A friend writes:
All,
A few notes on the election and what it 'means'. Much will be said about how Obama's win and Romney's loss reflects policy, politics, demographics, social issues, cultural issues, etc. In my opinion, most of the commentary is wrong.
1. The general consensus is that Obama ran a great campaign and Romney ran a terrible one. Really? Apparently, Obama is the first president in history to lose votes in his reelection bid. A few presidents (Carter, Bush 41, etc.) have been defeated. None (until yesterday) have been reelected with fewer votes (since 1832).
2. The amazing thing is not that Romney lost, but that he did so well just four years after the Bush catastrophe. The Bush administration failed at home, abroad, and on the border. It would be crazy to think that this didn't damage the Republican brand. It did. It takes a long time (or large events) for a party to recover from something like Bush. A few examples. The Crash of 1893 put the Republicans in charge for a generation. The disaster of Woodrow Wilson's presidency gave the Republicans absolute dominance in the 1920s (including the most lopsided popular vote in history). The Great Depression elected Democrats for two generations. The failed Truman presidency (as seen by the public at the time), easily elected Eisenhower (but left the Democrats in control of Congress).
It would be amazing if the utter failure of the Bush presidency didn't resonate for some time. So far, the failures of the Obama administration simply don't loom as large. A quick comparison with FDR is incisive. After FDR took office in 1933, the economy took off. Industrial production doubled (from a low level) in 4 years. Unemployment plunged (how much is unclear because statistical methods were so different back then). FDR did better in 1936 than he had in 1932. By contrast, the Obama administration didn't reduce unemployment and created near zero net jobs. He did worse.
Eventually, people will forget about Bush and/or new events will shift public opinion. Republicans would have dominated politics until at least 1940 barring the Great Depression (from a public opinion standpoint, WWI was Iraq on super steroids). Of course, that didn't happen. 1929 intervened with decisive consequences.
3. Few people from either party will admit it (for obvious reasons), but Romney considerably broadened the appeal of the Republican party (not enough to be sure). Take a look at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/2012-exit-polls/?hpid=z3#United-States. Romney gained with
A. Men - 4 points better than McCain
B. Women - 1 point better than McCain
C. Young voters (18-29) - 5 points better than McCain
D. Middle age voters (45-64) - 2 points better than McCain
E. Old voters (65+) - 3 points better than McCain
F. Republicans - 3 points better than McCain
G. Independents - 6 points better than McCain
H. Whites - 4 points better than McCain
I. Blacks - 2 points better than McCain
J. Other - 7 points better than McCain
K. High school graduates - 2 points better than McCain
L . Some college - 1 point better than McCain
M. College graduate - 3 points better than McCain
N. Postgraduate - 2 points better than McCain
O. $50-99K - 3 points better than McCain
P. $100K+ - 5 points better than McCain
Q. Married men - 7 points better than McCain
R. Married women - 2 points better than McCain
S. Non-married men - 2 points better than McCain
T. Non-married women - 2 points better than McCain
U. Liberals - 1 point better than McCain
V. Moderates - 2 points better than McCain
W. Conservatives - 4 points better than McCain
X. Protestants - 3 points better than McCain
Y. Catholics - 3 points better than McCain
Z. Jewish voters - 9 points better than McCain
A1. None (religion) - 4 points better than McCain
B1. White evangelicals - 4 points better than McCain
Romney lost with
A. Age 30-44 voters - 1 point worse than McCain
B. Democrats - 3 points worse than McCain
C. Hispanics - 4 points worse than McCain
D. Asians - 9 points worse than McCain
E. Dropouts - 1 point worse than McCain
F. Under $50K - Less than one point worse than McCain
G. Some other religion - Less than one point worse than McCain
4. Considerable media commentary will be devoted to how poorly Romney did with Hispanics. The shift towards Obama cost Romney 0.4% of the popular vote. Not too many commentators will notice that Romney's gains with blacks added 0.26% to his vote total. Of course, Romney's gains with whites added 2.88% to his vote total. Conversely, Romney's losses with Asians cost him (apparently) 0.27% of the popular vote. Perhaps even stranger, Romney's gains with 'other' added 0.14% to his vote total.
5. For better or worse, immigration was not a material issue in this election. To the extent it was, who did it help? The conventional wisdom will no doubt conclude that Obama won by getting more Hispanic votes via his administrative partial Amnesty. Perhaps that's true. However, Hispanics had plenty of other reasons to vote for Obama. Immigrants account for a vastly disproportionate share of the uninsured (1/3rd). Obamacare could have been called Aliencare with easy justification. The states with the fewest immigrants have the fewest uninsured by far (and vice versa). Of course, the same points could be made about food stamps, WIC, Medicaid, etc.
Conversely, immigration almost certainly helped Romney with white voters (turned off by McCain's pursuit of Amnesty) and may have helped Romney with black voters (many of whom are privately hostile towards mass immigration). If Romney had polled as well as McCain among Hispanics he would have still lost the election decisively. Conversely, if he polled as well as Reagan among whites (1984) he would have easily won.
6. As stated above, Romney's showing with Hispanics will be the source of considerable attention. Obama got 7.1% of the national vote from Hispanics versus 2.7% for Romney for a net loss of 4.4%. By contrast, Obama got 12.09% of the national vote from blacks versus 0.78% for Romney for a net loss of 11.31%. Obviously Republicans have a vastly larger problem with black voters than Hispanic voters. Obama got 29.15% of the national vote from women versus 23.32% for Romney for a net loss of 5.83%. Another way of looking at this is that Romney carried the male vote (of all races) by 7% and lost the (larger) female vote by 9%. This suggests that then conventional obsession with race based voting isn't justified. What the Republicans can do about this is another matter.
