May 16, 2008--Conventional Wisdom
If we apply current conventional wisdom to the presidential campaign, it says:
• Since Barack Obama is having difficulty attracting white, working-class voters, he will not win swing states such as West Virginia, Ohio, and Missouri.
• Since older voters turn out in disproportionate numbers and Obama is having difficulty appealing to them, this imperils his chances of winning in Florida.
• The suburbs for years have been voting Republican and these votes more than offset Democrat’s inner-city advantages.
• African Americans vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, whoever they may be, but do not come to the voting booth at the same rate as, say, Jewish voters.
• Though constituting just 1.4% of the population, Jews vote disproportionately for Democrats and because they are concentrated in certain key swing states they are a force to be reckoned with.
• Latino voters will not for vote for black candidates and vice versa.
• In spite of what they say to pollsters, even educated, middle-class whites in the privacy of the voting booth will not pull the lever for a minority candidate in the same percentages as they say when surveyed. There is a 5-10 percent “Wilder Effect.”
• Young people get excited about certain candidates during the primary season but when it is time to vote they stay home and thus can effectively be ignored.
• The South, which was once solidly Democratic, since Eisenhower days has become solidly Republican.
• Money means everything in politics and to raise the money needed to run an effective national campaign a candidate has to depend upon “bundlers” and other fat cats.
• During hard economic times voters can be distracted from a focus on the issues that in fact impact their daily lives by appealing to them with cultural wedge issues such as gay marriage, prayer in schools, and abortion.
• When people fear external threat they vote for Republicans since they see Democrats to be weak on defense.
Conventional wisdom of this kind, by definition, is conventional because it is based on the extrapolation of accrued past experience. Everything I’ve listed above is derived from the actual results and data from previous elections.
But it may be that little of this will apply this election cycle. That is obviously because the Democrats are about to nominate Barack Obama and much of what we have learned from the past and that we think will apply to the future—our political conventional wisdom--may not apply.
A few examples:
Yes, Obama will likely lose West Virginia in November, which Hillary Clinton is correct to point out for decades has been a bell-weather state for Democratic candidates. Cause and effect: if you lose West Virginia you will lose the election. History teaches us that.
But the same history tells us that Democrats will not be able to win any states in the New South. And that this will continue to be true in November. But, also contrary to conventional wisdom, isn’t it likely that in addition to 90% of African Americans voting for Obama that with a black candidate heading the ticket they will vote in record percentages and thereby perhaps turn South Carolina, Mississippi, and maybe Alabama and Georgia into blue states? In 2004 “only” about 60% of eligible black voters voted. Shouldn’t we expect this percentage to jump to at least 75-80% in the fall? If that were to happen, wouldn’t that mean at least the temporary end to the solid Republican South?
Yes, traditionally most suburbs have been trending in a Republican direction. In some key places this has offset Democratic advantages in big cities. But during this primary season Barack Obama has been doing better and better among white, educated middle-class and affluent suburbanites. If this carries into the fall, his doing well there could tip into his column swing states such as Missouri, Ohio, plus quite a few in the west.
And I suspect that even Republicans would concede that young voters will hang in with Obama and not only continue volunteer to work in support of his ground game but will actually vote. They cannot be ignored this time around. And may as a result keep a few traditional blue stats blue and perhaps even turn a couple of red states into blue ones.
We are also seeing that the old ways of raising money are changing. Building on Howard Dean’s on-line fundraising innovations, the Obama folks have turned this into a virtual campaign cash machine. The Internet makes special interest groups, corporations, and wealthy individuals less essential to him.
And ironically, just yesterday George Bush, while in Israel, gave Obama a perfect opportunity to contrast his and John McCain’s approaches to foreign policy when he compared Obama to pre-World War II appeasers of Hitler. Not only did this reveal how much McCain is like Bush (he jumped in to gleefully agree with his president) and underscores Obama’s contention that a McCain presidency would in effect represent a third Bush term, but it also instantly united feuding Democrats. Hillary Clinton’s immediate reaction was to call Bush’s speech an outrage to Obama and to all Democrats. They no longer are willing to be labeled, as the conventional wisdom suggests, as weak on defense. By acting so forcefully they signaled that they will not allow themselves to continue to be Swiftboated.
