 2004?
They CROWed and CROWed about how they got the non-voting 'religious conservatives' to vote, for some at least, for the first time in their life.
Did those former non-voting 'religious conservatives' vote for Kerry, or did they vote for little shrub? If the GOOPers were CROWing and CROWing about the GOTV effort, then you have to figure that those former non-voting 'religious conservatives' voted for little shrub.
So then we get to 2008. Blackwell was no longer in a position to help near as much in identifying those former non-voting 'religious conservatives'. Since those former non-voting 'religious conservatives' weren't being HEAVILY pushed to register and vote, they took the easy way out.
In other words, the GOOPers found all the low hanging fruit in 2004, but when 2008 came around, they couldn't find any more low-hanging fruit, didn't have the 'insider' help to reap any that they found, and much of that low-hanging fruit that they had found in 2004 decided that they had 'more important things to do' than to vote for a black person or (in their opinion) a non-religious, non-conservative.
All they had to hear was the rumor that McCain had 'black children' (the rumor from the 2000 South Carolina primary briefly brought up in early 2008); or all they had to hear was McCain was divorced (that is NOT a Christian value, is it?); or all they had to hear was that McCain didn't know how many houses he owned (at the same time that many of the former non-voting 'religious conservatives' were struggling to pay the mortgage on their ONE home); etc.
In other words, the GOOPers shot their wad in 2004 with most of those 537,000 people. After the election, the GOOPers let them down in one or more ways, so they wrote off ALL the politicians. And getting even a 5% turnout in those circumstances of those former non-voting 'religious conservatives' that they turned out in 2004 would have been an extraordinary well-done job in the 2008 election.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
Mike,
So your position is that the vast majority of the 538k that we've been going back and forth about on here are disproportionately Republican. Right?
So that also means that the right GOP candidate (ie, someone other than McCain) can get these folks back to the polls. They're already registered, after all.
That's not a bad starting point, so long as there isn't the same enthusiasm gap between the parties that we saw in 2008.
Adam said...
So that . . . means that the right GOP candidate (ie, someone other than McCain) can get these folks back to the polls. They're already registered, after all.
You are probably wrong.
Blackwell is no longer the Sec of State of Ohio.
The anti-gay ballot issue was on the ballot in 2004; it's very doubtful any such issue will appear on the ballot for several election cycles - it was that ballot issue, plus the GOTV effort to get the non-voting 'religious conservatives' to vote, that were the main factors in getting those non-voting 'religious conservatives' to vote in 2004.
Ever hear the idiom "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"? The non-voting 'religious conservatives' sure have, and many of them will consider that the GOOPers lied to them in 2004, and they will not allow that to be repeated in future elections.
How many of those non-voting 'religious conservatives' have moved since 2004, or will have moved by 2012 or 2016? If they have, they will have to re-register. If it was so difficult to get them to register before 2004, what makes you think it will be a lot easier to get them to re-register to vote in future years?
How many of those 537,000 people will still live in Ohio in 2012, or even still be alive? Remember, a large proportion of that number are above average age, and they might have moved to Florida or Arizona, thus not even eligible to vote in Ohio in 2012.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
@bruce: I couldn't believe this line, "Did the Democrats lose after the weather underground took actions, no." Are you completely unaware of the outcome of Nixon vs. McGovern?
Yes, the actions of extremists do damage the party which is, however fairly or unfairly, associated with them. The GOP has a terrible, and continuing, problem with its lunatic fringe and the effects this fringe has on the otherwise-persuadable.
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Adam wrote:
"Who suggested that 20 % could be gained from GOTV? Certainly not me."
An increase from 53% to 74% is about 20%. The 74% (which you claim is "attainable") came from:
"Had the 538K voters showed up, they'd have had to vote for McCain at a 74% clip to offset the 262K margin of victory.", which you generously conceded was 'the math'.
"It's perfectly reasonable to assume that the GOP could have, in a better political environment, recruited ENTIRELY NEW VOTERS, just like the Democrats did with minorities in 2008."
No, it isn't. The Republicans won by bringing in new voters in 2000: the evangelicals. They've alienated all minorities, they can't gain traction with the youth vote because they are tied to the social conservatives, and their elderly demographic is dying off. That is vast potential demographics wiped off right there, and the hope is to somehow bring people in to the Party who don't vote already with "secret Muslim", "where's the birth certificate?" and a fear of "socialism". All of those things have been floated already, and they failed to bring in new voters.
That's why they have seized on the 'white vote' as their salvation. That's not me "making a fetish about race"; it's what wingnuts here have said and what Buchanan is saying right now.
You are starting to sound like Pete Kent, hoping for "hidden voters" to emerge.
Aside from that, the Party leadership seems to have made a conscious decision to run with their base and give up on recruitment. The GOP registration drives in 2008 had dismal results.
Watch this and see what the Party has become. Ask how many oderates, or even sane people, would want to associate themselves with this kind of craziness.
The Republicans have gone too far into the fringe to draw in Independents - even they "move to the right", they will not move into the Crazyland that has become the GOP.
Bob X wrote:
"@bruce: I couldn't believe this line, "Did the Democrats lose after the weather underground took actions, no." Are you completely unaware of the outcome of Nixon vs. McGovern?"
Yes, that was funny. It's even funnier that the McCain campaign tried to tie Obama to the Weathermen, though bruce contends that this kind of strategy is too ridiculous to consider. Why would McCain try to tie Obama to a violent group if such associations don't matter?
The Weather Underground is this tremendous bogeyman to the Right, but they really did very little that was 'revolutionary'. They robbed armoured cars, they threw molotovs at a judge's house, and they had a bomb blow up in their own faces while constructing it. Wow, the nation dodged a bullet there!
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