Few people will mention this but Romney won the married vote (both sexes) by big margins and lost the single vote by large margins as well. Romney lost the single female vote by 36% (but still did better than McCain). The conventional wisdom is that this is all about abortion. However, the single female demographic includes welfare mothers as well. Apparently, 2% of black single mothers support(ed) Romney. More broadly, 40% of all children are born out-of-wedlock (and into welfare dependency to a greater or lesser extent).
7. Romney lost a long list of states in the Midwest and elsewhere where immigrants and Hispanics aren't a large share of the electorate. Notably, he lost Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, etc. In some of these states he lost the white vote. This strongly suggests that race-based interpretations of the election are misleading. I don't agree that the auto-bailout cost Romney the election. However, I would argue that the poor results of Bushinomics did.
8. The conventional wisdom is that this election shows how polarized and divided America is. Actually, no it doesn't. Voter turnout was massively down from 2008 (129.3 million) to 2012 (117.416 million). Indeed, turnout 2004 was actually higher (121.068 million) than 2012. Since the electorate has been slowly growing, the percentage fall is even greater.
Genuinely polarized countries have high election turnout. Low election turnout is a characteristic of countries where the political divide isn't particularly sharp. For example, Switzerland has strikingly low voter turnout and minimal political conflict. By contrast, the modern history of Chile is tragic (less so of late). Voter turnout is above 90%.
In the U.S., high voter turnout has been associated with real polarization. In 1860, 81.2% of Americans went to the polls to elect Abraham Lincoln. Turnout in 1860, was second only to 1876 when 81.8% of voters cast ballots.
9. The Senate races were highly predictable. With a few exceptions, Democrats carried states won by Obama and Republicans won in states that voted for Romney. The exceptions are notable. Todd Akins and Richard Mourdock lost in Romney states for reasons everyone knows. Mourdock was a real Tea Party candidate who lost in the general election. Conversely, Heller defeated Berkley in a state that Obama carried.
Alan King ran as Independent in Maine and appears to have won. However, he is clearly Democratic-leaning in a state Obama carried. It is still rather impressive, given how hard it is for a third-party candidate to prevail. The other anonalies are Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia where a Democrat is leading in state Romney won. None are pickups however.
10. It is well known that Romney did slightly worse than McCain with Hispanics (27% vs. 31%) but considerably worse than Bush (39%). Did it make a difference? Actually, it did not. It appears that only one state (Florida) would have gone to Romney if had retained Bush's Hispanic vote share (and not lost any white or black votes as a consequence). This may sound surprising. But very few states were close in 2012. In only 5 states was the spread less than 5% (VI +3.0%, OH +1.9%, FL +0.6%, CO +4.7%, NC -2.2%).
11. Ohio is actually an interesting case in point. It's the closest of the Midwest states that Romney lost. It wasn't expected to be close (by the Democrats) and certainly not the closest (by either party apparently). Why isn't clear.
As always, the conventional wisdom is that the losing party has to change to win in the future. Sometimes that true. The DLC and Clinton pushed the Democrats to the right in the 1990s (in most respects) with favorable results. However, sometimes it isn't true at all. Obama's victory in 2008 wasn't about shifts in policy, but the collapse of the party in power.
If the next four years are relatively smooth (continued slow recovery, massive deficits, no major events abroad), the Democrats will probably win in 2016 no matter what the Republicans do. Conversely, a new global economic crisis (most likely triggered in the Eurozone) and/or a major war in the Middle East (and $10 gas) will destroy the Democrats (for at least one election cycle). Strangely, the Democrats might implode simply by doing what everyone says they should do; a grand bargain on taxes and spending. Higher taxes will send Republicans to the polls in the next cycle. Material cuts in entitlements will keep Democrats at home. The analogy isn't perfect, but Gerhard Schröder's entitlement reforms might have been right for Germany, but were quite harmful to his party (the SPD).
At a deeper level, we have reached the end of anti-tax, "free" trade, anti-regulation, Open Borders, cheap labor, pro-bubble, pro-outsourcing, pro-war, etc. Republican party. That's my opinion at least, although I don't expect too many Republicans to agree. Actually, I don't think too many Democrats will agree either. The Democrats would welcome a Republican party friendlier to higher taxes, regulation (in some cases), and Open Borders. However, the Democrats are genuinely concerned about a (very hypothetical) Republican shift away from an interventionist foreign policy. Note the almost hysterical reaction to (some) Republican opposition to the Libyan campaign in the Republican primaries. A significant Republican shift on trade would appall the Democratic leadership (including Obama). The status quo is perfect for the Democrats. They get the free trade policies they actually want while blaming the consequences on the Republicans (with considerably justification). A Republican shift would force the Democrats to actually chose between trade restriction (favored by the rank-and-file) and free trade (rigidly embraced by the leadership). Either way it's a lose-lose. Of course, a Republican shift on trade is very hypothetical at this point. Notably, the same points apply to cheap labor.
Thank you
X.Y.Z.
P.S. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/2012-exit-polls/table.html for the exit poll numbers in table form.P.S.S. My wife says that I am obsessed with hating Bush 43. I say that Bush 43 is the root of all evil in the world.
