Posted on 11/16/2008 8:38:35 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Small changes can have dramatic consequences. The electorate shifted about 4 points toward the Democrats in between the 2004 and 2008 elections--from 48.3 percent of the popular vote four years ago to 52.5 percent today. But those 4 points gave Obama the largest share of the vote since 1988, the best showing by a Democrat since 1964, the first black president, the first non-southern Democratic president since John F. Kennedy, and likely larger Democratic majorities in Congress than when President Clinton took office in 1993. In a closely divided America, a swing of four votes in a hundred can mean a decisive victory.
Obama's achievement can be explained with a few numbers. The first is 27 percent--President Bush's approval rating in the national exit poll. Pretty dismal. The poll found that voters were split on whether John McCain would continue Bush's policies. But those who thought McCain would be another Bush broke overwhelmingly for Obama, 91 percent to 8. That's a huge, damning margin.
The second number is 93 percent. That's the percentage of voters who gave the economy a negative rating in the exit poll. They supported Obama. And they were right to give the economy a negative rating. The financial crisis is spilling over into the real economy of goods and services. Unemployment is rising and consumption is falling. The week before the election, the Commerce Department announced that consumer spending had dropped 3.1 percent. Consumer spending hadn't fallen since 1991, and this year's decline was the largest since 1980.
The day before the election, the auto companies announced that they had had their worst month in a quarter-century. When economic conditions are as bad as this, of course the party out of power is favored to win an election.
Considering those numbers, the 2008 electoral map isn't all that surprising. Bush, the economy, and Obama's personal and political appeal have pushed the nation toward the blue end of the political spectrum. But, for the most part, the shift is gradual and on the margins. Obama will be president because he took states that Bush won in tight races four years ago. Bush won Ohio by 2 points in 2004. This year Obama won it by 4. Bush won Florida by 5 points in 2004. This year Obama won it by 2.5 points.
Obama's victories in the West were impressive. Bush won Colorado by 5 points in 2004. Obama won it by 7. Bush won New Mexico by 1 point in 2004. Obama won it by a substantial margin--about 15 points. Bush won Nevada by 2 points in 2004. Obama won it by about 13 points.
Virginia has been trending blue since 2001, when Mark Warner was elected governor. In 2004, John Kerry won the Washington suburbs of Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax, but still lost the state to Bush, 45 to 54 percent. The next year, another Democrat, Tim Kaine, succeeded Warner. And the year after that, voters replaced incumbent Republican senator George Allen with Democrat Jim Webb in a contest decided by just a few thousand votes. In 2008 Virginia went totally blue. It handed the Democrats as many as three more House seats, replaced retiring Republican senator John Warner with Mark Warner (no relation) by a vote of two-to-one, and swung for Obama by a margin of 5.5 points. Virginia's electoral votes went for a Democrat for the first time since 1964.
The two major surprises on our new map are North Carolina and Indiana. Bush won North Carolina by 12 points in 2004. This year Obama erased that margin and won by a couple tenths of a point. It's the first time since 1976 that North Carolina has voted for a Democratic president. In Indiana the swing toward Obama was even more pronounced. Bush won there by a huge margin of 22 points in 2004. Obama made up all of that ground, eking out a victory of about a point. No Democrat had won Indiana since 1964.
If I were Obama strategist David Axelrod, I'd--well, I'd probably be exhausted right now. But I'd also make sure that President-elect Obama spends the next four years visiting North Carolina, Indiana, Virginia, Ohio, and Florida. He needs to deepen his support in all five states. And I'd also make sure Obama visits Missouri, where at this writing it appears he barely lost; Montana, where he lost by 2.5 points; and Georgia, where he lost by 5.5 points. If Obama holds all the states he won this year and adds those three to his column in 2012, he'll be reelected in a landslide. That's a big "if," of course. The key is a successful first term.
Where does this leave the Republicans? In deep trouble. The GOP is increasingly confined to Appalachia, the South, and the Great Plains. When the next Congress convenes in 2009, there won't be a single House Republican from New England. The GOP is doing only a little better in the mid-Atlantic. There will be only three Republican congressmen in New York's 29-member delegation in the next Congress. Only a third of Pennsylvania's delegation will be Republican--about the same proportion as in New Jersey. There will be a single Republican in Maryland's eight-man delegation. The Rust Belt is hostile territory, too. So are the Mountain West and the Pacific Coast. The GOP is like the central character in Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone." It's on its own, no direction home.
