This week has seen a number of thoughtful analyses of last week's voter behaviors by people such as Karl Rove, Dick Morris, and Jennifer Marsico. The first two are well known. Ms. Marsico wrote a succinct, brilliant piece in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal.
Key passages from her article, "This Election Has Not 'Realigned' the Country," include,
"With Barack Obama's victory and Democratic gains in Congress, more than a few commentators are talking about that "r" word so important in presidential politics -- "realignment." Was 2008 a realigning election? I don't think so.
The academic discussion of realignment began with V.O. Key's seminal 1955 essay "A Theory of Critical Elections." Key wrote that critical or realigning elections exhibit high voter interest and realigning voter turnout, as well as a shift in the dominant political ideology. Most often cited is FDR's victory over Hoover in 1932, which started a decades-long period of Democratic dominance. Americans tended to support government intervention in their lives to a greater degree than before the Great Depression. Hence, there had been a fundamental ideological shift.
Today, our elections are more candidate- than policy-centered, and detecting a seismic policy shift has become more difficult.
But there's another similarity that disqualifies both contests from constituting a realigning election: The elections turned on their predecessors. Reagan's sound bite "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" encapsulated what his campaign was about. The election was a referendum on Jimmy Carter's performance, and voters rejected it.
Even more to the point, the congressional election results also cast doubt on the thesis that this year's election, or that of 1980, signals a political realignment. Republicans picked up 33 seats in the House and control of the Senate in 1980. But two years later, Democrats picked up 26 seats in the House and regained control of the Senate in 1986.
In 2008, Democrats picked up 19 House seats (with a few races still too close to call), but this represented the continuation of a trend from 2006, a year in which Democrats picked up a more impressive 31 seats. It is too early to conclude that 2008 marked the start of an enduring period of one-party domination or the continuation of short-term voter dissatisfaction with the GOP.
Put another way, Mr. Obama got about 40,000 fewer votes in Ohio than John Kerry got four years ago. Mr. Obama carried the state when Mr. Kerry did not because Republicans stayed home. Nationally, the anticipated record turnout didn't materialize. About the same percentage of registered voters came out this year as in 2004. And was that a realignment year?
In the same way that 1980 did not yield a generation-long period of Republican dominance, those on the right can take heart that 2008 does not represent the beginning of an era of Democratic supremacy."
Add to Ms. Marsico's insights Dick Morris' observation that, despite what he referred to as the erroneous 'truths' now being fabricated, voter turnout this year was actually about the same as 2004, i.e., some 130MM. For all the alleged new young voters registered, there wasn't a corresponding increase in their rate of voting.
Karl Rove has noted similar statistics, joining Morris and Marsico in cautioning anyone to interpret this election as 'realigning' or any other sort of radical seismic shift in American voter preferences.
Rather, for a candidate with 96% of 13% of the electorate in his pocket to begin with, the Illinois rookie won by a shockingly narrow margin over McCain. And most of this was attributable to the former's painting McCain as 'four more years of George Bush,' while the latter wasn't as articulate and able a campaigner as his younger foe.
This election was about relative choices between two men, not larger choices for the long term between two competing views of how to (re)fashion our society.
If the Democrats, as is their usual practice, can't help themselves from attempting a wholesale push of American government to the left, you'll see a resurgent GOP House in two years, and the White House back in GOP hands in four.
Paradoxically, if the Democrats don't attempt this socialization of American government, their own far-left attack dogs will turn on them.
Either way, with a fresh, energized set of young Republican Governors and Representatives, look for a dramatic turnabout in two and four years' time.
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Our country is becoming "Balkanized" as Pat Buchanan but it. You don't have to even be invovled in politics to realize this. Citizens vote along racial, ethnic, and religous lines before policies. This was very evident I thought in the Republican Primaries. You had Rudy Guiliani a Italian Catholic. Mitt Romney a Morman. Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, and Fred Thompson all Evangelical Protestant from the South. John McCain a Mainline Protestant. Instead of voting for the best candidate who I thought was Romeny, I wouldn't because he is a Morman. My next pick was Guiliani but I wouldn't vote for a catholic either. John McCain was too moderate for me even though I am a mainline protestant like McCain is. Ron Paul, Fred Thomas never had a chance. Mike Huckabee was a longshot, I supported him but it was easy to see that he had no chance. The Republican Party was divided by religion mostly. The Democrats had to divide between a black, women, latino, and a John Edwards a Evangelical Baptists. The Party's are being divided by these factors. Just like Blacks voted for Obama not because of Obama's policies but because he was black. People want to vote for those who are most like them. Even the region a candidate comes from. Midwesterns tend to distrust Costal Elites from New England. A southern doesn't want Mitt Romney for President. A New York City Catholic doesn't want to for vote some Bible thumper from the South.
I think this will continue to get worse in politics as people vote against their own personal beliefs and vote along their differences.
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