Posts
70 comments:
Very well reasoned and non-panicked article. I hope the author posts more in the future. But even though Obama and the media couldn't help but blame Bush everything, I don't know how well that registers with the average American. 4 years ago might as well be 400, considering the rapidly shifting moods/trends/memes(hate this word)/popular culture. Nothing lasts anymore, so I'm not sure voters were still suffering Bush Hangover besides the most rabid liberals.
At a deeper level, we have reached the end of anti-tax, "free" trade, anti-regulation, Open Borders, cheap labor, pro-bubble, pro-outsourcing, pro-war, etc. Republican party.
I am also afraid to admit that I can't be sure. The party is pretty stupid, although today's news shows there may be wiggle room on taxes.
Your friend may be correct, I sure hope he is at the end.
Here's another perspective: the Dems are correct that registering new voters and baby-sitting them made a huge difference in a close election.
In 2004, we had one Republican office in our small town started by a young evangelical college student. There was no Democratic one. The one Repub office did a few voter drives, and even those were half-hearted. One I visited, the guys just hung out and didn't bother to try to reach anyone and nobody approached them. Except for a couple of people, everyone is a volunteer.
In 2012, the Republican office did not do any voter registration drives. Meanwhile, a Democratic office opened and approached every ethnic church in our town seeking permission to do voter registration drives. They even tried to do this at my church, but only for the Spanish masses. They also could be seen at various places throughout town.
Not only did they do this, but they followed up with them all many times to discuss voting, transportation, and to make sure they finally voted.
I've heard that most are not volunteers, but paid workers.
This is what competence looks like.
I read an article before the election about a couple activists on their own try to do outreach to the Amish. I've read similar ones in past elections. I have never heard of a serious, concerted effort by the party. Why not??
Just on reaching new voters, there is so much low-lying fruit...
"At a deeper level, we have reached the end of anti-tax, "free" trade, anti-regulation, Open Borders, cheap labor, pro-bubble, pro-outsourcing, pro-war, etc. Republican party. That's my opinion at least, although I don't expect too many Republicans to agree."
This guy is spot on, but it would be like "Christians against God," or "Rock Stars against Drugs" for a lot of the Republican Party.
Of course, a Republican shift on trade is very hypothetical at this point.
People stubbornly refused to notice this, but Romney did run on a shift in trade policy - away from our current trade policy with China (which is wrongly called "free trade") and towards something closer to actual free trade (which in the current screwy upside-down world is called "fair trade").
"8. The conventional wisdom is that this election shows how polarized and divided America is. Actually, no it doesn't. Voter turnout was massively down from 2008 (129.3 million) to 2012 (117.416 million). Indeed, turnout 2004 was actually higher (121.068 million) than 2012. Since the electorate has been slowly growing, the percentage fall is even greater.
Genuinely polarized countries have high election turnout. Low election turnout is a characteristic of countries where the political divide isn't particularly sharp. For example, Switzerland has strikingly low voter turnout and minimal political conflict. By contrast, the modern history of Chile is tragic (less so of late). Voter turnout is above 90%.
Wiki on voter turnout doesn't bear this out at all - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout. Who'd have thought the USA is the least divided country of all the countries in the table ? (and yes I am only thinking of those with non-compulsory voting).
From an outsider's perspective the US to me seems to be a very deeply divided country. Off the scale.
You have problems which are easily identifiable and are well known, and which could be easily solved (with pain, no doubt). Those problems will not be solved because the sacrifices and compromise that need to be made will not occur. That is the dictionary definition of divided.
It's quite pointless comparing the turnouts of different countries. So much depends on cultural norms.
I don't think policy shifts can save the GOP. No matter what their policy is, the scots-irish media will vilify it.
The are some symbolic things the GOP can do to help itself. Stop opposing tax increases on the very rich.
The very rich are overwhelmingly Democrats - Obama carried eight of the ten wealthiest counties in the US. This is one of those areas where the GOP takes a huge PR hit while protecting the Democratic elite from the policies favored by the Democratic base.
Contra Obama's rabble-rousing, there is not much money to be gained from such a tax. But the GOP can burnish its own reputation with the public while setting the Democrats against each other.
That's an interesting analysis but not a very anonymous one because it can be found under his real name elsewhere.
The only thing I am going to say about this guy's perspective is that it sounds like his rationalization hamster is hard at work.
I don't really buy it. Yankees didn't just vote Democrat in 2012 because of Bush, Yankees always vote Democrat since 1988.
I think Yankees really believe in the pie in the sky nonsense that the Democratic party is selling.
Plus the dependent single mother and union worker angles, of course.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/where_we_go_from_here.html
"I don't think policy shifts can save the GOP. No matter what their policy is, the scots-irish media will vilify it."
Pretty much. You can see that in plenty of issues already. The most Republicans want to do with abortion is to return it to the states, but the media has people convinced they want to ban it always and everywhere. Refusal to pay for birth control for wealthy college girls is called a war on women. The GOP is pro-open borders and "free" trade (unfortunately), but Romney was accused of being a protectionist! Obama continues Bush's wars and finds a few of his own to meddle in, and it's the Republicans who are distinctively warmongers. Pot smokers vote Democrat, even though the libertarian legalization position is at least as at home on the right. Democrats can raise taxes on people making $30K/year and it's called "on the rich," while Republican tax cuts are also called "on the rich" no matter whom they actually affect.
And on. And on. There's little resemblance between the real parties and the issues they're most focused on, and their portrayal in the media. The real GOP certainly has problems, but it's a far sight better than the caricature we're fed of it.
