Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Post-election Campaign

The old Yogi Bera saying that it's never over til the fat lady sings is modified a bit with American elections. An election in this country is not over until the press and the political class have distilled the major meanings and messages in narrative form dmfrom the disaggregated votes of over a million voters voting in over 400 separate districts with different lists of candidates on each ballot. From those millions of votes for hundreds of candidates, the post-election campaign of forging these results into a coherent narrative replete with lessons for winners and losers alike going forward is perhaps more a test of political storytelling talent than writing good campaign speeches or state of the union addresses.

My own first take away from 2010 is that the story is in who voted and didn't. The differences between the 2008 electorate that provided Obama with this big win stayed largely at home yesterday, while grandpa and granda showed up in droves. In fact, the 65 and older crowd comprises nearly a quarter of the electorate Tuesday while in 2008 they totalled only 16% of all voters. In contrast, under-thirty voters who to yea% rs ago bouyed Obama to the White House in collective numbers of nearly a fifth of all votes (18%) shrank to almost half that size to 11% of the electorate. As a result those casting ballot this time were far older, far more conservative, and far whiter than their counterparts two years ago. You could say that this cycle can be summed up as one where "the revenge of the grannies" is responsible for replacing Nancy Pelosi with John Boehner as the Speaker of the House. Now why a group of retired folks for who the jobless numbers are personally not critical, would be so likely to deliver such an anti-Obama message is not at all obvious -- unless the Republican line that Healthcare Reform included a raid on Medicare spending -- broke through with alarming effect on the widows in Florida. And for some of the seniors there is the tanking of their pension funds from the stock market crash that was caused by the very party they voted by in the House Tuesday. And finally, there is the generational-socialization view that notes that this group of seniors came of political age in the early sixties and were by and large still loyal members of the New Deal Coalition, until the 1964 election when Barry Goldwater began the breakup of the Solid South, paving the way for Nixon's "southern strategy" in 1968 where white voters, just as Kevin Phillips predicted, would join the GOP because they saw black Americans, especially in the South, enjoying all the fruits of the Democratic party's new commitment to civil rights under Lyndon Johnson. It's not out of the question that the combination of a sour economy and a black president brought back memories that fell short of our better angels for his particular demographic. It's a possibility that is strenghtened when we look at the signs of dramatic white flight from the Democrats in 2010 compared to 2008. No matter how we spin it, it'd be hard to claim that Tuesday's vote -- and the months of attack ads that preceded it == ranks among the finest hours of this Republic.

5 comments:

  1. We can analyze the results and demographics of voters all we want but that doesn't change the fact that Republicans will now control the House and made slight gains in the Senate. All we can hope for now is that the Republicans don't screw up this time and actually make good legislation that will pass with Obama's signature. Everyone in Washington needs to stop acting childish and get to work since that is the reason we, the voters, have sent them to DC in the first place. Check out the second paragraph (especially the last couple sentences) in this opinion piece from the NY Times, it pretty much sums up my feelings about politicians...

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  2. I agree with Sydney that our congress needs to stop bickering and get things done. Because they can't drop the ball on this one or we will be in even more of a mess than we were in before. But with John Boehner as the Speaker of the House, I don't know how much good is really going to come from this. There are murmurs from a select few Tea Partiers that want to get rid of the Department of Education, not allow the debt ceiling to rise if needed. And the one that kills me is the fact that the Republican party stands firm on the Bush tax cuts. I understand that the top 2% of our economy are their campaign donors. But how many members of the Republican majority fall into that top 2%? I don't think any, so for me it seems very simple, even if I were a Republican. Because the fact is, that top 2 %, still making bank while the majority are struggling. I mean a $500 million increase in income for those individuals over the last 2 years. Let the Bush tax cuts lapse so we can generate some stimulus in our economy. And I would be all for the one-time 15% tax on that top 2% because I'm almost positive they would still manage.

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  4. sorry, here is the link from above...I agree with Megan on the tax cuts. Politicians can't just listen to their donor base in order to create legislation. If they do this, the rich in our country will just continue to get richer and the rest of our country will suffer. I would be willing to pay a little more in taxes to help our country and I'm nowhere near as well off as those who pay for Republican campaigns; they can manage with a tax increase too.
    http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/was-it-worth-it/?emc=eta1

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  5. Unfortunately the heavenly view of our Congress is a myth and they will continue to bicker between parties and no agreement seems in sight because each party has weeded out any moderates and thus any hope of compromise.

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