Gerald Seib, WSJ:
A popular theory of this year’s midterm election holds that Democrats took a shellacking in part because big chunks of the party’s core liberal base, discouraged at the path of the Obama administration, stayed home rather than show up to vote as they did in 2008.
[…]
While it’s correct that some key parts of the Democratic coalition—young voters and African-Americans among them—didn’t perform as they did in 2008, evidence emerging as the dust settles from this month’s election suggests the bigger hole in the side of the Democratic ship came from moderates in the political center who didn’t show up. (Those absences were in addition to the wave of independent swing voters also from the center who, exit polls showed, turned out but switched their votes to the Republicans.)
The case of the missing voters is important because how it is resolved will go a long way toward determining how Democrats respond to their midterm woes. If they conclude, as some argue, that the problem was an undermotivated liberal base, then the logical reaction would be a turn to the left and a staunch resistance to compromises with the Republicans who now control the House and hold expanded power in the Senate.
If, on the other hand, the conclusion is that the voters lost were moderates who got aboard the Barack Obama Express in 2008 but missed the train at the station this time, then that would argue for a political and policy strategy designed to appeal to the center of the electorate. And that might suggest more willingness to seek compromises in the middle.
[…]
A more direct study of these 2010 no-shows was undertaken by Third Way, a think tank for moderate Democrats, and Lincoln Park Strategies, a Democratic polling firm. They surveyed 1,000 Obama voters who abandoned Democrats in 2010. Half of them were “switchers” who moved their votes to the Republicans this time, while the other half were “droppers” who simply dropped out of the voting this year.
That survey found that, while the droppers were a bit more liberal than 2010 voters as a whole, they were split in almost precise thirds into liberals, moderates and conservatives. Moreover, just 42% identified themselves as Democrats, while 40% were independents and 8% were Republicans. Almost a quarter of them voted for Republican George W. Bush in 2004.
Nor were the droppers largely minority voters, as the popular stereotype might suggest. Eight in 10 were white, while just 7% were African-American and 5% Latino.
In other words, those who stayed home don’t, as a whole, fit the profile of a disgruntled liberal base. Instead, they lean toward a profile of a group of centrist voters who weren’t motivated this time. Indeed, as that would suggest, the droppers were pretty much split down the middle on whether their concern was that Mr. Obama and the Democrats didn’t try to have government do more (45%), or whether they tried to have government do too much (39%).
“The Obama voters who stayed home in 2010 encompass more than the Democratic base,” concludes the study of these voters. “And disappointment that Obama didn’t go farther was not a major factor in their reasons for staying home.”
Not surprisingly, the same study found that 2008 Obama voters who showed up this year but switched their votes to the Republicans were much more likely to say that they thought Democrats and the president tried to have government do too much. They were, in short, more conservative, and tended as a group to lean more Republican to begin with, than did those who simply stayed home.
The question for Democrats and Mr. Obama, of course, is whether they can get both groups, the switchers and droppers, moving back in their direction now.
The droppers should be easier to retrieve—though the process of doing so would have to begin with figuring out why they checked out in the first place.
Of course, unanswered is why, in fact, the switchers switched — did they think the “extremist” GOP became more moderate as a function of the Tea Party and constitutional principles?
I ask because the tenor of this article seems to suggest that the way toward the Presidency is, once again, to run a “pragmatist” — or a faux pragmatist, in the case of the Dems — and I’m not sure that’s what the evidence is showing.
Instead, it’s my argument that what we saw was a gradual, cross-party broadening of the Tea Party message: limited government, cutting spending, protecting individual liberty, etc. — in other words, a return to classical liberal principles that, as I argued long ago under the rubric of OUTLAWISM was likely to resonate with those of both parties who wanted less government and more liberty, less nanny-statism and more personal autonomy and dignity.
What the Tea Party did was break the convenient (for the press) labeling of the two party mold. Which left the leftwing and its media enablers forced to defend against two fronts: the “extremists” that they’d painted Bush and co. to be, and the “racist” “nativist” “extremists” in the Tea Party, who were clearly rebelling against not only the left, but the GOP establishment, as well.
It would be a mistake, in my estimation, to look at the numbers and decide that a slide back to the “center” (which, of course, is a slide to the left: JFK and his “rising tide” lifting all boats would today be a toady of “the rich”) is the best strategy. Many Americans might say, at this juncture, that that’s precisely what they want. But what they conceive of as the “center” may be the classical liberalism upon which this country was founded — and not the Democrat Lite that GOP establishment types seem to think is the best way to foster conservatism…
Discuss.