Conservatives need to start taking this game seriously, lie life or death seriously, and start demolishing the legs of the liberal machine. One of those legs is the liberal indoctrination university system. I think a strategic unexpected shift for the Repubs would be to drop opposition to quotas at colleges. Force colleges to adopt a CUNY-style admissions policy in the name of "inclusivity" if they want to receive public aid. This would destroy the liberal university hegemony and be a boon to private institutions that do not take public money. Forcing admissions to reflect the religious/demographics of the country as a whole would be a death knell. How would Harvard react if only 2% of admissions could be Jewish, and 5% Asian? How would Brandeis react? What about if 25% had to be evangelical Christians?
"At a deeper level, we have reached the end of anti-tax, "free" trade, anti-regulation, Open Borders, cheap labor, pro-bubble, pro-outsourcing, pro-war, etc. Republican party."
I see absolutely no evidence this is true. No Republican POTUS candidate will take on social issues, affirmative action, immigration, or the Neo-Cons. Nor will any Republican Candidate attack "Free trade" or out-sourcing". Starting with Bush I in 1992, twenty years ago, every Repub POTUS candidate has supported this positions & the Republican primary voters have reacted to their defeats (Bush I, McCain, Romney, Dole) by nominating someone with similar views.
The Republicans are "stuck on Stupid" and there's no evidence they've changed.
God help us, there are actually people out there who think that poor Barry Obama inherited a lousy economy from the wicked Bush.
Can someone please explain to me how we've all come to accept the conventional wisdom that bush caused the 2008 global recession? It would have happened just the same if Obama or Kerry or even dean were president during the the bush years.
Not only did they do this, but they followed up with them all many times to discuss voting, transportation, and to make sure they finally voted.
I've heard that most are not volunteers, but paid workers.
This is what competence looks like.
Sounds like it would be more accurate to say "This is what money looks like". The left is considerably wealthier than the right, and all that money sometimes makes a difference.
8. The conventional wisdom is that this election shows how polarized and divided America is.
----
From an outsider's perspective the US to me seems to be a very deeply divided country. Off the scale.
It is not the USA that is divided and polarized. It is White America that is divided and polarized. White America in this election split about 58% to 39% and have been split like this for some time. There is great animosity among whites when it comes to social, political and economic issues.
However, minorities are not divided or polarized at all. Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, and Asians are uniformly, in most cases 70 percent or more, behind the democrats.
They are watching the great white civil war take place and siding with the democrats. It is a good deal. They get to side with the anti-white party and partake in the spoils of victory.
Unlike the others, the Jews still maintain a strong relationship with the GOP as a hedge. They are waiting to lead the victors to the promised land.
Saying "we did OK" by comparing with the utter disaster of McCain candidacy is not saying much. Ask your friend to set bar a little higher. Eight years of Bush were truly a catastrophe for the country but that's not why GOP lost. GOP lost because they are afraid to do what it takes to win. (Become party of whites; be tolerant of gays but completely intolerant of gay propaganda; pay no attention to the interests of Jewish capital).
I think a strategic unexpected shift for the Repubs would be to drop opposition to quotas at colleges. Force colleges to adopt a CUNY-style admissions policy in the name of "inclusivity" if they want to receive public aid.
I am assuming that Obama is going to placate the youth vote by looking to "do something" about college debt. The USA Weekend section found this to be a Top 5 issue with the electorate. Yes that's not exactly hard hitting journalism, but I think momentum is still building on this issue, especially with Obama pushing for more teachers and college grads. So if he subsidizes college loans further or forgives current debt, colleges won't care about who they let in. It's a tuition bonanza at that point. Colleges will easily trade off a more vibrant student body for millions and millions of dollars.
I don't think policy shifts can save the GOP. No matter what their policy is, the scots-irish media will vilify it.
Absolutely, but who did O'Reilly just have on FNC to give advice to the GOP? None other than Dick Morris and Bernie Goldberg!
Dick Morris admitted he blew it on his Romney-in-a-landslide call. But then, incredibly, called out his critics (and even non-Scots-Irish fans) by saying something like "only me, Rove, Carville and Axelrod have gotten a President elected and so the rest of you are not worthy of the discussion."
Bernie Goldschwarz babbled something about downplaying the abortion issue, as if his fellow tribalists in the MSM would ever let the GOP get away with that.
"At a deeper level, we have reached the end of anti-tax, "free" trade, anti-regulation, Open Borders, cheap labor, pro-bubble, pro-outsourcing, pro-war, etc. Republican party."
Mitt didn't run on the usual unilateral "free" trade agenda (he wanted to crack down on China, for example), and he didn't run on open borders, cheap labor, pro-bubble, or pro-outsourcing policies either. He did run on an anti-tax platform, which wasn't helpful. But that doesn't necessarily mean the GOP has to ditch its lower tax agenda forever. It just means it won't have a shot at it until after the Dems raise taxes.
That's why the whole extension of the Bush tax cuts was wrong-headed. The GOP should have let them all expire. You can't run on tax cuts if you've already made them so progressive that 47% of Americans don't pay income taxes.
So the GOP should work with Obama to shore up Medicare and Social Security by raising taxes, in as flat (regressive) a way as possible. Make Santa Claus play Grinch for a bit.
Is there anyway to quantify the impact of Hurricane Sandy on the absolute number of voters? Just curious if the drop-off was real or not.
This is my vision of America's future:
Tribal conflict today, tribal conflict tomorrow, tribal conflict forever.