The Republicans are in demographic trouble. When you look at the ethnic composition of Obama's coalition, you see that it's kind of a mini-America. About two-thirds of Obama's supporters are white and a third minorities. The Republican coalition, by contrast, is white, male, and old. There's the first problem. Overall, Obama may have lost the white vote (while still doing better than Kerry did), but in 2008 whites (not counting Hispanics, per Census convention) made up the smallest proportion of the electorate since the start of exit polling. Obama scored tremendous victories among minorities. He won more than 90 percent of the black vote. He won the Hispanic vote by a two-to-one margin. He won the Asian vote by a similar margin.
Then there are the young. Voters under 30 turned out in only slightly higher numbers than they did in 2004, but they overwhelmingly backed Obama, 68 percent to 30. A successful Obama presidency could lock these voters into the Democratic column for a long, long time.
The most striking divide in 2008 is between rural voters and metropolitan voters. Rural voters back the Republican party overwhelmingly. The problem is that there aren't many of them--and there are fewer all the time. It's the metropolitan voters, the voters who live in cities or suburbs or exurbs, who are growing. And these voters are trending Democratic. Obama won the Philadelphia suburbs, the Washington, D.C., suburbs, the Chicago suburbs in Illinois and Indiana, the Denver suburbs, the suburban counties that make up the Research Triangle in North Carolina, and many more. He won the Orlando suburbs by 20 points. Disney World is Obama country.
Suburbs and exurbs are the most dynamic, fastest-growing places in the country. They are future-oriented. Republicans win when they build out from their rural base and gain support in the exurbs and suburbs. That's how Bush won in 2004. But in Bush's second term, things went awry. The suburban voters abandoned the GOP for the Democrats. The exurbs became volatile battlegrounds. And the GOP was left a minority party.
I think of places like Loudoun County, a northern Virginia exurb. Bush won Loudoun County by 12 points in 2004. In 2008, Obama won Loudoun by 6 points. For the GOP to have a future, it has to reverse that 18-point swing. Otherwise, Republicans better start praying for rain.
The auto bailout will save nobody’s jobs, all it will do is socialize another industry and make our overall economy weaker.
Socialism feeds failure and starves success.
Capitalism feeds success and starves failure.
Which is a better model for economic growth?
“Where will the jobs come from in the future? We don’t make things (TV’s appliances soon no cars) anymore.”
US industrial production in 2007 was higher than ever. Productivity has been higher than ever
“In 12 Tech CEO’s want H1B visa people to take tech jobs (no American is qualified you understand).”
I am an American and I work in high-tech. And yes, we do not have enough qualified Americans, since too many flee engineering. Recessions ‘cure’ this for a while, but its hard to find good people in normal years.
” Call centers have moved overseas. “
Some low-paying undesirable service jobs are going overseas and in the process overall costs go down and its a win/win.
So have textile jobs. You need to stop looking at the jobs that you think are ‘going’, when in a dynamic economy we shift everyday; you should instead look at the overall health at home,
“Wachovia has moved its clerical operation overseas...where will the jobs come from. Do you really believe we can remain a great country while we serve hamburgers to one another?”
that’s a strawman since we have huge industrial production, agri production and complex services.
“The GOP lost their way when they stopped caring about job creation. I don’t know how they can fix this.”
If the GOP goes down the false path of protectionism, it will kill jobs. Bailouts without end will weaken the economy. Pro-growth policies are what is needed.
Fortunately we can have a good contrast with the Dems, by just sticking to . The Dems want to grow the Govt, in so many different ways in their agenda; the GOP wants to grow the economy. Stick with lower/flatter/fairer Taxes, business regulation reduction, science and technology focus in education, etc.
That’s actually a pretty good idea.
:-)
The demographics of this country are changing rapidly. The US of today is nowhere near being the US of 1980 or 1984 or even 1990. Let me draw me draw some comparisons based on census information.
In 1980, one in 16 residents of this country was an immigrant. Today it is one in 8.
The population of the US in 1980 was 227 million; in 1990, 249 million; 2000, 281 million; and today 305 million. Over the past 28 years, we have added almost 80 million people, most of it due to immigration and minorities. Or to put it into some further context, We have added more people since 1980 than the entire population of the US in 1900, i.e., 76 million at that time.
In 1990 there were 248.7 million people with the Hispanic population being 22.3 million and blacks 30 million. Today there are 305 million with the Hispanic population now at 46.7 million and blacks at 41.1 million. Non-Hispanic whites are currently 199.8 million compared 199.6 million in 1990.
In 2030, when all of the baby boomers will be 65 and older, nearly one in five U.S. residents is expected to be 65 and older. This age group is projected to increase to 88.5 million in 2050, more than doubling the number in 2008 (38.7 million).
Similarly, the 85 and older population is expected to more than triple, from 5.4 million to 19 million between 2008 and 2050.
