Comments on FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Are the Republicans Still a National Party?

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2009-10-02T04:11:33.016-04:00

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2009-04-16T02:20:00.000-04:00

As others have noted, this is a very problematic a...

2008-12-17T22:31:00.000-05:00

As others have noted, this is a very problematic analysis. Yeah, there's 126 (I actually counted 129) districts where the Democrat either ran unopposed or won by 40 points or more. But a lot of those seats aren't actually safe for any Democrat - just for the current Democratic incumbents. Note the following representatives, supposedly in "Democratic Dominant Districts":

1. Marion Berry in Arkansas 1
2. Ed Snyder in Arkansas 2
3. Mike Ross in Arkansas 4
4. Charlie Melancon in Louisiana 3
5. Collin Peterson in Minnesota 7
6. Dan Boren in Oklahoma 2
7. Bart Gordon in Tennessee 6
8. John Tanner in Tennessee 8
9. Rick Boucher in Virginia 9
10. Alan Mollohan in West Virginia 1

More broadly speaking, just because a congressman won by a huge amount, or was unopposed this year (or won by 20, or whatever) does not mean that they need a huge nationwide swing against the
Democrats to be defeated. There's plenty of Democrats who won by double digits this time who could theoretically be beaten by a much smaller swing in the national numbers - assuming the Republicans can recruit a decent candidate to oppose them, and raise the money to make the race competitive.

This post feels really complacent.

For what it's worth, I did a similar analysis of s...

2008-12-17T22:11:00.000-05:00

For what it's worth, I did a similar analysis of state House & Senate races in Missouri.

The situation is that you have basically four types of districts:

1. Competitive.

2. Democrat lock. Typically urban, usually votes 80-90% for the democrat, most often the candidate is unopposed.

3. Republican leaning. Typically rural or small town. Usually seemed about 60%-40%.

4. Republican lock. 80-90% Republican votes, usually running unopposed. There are only a very, very few of these.

Districts seem about equally distributed among types 1, 2, and 3. There are only a very few type 4.

The result of this situation is that depending on which races you look at, the popular vote was somewhere between a 50/50 split and a 5% Democratic lean.

Democrats won almost all statewide races (Governor, Attorney General, Auditor, etc. The Presidential race was of course very close to a tie.)

But despite the good-sized advantage for the Democrats in the popular vote, the Republicans are *firmly* in control of both the Missouri House and Senate.

MO Senate (half of senators were up for a vote this year)
Popular vote: Dem - 49.9%, Rep - 48.9%
Democrats lost two seats to Republicans this year and made no gains.
Total Senate Seats: Dem - 11, Rep - 23 (32% to 68%)
Diff between popular votes & seats: 36.3% in Rep favor

MO House (All seats up for re-election this year)
Popular vote: Dem - 52.1%, Rep - 46.7%
Seats: Dem - 72, Rep - 89 (45% to 55%)
Diff between popular votes & seats: 15.9% in Rep favor

The interesting result is that rural and small town interests dominate the Missouri legislature, even though they are a minority of voters in the state. For instance, legislators from the St. Louis & Kansas City metro areas hold almost no leadership positions in the legislature, despite the fact that they hold about half the state's population.

You can find all the election data here--you're welcome to do your own analysis and find all my mistakes:

http://www.sos.mo.gov/enrweb/allresults.asp?eid=256

Danel: I'm sorry but you can't tell anything by Te...

2008-12-17T19:10:00.000-05:00

Danel: I'm sorry but you can't tell anything by Tennessee! Tennessee is a right-wing cracker state where scum like Mule Humper form the majority of the white vote.

Tennessee has been moving in the OPPOSITE direction from the rest of the country, as has generally the rest of Appalachia.

You can't tell us anything about America by talking about how Appalachia is turning more red! KY, TN, WV, these states used to be more swing-states that a moderate Democrat could win.

But, while the rest of America has been moving left -- led by minorities and urban dwellers, Appalachia has been moving back into the 19th century.