The bigger mistake would be to conclude, after wading through all of that surveyage, that the “center” is anything OTHER than a woman, a pampered, sheltered, young woman.
A smart Republican leader would understand that the “center” is defined by the constantly moving Overton window and would thus disregard media attempts to move that window to the left with things like, “ZOMG!!! the Republicans will squander their 2010 winnings if they don’t sidle back to the big-government center ASAPOMGWTFBBQ!!!1!!!!”
The long term movement since the late 1970s has been ever-so-gradually to the right, and ’06 and ’08 were merely bumps in the road. For the GOP to disregard the fiscal message of the Tea Parties would be to set itself up for another round of 2006.
Thinking about politics along a geometric line has always befuddled me: no less so here. If I believe I have a more or less coherent view of the fundamental principled positions of the reasonable classical liberal, what — in the context of the geometric line analogy in politics — am I to make of the principles of the positions to the left and right of that classical liberal center? How would they look? Where do they stand? How far would this hypothetical left and right accept and how far diverge from agreement with the fundamentals of classical liberalism?
I really want to scrap the line.
sdferr, there are cadres and cadres of professional pollsters, canvassers, public relations marketeers, fund raisers and assorted other functionaries of the electioneering racket that will recoil in shock and horror at your complete and utter lack of pragmatism.
Or they would if this place wasn’t too far out to be taken seriously.
But what they conceive of as the “center” may be the classical liberalism upon which this country was founded — and not the Democrat Lite that GOP establishment types seem to think is the best way to foster conservatism…
What’s important is to make the option available. For too long, the only choices were between a party that wanted to grow these parts of government, and a party that wanted to grow those parts of government.
I won’t be happy until the idea of “centrist compromise” means that you’re willing to cut spending by 4%, instead of the 7.5% you initially proposed. Those will be better days.
but Jon Stewart did a big rally and everybody went except for NPR and we was gonna restore the sanity
I would hazard a guess that it would lie somewhat to the right of center sdferr.
But, what’s confusing is that all who claim to be to the right of center, actually aren’t. At least in my estimation. And matters of foreign policy muddy the water a bit too, as they are generally left to the Executive and his administration; save for declaring war, Senate confirmation of high ranking diplomats and cabinet personnel, and oversight of treaties.
So you can end up having someone like Ron Paul, who is pretty darn conservative, but an isolationist to an unrealistic extreme. And have his position defended by guys like Glenn Beck, based on what seems to be the stated position of George Washington that we should avoid foreign entanglements.
It’s a sage piece of advice to heed, from a great American who was our first president and who dispalyed Cinncinatus-like integrity when others might not have, and his advice was practical when the US was a small, weak, nation amongst legitimate old-world superpowers. But is impractical, really, in the modern world when we have legitimate interests abroad a reasonable need to project our national power.
Just two cents from this ol’ Vagabond.
The Chef’s of classical liberalism had the unmitigated gall to throw into their political stew notions of freedom, liberty, property, human equality standing in a fear of [violent] death, human equality in common human-ness alone before the law, as over against the ordinary human inequality of a string-twangingly consistent jumpshot or lack thereof, concerto writing ability or lack thereof, waddlingly fattiness or lack thereof, fish catching prowess or lack thereof, etc. Bastards spoke of human doings. How could they?
Only as long as the 4% is cut from the amount spent the previous year, and not from next year’s proposed budget with its structural 9% growth already built in.
I find it more than a little ironic that, on the whole, JFK was more conservative than the allegedly “reich-wing” George W. Bush. Even more ironic that LBJ, who the Democrats chose as veep to lure the southern conservatives to the ticket, is as much responsible for the massive growth of the federal welfare state as FDR.
But viewed in this abstracted way Bob, don’t you capture precisely the hollowness of the geometric line thinger? It doesn’t speak to anything remotely concrete I think.
The old “left-right” axis is a more strictly European thing, anyway, and not really applicable to American politics.
Jeff G makes an important distinction when he notes that JFK, held up as one of the Pantheon of Democrat Presidents, would be called a warmongering, toady of the rich, who believed in voodoo economics based on his policies.