• Since Barack Obama is having difficulty attracting white, working-class voters, he will not win swing states such as West Virginia, Ohio, and Missouri.
• Since older voters turn out in disproportionate numbers and Obama is having difficulty appealing to them, this imperils his chances of winning in Florida.
• The suburbs for years have been voting Republican and these votes more than offset Democrat’s inner-city advantages.
• African Americans vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, whoever they may be, but do not come to the voting booth at the same rate as, say, Jewish voters.
• Though constituting just 1.4% of the population, Jews vote disproportionately for Democrats and because they are concentrated in certain key swing states they are a force to be reckoned with.
• Latino voters will not for vote for black candidates and vice versa.
• In spite of what they say to pollsters, even educated, middle-class whites in the privacy of the voting booth will not pull the lever for a minority candidate in the same percentages as they say when surveyed. There is a 5-10 percent “Wilder Effect.”
• Young people get excited about certain candidates during the primary season but when it is time to vote they stay home and thus can effectively be ignored.
• The South, which was once solidly Democratic, since Eisenhower days has become solidly Republican.
• Money means everything in politics and to raise the money needed to run an effective national campaign a candidate has to depend upon “bundlers” and other fat cats.
• During hard economic times voters can be distracted from a focus on the issues that in fact impact their daily lives by appealing to them with cultural wedge issues such as gay marriage, prayer in schools, and abortion.
• When people fear external threat they vote for Republicans since they see Democrats to be weak on defense.
Conventional wisdom of this kind, by definition, is conventional because it is based on the extrapolation of accrued past experience. Everything I’ve listed above is derived from the actual results and data from previous elections.
But it may be that little of this will apply this election cycle. That is obviously because the Democrats are about to nominate Barack Obama and much of what we have learned from the past and that we think will apply to the future—our political conventional wisdom--may not apply.
A few examples:
Yes, Obama will likely lose West Virginia in November, which Hillary Clinton is correct to point out for decades has been a bell-weather state for Democratic candidates. Cause and effect: if you lose West Virginia you will lose the election. History teaches us that.
But the same history tells us that Democrats will not be able to win any states in the New South. And that this will continue to be true in November. But, also contrary to conventional wisdom, isn’t it likely that in addition to 90% of African Americans voting for Obama that with a black candidate heading the ticket they will vote in record percentages and thereby perhaps turn South Carolina, Mississippi, and maybe Alabama and Georgia into blue states? In 2004 “only” about 60% of eligible black voters voted. Shouldn’t we expect this percentage to jump to at least 75-80% in the fall? If that were to happen, wouldn’t that mean at least the temporary end to the solid Republican South?
Yes, traditionally most suburbs have been trending in a Republican direction. In some key places this has offset Democratic advantages in big cities. But during this primary season Barack Obama has been doing better and better among white, educated middle-class and affluent suburbanites. If this carries into the fall, his doing well there could tip into his column swing states such as Missouri, Ohio, plus quite a few in the west.
And I suspect that even Republicans would concede that young voters will hang in with Obama and not only continue volunteer to work in support of his ground game but will actually vote. They cannot be ignored this time around. And may as a result keep a few traditional blue stats blue and perhaps even turn a couple of red states into blue ones.
We are also seeing that the old ways of raising money are changing. Building on Howard Dean’s on-line fundraising innovations, the Obama folks have turned this into a virtual campaign cash machine. The Internet makes special interest groups, corporations, and wealthy individuals less essential to him.
And ironically, just yesterday George Bush, while in Israel, gave Obama a perfect opportunity to contrast his and John McCain’s approaches to foreign policy when he compared Obama to pre-World War II appeasers of Hitler. Not only did this reveal how much McCain is like Bush (he jumped in to gleefully agree with his president) and underscores Obama’s contention that a McCain presidency would in effect represent a third Bush term, but it also instantly united feuding Democrats. Hillary Clinton’s immediate reaction was to call Bush’s speech an outrage to Obama and to all Democrats. They no longer are willing to be labeled, as the conventional wisdom suggests, as weak on defense. By acting so forcefully they signaled that they will not allow themselves to continue to be Swiftboated.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
9:31 AM
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