I fully expect them to try and resurrect Jim Crown any time now.

Fortunately, they are also totally irrelevant! Republicans can have Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma which have all been tending more red. They're losing Virginia and Florida and North Carolina. They've permanently lost the mid-west and the west (outside of Utah, Wyoming and Idaho). They're simply absent in the Northeast and in the far west they're limited to rural areas far from any city.

I'd like to propose a new party:The Dress to Get L...

2008-12-17T18:21:00.000-05:00

I'd like to propose a new party:
The Dress to Get Laid Party.

Let's face it, Obama only had it half right when he said that people cling to guns and religion because the government has refused to help them in times of need.

These people need to get laid. They're not red or blue- just blue-balled.

The problem is, they wear all that plaid, which is very unsexy. Hunter orange is not a fashion statement you want to make. Ask yourself, who in their right mind would want to blow Larry the Cable Guy?

Help Larry get laid by instilling real American values, and good fashion sense, into these poor, depraved souls. They need to discharge something, which is why they turn to guns when they can't get what they really need.

Give the Midwest a decent haircut. Let's abolish the mullet once and for all, and make America beautiful once again.

America, I call upon you to buy a decent suit for your neighbor. Teach him that polyester is not the way. Show them that cammo and paisley are the root of all evil. Open their eyes as to how much more kissable they become when they quit chewing tobacco.

America, you've got alot of pent up tension in you. And we know that when you hate to pull out of Iraq before your done. Nobody wants to discharge too quickly. But the Iraq War was not consensual. And when we send our troops in unprotected, you invade not only Iraq, but every country Iraq has ever invaded too. Which means, America, Bush is a slut.

But this does not mean Amer4ica that you cannot get laid. It means we must pursue healthy, protected intercourse with friendly neighbors. Canada is your condom, America. Florida is your penis, and Cuba your money shot.

We must unite as one, and get a grip on ourselves. We must gently ease our way into better relationships with our neighbors, in a committed, loving way. No more of this brutal, violent and non-consensual behavior. I call upon you to reform your fellow citizen, and help this country get laid.

Love thy neighbor Canada as thyself! Spread joy to your brothers in Mexico, not forced economic submission.

Yes, America, you can still be kinky. By adopting the SAFE WORD Act, we will promise as a nation to pull out immediately when our partner countries have been satisfied.

I call upon you to join me in achieving this release. Give your neighbor a hand. Reach over to the South and give Florida a good wank. End this division and strife with a loving touch. Place your lips upon the South, and gently blow away the frustration!

Unite, America! Join the Slap an Tickle Ticket today, and Do It For Your Country!

> On this whole topic of a third party, wouldn't a...

2008-12-17T17:36:00.000-05:00

> On this whole topic of a third party, wouldn't a party already in existence have the best chance? I was thinking the Constitutional Party would replace the Republicans especially considering they agree on everything.

Nope, Danel.

The one only genuine opening I see for a third-party making it big and get beyond mere fringe status is the gaping political vacuum at the centre-right the GOP has vacated.

That's where a Bloomberg/Powell/Schwarzenegger
Eisenhower/Rockefeller party would strike gold.

The Constitution Party is one made up of paleoconservative types like Buchanan, if I'm not mistaken. That's far from being moderate and center-right.

No, you'd need a new party infrastructure. With the right prominent faces defining the party, I think you could very rapidly build up your infrastructure.

> What if the GOP were to split?> One party could ...

2008-12-17T17:26:00.001-05:00

> What if the GOP were to split?

> One party could call themselves the Christian Democratic Party (like the European CDPs)

Perhaps.

But contental Christian-Democratic Parties are centrist in nature (i.e. less conservative than the Anglo-Saxon brand of conservatism) and while they draw on Christian ethics as part of their philosophical foundation, they actually tend to "talk God" less than most US Democrats.

The stronger Christian-Democratic parties are also to be found in countries with plenty of Catholics, who are far less zealous and more open-minded than many Protestant evangelicals.

