Nothing But Words

Why was my election prediction wrong? I did call 10 of the 13 swing states correctly, which would have been a respectable showing if two of my three misses weren’t Ohio and Florida

Rather than focus on specific political issues, I think it may be more helpful to look at this in emotional terms:

Fear: in my post on 11/1, I took into account some of the fear factor and lowered my original prediction for Kerry’s margin of victory. But I didn’t take it into account enough. While I could understand the desire to not change leaders during a war, in my gut I just didn’t really believe that anyone would buy into the cartoonish idea that electing Kerry was tantamount to inviting terrorist attacks, or that he would let the UN dictate our foreign policy, or that he would somehow find a way to bungle the war in Iraq more badly than Bush has. But it appears that many lent some real credence to the “Kerry is weak and misguided” cornerstone of the Bush campaign.

The question is whether our political discourse can survive the “Rove-ization” of campaigns. Each campaign Karl Rove has managed for Bush has been accompanied by a nominally unassociated character assassination squad. With the run against Ann Richards in Texas, it was a whisper campaign that she had surrounded herself with “avowed homosexuals.” In the primary fight against John McCain, it was talk that he had been brainwashed by the Viet Cong and had a black baby out of wedlock. And with Kerry it was the Swift Boat Vets. All these moves are intended to play to the fears and prejudices of many, and the unfortunate lesson is that they work amazingly well. My concern is that there’s nothing to stop this sort of thing from becoming the norm for all major campaigns.

Anger: much of what fueled Kerry’s support was anger against Bush. But evidently anger isn’t enough. After a terrible summer, Kerry ran a competent campaign in the end, but it lacked the “vision thing” that has fueled other successful Presidential campaigns against an incumbent (Carter had one in ’76, so did Reagan in ’80, and Clinton in ’92). Also the right has spent years fueling anger among its base against the ethereal “liberal elite” that apparently control everything and are eroding all the moral values of our country (I even heard one caller to a radio talk show fret about the “oligarchy of activist judges” that were out to destroy Christian values). In the end, both campaigns benefited from the anger running through their core constituencies.

Values: part of the reason Kerry didn’t articulate a vision is that Democrats don’t know how to talk about values anymore, while at the same time the Republicans have become experts at it. This is predominately a Christian nation, and you may be surprised to learn that there are probably as many liberal Christians as conservative ones. The Democrats have not only failed to unite them, they’ve virtually ignored them. In contrast, the Republicans have been brilliant at selling their party as the political home of moral virtue. While Kerry was ok at talking about health care, jobs etc. in programmatic terms, he didn’t effectively connect them to overarching moral and social themes.

Integrity: I’m not going to touch on the actual integrity of the candidates – instead I want to focus on the perception of their integrity. I think Bush received a lot of support from people who disagreed with his policies, but saw him as a man of integrity and a devout Christian. The past several Democratic candidates have suffered from the opposite problem: folks agreeing with their policies but turning away from them because of their public personas. Clinton had zipper problems, and both Gore and Kerry were perceived by many as panderers. For Gore and Kerry, much of that perception had to do with how well the Republicans pushed it, but the reason they pushed it in the first place is that they knew it was a weak spot.

Turnout: it looks like the main reason I called the election incorrectly was the big Democratic turnout I anticipated didn’t materialize. While turnout was high, it was high across both parties, lending no relative advantage to Democrats. For example, the 10-to-1 advantage in new Democratic voter registrations vs. Republican registrations in Ohio did not lead to an advantage in turnout that was anything close to that. Prior to this election, someone who was registered was very likely to vote. This is because registering usually required some effort, which meant someone who bothered to register by their state’s deadline (typically 30 days prior to the election) was someone who was already motivated to vote. The massive voter registration drives for this election, however, broke that motivational link between registration and voting. With volunteers practically knocking down doors to register people, getting on the rolls became a very easy thing to do. It looks like a good number of the newly registered did vote, but even more of them did not. James Carville once said: “You know what they call a candidate who’s counting on a lot of new voters? A loser.” He made that statement in “normal times,” before this election cycle. While there were a lot of new voters in this election, it looks like both sides brought them out in roughly equal numbers.

The Electoral Map: rural communities and social conservatives were once at home in the Democratic Party. As recently as 1988, Michael Dukakis lost big time, but he still carried West Virginia, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Kerry lost Iowa, barely held Wisconsin, and West Virginia wasn’t even on the table. The entire upper Midwest is trending Republican and probably won’t be reliable territory for Democrats in the future. The only safe bets for Democrats these days are big cities near water, the African-American vote, the overeducated, and maybe the unreliable youth vote. That’s just not enough to convincingly put together a winning electoral college map. The Democrats were once the “big tent” party, and at this point they need to win over new constituencies and become that again if they want to survive as a truly national party.

The Future for the Democratic Party: they need more candidates like Barak Obama and John Edwards: they come across as sincere and even inspirational when talking about issues and about values. What other prominent Democrats can you think of who can do that? If the party is smart they’ll seek out candidates like these guys. The proof of this point is the confession of the Bush campaign that they were most worried that Edwards would win the Democratic primaries (and the candidate they were least worried about was Dean). My concern is that, after such a bitter campaign and a close defeat, the Democrats will be tempted to take a hard turn to the left and hope that Bush self-destructs. That may be great for firing up the base, but this election demonstrates that the base just isn’t big enough anymore to win Presidential elections.

The Future for the Republican Party: the Republicans papered over their internal splits to support Bush in this campaign. If Bush had lost, you’d see them doing the same soul-searching that Democrats are now doing. But since they won, they’ll just keep plastering more paper over the rifts. The old-guard internationalists and isolationists have – at least for now – lost to the neo-cons. The deficit hawks have lost to Bush’s tax-cutting agenda and to Congressmembers who are drunk on power, increasing non-defense discretionary spending faster than any administration in recent memory. And the small government wing of the party has lost to Bush, who promised $3 trillion in new domestic spending in his Convention address. Other than tax cuts, name an issue that Republicans agree on these days. How far can the social conservative agenda be pushed before the coastal Republicans (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arlen Specter, Lincoln Chafee) cease to recognize their own the party? How much longer will John McCain and the Club for Growth-type folks tolerate the flood of red ink? How much longer will the isolationists (think Pat Buchanan) and the internationalists (think Colin Powell) acquiesce to a unilateralist, militaristic foreign policy? We’ll see how they do at holding it all together.

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