(Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis is one of Alaska's leading blogs. I'm HIGHLY suspicious of election shenanigans, but that only makes it more important to not go off half-cocked. This is a good, sober local perspective on what's happening up there. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Many people are shocked that convicted felon Ted Stevens could possibly be ahead of Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich in the fight for his US Senate seat, or that under-investigation Congressman Don Young has probably held on to his seat against Ethan Berkowitz. This seems especially dubious as polls that were correct in every other state were seemingly way off in Alaska. An article in the Anchorage Daily News titled "The Pollsters missed the mark" discusses this:
"The real question is where were the all the Democrats?" Dittman said, noting the voter turnout was supposed to be in record proportions. Instead, only an estimated 57 percent of registered voters had a say - a far drop from the 66 percent turnout in the 2004 presidential election, according to state elections division figures.
The issue of the incorrect polls has triggered some concern both here and in other parts of the country, especially on the "interwebs" where folks have raised the specter of a "rigged election." It's understandable that we're all having flashbacks to Alaska 2004, where the Division of Elections reported some precincts had over 100% turnout. (Voting "early and often" is not just a tongue-in-cheek saying in Chicago!)
However, we should all subscribe to the "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" mantra of "Don't Panic!" I can think of at least four five reasons why:
I'm really not temperamentally suited to being any better than any of you at making number-crunching prediction this close to the election. Yeah, I'll toss some numbers out--maybe. But my heart isn't it. I'm not interested in being right. I'm interested in dreaming big, making impossible predictions. Which is where October 2006 comes in. Because that's when I first let my thoughts about 2008 start to slip out... thoughts that had been seriously brewing since Katrina, 13 months earlier. Because that's what I do best.
Now, I didn't write specifically about 2008. Nostrodamus I am not. But I wrote about 2006 in terms of realigning elections, and I said that what was an overlooked key to them was two consecutive wave elections in the House. Well, it's pretty obvious what that means. We're about to say "hello" to number 2.
The chart below shows the House share controlled by Democrats (top, blue line) and the percent change in share (bottom, red line), regardless of whether its a gain or loss. The yellow lines mark the three realigning elections-two definite (1896 and 1932), one questionable, at best (1968). The dotted purple lines mark the congressional elections of 1974 and 1994:
As you can see, the volatility of House elections has declined significantly in the last few decades. Not shown on this chart is what happened in 2006--another wave election, smaller than 1994, in fact, a little bit smaller than 1980. But, of course, it started from a place of greater strength than GOP was before 1994. So being poised for a somewhat similar wave election this Tuesday, we really are set up for the first true realigning election since 1932. That's what I predicted two years ago, and I'm sticking with it.
More on what it means--and maybe what's ahead--on the flip.
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