Also, Christian-Democratic parties are also very socially minded since the Christian trade unions historically were a major pillar in their movement.

All that makes them more like the US Democrats than the US Republicans.

On this whole topic of a third party, wouldn't a p...

2008-12-17T17:25:00.000-05:00

On this whole topic of a third party, wouldn't a party already in existence have the best chance? I was thinking the Constitutional Party would replace the Republicans especially considering they agree on everything.

I just want to point this out, my Democratic Repre...

2008-12-17T17:20:00.000-05:00

I just want to point this out, my Democratic Representative went unopposed this cycle and I live in West Tennessee. My district includes a lot of small rural towns and cotton fields. I am one of the few liberals I know anywhere near me. I had to argue that Obama wasn't a Muslim before, the only one who dare make the suggestion. In fact, in most of the counties in my district McCain won by more then 20 points. I am certain that if it wasn't our incumbent running, the Republicans would have won.

I'll use the State Senate race that happened near us. The Democratic Senator there was retiring and though he would have easily won if he had run, the Republican beat the Democrat by 7 points and this included a very black county, which was the only one in the state the didn't vote for Alexander for the US Senate.

Now, I bet you the same thing will happen when our Representative retires, so don't just assume that the Democrats are in the bag just because the Republicans decide not to run a candidate against someone as entrenched has Rockerfeller is in West Virginia and spend their limited resources there.

What if the GOP were to split?One party could call...

2008-12-17T17:15:00.000-05:00

What if the GOP were to split?

One party could call themselves the Christian Democratic Party (like the European CDPs)

The other could call themselves the progressive Conservative Party (like the Progressive Conservative Party of Newfoundland and Labrador)

better yet, they should call themselves the Fiscal responsibility Party- to remind themselves never to repeat the big spending neo-con error.

@Charles: yeah, probably the new party will just ...

2008-12-17T17:07:00.000-05:00

@Charles: yeah, probably the new party will just call itself the "Conservative" party or something similarly drab; I just thought "Tory" would be an awesome name.

It is true that one election is far from enough to kill a party. But with such a sizeable bloc of utterly unpersuadable voters, I just don't see how the GOP ever becomes competitive again. This is not like 1974: I hated Nixon, yet considered voting for Ford in 1976 (didn't, but thought about it). I don't anymore, and won't anymore ever, consider voting for anyone on the Republican ticket, and there are a lot like me. What if in 2010 the GOP still gets 55% from Ozark to Appalachia, but under 35% in the Great Lakes and Pacific Coast, and can't even field candidates in New England? What if there is no sign it will be any better for them by 2012?

wv: ask your doctor about Derensol for your flatulence! Side effects may include impotence, incontinence, and your face turning blue.

> In short, this is AGING, WHITE RURAL AMERICA. It...

2008-12-17T17:05:00.000-05:00

> In short, this is AGING, WHITE RURAL AMERICA. It used to be dominant in the 19th century, and as recently as 2004 Republicans had enough regional appeal in the Midwest to narrowly win the election.

I'd love to see how a McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis would have done with their historical coalitions but with the 2008 demographics.

Has anyone done such analysis? It would be really interesting to see.

I dunno. I mean, the Repugnants were the guys that...

2008-12-17T17:04:00.000-05:00

I dunno. I mean, the Repugnants were the guys that ran up the deficit under Reagan-Bush, weren't they? It's hard to credit them with balancing the budget, especially since the next GOP President after that was George 'Big Spender' Bush II.

Well, here's another thought. TR and LaFolette both gave voice to disaffected Republicans thru the Progressive Party, and both did surprisingly well at the polls.

If the modern day version of those disaffected Republicans, the guys in the GOP that are all about the economy and slashing budgetary largesse, and not all that concerned with social issues that are really not the government's place to get involved with, if those folks were to bolt from the GOP and rally behind a popular, well-respected moderate Republican (say... Our Lady of Maine), this would achieve the same effect that TR's run against Taft accomplished - it forced the mainstream GOP to do some heavy soul-searching over issues they previously ignored. Sadly, none of that introspection bore any fruit until Eisenhower came along, and only continued until Ford.