The problem with abolishing the line, as sdferr would like, is that there are virtually no classically liberal Democrats anymore; the soul of the Democrat party has been ripped out and replaced with Das Kapital and Mao’s little red book. They are true believers who try and fool the low information voters into going along with their positions by bribing them and twisting language to mask their actual intent. It’s only been recently when they’ve been so emboldened to let the mask slip freely; and after the mid-term results it’ll be stuck firmly back in place for some time to come.
That’s not to say there aren’t big government lovin’ statists masquerading on the right; we all know how the line got shifted to the left over the years.
Now, when it’s all on the line, is when the pendulum swings again, and people are open to listening and thinking a bit; when that “center” point on the line can be pushed back to the right of center location its been at for much of the nation’s history.
But Bob, don’t you think taking away the line, and with it the easy empty hand-wave it affords, both the more stridently conservative folks and the confirmed democrats of good faith would have to resort to turning back to actually speaking about what they believe? What they take to be their own principles of motion? That, at least, is what I would hope for. Again, to sharpen the question I put above? Enough already with empty line talk.
Of course it’s abstract sdferr, most geometric constructs are. And some are transferred for use as rhetorical comparative analogies. I guess I’m not understanding what your problem is with the use of that comparison.
Sure. It’d be nice if everyone were classical liberals first and foremost. But that condition has been degrading for some time, at a rate that’s been accelerating since the beginning of the 20th century.
If that line represents a schism in the polity to you, I’d venture to say that schism has been present at least since Adams vs Jefferson for the presidency, and maybe even before; but it was put aside in favor of dealing with the exigencies of that juncture.
Tell me what your problem is with the line. You’re much smarter than I am and maybe are seeing something I can’t.
“missed the train at the station this time”? What does that mean?
I missed their plan to respond in case the voters absent were Democrats that saw Polosi, Reid, and Obama jamming a socialist agenda down the peoples throat, and are uninterested in compromising with any of that horseshit.
Can I get an “amen” for the
partypeople of HELL NO!That’s
peer pressureStockholm Syndrome in action, Spiny.And the East-Coast establishment still despised his cowboy ass.
Ah, the empty rhetoric that, in your opinion, the “line” supports. I see your point, I belive.
But, I fear, as long as there are low information voters, whose ballot means as much as yours and mine, that empty rhetoric, demagoguery, will be present in the mouths of some pols. It’s really up to those of us that are conscientious, and who make the effort to understand the issues, to break through the fog of that demagoguery in our casual daily interactions with the low info folks.
Truth be told, it was Jefferson and the Van Burenites, in their zeal to gain more yeoman voters, that in my opinion traded a willingness to bring “the line” into being; although others, all across the ideological spectrum, have used it too along the way.
It’s frighteningly similar to the way the amnesty for illegals issue is demagogued today.
I’ll try again then. And welcome any help from the better thinkers here who can fill out my gist where they see the better way.
One cannot derive anything in the way of definitive principle to be attributed to political views either to a “left” or “right” from the mere posit of a geometric line with a “center” represented by a classical liberal whose principles are known. The construct tells us nothing. Is the complaint. One has to go far — very far indeed — outside the construct in order to ascertain the principles of these hypothesized political creatures (who, given Jeff’s suggestion would not be, in my view, the predominating current political creatures we have now on hand, but would necessarily be made up of a new consensus in either case (left or right) ).
Well, I have to run for a bit but I’ll gove it some more thought.
Quickly though, perhaps the difficulty lies in the fact that the line is really a split circle, laid out on a planar surface. At each far end are liberty-stifling ideological principles, and only near the center would the classical liberal exist.
I don’t know really. Because I see what you mean. One would think that the “spectrum of political principles” should run from total anarchy at one extreme to statism at the other, with classical liberalism somewhere in-between.
Talk to y’all later.
Surely cannot be so low in their gathering of information that they’ll fail to distinguish the meaning of private property from the meaning of all ownership in the state; of an aspiration to improving one’s condition from acquiescence in the position the state would accede to them; of growing wealth in a vibrant self-renewing economy vs the impoverishment of a stagnant unproductive economy. In short, of the meaning of enslavement from the meaning of liberty.
lbj was a fdr fanboi see liberal facism page 230
“Democrats Try to Crack Mystery of the Missing Voters”
At the top of my suspect list is Old Man Johnson in a rubber monster mask.
Where are Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby when you really need them?
Trying to get permits for the Mystery Machine, making sure Scooby has all his required shots and heart worm pills, obtaining a socially-responsible neutering for Scrappy and a license to research ostensibly paranormal activity, and working diligently for the decriminalization of marijuana.