This election's electoral college map is a map of tribal zones, remarkably consistent between 2008 and 2012. It is also consistent with the map of states won by each presidential candidate in the election of 1896.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1896
Neither this writer, nor does Steve with his Affordable Family Formation theory, nor does the married vs. unmarried gap explain why this map is so enduring. One writer who does explain it is David Hackett Fischer in his book "Albion's Seed."
A look at the map tells you that the red state people are under siege. Opposing tribes now dominate not only California, New York and New England, but also Nevada, Colorado and Florida.
The blue state people, of course, can also invite millions of additional allies from beyond the borders of the map. They played this trump card well in this election by getting millions of illegals to vote.
The red state people appear doomed, but the conflict is far from over. One can only predict that it is likely to go on for a long time.
Completely dishonest, Steve. Don't cling to a failed theory on the (lack of the)importance of the Hispanic vote. Sometimes people are wrong; it can happen to you too.
An anti-immigration, nativist policy has no chance of political viability in the US.
Whites are no more a community than the equator is a place. There will NEVER be that type of an alignment.
Your whole career - sacrificing respectability for the sake of the "truth" - is one big waste if you can't admit you are wrong about this.
Conservatives need to start taking this game seriously, lie life or death seriously, and start demolishing the legs of the liberal machine. One of those legs is the liberal indoctrination university system.
The liberal indoctrination machine has been ripping off the next generation of voters for years on college degrees. Selling dud degrees, fro astronomical prices, on made up employment stats, purely for the sake of accessing federally backed student loans.
And the Republicans have nothing to say about it.
Absolute criminal negligence.
I would be setting up a tea party like organisation for students and picketing campuses. See how the disgusting, insulated, greedy, baby boom 68ers like that.
Obama wins big among philoprogenitive minority women and barren white women.
Kinda pokes at the whiskey theory, but whatever.
Alan King ran as Independent in Maine and appears to have won.
That's funny, I don't remember the late Jewish comedian being on the ballot.
I think he meant "Angus."
"The liberal indoctrination machine has been ripping off the next generation of voters for years on college degrees. Selling dud degrees, fro astronomical prices, on made up employment stats, purely for the sake of accessing federally backed student loans. And the Republicans have nothing to say about it."
Conservative idea of education is creationism, intelligent design, school prayer, pledge of allegiance, bob jones university, etc. Liberal education is corrupt but conservative intellectualism is nonexistent.
One thing I love about Dems. Abortion. I say free abortion and birth control for poor women.
Clearly, Romney's mistake was that he didn't do enough to appeal to rich people
You have a point about Bush 43. A disaster.
Risto
****"Completely dishonest, Steve. Don't cling to a failed theory on the (lack of the)importance of the Hispanic vote. Sometimes people are wrong; it can happen to you too.
An anti-immigration, nativist policy has no chance of political viability in the US.
Whites are no more a community than the equator is a place. There will NEVER be that type of an alignment.
Your whole career - sacrificing respectability for the sake of the "truth" - is one big waste if you can't admit you are wrong about this."****
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
Please don't throw throw me into that briar patch!
These are not the droids you are looking for!
Etc.
Why is everyone saying that immigration didn't matter in this election?
It's weird it's like you guys can't handle the truth.
Next election Texas goes blue. Done.
That's immigration guys!
California---that's immigration guys!
And Ohio is all black and mexican now?? I knew it was going democrat before any of you guys did. Whites are so demoralized back there it's insane.
Why are whites demoralized and not showing up to the polls?---Immigration!!!
And finally...The black population is increasing because of...Immigration
So to say immigration was not material to this election is Just Crazy
OH MY GOSH! Steve....
The interracial marriage effect on the white vote!
50% of the men I know are interracially married.
You have to subtract interracially married whites out of the Pure White category.
Anyone??? Anyone??? Ideas??
I'd like to point out again that at least one MSM liberal realizes that immigration would hurt, not help, Republicans by expanding Dem demographics without making them much more favorable to the GOP. Let's hope that become conventional wisdom among the GOP as well.
One thing I love about Dems. Abortion. I say free abortion and birth control for poor women.
I prefer paying them to take long-term birth control or get sterilized.
I'm going to be making a lot more donations to Project Prevention.
"It would be amazing if the utter failure of the Bush presidency didn't resonate for some time."
Bush was Carter times 10: not just an absolute policy failure, but a huge cultural turnoff to smart whites the GOP needs, as voters, donors, and even candidates.
Clearly, Romney's mistake was that he didn't do enough to appeal to rich people.
All the counties surrounding the rich playgrounds in the West - Sun Valley, Park City, Telluride, Vail, Aspen, Jackson Hole,d probably Tahoe - skew heavily Dem, usually by at least 2-to-1 margins. It's the rich people, to some degree, but I suspect just as much (or more) the dudes, the college-age kids, and naturalized Hispanic immigrants who move it to the Left. These types are disproportionately single or shacking up, and don't really see a family in their future.
"The very rich are overwhelmingly Democrats - Obama carried eight of the ten wealthiest counties in the US. This is one of those areas where the GOP takes a huge PR hit while protecting the Democratic elite from the policies favored by the Democratic base.
Contra Obama's rabble-rousing, there is not much money to be gained from such a tax. But the GOP can burnish its own reputation with the public while setting the Democrats against each other." - The unfortunate reality is that the very rich support these taxes because they know that they can protect their own money from them, and that it is ultimately us who will pay them.
