Posted on 09/27/2008 11:11:34 AM PDT by Brices Crossroads
I wrote the following post in response to some handwringing by people who think that the polls, particularly the sate polls, are portending an Obama presidency. I think it is good to have a little historical perspective. Unfortunately, we Americans have short attention spans, and this extends to our knowledge of recent electoral history, which is a far better predictor of electoral behavior than even election day polls (Didn't 2004 teach us anything?!) As the Gipper would say, let me take all the nervous nellies on a little walk down memory lane:
In response to those who feel the election is lost because some of the recent polls show, especially the state polls in Virginia, Colorado Pennsylvania and several other states show Obama currently ahead, Are you suggesting the state polls 40 days before an election are better, especially when the sometimes have a turnout spread that favors the Dems by 10-14%. Let me tell you something about polls. More reliable than polls are the historic voting patterns of these states. The dems have nominated their most left wing candidate at least since McGovern. He is also the most inexperienced major candidate for President at least in modern history. He is the only candidate ever nominated who is potentially subject to the “Bradley effect”, which makes every poll on this election, national or state, next to useless.
I refer you to historical trends:
Virginia has not voted Democratic in 42 years since the LBJ landlside. In 1992 and 1996, against 2 of the weakest candidates in GOP history, a and aided by a strong third party challenge that siphoned off GOP votes, the strongest Democratic candidate in a generation (and the only Democrat since FDR to win a second term) could not muster a majority. The military retirees in the southeast and the rural voters in the rest of Virginia are not going to turn to Obama when they would not turn to Clinton. The polls that show Virginia a tossup are fishwrap. Ditto North Carolina. Ditto Florida.
Colorado has voted Dem only once since 1964 and that was in 1992 when Clinton, again aided by a strong third party challenge from Perot won. It reverted to the GOP in 1996 (in spite of Perot and Dole’s weakness) and has remained in GOP hands since then. Since then, George Bush took it very comfortably by 150,000 and 100,000 votes respectively. How plausible do you find it that Clinton could not even win it during an easy electoral victory in 1996 against Dole and yet Obama is going to win it against 2 westerners like McCain and Palin. Especially with the NRA in overdrive in a big 2nd Amendment state. Note that the polls in Colorado always showed Sen. Wayne Allard losing and he won comfortably by 5% both times against a relatively centrist Democrat and strong candidate Tom Strickland both in 1996 and 2002.
Pennsylvania....among the oldest states in the union with a very high percentage of vets. the margin has shrunk from 400K votes in 1996 to 200K votes in 2000 to 140K votes in 2004, in spite of the fact that in 2000 and 2004, you had a qualified veteran at the top of the Dem ticket and a non veteran southerner at the top of the GOP ticket. Obama was clobbered in the Dem primary and lost particularly badly among older white and union voters, the same ones that are purportedly undecided this time. For the past 2 election cycles these voters have been increasingly turning away from qualified Dem candidates, who are veterans, toward Bush, a non vet and a Southerner. There is no reason not to expect a flood of these voters to McCain. Vote fraud in Philly can get you only so far, especially with Palin drawing huge crowds and interest not to mention votes. The same applies a fortiori to Ohio. And to Michigan.
The GOP prospects are not nearly as grim as you suggest. In fact they are actually brighter than they were in 2000 and 2004. The polls don’t reflect that, but remind me. How were those polls on election day in 2004?
In other words, they have their polls, unreliable as we all know they are. We have historical trends (far more reliable) and analysis. Be of good cheer. Work hard. Get your friends and neighbors to the polls and this is going to come out just fine.
One postscript: Only three Democratic Presidents since 1860 (that is: When Abe Lincoln ran the first time) have gotten an absolute majority of the popular vote: FDR, LBJ and Carter, the latter 2 being southerners and therefore at least being perceived as more conservative(and therefore safer). This is a one on one election (Nader and Barr are nonfactors) With all his baggage, can you really look yourself in the eye and say, contrary to all historical evidence, Obama will be the fourth.. .? In 150 years? After limping through the Dem primaries? In the first real contested race he has ever run? Well, if you think so, I have a bridge for you. And it is not to nowhere. It is to the funny farm.
I hope he’s right.
Nice article!
I enjoyed reading it and getting your insight.
What states are write offs for repubs? California NY,Iowa,?
Great post!!
We are doing BETTER today than we were four years ago on the day after the first debate. Bush’s debate performance sucked, the lead vanished overnight, and Kerry was up a few points. There was unbridled panic on our side. Bush spent the remaining weeks battling back and won by 3. Nothing to worry about here, at least not yet.
