So, 90% of McCain's support came from whites, and 89% came from Christians, but the country is getting less white, and less Christian, and even whites and Christians are voting more and more for Democrats.
That sentence should set any Republican sweating. But here's the number that should send them crawling under the covers and whimpering: 66. 66% of those aged 18-29 voted for Obama last November. If only people this age had voted, Obama would have about 40 states and somewhere around 469 electoral votes, according to exit polls. Including Mississippi. And Arizona.
The complete exit polls for the 2009 elections in New Jersey and Virginia are now available. Compared to the 2006 and 2008 exit polls for those states, the percentage of the electorate under the age of 45 is most striking:
Percentage of New Jersey Electorate Under 45, 2006-2009
About two-thirds of Christie's victory margin can be accounted for by this shift in the age of the electorate. While Deeds still would have been wiped out even with the 2008 age composition of the electorate, the change there is no less striking:
Precentage of Virginia Electorate Under 45, 2006-2009
In Virginia, Democrats went from a 39-33 advantage in party ID, to a 33-37 deficit. In New Jersey, Democrats went from a 44-28 advantage, to a 41-31 advantage.
On the day before the election, I posted numbers indicating that Republicans had made a national gain of about 2-3% nationally since last year. However, that gain does not taken into account the difference in turnout from 2008 to 2009 (and 2010). On that front, Republicans seem to have gained another 3-4%, simply from turnout differential based on age.
When it comes to maintaining their 2008 majorities, the lack turnout among voters under the age of 45 threatens to cost Democrats more votes than any other factor. This isn't surprising, given that younger voters have been hit hardest by the recession, and that they tend to not turnout in off-year elections. Still, if Democrats could return the electorate to its 2008 age, they would be in excellent shape next year.
And yet, you won't hear any Villagers or Blue Dogs talk about how Democrats need to excite young voters again. Funny, that. It's almost as if they don't actually want Democrats to win next year, and aren't giving their advice in good faith.
For most of our history, our businesses, government, and laws have all discriminated in favor of privileged white men and against everyone else. In particular, the discrimination favors white men with money, or born into privileged families, over everybody else. The boys taking the golf and tennis lessons at the country clubs this summer will be smiling for good reason, because they know that our country has things set up so that they will get way more than their fair share regardless of how lazy, stupid, and corrupt they are. The fix is in.
The best jobs in our country are almost exclusively held by white men. White men only represent around 35% of the population, but they hold about 98% of the best jobs, the jobs with the big paychecks and the life-long titles. Notice that men give themselves lifelong titles, like King, Prince. Senators (for life), Judge, Ambassador, Professor: even if they only held the job for a few years, they use the title forever. It's so silly. So pretentious. Women, who are over 50% of the population, are not only excluded from the better jobs, but they are viciously attacked when they try to move up in their professions. Blacks are excluded. Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, all excluded.
So white men get the best paying jobs. They also get the jobs with the most power. They get to control everything in our society, and they use their positions to enrich and protect themselves and other white men. For example, Congress (mostly white men) pass laws saying that Wall Street (mostly white males) cannot be sued or held liable for stealing money from the public. Cops (mostly white men) are never held liable for wrongful death of a citizen, even if they walked up to an unarmed, blind, 90-year-old grandma and shot her in the face, the media and the courts immediately label it a "Suicide-By-Cop." What a stupid term. It's like when women get raped, and the media says she asked for it. Same thing. Automatically blame the victim and excuse the (usually) white male.
And we now know that even when the white men engage in international war crimes, start wars of aggression, lie the nation into war, torture and murder people, loot and pillage and plunder the nation, even then they are not held accountable for their actions. They have permanent immunity. Privileges and immunities, like Princes or King. How creepy is that? Even when they kill people, they get away with it.
Certainly our entire nation and its laws have always given preference to whites and to males. For example, after the country gained its independence, it was decided that there should be some law saying how a new person can become a citizen. So a law was passed in 1790, and it said that any person who had lived in the U.S. for at least 2 years, and was free and white, could become a citizen.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/...
Note that non-whites were excluded. Many blacks in this country were slaves and, even after they were freed, they were denied status as citizens by the southern states. Regardless of how many laws are passed, the Republican Party to this day continues to have an official organized policy dedicated to preventing black people from voting in our elections.