Would such a thing shock the GOP into looking inward? It would be pretty hard to wipe them out, and to be honest, I'm not sure I want to. I just want them to stop attacking gay people and the environment. If they could just get back to the separation of church and state, and the TR-style of respect for other living creatures, I'd be okay with them.

Shit, I'd even start wearing a monacle. the moustache, well, I dunno if I could do that, but the monacle, wel....

Bully! Bully!

> Which means we do need a replacement 2nd party, ...

2008-12-17T16:58:00.000-05:00

> Which means we do need a replacement 2nd party, but that can't happen until the existing one is destroyed.

Well, the GOP is vulnerable to being replaced since its brand is discredited and in the toilet.

Now consider what a genuine centre-right third party challenge could achieve. Perot managed to win nearly 19% with his flaky campaign! At a time when the GOP brand was in reasonable shape.

Now consider what a challenge with respected individuals like Bloomberg, Powell and Schwarzenegger might achieve. I think they could quite easily vault into 2nd party status within one election cycle.

Who knows, if Romney and Hillary had been nominated instead of McCain and Obama, who both had significant crossover appeal, that might have tempted a serious and respected figure to run on the "Unity 08" platform. Bloomberg sure had his weaknesses, but against Clinton and Romney he could have easily outperformed Perot, methings.

> @Charles: the new party could call themselves th...

2008-12-17T16:51:00.000-05:00

> @Charles: the new party could call themselves the "Tories", since "Whigs" has already been used up?

He, "Tories" we're the losers in the first American Civil War aka War of Independence. Rather unfortunate name for those reasons, I should say.

Such a mainstream third party would probably go with some vague banality. Some of those banalities have recently been used: "Reform Party", "Unity", etc. It'd be a marketing term rather than ideologically descriptive. Though "CENTER" sounds pretty assertive. We in Germany used to have a party using that name - the precursor to the modern Christian-Democratic party.

jdizzle, i compared Dukakis with Kerry.

2008-12-17T16:45:00.000-05:00

jdizzle, i compared Dukakis with Kerry.

Can you imagine how the Roosevelt-Taft-Wilson race...

2008-12-17T16:31:00.000-05:00

Can you imagine how the Roosevelt-Taft-Wilson race would have gone down now in the YouTube era? Taft was what, 350 lbs with mutton chops? Roosevelt had the crazy mustache and monacle thing going, but he looks like the kinds guy that would be fucking awesome to roast a bowl with. Wilson looked like a nice guy that's a bit of a killjoy, and that crack about DW Griffith's Birth of a Nation being what Wilson called accurate history would have come back to haunt him in a seriously bad way. I'll bet you Roosevelt would have swept that election solid had it happened today.

Well, it's not so much that you bag 15%. It's that this only leaves the other two with a max of 85% to get. Split even, that's a smaller than desirable mandate for the winner. It also opens the discussion to larger issues; had Perot not kicked up such a fuss about balancing the budget, Clinton may not have made that a priority; because he did, we zeroed out the national deficit in 1999. So it can have a positive effect to involve third parties/independent candidates.

Besides, it was a cool infomercial. I saw part of it on Youtube.

If you look all the election between 1992 to 2008 ...

2008-12-17T16:16:00.000-05:00

If you look all the election between 1992 to 2008 the democrats are very competitive.
I think Bush victory in 2004 against the worst democratic candidate since Dukakis was by more than 300 EV and he won only by 30 EV. The 2004 election and the issues (national security, moral values) was a landslide for the GOP and they only won by 30 EV.
The republican electorate declined after 1988.

I don’t see this election as being a strong enough...

2008-12-17T16:07:00.000-05:00

I don’t see this election as being a strong enough event to kill the GOP, unfortunately.

I'd agree and add that as long as they're pulling 40-45% of the vote nationwide, they may be marginalized but they've hardly been reduced to nothing.