Thanks. Please ping it to anyone who you think is getting depressed. That is what many of these polls are designed to do, that is depress GOP turnout.
impressive statistics. how did you do the research? If true, they would be very encouraging
Good article, all of the evidence he cites plus the other stuff I’ve posted a hundred times here adds up to a McCain landslide. There is no way Obama will even come close to winning, the media is pulling out all the stops, SO WHAT’S NEW? The media will always be the enemy, we have 100 times the capacity we had to get our message out than we did in the 80’s.
Obama is a fatally flawed candidate with ZERO chance of winning in November. If you’ve got any extra money use it on Intrade.
Good points - Bush was skewered and to the main stream media, they didn’t give him any of the debate wins, yet he won by over 3 million popular votes and despite an election day “Kerry is ahead at 2 pm” call by the MSM!
your PA analysis makes nothing but sense. The Democrats have no way to counter the trends in PA. Color it Red.
I think the states Dukakis carried (less West Virginia) are probably write offs, plus California. I think just about everything else is in play, including the entire upper Midwest (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan(not to mention Ohio and Pennsylvania, which I think both will go to McCain).
The only one who should be (and probably is)writing off states is Obama. He will get nothing south of the Mason Dixon line and next to nothing in the West (except for the west coast.) Oregon and Washington cannot be considered locks for him IMHO, at least not based on recent voting patterns.
Second, historical state trends are extremely important, actually more important than polls. For example, MO has always gone with the winner every time except for 1952. VA and CO have almost always gone to the GOP, despite weak candidates and often the trend to the GOP candidate does not show up until the end.
It is also really important to see the margins of victory in these states. Despite migration from northern states into southern states or western swing states, we do not know the breakdown of those voters. Also, the political affiliation of these transplants would have to almost universally Democrat in order to overcome the traditional voting pattern of any state.
Thanks for your work. Much appreciated.
Things aren’t grim but do not leave anything to chance. McCain should win this election in a landslide just looking at him from the archetype standpoint. He has the right big images, the Hero, Strength, Integrity, experience. Obama doesn’t have those and he is a liberal. The only way Obama wins is if he is let go on his liberalism. You can’t just attack him on taxes.
You need to run ads attacking him on his liberal voting record. He is out of the mainstream. You need to not attack him vaguely on Franklin Raines you need to attack him and Democrats for blocking reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
I’d suggest a “They were warned, we tried to fix it, they stood in the way” commercial. It is time to throw Bush under the Bus and quit playing the I’m too big for politics game. The Democrats are getting away with murder on this issue.
We’ve been hearing how Virginia and Colorado have been changing demographically, and that there are lots of new residents who tend to vote Democrat. We’ll see.
Also, in Virginia, in the Dem. primary, Obama got more votes than all other Republicans combined in their primary. He had registered a lot of new voters. So a key will be if they turn out in the general election as they did in the primary.
Finally, Virginia thought it had a safe Republican senate seat with George Allen in 2006. Then he said macaca, and his campaign went downhill. The point is, if the state was safely Republican, he would have survived that macaca nonsense and still gotten re-elected.
What about Iowa. McCain does not like the corn payoffs.
I just got a call from a democrat internal pollster.
I registered democrat during Operation Chaos. LOL
I told them that there is NO WAY I will ever vote for Barak Obama - especially after last night’s debate.
I told them that I was embarrassed for his lack of “general knowledge” about the world and it’s getting too dangerous to put an amateur in the Oval Office.
Moreover, all he did was agree with McCain AFTER he spoke. He didn’t know enough to “add” any points at all.
I’m sure they’ll put me down as just another racist.
LOL
Check out the link below. This is only a preliminary sample of the states and their trends. You can see how things have been going. What is it about Obama that makes him stronger than Kerry? Answerr: nothing. He gets the same demographic groups, liberals and African Americans. He loses many white working class Dems. What is it that makes McCain a less formidable candidate than Bush: Answer: Nothing. McCain is a stronger candidate than Bush ever was. Not only is he a better debater, but he is also a Veteran and this counts in places like Pennsylvania , Ohio and Florida, especially among Reagan Dems. McCain is also not a southerner, but this will not hurt him in the south. It will help him in the midwest and in Pennsylvania where I think Bush’s southern accent may have put off some voters. (I say this as someone from the south who likes southern accents, but that is a reality)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/electoral-vote-tracker.htm
sadly he’ll get Maryland which is technically south of the Mason-Dixon Line but stuck with the Liberal Bastions of Baltimore ,PG County and Montgomery County and the corrosive presence of thousands of guv workers in the Bedroom Suburbs of DC
The main reason we shouldn’t pay attention to the polls is that they are extremely fluid right now, and are transient. They are the product of the daily politics of a currently unresolved issue, which will be resolved, for better or for worse, long before election day. Again, 0bama has not really gained so much as McCain has slipped, because voters don’t know where he stands on the bailout, or what his endgame was during this past week.