Very interesting email. The more I think about it the more I believe that Romney's lack of perceived economic populism cost him the election in the Midwest. Stupid slogans from the Obama people like 'economic patriotism' seem pretty cheap to me but I think they worked with people who are afraid their jobs will be sent overseas.
The joke is that both parties are owned by different factions of the same economic interests of course, so there isn't a real difference in trade policy at all.
Carter win in 1976 was a big boon for conservatives in the 80s. If Kerry had won in 2004, it would have helped Gop in 2008-2012.
Btw, Nixon's watergate was the biggest political disaster but gop lost only one election and watergate was soon history.
So, we just live in a very different country. greatest generation has been replaced by the greatest degeneration.
Completely dishonest, Steve. Don't cling to a failed theory on the (lack of the)importance of the Hispanic vote. Sometimes people are wrong; it can happen to you too.
An anti-immigration, nativist policy has no chance of political viability in the US.
Hispanics are not like to vote for platforms resembling anything that would strengthen this nation.
An anti-immigration, nativist policy is an excellent antidote, and would sweep the country
"Completely dishonest, Steve. Don't cling to a failed theory on the (lack of the)importance of the Hispanic vote. Sometimes people are wrong; it can happen to you too.
An anti-immigration, nativist policy has no chance of political viability in the US.
Whites are no more a community than the equator is a place. There will NEVER be that type of an alignment.
Your whole career - sacrificing respectability for the sake of the "truth" - is one big waste if you can't admit you are wrong about this."
Wow seems like you've got a hater (masked as false concern that you not waste your efforts) there Steve... well we all know what's behind hate... why it's fear.
There are tons of examples of White nativism .... some not so distant. And it is s precisely these examples of White nativism that liberal professors in colleges use as cudgel to mold the minds of young impressionable poorly informed White students into political correct positions.
I mean to many of these professors history is nothing more than one big White nativist atrocity against the noble people of color (take your pick Jews,Blacks, Hispanics, Native American Indians, and Asians) after another.
It's also the fear of White nativism and what it could morph into that keeps people like the current PTB in a cold sweat all night every night (witness the hysterics regarding the Tea party) ... and apparently also the poster of that anonymous comment.
Given the track record of Whites, which the Cultural-Marxists always cite too, the idea that such an alignment is impossible and will never happen seems pretty farfetched and contradicts the mass of historical evidence.
The absence of White nativism in the U.S. is actually a relatively recent phenomenon stretching back to the 1950s and 1960s with the introduction of certain liberal ideas and the monopoly power vis a vis television to transmit and inculcate those views.
Because fewer and fewer are watching television on a regular basis anymore or using it as a news source the internet is a subversive technology that is undoing all that... slowly but surely and inexorably.
"However, minorities are not divided or polarized at all. Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, and Asians are uniformly, in most cases 70 percent or more, behind the democrats."
That these groups voted the same means little. Don't you spend time around Hispanics? They hate blacks. And blacks? They abhor Jews. And Jews? They think blacks and browns beneath them in every way. This is an uneasy political alliance that will break up soon when browns start taking over political positions.
Poltical alliances don't last. This is about to happen when the browns start taking more of the poltical pie in state legislatures.
On a community level they all hate each other and they don't like gays either (well, Jews love gays, but then Jews love any minority, really, don't they, for reasons we've never really been able to understand.)
Go to a high school to see the distrust and animus between browns and blacks. Sit a few times in a black church and stay afterwords for some "fellowship" to hear what is said about Jews.
"Very interesting email. The more I think about it the more I believe that Romney's lack of perceived economic populism cost him the election in the Midwest. Stupid slogans from the Obama people like 'economic patriotism' seem pretty cheap to me but I think they worked with people who are afraid their jobs will be sent overseas."
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Nope. Two things at work here. 1) Early destruction of Romney in Ohio with ads while he was still in the midst of a primary that Santorum and Gingrich wouldn't drop out of.
2) It would be months later when election law would allow Mitt to resurrect himself with counter-ads.
3) low-info voter, kind of like the characters on that old Roseanne Barr show, voters who thought liquidation meant the same thing as bankruptcy...
4) People who had no idea what an equity firm was and it took months and millions to get them to kind of understand it
5) An exceptional GOTV (get out the vote organization) for dems funded by big labor, and in place for 4 years, well before any GOP GOTV could get a semblance of that together.
Incumbants always have the edge. The party machinery was in place and union bosses were intent on keeping their boy in office. He is indeed their puppet, and yeah, I said "boy."
An anti-immigration, nativist policy has no chance of political viability in the US.
An anti-immigration policy that can be labelled as 'racist' has no chance of success these days. An anti-immigration policy that stresses the tangible costs of immigration - unemployment, low wages, crowding, high property prices, strain on public services etc has some chance.
Any discussion of the social problems with immigration and the HBD stuff which are discussed here
are fatal.
No-one who is required as part of their job to answer questions from the press is able to mention those things and survive as American society is currently constituted.
I think podsnap is spot on - exposing the university business in the USA for the ugly fraud it is , is a win-win for conservatives. Although they will cling desparately to their perogatives and privileges for a while still, khan academy and its ilk have already written their Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. The centrality of the university to the Left's gramscian long march through the institutions of american culture cannot be overstated.
The centrality of the university to the Left's gramscian long march through the institutions of american culture cannot be overstated.
Exactly. The witch hunting, the groupthink, the dumbing down, the automatic pairing of 'progress' with the left - all comes from the institutions and the entertainment business. Whatever damages them is good for society. Pirate movies and music, break the education system - wipe them out.
