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.
You can make a very convincing argument the most Latin American countries are western. Indeed, the right wing dictatorships in the 1950s-1980s used to say they were defending "western Christian civilization" NOT "indigenismo."
None of this changes the fact that the GOP is toast unless it appeals to a broader base. Whining about changing demographics is stupid and pointless when it has already happened. You can deport all the illegals you want, but this does not change the fact that Asians and Latinos (who are of many races themselves, including WHITE, btw) are a bigger share of the electorate in the larger states, and will only grow even if all illegals were deported tomorrow.
Of course, there is also intermarriage, which is high between Anglos and Hispanics past the second generation, as well as between whites and Asians past the second generation.
We should be winning Asians, business owners of all races, and suburbanites employed in the private sector. The fact that we are declining among all groups other than non-college educated rural white Christians should give everyone here cause for alarm.
The Big Three can shove it as far as I'm concerned. Socialism for the banks or GM corporate execs is still socialism.
What "whining" have I done?
Asians and Latinos (who are of many races themselves, including WHITE, btw) are a bigger share of the electorate in the larger states, and will only grow even if all illegals were deported tomorrow
No, the Asian population is plummeting even more rapidly than the Caucasian [white, whatever] population - nihilism is even stronger in the Asian community than among Blue State Caucasians.
And to a certain extent, "WHITE" hispanics [especially Cuban refugees] are not our big problem here - it's the aboriginal/mestizo hispanics who will be the final nail in our coffin.
None of this changes the fact that nobody on this thread has offered suggestions for how to broader the coalition. The demographics of this country have changes and will continue to do so. You either adapt or die.
Again, I'm not sure what you mean by "fear".
All I'm doing is telling you what is going to happen.
You are certainly free to ignore my warnings, but even if you do choose to ignore my warnings, it doesn't matter in the big scheme of things - unless you die unexpectedly in the next few years, you WILL live to experience the horror of the demographic unraveling of the USA and its socio-political implosion - that much I can guarantee you.
what are you going to do about it?
Sadly, I'm worried that much of the remainder of my life will be devoted to the attempt to form a successful secessionist movement, and to establish a truly free republic in North America which will persist after the [impending] collapse of the old USA.
That's certainly not what I had wanted to do with the rest of my life, but it's difficult to read the tea leaves and come to any other conclusion.
That's because we CAN'T broaden the coalition.
I can't talk much more candidly about this because some moderator will delete my posts [I've had posts about this subject deleted in the past], but none of these other groups are ever going to vote for the GOP - it will never happen.
They simply don't believe [and many would argue, from a biological/darwinian point of view, that they CAN'T believe] in the same things we believe in - they don't want to live in a free republic - they want to live in a tyrannical republic.
This idea which Dubya has been trying to propagate for the last seven or eight years, which holds that "all people yearn for freedom", is simply nonsense.
Most people, in most places, in most times throughout human history, have NOT yearned for freedom - they have yearned for tyranny.
“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.”
It’s worth repeating this paragraph because it cuts to the heart of the loss by conservatives and Republicans. Our majorities are fading away, because _we_ - as a demographic group - are slowly, but inexhorably fading away as well.
Here’s a hard truth of American conservatism (for however long it will continue to be force in politics):
- Not all whites are conservative, but,
- Nearly ALL conservatives are white.
And the demographic groups that will replace us are not only of a different skin complexion, but of a different political complexion. The fires of conservatism simply do not appeal to them, as they have to us.
Take issue with these assertions if you wish. But the laws of demographics are among the most immutable of all, and that begets the statement that “demography is destiny”. It is why Europe - at least the white/Christian Europe that we have known to now - cannot survive as an ongoing culture if current demographic trends continue. And it is why America as we know it today will at some point cease to exist as a nation in which conservatism works it will. You can’t work that will without political victories, and without the demographic numbers with which to achieve those victories, the “conservative voice” is destined to grow weaker.
Note that I said “America as we know it today”. Could an America of say, 50 to 75 years distant face a Balkanization, or a breakup not unlike that of the [former] Soviet Union into a “Commonwealth of Independent American States”?
- John
I think we are winning among some asian voters, i.e., Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese primarily. We are losing among Indians and Pakistanis. Filipinos are a toss-up.
In this outstanding analysis, you mention:
"- Not all whites are conservative, but, - Nearly ALL conservatives are white."
Very true. Keep in mind, however, that conservatism has always been a reactive force, from medieval times through the presence. A multi-racial conservatism may develop, but it will not look anything like the conservatism of today.
One of the more interesting developments of this past election day, however, was the role of hispanics and blacks in passing Prop 8, which would have lost had only whites voted. The fact is that the white population is growing more secular, meaning that SoCons will need to work with black/hispanic Democratic voters more actively in the future for initiatives, if not for candidacies.
As a small "l" libertarian, I have grown use to being a minority within a minority, and don't expect this to change.
If we reinstate and strengthen traditional family values and the family unit, then educational achievement will follow. They go hand and hand.
The heavily Korean precincts/municipalities in New York and New Jersey (Fort Lee, Edgewater, Leonia, Flushing, and Bayside) all went for Obama, but this could also be the result of other ethnic groups (Jews in Bayside, Chinese in Flushing, etc.) in said communities voting for the O in large numbers).
Changing demographics are a fact that must be dealt with. The first thing one needs to find a solution is to identify the problem. Ther real question is how do you appeal to a "braoder base" without compromising your principles by pandering to those you are trying to attract. The Reps lose when they play identity politics. They can't match the Dems in that regard
We not only have to secure our borders and establish a system to track and deport visa overstays, we need to address our pro-population growth immigration policies that are not serving the interests of this nation. We don't need 1.2 million legal immigrantts a year. We need a pro-immigrant low immigration policy.
Yep demographics is destiny. The liberal goal is to marginalize white men by any means necessary. Then to marginalize all white people. That’s my read of the welfare and immigration laws
Make the border issue about law enforcement and competence. Period.
It will be interesting to see if the GOP decides to go after the secular white suburbanites for their next coalition, or to keep trying on Dubya's "compassion" nonCoalition.
I still find it interesting that our future will see the SoCons dependent on the votes/support of lower class "ethnics"/people of color to support traditionalist initiatives, even if such people continue to vote Democrat.
That simply is not true. The Asian population is projected to climb from 15.5 million [2008] to 40.6 million [2050.] Its share of the nation’s population is expected to rise from 5.1 percent to 9.2 percent.
Here’s a hard truth of American conservatism (for however long it will continue to be force in politics):
- Not all whites are conservative, but,
- Nearly ALL conservatives are white.
And the demographic groups that will replace us are not only of a different skin complexion, but of a different political complexion. The fires of conservatism simply do not appeal to them, as they have to us.
Demographics are changing due to immigration both legal and illegal plus the higher birthrates of immigrant females. Black birthrate isn't so high.
Major Republicans have been lying for years about getting immigrants to vote Republican
They will vote Democrat because they want handouts, welfare, housing subsidies, free Obama health care etc
Even the ones we call socially conservative will vote for socialism. The Mexicans will vote against gay marriage in California but vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. The party that can give them more by taxing the white population more
Who are the freakin' morons who said bring in loads of immigrants legal and illegal to pay for my future Social Security?
It's the reverse! I'm paying for them today!
Agreed, but I distributed sample Rep ballots here in NoVA during early voting and election day, and found that Koreans and Vietnamese were overwhelmingly for McCain. So were the Taiwanese. We have about 150,000 Koreans and Vietnamese in the region, one of the largest communities outside CA. Asians should be a natural constituency for Reps.
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