They’ll be with you in a year or two.
I’ll try again then. And welcome any help from the better thinkers here who can fill out my gist where they see the better way.
To paraphrase the inimitable Fred Ward, “The problem is monkey.”
What sdferr is saying is that abstractly relating various political idealogies to each other on a graph is a useful exercise for relating ideologies to other ideologies, but it’s a damn stupid way of going about building a mandate for a political program. What sdferr is saying is that going after an imaginary sweet spot called “the center” is how we get “abortions for some, miniature American flags for the rest!” policies,(though in the real world, it more resembles Johnson’s (in)famous “there’s a lot were for and mightly little we’re against” [that may not be an exact quote]) which is the spirit that keeps the government growing. What sdferr is saying is that instead of saying to the center, we’re like you! vote for us!, we need to be telling them “this is how we’re going to fix the problem, come join us!” What sdferr is saying is that we need to alter the experiment. Because we’re not a bunch of college educated monkeys.
Or something like that. Maybe I’ve got the wrong movie in the reference frame.
There is still the MFM to contend with – and the TEA Party is still garnering negatives because of the constant bleeting that it’s little more than racist white grandparents being angry and/or senile. And that the bestest GOPer around is Meghan McCain — a stance taken by Time magazine who had her as the only “non-leftist” representative on it’s Person of the Year panel.
Ironic as hell ain’t it? That the monolithic ‘us vs. them’ mentality of the ‘news’ media left them not only blind to such a massive phenomenon, but ultimately so very exposed by it. Sucks for them when the world refuses to conform to the script.
“What sdferr is saying is that we need to alter the experiment. Because we’re not a bunch of college educated monkeys.”
What we have is a balance beam, individual liberties on one side, government guarantees of security on the other. If you want more on one side, you have to take it from the other.
Problems come in because while everyone wants liberty, not everyone values it.
And he is right. The idea that there is some kind of permanent “center” against which to measure political orientation ignores that Overton window jazz that I picked up and started spouting in hopes of sounding clever.
There is still the MFM to contend with…
– As more and more people discover they’re not part of the “selected elites”, just fodder for the voting booth, the Lefturd media will become an impediment for the Left.
The “left-right” line for representing political views had some relevance to reality when it was started in France just before the Revolution. Even carried forward it could, at least, have been a slight bit of guidance.
All that ended when Stalin declared Hitler and the various national socialist, aka fascist, groups to be enemies to the “right” of the Communist Party of the USSR.
Since that time it has simply been a useful device to smear all who oppose the designs of the various guises of the left. It takes at least 2 dimensions to attempt to map out the political positions of this nation.
The progs are developing a juicy little distraction meme – Republican Reps opposed to ObamaCare should give up their government health care. 1.Those opposed to ObamaCare generally support employer health insurance; they happen to be employed by the government, temporarily. 2. Right after the progs voluntarily pay the 90% tax rate they feel appropriate for the rich.
[…] TSA, the response from the Administration and the Democratic Party is the same: We’re doing everything perfectly! We just can’t get our message […]
Didn’t Ted Kennedy leave all his money to the neediest children in the world? You would think that the MSM would play it up.
How did the Kennedys become the “Good” evil rich?
Jerry Pournelle came up with a two axis system. Can’t remember what the axes were, though. I think one was “Think government’s a good thing” “think government’s a bad thing.”
this I think is one of the famouser ones like that Mr. Randy
Randy,
The other axis had to do with the supposed beliefs that formed the basis of the system on the scale of “rational” to “irrational”.
Communism basing itself on “science” being the hyper-rational-love-of-government corner. Nazi beliefs in racial superiority putting them in the hyper-irrational-love-of-government corner. Libertarians being the hyper-rational-anti-government corner and Anarchists the hyper-irrational-anti-government corner.
I was not happy with this as, to me, the so called “scientific” basis of Communism is as irrational as the Nazi beliefs.
There are problems with the Nolan chart also. Not the least of which is the axises are purpose built to showcase libertarian thought. Libertarians and Anarchists would both fit into the same corner both being exponents of complete individual autonomy. Humans and human political beliefs are multi-dimensional and dynamic IMHO.
maybe anarchists are outside the box getting tacos
no anarchists are at jack-in-the-box getting burgers
ohnoes… Mr. Nolan is dead all of a sudden