Of course voting was always reserved based on gender and race and class. Originally, only white male property owners could vote. At the time George Washington was elected our first President, in 1789, only 6% of the population of this country was allowed to vote -- white, male, property owners only. In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was executed at the end of the U.S. War Against Mexico, and provided that Mexicans residing within the then-claimed land of the United States would be citizens, although they were routinely denied civil rights based on a variety of tactics. In 1856, all states in the country had finally removed the requirement of property ownership for voting, but voting was still generally limited to white males. In 1870, blacks were given the right to vote, but were prevented from doing so by local vigilantes. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony decided to test the exclusion of women, so she tried to vote, and was arrested and tried for her "crime." Women were not legally given the right to vote nationwide until 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. Our actual history doesn't quite live up to those patriotic songs. A little shoddy on closer examination. http://www.kqed.org/assets/pdf...
I saw three stories today that made me think of this national, institutional, legal and historical bias in favor of white men and against everyone else in our society. The first, of course, was about Pat Buchanan and the drug addict from the radio, as well as their hangers-on, trying to incite hatred and violence among the population by hysterically screaming that Sonia Sotomayor was out to destroy white men, and that white men need to join together to defend themselves against their enemies -- I guess women? Hispanics?
Then I saw a story that Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia was back in the hospital again. He was just there a few weeks ago. He's 91 years old. White, male, and 91 years old, yet he's still allowed to hold one of only 100 seats in the Senate. God forbid anybody should tell this guy to go home, he's old enough to retire. Let somebody else have a chance. We see this same thing in judges -- sometimes suffering from dementia, peeing their pants on the bench, drooling, falling asleep, yet nobody will remove them from the position. See http://www.metnews.com/article... (rarely, the judicial commissions will remove a judge when they are completely disabled. Example: Justice Marshall McComb of the California Supreme Court was only removed from the bench when the state finally intervened. He was totally disabled by senile dementia, yet the other privileged white men on the California Supreme Court just turned his chair around during the hearings, and let him keep the job). So it is special treatment and privileges for the wealthy white men, and unemployment, no healthcare, no rights for anybody else. White men not only get all the good jobs, but they get to keep them long after they no longer are able to properly acquit their responsibilities.
Finally, I saw a story about a basketball player who allegedly cheated on his SAT exam. Apparently this young man is a terrific basketball player who is good enough to go pro right now. But the monopoly professional basketball team owners in this country, for some bizarre reasons, want to keep kids out of the profession until they are at least 19. That means that a kid gets out of high school, and has to get into college to play basketball there, for one year, in order to get picked up by the pros when they turn 19. I see no legitimate reason for this. None. Supposedly the white males who own the teams and run professional basketball don't want to have to pay these young men at 18, and can save a lot of money by blacklisting these young men for a year. Which is all it is -- blacklisting without any rational basis. The person who wrote the article noted that in effect (regardless of intent) this rule mostly discriminates against young black men. It seems like a really stupid rule to me. There's certainly no rule that prevents young people from getting professional contracts as singers, or actors, when they are under 19 years of age. What's the difference? See "The NBA's uncool rule - College Basketball - Rivals.com" http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaab/...
But again, when I put these together, it makes me think of how much things remain the same in our society. Most young black men are completely excluded from any opportunity in our society, which is why sports is such an attractive option. Many black families live in poor neighborhoods and their kids are sent to crumbling, unsafe, poorly staffed schools where they do not receive a decent education. Many of them, like most poor people in our country, are fed only high-starch low-protein and low-nutrition food which makes them fat, sluggish, unhealthy, and destined for diabetes and heart disease at a young age. These kids are screwed from the time they are born. But once in awhile, a sports star comes along, and he has a big ticket out. And the white-male professional basketball owners of America, who have a monopoly control of the sport, decide to park these kids somewhere for one year out of high school and prevent them from earning a living. How is that fair?
At the same time that these 18 year old kids are denied opportunity, we have a 91-year-old white man who's had way more than his fair share, but he will not let go.
And we have a woman who has done exactly what our society said she should do: work hard, go to school, get an education. Yet when she asked for the well-deserved promotion, she's attacked by a bunch of vile, threatening, racist old white men who seem dedicated to inciting violence among their followers -- "Defend The White Men Of America." They're crazy. And dangerous.