By 2050, the minority population — everyone except for non-Hispanic, single-race whites — is projected to be 235.7 million out of a total U.S. population of 439 million. The nation is projected to reach the 400 million population milestone in 2039.
The non-Hispanic, single-race white population is projected to be only slightly larger in 2050 (203.3 million) than in 2008 (199.8 million). In fact, this group is projected to lose population in the 2030s and 2040s and comprise 46 percent of the total population in 2050, down from 66 percent in 2008.
Meanwhile, the Hispanic population is projected to nearly triple, from 46.7 million to 132.8 million during the 2008-2050 period. Its share of the nation’s total population is projected to double, from 15 percent to 30 percent. Thus, nearly one in three U.S. residents would be Hispanic.
The black population is projected to increase from 41.1 million, or 14 percent of the population in 2008, to 65.7 million, or 15 percent in 2050.
The Asian population is projected to climb from 15.5 million to 40.6 million. Its share of the nation’s population is expected to rise from 5.1 percent to 9.2 percent.
In 2050, the nation’s population of children is expected to be 62 percent minority, up from 44 percent today. Thirty-nine percent are projected to be Hispanic (up from 22 percent in 2008), and 38 percent are projected to be single-race, non-Hispanic white (down from 56 percent in 2008).
The working-age population is projected to become more than 50 percent minority in 2039 and be 55 percent minority in 2050 (up from 34 percent in 2008). Also in 2050, it is projected to be more than 30 percent Hispanic (up from 15 percent in 2008), 15 percent black (up from 13 percent in 2008) and 9.6 percent Asian (up from 5.3 percent in 2008).
This is a reality we have to deal with. What can I say, my wife is an immigrant and my kids are nonwhite.
My wife is an immigrant but white. The problem has more to do what is happening to the black and Hispanic families than race or ethnicity. The out of wedlock birthrates for Hispanics is 50% surpassed only by the black rate of 68%. Hispanics have the highest school drop out rates with blacks second. They are nearing 50%. This is the social pathology for failure in this society. We should be very concerned since the future of this nation is tied to their success.
Asians are outpacing whites in areas such as education and have lower out of wedlock births. If Asia was the source of most of immigrants, I would be less concerned about the future of this country. a
“most people have a history of how well the free market works to know what is possible. Obama can’t satisfy the electorate with a lot of make work programs that won’t help anyone.”
I very much hope that you are right and I am wrong.
But I don’t think so. Young people today don’t even know that they’ve been watching the free market work. Their ignorance is staggering.
“most people have a history of how well the free market works to know what is possible. Obama can’t satisfy the electorate with a lot of make work programs that won’t help anyone.”
I very much hope that you are right and I am wrong.
But I don’t think so. Young people today don’t even know that they’ve been watching the free market work. Their ignorance is staggering.
When I was in College in the early 70’s there was just as much indoctrination. A lot of them believed it until Jimmy Carter came along, then they switched to Reagan.”
Then, though, the leftist indoc had to overcome some proper upbringing, things learned at home and in church.
A kid today seems to be practically a tabula rasa for the leftist teacher to mold as he will.
If the GOP fatalisticly gives up and lets itself be tagged the white, Christian party, and retreats behind the mason-dixon line, abandons the cities and lives in rural areas only, then the politics of patronage, dependency and spoils will triumph as the Democrats take advantage of demographic trends to use the minority vote and the single/youth/dependent-class vote as the lever to power. Then your scenario will play out. But I consider that the Cassandra-like warning not to be inevitable precisely because we know the trends. We’ve been there before - ethic white immigrants in the mid-century were reliable Democratic voters - Irish and Italian catholics, slavs, others. The GOP made inroads by appealing on issues to turn them into “Reagan Democrats” and know in many cases Republicans.
It will be a very difficult swim upstream, but we can and we will take efforts to make sure it doesnt happen.
- In the 1990s, Christie Whitman got 40% of the African American vote in her New Jersey races
- 4 years ago, Bush got 40% of the Hispanic vote (to 31% this year)
- even just getting CLOSE to parity in youth would erase the Dem advantage this year
- Consider the flip-side. The white voters reject racial spoils emphatically. The white voters who voted for Obama got ‘sold’ that he was post-racial. It was a myth, so let him live or die by that, and let us hold his feet to the fire and GET HIM FIRED if he becomes the political correctness President (that white voters will abhor). The Democrats have a pitiful share of white married and white Christian voters, and for good reasons - they have nothing to offer self-reliant people who adhere to American traditional values.
