I don’t live in VA, so I will happily yield to your expertise there.. There is little doubt that 08 in particular was a complete abberation nationally... Between moderates anger at Bush’s wars, and Obama’s time for a black man.. you wound up with such a skewed turnout and result that using it as a baseline for ANYTHING going forward is worthless.
8 though, in most areas returned to more normal numbers, and Romney and the RNC blew it.
Every indication I have seen, is Hillary will vastly underperform 12... and in the rust belt states in particular, I truly do expect Trump to completely outperform any R in decades... Folks not from this area, I don’t think understand just how bad things are across most of these states... at least for the rural and small towns. The coordinated wealth extraction from the United States, is something they recognize intrinsically even if they can’t articulate or understand it.. its being done to this part of the nation now for decades... and its not abating anytime soon if nothing changes.... They know in their gut, even if they don’t understand currency manipulations, or quantitative easing... they know they are getting hosed, and its being done willfully and voluntarily by their own nation and its institutions. They may be life long democrats, from many generations of life long democrats, but they are not big city social liberals... they are hard working honest men and women, watching their lives being destroyed... no one caring or doing a damn thing about it... and then being asked to vote for someone who they know to be completely dishonest and living large on corruption and cheating....
Hillary just won’t play across most of it. I would love to see VA flip, and I will yield to you completely on it your opinions, I don’t spend a lot of time there. I’d love to see VA flip red... and I do agree that 08 and 12 are bad cycles to use as baselines for anything.. 08 in particular. Just like this cycle, will not be a good baseline for 20 or 24... What is happening with both of these 2 candidates is so far outside the norm, that using this election however it turns out as a baseline predictive model for the next one will be comical.
Keep fighting hard... GOTV... We got this.
What I don’t get is this. We had a big wave election in 2014. We had a wave election in 2010. And the punditry simply pretends as if they never happened. It is almost bizarre. (Almost, but not really — the punditry just wants people to forget that the turnouts of ‘10 and ‘14 are even possible).
I have a theory on this. I don’t actually think ‘94, ‘02, ‘10, and ‘14 were actually anomalies, “wave” elections, or represented some kind of non-normal turnout. I believe they actually represent the true political alignment in this country. And it is actually the actions of the GOP establishment who, through both ineptitude and design, have suppressed that alignment. In other words, the turnouts in ‘92, ‘98, ‘00, ‘06, ‘08, and ‘12 were the *real* anomalies (I don’t count ‘96 or ‘04, for reasons not important here). This supression was caused by (in order): Bush SR., general GOP incompetence, Bush Jr., Bush Jr., McCain, and Romney. In 04, the real alignment emerged, at least partially, but only because of the outright assault on our military by the left.
If this is true, I would expect the turnout this year to resemble that of two years ago. And the current polling will therefore be dramatically off, since the turnout of ‘08, and the turnout of ‘14, were so dramatically different. And I would expect this, even though CW states that these Republican “wave” elections are only possible in off-year elections, when no-one is paying attention. CW, as usual, will be proven wrong. The Republicans never have “wave” presidential elections, because we usually nominate someone like Bush or Romney, not because the general political alignment is unfavorable.
Excellent point; the Democrats don't believe the "little people" can understand their plight.