If they start getting 1/3rd or less of nationwide support, then we can start using terms like they're "dead." Until then, the GOP is simply the minority party in the current realignment cycle.

Great posts, jdizzle. We may be closer to one another's ideals and beliefs than we'd like to admit.

Third parties have played a larger role in recent ...

2008-12-17T16:06:00.000-05:00

Third parties have played a larger role in recent years than you realize.

In 1912, the Progressive Party captured 27.4% of the popular vote (!). In 1992, Ross Perot (my friend actually has a car he's nicknamed Ross the Peugeot) captured 18.9% of the popular vote and introduced the half-hour prime time infomercial to electoral politics. The most frightening third party win came from the America Independent Party (George Wallace-AKA America's Scumbag) won 13.5% of the vote, and in 1924 the Progressive Party mentioned aerier came back with a 16.6% share of the vote.

Now, if we're talking fringe groups, I think of that as being like what, maybe 5% or less of the vote. Extreme fringe probably being less than 2.5%. But 25% is not the fringe. That's Main Street, USA.

The political system we have here in the States tends to favor movements within parties rather than multiple parties; however, whenever a party refuses to acknowledge a significant movement within itself, third parties can and do emerge, providing a voice to those who feel disenfranchised by party hardliners.

This can affect either party; should the Dems drive out the Blue Dogs, there may develop a Blue Dog Party. Should the GOP drive out the paleoconservatves, the Libertarian Party could absorb defecting Republicans by offering up a candidate that represents their interests and stands a good chance of winning - Olympia Snowe, are you listening?

And of course, there are always the populists. In times of economic distress, people will listen to extremists and populists when the major political parties are both caught up in the echo chambers on either side and out of touch with the middle. We are now in an economic crisis. While it is hard to imagine it reaching the scale of the Great Depression, it is possible to perceive a return to the economic malaise of the 1970's, especially if there is another oil shock like what we had earlier this year.

Hopefully, Obama will listen to the concerns of Middle America. So long as he stays attuned to the needs of the working class and the middle class, he will not have to worry about third parties or splinter groups. The GOP is in danger of losing it's moderates to a third party, however. Such an entity may or may not replace them; even if it doesn't a spoiler candidate like John Anderson or Ross 'anybody but Bush' Perot can wreak alot of havoc at the ballot box.

So I wouldn't write them off too easily.

Without the Powells and his type, the answer is no...

2008-12-17T15:47:00.000-05:00

Without the Powells and his type, the answer is no. The party of Fats Limbaugh and DeLay are a tenuous 5-6 state party with waning ability to steal moderate states.

Just to add to:"The third advantage is resource al...

2008-12-17T15:42:00.000-05:00

Just to add to:

"The third advantage is resource allocation. Seats that are won by 40+ points require next to nothing to defend, allowing the Democrats to concentrate their resources in more competitive areas."

Dems also probably have an additional advantage in resource allocation in that Democratic seats are in urban areas and would therefore probably cost more to take because of the high price of TV in urban areas.

Nate's analysis is only 1/2 of the story. The REAS...

2008-12-17T15:33:00.000-05:00

Nate's analysis is only 1/2 of the story. The REASON Democrats are now the dominant party is that minority voting as a percentage of the total vote is increasing at a rate of around 1% per year.

And non-whites vote Democratic by around 70-30%.

The ONLY region of the country where Republicans can now compete and win at the national level is the South. And that's because white Southerners still vote Republican by 40-50% in some places -- and whites are still the majority.

Everywhere outside the South, Democrats either win the white vote outright or are competitive with Republicans. If you split the white vote and lose minorities by 40 points you lose.

Thus, only in the deep South do you see elections like Mississippi where Obama brought out a huge AA vote, but still lost by over 20 points because he only won less than 20% of Whites. Georgia was another example of this phenomena.

The other places Republicans can still win are the great plains states from Oklahoma to North Dakota, and throwing in Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. None of these states has a lot of EV though.

