Sean Trende’s book, The Lost Majority, isn’t a predictor about the upcoming election; it is a discussion of what has happened, with just a few basic themes:
· There’s no such thing as a permanent majority—and Obama’s election was certainly not an indicator of a permanent progressive majority.
· Emerging majorities described by overexcited commentators on both sides are wrong; neither party is headed toward extinction or marginalization.
· The very idea of cyclical long-term direction changes is a wrong reading of history, which shows alternating victories by either party as more normal than exceptional.
So, his point that 2008 did not indicate a mandate for transformation to “progressive,” rather than “constitutional” government , is encouraging—and was borne out by the outcry against such an assumption in 2010. But the book was written too early (by early 2011, well before a GOP candidate was known) to say anything certain about November 2012.
But there are some pieces of information that can be useful. Much of today we’ll be looking at the limits of Obama’s narrow but deep coalition.
Obama’s coalition consists of:
· Minorities: blacks, Hispanics, Asians
· Labor unions
· Youth (18-29-year-old voters)
· Welfare recipients
That wasn’t enough to elect him in 2008. That year he received support from many disgruntled Republicans and independents who liked the idea of voting for a black and having racism forever off the table as an issue, many of whom were unhappy with the length of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the suddenly collapsing housing, automobile, and banking industries. They were willing to trust that someone who offered “hope” and “change” meant something remotely close to what they hoped would change.
What we can surmise from current polling data, if we can’t yet guess outcomes, is that essentially no one who voted for McCain in 2008 will vote for Obama in 2012. The question is simply, will Obama maintain enough support from his base to be reelected? He received (conflicting reports of) 90-97% of the black vote in 2008. If he loses 8% of that vote, either from changing their vote to the opponent or staying away (and they had turned out in unprecedented numbers in 2008), that could make a critical difference.
He also had the youth vote that lacks enthusiasm this time. I don’t know the numbers, but the insupportably high unemployment rate for young people, including college graduates returning home to live with parents, is going to have a dampening effect.
Unions still support Obama, but the actual workers, what you might refer to as white non-college educated, didn’t go strongly for Obama even in the primary, and became to him “bitter clingers,” were written off before election, so he’s not getting them back after four years of sustained high unemployment. He still retains a fairly strong following among whites with post-graduate degrees (the elites who assume they will be part of the ruling class), but support for him has collapsed among college-educated whites.
Stanley Kurtz has been talking about Obama’s attacks on this group in a recent book (Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities), and articles about the attempts to transfer wealth from suburbs to urban areas, which Obama believe is the more moral, authentic place to live. In other words, if you’re a middle-class family person who lives in a house, Obama has written you off.
Hispanics are an interesting demographic for prognosticators. There’s an assumption that, as the Hispanic population grows, support for Democrats grows with it. And while it’s true that Hispanics do lean Democrat, as they integrate into American culture and move into the middle class, they become more conservative. Here is Trende’s summary:
But what of Latinos? If they vote like African Americans, it seems that Republicans would be in very deep demographic trouble. However, if they vote like Anglos, it suggests that as more and more Latinos become wealthier and, presumably, more conservative, they will also become more Republican (see figure 8.7).
As it turns out, the Latino vote looks a lot more like the non-Hispanic white vote than the African American vote. Latino voters in each group are roughly 10 points more Democratic than white voters, while Latino conservatives are about 50 points more Republican than conservative African Americans. The critical distinction is that there are more Latino liberals than there are white liberals and fewer conservatives (pp. 146-147).
So the question is still out there about the effect of a growing Hispanic population. But here in Texas, on the ground, in Tea Party meetings and political conventions, Hispanics have a very strong and very welcome presence. I know this is anecdotal evidence only, but I still believe it’s just a matter of speaking the message of lower taxes, greater opportunity, and freedom, supported by strong religion and personal responsibility. The message resonates.
Many Hispanics vote Democrat for the same reason as many other Democrats: their parents did, their friends do. They haven’t even thought through ideological reasons; they just do what is expected. If they can be led to think it through, they are very likely to recognize how much the conservative message resonates with their personal values of hard work, strong families, and a desire to improve life for themselves and the next generation.
Obama has made some assumptions about keeping retirees, but he’s been losing that argument in Florida, where retired whites in overwhelming numbers are abandoning the president who “borrowed” $700 Billion from Medicare to fund an extremely unpopular government medical takeover.
He has claimed the women’s vote, and tried to frame that as a GOP war on women, but since there’s no such war, sometimes the arguments just look silly (remember Stephanopoulos’s debate question out of the blue on limiting birth control?) This question comes down to women looking completely incapable of paying for basic care that is available and affordable, up against major religions standing strong for their right not to be forced to fund behaviors against their religious tenants. The only way Obama keeps the female vote is by assuming women are totally reliant on government, and are non-religious—and against living in suburban homes with their families. I wouldn’t count on that. He will probably keep single, post-graduate-educated women and poor non-taxpaying single-mothers.
So he has written off whites, except for a portion of elites and the non-taxpaying largesse recipients. His enthusiastic youth vote (much of which was combined with temporary increase in minority voters) has been deflated. His minority support, while still strong, is less enthusiastic and less monolithic.
As Trende says, “There is nothing inherently wrong with a narrow, deep coalition…. But the real threat with a narrow, deep coalition is that there is not much room for error. The party cannot afford for another portion of the coalition to become dissatisfied with the direction it is taking” (p. 105).
In order to win, he must win all major urban areas—with enough leeway to overcome opposing votes in the non-urban areas in many states. There’s still reason for concern, but it doesn’t look likely. And we have the advantage of a very capable, very appealing alternative.
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