Plus it is actually the right thing to do. The students really are the goodies and the colleges are really the baddies.
Not often that we fascists get to feel good about ourselves.
"Conservative intellectualism is nonexistent."
Conservative intellectualism is always and everywhere a contradiction in terms.
Republicans need to develop a significantly better form of male birth control. They'd do a lot better at the polls without all that baby mama drama.
@Steve Sailer - I didn´t know what was exactly wrong with Todd Akin and the feminist hysteria over him.
Todd Akin will be regarded in the future as a scientific genius.
What´s wrong with "shutting the whole thing down"?
The amazing uterus is the solution for poor and working class women. They don´t plan and just think.
Imagine these women not wanting to achieve fertilization and just "shutting the whole thing down". Or being in stasis. Or rejecting sperm or eggs. Naturally.
Problem solved for the lower-classes.
Todd Akin thank you for your contribution to scientific breakthrough.
Invest in the amazing uterus.
Why won't Republicans make affirmative action a major issue? Attacking AA and spelling out the consequences for Asians could win them the only non white bloc that might swing Republican in the future. I know a lot of Chinese and Korean families who mistakenly still believe that AA favors them as well.
A direct attack on AA that pits NAMs vs. Asians will win the Republicans the Asian vote while not giving much up to the NAMs whom they have permanently lost.
They could even frame anti-AA to focus on areas where blacks and hispanics compete to fracture that coalition.
So why won't ANY republicans go hard on this issue?
Due to his misidentification of Angus King in Maine, I have to look askance at whatever this guy wrote. What else did he miss?
For a popular, two-tern governor who would STILL be in office if he weren't term limited, getting elected wasn't difficult at all.
First, I would be interested in knowing how the growth in the Hispanic vote could only have a 0.4% effect on the popular vote. If the Hispanic vote share increased from 8% to 10%, that's 2.3 million votes. If it went 70% Democrat, that's a net increase to Obama of 900,000 votes, which is about a 0.76% of the total, so roughly double 0.4%. Keep in mind that new Hispanic voters probably actually voted for Obama at a much higher than 70% rate.
The numbers might not sound all that dramatic when looked at as percentages of the total electorate, but when you examine the voter blocks it's pretty daunting. The Democrats have three major blocks sewn up – blacks (~95%), white single women (~60%), and Hispanics (~70%). The latter two categories are growing. Democrats are unlikely to lose many of these voters because they are only going to increase their financial incentives to vote Democratic.
That leaves married female whites and male whites to the GOP, which together make up roughly 69 million voters (119m votes * 72% white * ~80% male or married female). Of these, roughly two thirds voted Romney, so about 45 million votes. The white married population is not increasing very quickly (if at all), so the only ways to increase this vote count are through higher enthusiasm and winning more of the undecided's (I am guessing about 20 million undecided's max within this subgroup).
Now assume the black vote stays unchanged, while the Hispanic vote continues to increase by 2.3 million each 4 years. That's a net gain of approximately 900,000 votes to the Democrats, or roughly one million votes when you consider that new Hispanic voters will be even more likely to vote Democratic. When you consider that the vote margin was about three million votes this year, this one million increase seems awfully consequential already.
Now if you also assume the number of white single women increases by 1% a year (a pretty conservative estimate I think), that means you have roughly two million more single white women in four years. If 50% vote and 60% of them vote Democratic, that's a net increase of 200,000 votes for the Democrats.
So just carry these increases out for three election cycles to 2026, without even compounding the growth in populations. That's 3.6 million new votes for the Democrats, which more than doubles the victory margin from this election. Therefore the Republicans would have to increase their vote among white men and white married women by 3.6 million just to counteract this net increase within Democratic voting blocks, plus either flip 1.5 million voters or get another 3 million voters to the polls to erase the victory margin we saw in 2012. All together, that's at least 5.1 million votes the Republicans have to scrounge out of white married women and white men, or an increase of 11% over their 2012 votes from this group, while at the same time preventing the Democrats from capturing an even higher percentage of votes from their three major blocks (blacks, Hispanics, white single women - and oh yeah, Asians). That's not going to be easy, even with some small population growth among whites.
So bottom line is that absent a major catastrophe (which is in fact a possibility), the Democrats are within 2-3 election cycles of getting a virtual lock on the electorate unless something significant changes in the make-up and ideologies of the parties.
If China continues it 10% annual growth and the US economy doesn't grow then in 4 years China will have, by about 10%, the larger economy.
At that point the option of "world leadership" by the US military "throwing a shitty little country against the wall" every few years is unlikely to be available. It would probably do the Republicans some good to have to stick to the economy.
The rich is complex the wealthiest state is New Hempshire few millionaires or billionaires while Texas has lots of millionaires and billionaires and Romney won among the wealthy in the south. Texas probably average income would be higher and surpassed the north east if it didn't have the very poor rural South Texas rural area. Even in California a state that Obsma won the rich in Newport Beach and Rancho Santa Fe voted Eomney. Romney had Donald Bren from the Irvine company who is the 25th wealthiest person billionaire from Newport Beach support him.
The Republican Party needs to sign this guy up.
"Conservative intellectualism is nonexistent."
Conservative intellectualism is always and everywhere a contradiction in terms.
This place is still overrun with brain-dead lefties jacking each other off. I want the old iSteve back.
GOP lost because they are afraid to do what it takes to win.