Once we have resolution and the dust settles, then voters will have a better grasp of the situation at hand, and McCain’s role as a maverick leader in the hour of need will become very clear. As it becomes clear that McCain got taxpayers a better deal while 0bama stayed away, he will come out way ahead. McCain is going to have to bring a stronger argument to the economic debate, however, and with the uncertainty of the current Wall Street bailout behind us, McCain will be in a prime position to take a strong stance and claim much credit for the positive impact he has personally had in the negotiations. He couldn’t do that too much last night, because his chickens have not yet hatched, and 0bama’s have not yet come home to roost.
McCain needs to make this about social issues GOD,GUNS and foreign policy, and call BHO a LIBERAL!
He shouldn’t joust with him about the economy too much.
Midwesterners won’t vote for a ultra-liberal.
Yeah, I’d forgotten about the demographics issue. I’ve been worrying that NC (my home state) has been slowly turning into another Maryland, even if the more rural parts of NC haven’t changed much.
“Finally, Virginia thought it had a safe Republican senate seat with George Allen in 2006”
Bush won it in 2004 by 8 points. Webb sqeaked by in ahuge dom year by a fraction of a point. Webb is a war hero, a formner Secretary of the Navy under Reagan and someone who even likes the Confederacy. Allen was a bad candidate who made some dumb mistakes. Obama could not be more different than Webb. McCain is far more like Webb. And Obama is much more akin to Dukakis or McGovern. Virginia will not be as close as it was in 2004, no matter what the polls say
Thank you for this. I always enjoy your insight. Good to see you back! :)
Great post!!
Most impressive...keep up the good work. :-)
“Yeah, I’d forgotten about the demographics issue. I’ve been worrying that NC (my home state) has been slowly turning into another Maryland,”
Has it changed that much since 2004 when Bush won it by 12% and 450,000 votes? No way.
Thanks. Good to hear from you again.
I pray to God you’re right, otherwise this country is in very bad shape.
Thanks. I intend to put all this panic that the MSM and the pollsters are wreaking within our ranks into a little perspective, every time they post a poll showing obama within 5 points in, say, South Carolina. It is garbage and someone has got to call them on it. FDR said one thing I agree with. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Great insights! I want to add my two cents worth here as well - historically, we’ve also NEVER elected a candidate with a foreign sounding name to the presidency. I think Giuliani might have had the same problem. Also, in recent years, we seem to elect presidents on their “likability” factor. Do you feel like you can sit down, have a beer, and talk about life with the guy? I think this is why Clinton beat Bush Sr. and Dole. He was more approachable. I also think it’s why Bush beat Gore and Kerry - people just in their guts (and I think people vote based on a “gut feeling) just felt Gore and Kerry were arrogant jerks. Obama is an arrogant weenie, and I’m guessing he’s not going to win. He’s the whiney kid in the schoolyard, pointing the finger and tattling every time someone puts a foot wrong, and nobody likes that.
Your analysis is good and should make since to more than just us here at FR. But the problem we are up against is it’s just a bad year to be a Republican. The media is flatly against us. Every day it’s positive coverage of Obama and negative coverage of McCain. Every day in the media Obama looks like a savior and McCain looks like a buffudled old man. The media is destroying Sarah Palins good name while protecting Barack Obama from his ties to crooks, terrorists and racists. The media is covering for a Democratically controlled congress whose leaders have caused this banking mess, but it’s Bush and McCain who are blamed for it. Thhis morning, despite a dominant performance by McCain in the debate, all the spin is Obama won the debate. The new polls today have McCain continuing to tank. The reposnse to the attacks by the McCain camp are non existant. Most Independednt voters get their news from the Mainstream Media. All this is what will help Barack Obama win a very comfortable victory in November.
Let’s face it George W Bush has ruined the party for at least one more election cycle (meaning this year). His poor leadership his led to a very negative impression of the Republican party by most Americans. I fully expect Barack Hussien Obama to be elected by a very comfortable margin. He will be givin a nice Demcratic majority in both houses of congress. Then once Obama gets in and and he raises taxes, drives business in to the gorund, breaks the middles class and lawlessness rises and we lose Irawq and Afgahnistan, the the Republicans should take back congress in 2010. Then they can try to hold President Obama in check and hopefully we still have a country in 2012 so we can put Republican back in the White House (if it’s still there) to fix the massive damage Obama did.
This will be the price Liberal Democratic and Independent voters will have to pay for buying into media hype and Obamas slick speech making. Unfortunately, we have to pay the price for their ignorance.
