Posted on 11/08/2002 11:21:24 AM PST by gubamyster
October 8, 2002 9:55 a.m.
By Bill Whalen
If Tuesday's election left the Democrats blue, then a quick look ahead to 2004 will have them seeing red — as in a sea of Republican "red" states that grew a shade more ruddy after President Bush's successful barnstorming across America.
While the media focus on the ramifications of a new Republican Congress, the overlooked story emerging from this historic midterm election is how the Bush White House secured its base in those same states that handed the president his narrow victory two years ago. Even more ominous for the Democrats: Republican candidates made inroads in Democratic "blue" states that wanted nothing to do with George W. in 2000.
Yes, the Democrats have a leadership fight on their hands. But whoever gets to sit in the driver's seat will fast realize the bus is going over the cliff in 2004 unless there's a new road map for the next election.
Here's some early number crunching for 2004, and why the Democrats would do well to realize that they're in big trouble.
In November 2000, President Bush received 271 electoral votes to Al Gore's 267. Let's suppose the 2004 election was a carbon copy of 2000, with the same 30 "red" states voting for Bush and the same 20 "blues" siding with the Democratic candidate. Adjusting for reapportionment, a status quo election leaves Bush with 278 electoral votes, to his challenger's 260.
But keep in mind that it won't be the same election — and it certainly won't be the same Bush seeking a second term. The George Bush of 2000, who lost America's popular vote, is no more. Bush, version 2.0, entered Election Day with a 67 percent approval rating among all voters (69 percent among late-deciding voters). In the modern history of polling, Bush is the first GOP president to enter a midterm election with a 90-percent-or-above rating among his fellow Republicans (it was 96 percent).
Here's where Democrats pucker their Daschles. Let's suppose that Bush, as a popular incumbent, pulls down an additional 2.5 percent of the vote — a conservative number, given his stratospheric ratings. With just that minimum of a bounce, the president easily picks up five "blue" states — Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin — worth 39 electoral votes. Suddenly, the margin is Bush 317, Democrats 221.
And that's playing it safe. Assuming the economy doesn't falter and the war on terrorism is prosecuted effectively and efficiently, what happens when Bush goes barnstorming again? What if the Bush "bounce" is twice as strong, and worth an additional five percent in state races? It's called a meltdown for Democrats. Bush would win four more states — Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Washington — worth an additional 53 electoral votes. That makes the score: Bush 370, Democrats 168. A blowout, with Bush approaching Reagan country and 400-plus electoral votes.
So why be so optimistic about the presidential race at this early time? Simple: Read Tuesday night's tealeaves. President Bush didn't merely take back the Senate and retain the House. He didn't merely run strong in states big and small. He was at his best in those states Democrats covet most in 2004.
Of the five states that Bush carried in 2000 with a winning margin of less than five percent, four were in play on Tuesday night (Nevada being the lone exception). In Florida, the president helped win a governor's race that was as much about his legitimacy as his brother's record. The "we wuz robbed" messaged didn't worked against the president's brother? What leads us to believe it will work any better against the commander-in-chief?
Of the other three states, Bush squeaked by in Missouri, New Hampshire, and Tennessee in 2000. Republicans won U.S. Senate seats in all three of those states — in two of those states against charismatic female candidates, supposedly the GOP's kryptonite; the Tennessee Senate race never was in doubt.
If the Democrats can't carry the aforementioned states in 2004, they have to look elsewhere to somehow take away electoral votes from Bush. That means trying to win states like Ohio, Louisiana, and Colorado that Bush carried in the neighborhood of five percent to ten percent. It's not a practical way to unseat a popular incumbent, and Democrats aren't likely to get far in states that are traditionally, culturally or increasingly demographically Republican.
The Democrats, of course, have a counter spin to this. They point to success in "blue" states that were lukewarm-Gore (five percent or less) in 2000 — specifically, the two new Democratic governors in Michigan and Pennsylvania. That makes for clever sound bites, but it's not sound political science. Governors make strong presidential candidates, but they're an overrated commodity in terms of affecting presidential elections when they're not on the ticket. As Republican pollster Matthew Dowd has noted, Republicans held 30 governor's office in 1996 and still managed to get pantsed by Bill Clinton. Four years later, George W. Bush won ten states where Democrats had governors; Gore won nine states where Republicans had governors.
The topic of governors leads to the Democrats' other big headache: How Republicans managed to win the top job in states that presumably are/were anti-Bush. Mitt Romney won in Massachusetts, Bush's second-worst state, percentage-wise, in 2000. Bob Ehrlich was the victor in Maryland, 45th in Bush support. In New York, George Pataki earned a third term in a double-digit rout. Two years ago, New York handed Bush twice as bad of a defeat (a 24-percent loss) as he suffered in California.
If it's the beginning of a wave, then potentially it's a huge one for Republicans to surf. Like Ronald Reagan in 1984, George Bush two decades later may have that rare opportunity to take his party into new states, beyond the confines of the Republican "red" zone. No longer would the game be how to cautiously maintain 271 electoral votes. For the president's strategists, it's a matter of how ambitious they choose to be: 317, 370 electoral votes?
And that changes the game for Democrats. It won't be how to steal a couple of "red" states, or even how to maintain the status quo against a popular president.
The more pertinent question may be: How to stop those "blue" states from bleeding Republican "red"?
— Bill Whalen is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
If its somebody else, we can only hope its somebody like Gephardt or Gray Davis, we're talking '84 repeat. Look what happened in MD when Gore showed up...instant death for KKT, and that was a heavy blue state. Heh.
A big part? How about a decisive blow.
1992
William J. Clinton, Democrat 370 electoral 44,908,233 popular
George H. W. Bush, Republican 168 electoral 39,102,282 popular
H. Ross Perot, Independent . . . 19,741,048
Add to that showing the new generation of Black voters that the Dems are taking their vote for granted, while Republican ideas such as school vouchers, elimination of the death tax, SS privatization, and merit rather than quotas are in their best interests.
Breaking that "no new taxes" pledge was the worst thing to happen to the Republican party since Richard Nixon decided to stonewall and obstruct with Watergate. It was devastating to the party and Clinton got eight years to drag this country into the gutter.
The younger Bush is so different from the father that if they didn't look so much alike, one might be tempted to ask for a DNA test to prove it. Unlike his father, GWB is likeable in a "down-home" kind of way. You don't get those preppy "Ivy-League" vibes from GWB at all. Furthermore, when GWB speaks, he means it. He's got integrity. People trust him. He will never go back on an important campaign pledge like his father did, especially since he knows all too well the consequences of doing so.
So while it is true that the elder Bush had sky-high ratings during the Persian Gulf crisis, those ratings were short-lived and a direct result of the war and they plummetted as a direct result of the economy. Here we are over a year after GWB's historic moment (9/11) and his popularity is just incredible. And these aren't "wartime" ratings. We haven't been engaged in battle in a major way since the beginning of this year and the economy is far worse today than it was during 1991 and 1992. These ratings (still approaching 70%) are for real. Imagine what they will be when the stock markets start soaring again and Sadaam Hussein is finally removed from power!
Many here feel Bush the Sequel is unbeatable. We don't know what the next 24 months will bring.
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