In short, this is AGING, WHITE RURAL AMERICA. It used to be dominant in the 19th century, and as recently as 2004 Republicans had enough regional appeal in the Midwest to narrowly win the election.

But, that worm has turned. Minorities are starting to vote in the same percentages as whites. As that happens, the Republican party is totally doomed -- unless they can start to appeal to Hispanics and Black voters.

And they've shown no signs of being able to do that -- quite the reverse, their numbers among Latinos are going DOWN as younger, more liberal Latinos replace older more conservative voters. (FL Cuban-Americans under 30 for instance are MUCH more likely to vote Democratic than their elders).

Keep in mind that both parties are made up of nume...

2008-12-17T15:23:00.000-05:00

Keep in mind that both parties are made up of numerous subgroups...

Democrats:
-Economic/Fiscal Liberals/Progressives
-Social Activist Liberals
-Environmental Activist Liberals
-Ethnic/Cultural Minorities and Urban
-Pro-Union Working Class

Republicans:
-Economic/Fiscal Conservatives
-Moral Activist Conservatives
-Pro Industry, Big Business Conservatives
-Whites and Rural
-Anti-Organized Labor/Non-Protectionism/Pro-Free Traders

I realize there is a lot of overlap as certainly being in one "subgroup" is not mutually exclusive to being in another subgroup. In some cases, it's very likely to be overlap as the subgroups are almost one and the same.

In other words, a Pro-Industry, Big Business Conservative is likely to be against free trade and any organized labor.

A Social Activist Liberal is also likely to have strong feelings in favor of environmental activism.

However, there are times where there are stark divides within each group. A white, blue collar union fellow might not be so inclined to support increased government programs and spending on entitlement programs to people he perceives don't "work as hard" as he does, so there's a potential rift.

An economic conservative who wants to focus on fiscal responsibility, the free market, and smaller government may not be very supportive of preachy religious zealots who want to govern straight from the Bible and force that on everyone else.

I'd surmise that there are about as many ideological divides within the Democratic party as there are with the Republicans (although they likely have a lot of band-aids and duct tape on them now) but as recently as 2002-04, the Democrats were fractured along many of these lines similar to what we see in Republicans now.

I think we should hold off in seeing if Democrats can maintain a united coalition (which would be good if they can, as it means they are likely to be more centrist), but as soon as they let one or two factions dictate policy over the others, there will be defections, and you can almost certainly count on some kind of GOP resurgence.

I don't want pendulum swings, though. I want a good, centrist, responsible, capable government.

Comments on FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Are the Republicans Still a National Party?

酒店經紀人, 菲梵酒店經紀, 酒店經紀, 禮服酒店上班, 酒店小姐兼職, 便服酒店經紀, ...

外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇 外遇 外遇 外遇外遇 外遇 外遇 外遇 外遇 外遇 ...

As others have noted, this is a very problematic a...

For what it's worth, I did a similar analysis of s...

Danel: I'm sorry but you can't tell anything by Te...

I'd like to propose a new party:The Dress to Get L...

> On this whole topic of a third party, wouldn't a...

> What if the GOP were to split?> One party could ...

On this whole topic of a third party, wouldn't a p...

I just want to point this out, my Democratic Repre...

What if the GOP were to split?One party could call...

@Charles: yeah, probably the new party will just ...

> In short, this is AGING, WHITE RURAL AMERICA. It...

I dunno. I mean, the Repugnants were the guys that...

> Which means we do need a replacement 2nd party, ...

> @Charles: the new party could call themselves th...

jdizzle, i compared Dukakis with Kerry.

Can you imagine how the Roosevelt-Taft-Wilson race...

If you look all the election between 1992 to 2008 ...

I don’t see this election as being a strong enough...

Third parties have played a larger role in recent ...

Without the Powells and his type, the answer is no...

Just to add to:"The third advantage is resource al...

Nate's analysis is only 1/2 of the story. The REAS...

Keep in mind that both parties are made up of nume...

外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇外遇 ...