Sorry for my depressed state and pessamistic outlook and the sky is falling view. But I just don’t see how we can win this this year. Everywhere I go it’s Obamamania.
Am I missing something here with this statement? Was not W wearing a uniform in the Air National Guard? Other than this, a great article.
For me to be wrong would require a tidal shift in American electoral behavior. No circumstance on the horizon bespeaks any such shift and nothing about Obama (or McCain, for that matter) suggests that the candidates are going to generate such a shift. I do think McCain’s natural advantages, both demographic, experiential and historical, will result in a larger win and a less close election than we would have had had the Dems nominated one of their moderate governors or even Hillary Clinton.
Historical trends are instructive, but hardly as decisive as you make them out to be. The electoral map has NEVER looked the same two elections in a row. IOW, in every election since the inception of the republic, at least one and usually many more historical trends have been broken.
Despite Obama’s reputation as a disarming person who has the ability to bring everyone together, I have the feeling that he’s the sort of person that would get highly agitated if he was losing an argument with me or if I wasn’t enthralled with his insights. That’s the sort of guy McCain should be locking horns with. Voters hate elitist pricks more than they dislike people with silly names.
“But the problem we are up against is it’s just a bad year to be a Republican. The media is flatly against us.”
2004 was a worse year, with the war going badly and the economy not going gangbusters then either. The media is always against Republicans. That is a given and the electorate know it and filters it out.
All spin in 2000 and 2004 was that Gore and Kerry won the debate. Every poll suggested as much. And the truth is they did better than Obama. Every post debate poll in 1980 said that Carter had bested Reagan and it turns out that history reflects just how badly Carter was creamed.
I seem to notice that you generally post grim news. If everywhere you go, there is nothing but Obama mania, maybe you should get out more. Go to a Nascar event . Visit the Mon valley or Macomb County. You may get a little different read on this if you do that.
In the 21st century, engery is forein policy and engery is the economy.
Without energy, you have no economy.
Without a good foreign policy, and no understanding on how engery is being used as a weapon, you also will have no economy.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
“Historical trends are instructive, but hardly as decisive as you make them out to be”
My point is they are far more reliable than polls, 40 days out of an election, particularly where as here you have a candidate who is subject to the Bradley effect and to political correctness in ternms of how people would repond to the polls.
When Rasmussen (a pretty reliable pollster) puts up a poll in South Carolina showing McCain only winning by 51-45, don’t you start to wonder? That does not pass the giggle test. And I could cite you many more examples.
Historical trends, along with analysis (taking into account the demographics) are far, far more reliable than polls, especially a light year or two from the election.
McCain can lose IA, CO, VA and NM as long as he picks up PA, which I believe he will. Plus he may pick up MI.
He just needs to hang on to OH and FL, which he will, and he will be fine.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
“McCain can lose IA, CO, VA and NM as long as he picks up PA”
He will not lose Virginia nor will he lose Colorado. I am less sure about Iowa, whic went for Dukakis, but if he wins Iowa, it will be by a razor thin margin. It will not matter. When PA is called for McCain early on election night, I don’t think people will be paying that much attention.
Fantastic analysis, and based totally on fact. What’s more, remember how we fussed over OH and FL in the past 2 elections, wondering how 2 solidly conservative states could possibly vote Democratic? Well, the never did and don’t look to be this year, so instead the goal posts just move...now its VA and CO. I believe the same thing will happen this year, all our fuss will be proven to be nought come election day with regard to these 2 states.
I often hear about the surge in Democratic registration but I wonder how many are Operation Chaos voters like yourself.
Good. I like an optimist.
Iowa may be in trouble because of McCain’s hostility to corn subsidies. He is not popular there.
“What’s more, remember how we fussed over OH and FL in the past 2 elections, wondering how 2 solidly conservative states could possibly vote Democratic?”
Good point. Both Virginia(8 points and 262,000 votes) and Colorado(5 points and 108,000 votes) were relatively easy wins for Bush in 2004, whic was not the greatest GOP year. Now they are trying to get us to swallow that there is a seismic shift to the most leftist candidate in U.S. history by 2 states that, out of 10 elections each since 1968, have voted Democrat a grand total of once and by a plurality not a majority (when Ross Perot split the GOP vote) Obama is that formidable. The polls say so. Yea, right! LOL
Madam, you are wrong. Look at 2000 and 2004. Very similar. Look at 1992 and 1996. Also very similar because Clinton and Gore were both southerners. Also look at the states everyne is having a fit over: CO and VA. They are historically Republican states. And you cannot deny that MO is the ultimate bellwether state. So, your statement simply doesn’t hold up.
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