We can completely smash the politics of political correctness by getting back to equality of opportunity and not giving an inch of moral high ground on this. We hae seen this, where the Ward Connerly led propositions win time and time again. There are sufficient minority voters who adhere to conservative values (viz the whole prop 8 vote) that we can win races.
The problem is that the GOP brand is less sellable than conservative values, while the Dem brand is more sellable than a liberal agenda by itself. If we fixed that disconnect only and nothing else we would be the majority party.
What to do?
- Fix our vision (on clear and clean conservative principles), fix our brand (by cleaning up GOP act);
- Get ‘competence’ ‘integrity’ ‘intelligence’ and ‘character’ back as labels we associate with Republicans.
- Reach out to the groups the Dems are taking over that are amenable to our message (middle-class and traditional values/Christian minority voters, youth who agree with small govt/liberty messages, etc)
Our biggest challenges will be the elites vs populist issues, where we must have a credible economic blueprint that both businesses and people buy into.
Yes, it is, actually.
All your pathologies are relevent, but
“Asians are outpacing whites in areas such as education and have lower out of wedlock births. If Asia was the source of most of immigrants, I would be less concerned about the future of this country.”
The GOP should be winning the Asian voters. The fact that we arent is a testament to our inability to market, outreach and do politics the old-fashioned way, person to person.
And what is it?
Of U.S. Children Under 5, Nearly Half Are MinoritiesIf you want to get a preview of what life will be like in huge swaths of the USA [or what, by that time, will have become the former USA, after the coming disturbances], then spend some time at these sites:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/09/AR2006050901841.htmlWhites will be minority group by 2042, Census predicts
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/48071.html...Non-Hispanic whites will drop below 50 percent of the population as early as 2042, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections to be released Thursday. That's about 10 years earlier than demographers previously had predicted, said Grayson Vincent, a demographer for the Census Bureau...
The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit
http://detroityes.com/home.htmvery politically incorrect site
http://www.zasucks.com
We effectively have had a one party system for some time. There is/was very little difference between Republicans and Democrats for the past 50 years. They functionally both increased the size of the Federal government (recall that Reagan mandated a 55 mph speed limit on all the states and increased the deficit. Think of Bush’s prescription drug scheme). Both political parties like to spend more money than they take in from taxes. The Democrats and Bush have outdone themselves by almost doubling the national debt IN ONE YEAR! Truly, I say to you, that our grandchildren will curse our names because we stood by and did nothing.
Until a major change occurs, there will be no effective change but tax and spend and tax again. There is a conservative base out there ( I estimate about 13 percent give or take a few percent that could do something, but they are disorganized and tend to fight among themselves.)
In the meantime let the MSM pick the Republican candidate which the Democrats will trounce. May God have mercy on the US - the last great hope of Earth.
So, what is the implication? You must be assuming that:
1. These trends will continue
2. Minority voting patterns are fixed and will never change
3. White voting patterns are fixed and will never change
4. These demographic changes will occur in every state evenly.
No, in fact these trends will accelerate - as the Blue State caucasian baby boomer nihilists begin to die off, en masse, in about 15 years, without having bred at replacement levels, the white population will implode into veritable nothingness.
2. Minority voting patterns are fixed and will never change
We have more than a century's worth of data on this, and there is absolutely not even a single shred of evidence - not anywhere, not at any time - that "minority" voting patterns will ever change.
3. White voting patterns are fixed and will never change
There might be some hope that whites will start voting to preserve their own interests, but e.g. in more than a century of trying, we still have not been able to convince the Catholics not to vote for socialist tyranny, and I don't hold out much hope for them at this late hour.
And the cause of the Blue State nihilists, for what little time remains for them [before they go extinct, for lack of breeding], is simply hopeless.
4. These demographic changes will occur in every state evenly.
No, they are not happening evenly; cf:
The Baby Gap: Explaining Red and BlueOur one hope is that we can gather a core group of these non-nihilist caucasians [who are still making babies] and form some sort of a breakaway republic.
http://www.isteve.com/BabyGap.htm
But the cause of the USA as we knew it is permanently and hopelessly lost.
Don't even waste your time being sentimental about it - our challenges are far too large at this point to afford to spend any time feeling sorry for ourselves.
Yeah, but now it's all official and all!
Some groups come to America and succeed almost immediately. But other groups have a long, bleak track record of failure dating back hundreds of years to their countries of origin. Is there any way the latter groups could ever be convinced to support a capitalist system in which most of them will be relegated to burger-flipping duty?
Repairing the family and reinstating traditional values will lower the crime/dysfunction rate, but is there any evidence that their productivity could be increased to meet contemporary American standards?
bump
bump for later
"The West" is an antiquated concept anyway. We are not an outpost of Europe.
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