People like you didn't vote for Bush in 2004, didn't vote for McCain in 2008, didn't vote for Romney this year, and are never going to vote for the GOP. So why should it care what you think? Your vote isn't in play.
Well, in Steve's state Bushes bubble drove out about 80,000 whites out of Orange County and 50,000 out of San Diego making it even more Democratic and since the districts changed making them usually more Democratic with the tax increase it allows California Dems to transfer money from the White population to the hispanic population which is poorer and younger.
Stupid slogans from the Obama people like 'economic patriotism' seem pretty cheap to me but I think they worked with people who are afraid their jobs will be sent overseas.
If those stupid slogans worked, it was only on stupid people. Peoples jobs have gone overseas and will continue to do so, and Obama and the Democrats have no plans to to anything about that. In fact the policies favored by Obama and the Democrats are guaranteed to drive more jobs out of the country.
The underlying assumption of the American form of government is that the voters are not fools. That assumption is often proven wrong.
"How would Harvard react if only 2% of admissions could be Jewish, and 5% Asian? How would Brandeis react? What about if 25% had to be evangelical Christians?"
Then, Jews have to categorized as a separate group. But who has the guts to call for this?
Pat Buchanan had a smart idea you could cut or elimnate income tax and put tariffs on. Personality I think automation kills a lot of factory work snd it will never be up to the way it was in the past.Energy production like oil, gas, and coal and nuclear outside of Earthquake areas probably could create a lot of jos taht's why North Dakota and Texas are beating California in job production.
An anti-immigration, nativist policy has no chance of political viability in the US.
Whites are no more a community than the equator is a place. There will NEVER be that type of an alignment.
Whatever the motives of the person who wrote this, I think the sentiment expressed here is manifestly true, and anyone who thinks/hopes otherwise is delusional.
The old UK/western European stock and traditions of the country have been intentionally undermined for decades now, and there's no reversing it.
The old white guys on the paper money mean pretty much nothing to most people, who don't know who most of them are, and would reject their having a natural place on a national symbol if they did recognize them.
No doubt the old guys will stay on the money for some time just because everyone's used to their pictures and it would be more trouble than it's worth to get rid of them. But no doubt the present electorate would prefer images of Rosa Parks, and MLK, and (yes) even Cesar Chavez.
That's the future. Get used to it, because it ain't going anywhere.
Could you comment on which states are included in these exit polls? I had understood that 19 states were excluded from the detailed exit polls, almost all of them states McCain won.
"It's Over, Baby said...
Whatever the motives of the person who wrote this, I think the sentiment expressed here is manifestly true, and anyone who thinks/hopes otherwise is delusional."
Still nervous huh... Relax, take a prozac, the night sweats will go away...
By the way what are you nine years old?
Telling people who don't agree with you that they are "delusional" isn't much of an argument...it's more of a point and sputter.
The "you're crazy" arguement is something you see on a children's playground not a discussion forum.
Reasons my man ... you gotta come up with reasons... wishing something is so doesn't make it so.
"Completely dishonest, Steve. Don't cling to a failed theory on the (lack of the)importance of the Hispanic vote. Sometimes people are wrong; it can happen to you too.
An anti-immigration, nativist policy has no chance of political viability in the US."
Whites are no more a community than the equator is a place. There will NEVER be that type of an alignment."
That makes no sense. Billions of brown people who in their own lands are often busy killing each other and certainly do not view each other as comrades simply because of browness, come the U.S. "for a better life" and find political "community" with other people of various brown colors, despite the fact the country's desirableness largely comes from the European genius that designed and built it. Community by color changes by context. Apparently it does work that way.
Whites have been a "community" in areas where they were minorities, such as South America. They prefer to live around other whites. The more brown, yellow, and black people there are, the more whites do become a community. Does this mean they will all meet for folkdancing regularly? No. But they are every bit as likely to meld more and more into a community, as a result of demographic changes, as any other race.
You, like many people, are still judging whites by the days when they owned America.
They will become a "community" to the extent necessary for their own survival, and it will be sooner than you think. It's already there actually. I have noticed brown and black people telling their co-colorists who might be inclined to be Republican, that they should come to the Democrat who accept them for what they are. Huh? So Democrat means part of colored people (I mean people of color)? So what's in it for whites?
"Minorities" (code for black, brown, yellow) come here accelerating the decline of an already declining country, to take every advantage they can (like dropping 5 babies and expected tax payers to fund it) of a social and political system that is brain legacy of European whites. (ok the 13 Indian tribes of the East Coast gave them some ideas.)
If I were a Republican--I'm an Independent--I'd push the message, if you're white and you're a Democrat, you're a sucker. Not worth respecting.
But there's one born every minute.
Looks like Sean Hannity, Krauthammer, Joe Scarborough are on board for an anmesty to finally convince all those "natural Republican" Hispanics to vote GOP.
"At a deeper level, we have reached the end of anti-tax, "free" trade, anti-regulation, Open Borders, cheap labor, pro-bubble, pro-outsourcing, pro-war, etc. Republican party. "
In other words, we need a party genuinely focused on the interests of responsible middle class/working class whites (and minorities who don't expect special treatment).
Of course it would involve overthrowing the domination of the party by the wealthy. Difficult but not impossible.
Frankly both parties are ideologically running on fumes (from the 80s for the Rs, 60s for the Ds with a feeble splutter from the 30s). There really needs to be a big rethink
The most useful analysis of the 2012 election that I have seen so far. How do we get this guy hired by the RNC?
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