That's the thing about the privileged. It does not matter how much money they have, how many times they get to go to the "insider" dinners and bars and get-togethers and resorts, doesn't matter how many homes they have, how much art or stocks or shoes, doesn't matter that they will never live long enough to spend even a big chunk of what they already have -- they won't let go of a penny. I know quite a few people who are extremely wealthy by most people's standards, and they are cheap. The worst tippers, most resentful at having to fund public schools, nastiest about the unemployed (why don't they get a job), strongest opponents to public healthcare (that's socialism), least likely to pay a bonus to their employees.
I know a guy who is very wealthy, mostly because he's a privileged white country-club male, upper class, private schools, an insider from birth. Every year when a group of us go out for a holiday lunch, and invite all the office staff as well as the professionals -- he will not pay for his secretary's lunch. That's how cheap he is. I don't think there's a person in the world who likes him, and doubt he'll live long enough to spend all the money he has accumulated like a miser. But it doesn't matter -- he will not buy his secretary a sandwich at the Christmas/holiday lunch.
He's typical of people I know with money. There is no reason to try to appeal to them based on fairness or justice, because they don't believe in either. And, needless to say, most of these people are white men who use their accumulated wealth to try to get control over the people around them -- employees, wives, kids. They don't care if everyone hates them, as long as they feel like they have control. If they'd gone into politics, they would be starting wars to make themselves feel strong and powerful. It's a sickness.
When Bill Gates claims he's charitable, don't believe it. He, and Warren Buffett, and Bill Clinton, (all white males) all set up and fund private charities as a way to hold onto their money and avoid paying taxes. They can put up to 1/2 of their income into a private charity which they completely control, and keep all that money tax-free. Let's say they earned $200 million in a year, they put $100 million into a separate account, label it "charity," and don't pay $30-40 million in taxes that they otherwise would owe. It's all a tax fraud. As long as they pay out 5%/year of the money, they will never have to pay taxes. So guess how much they pay out every year? 5%. How much of that 5% goes to a kid, or relative, as compensation for them "managing" the charity? And they spend all their time going around telling the rest of us that they don't want the money for themselves -- they just want to help others. Warren Buffett keeps saying he's going to give away all his money when he dies. Don't bet on it. If they wanted to help, they would give their money away now, not hide it in private charity accounts in their own names. What's the problem? They don't think there's enough need, enough starving, enough suffering the world already?
The politicians in Congress are mostly white men. I don't think putting privileged white women, or non-white women, into Congress, will change much. I'm not suggesting that other people are kind and honest, but white men are bad. Just that our society has built in a bias towards white men which is unfair to the great majority of the people in this country. 65% of the people are not white men. We need affirmative action to change that and try to bring about some equality.
And we need a serious change in our taxes to go back to when the tax system made sense. Stop these private charities and start taxing rich people again. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett should never have been allowed to accumulate so much wealth, because it should have been taken in taxes. And Microsoft should have been busted up as a monopoly decades ago. Bill Clinton should never have been allowed to leave office then go out and solicit close to a billion dollars from the corporations he benefitted while in office, and from foreign countries that he helped while he was the president. Politicians should be prohibited from taking so much as a penny from anybody for any reason when they leave office, other than reasonable compensation for an actual job.
A woman should be allowed to move up in her profession without being viciously attacked by an organized group of white men, publicly threatened and humiliated just because she wanted a better job. A 91 year old white man should step down, move out, and let somebody else get a chance, instead of holding onto power just because he can. And an 18 year old black kid should not be prevented from getting a job by a conglomerate of millionaire basketball-team owners who figure they can do whatever they want, because nobody ever listens to young black men in this society.
After an election in which 66% of voters under 30 broke for President Obama, many Republicans might find comfort in the old adage about growing more conservative with age:
If you are young and conservative you have no heart, and if you are old and liberal you have no brain.
The saying is often attributed to Winston Churchill, which anyone familiar with his political career knows doesn't make much sense. This is because Churchill actually entered politics as a Conservative, switched to the Liberals when he was 29. He only rejoined the Conservatives at the age of 49, at a moment when electoral support for Liberals was being swallowed whole by Labour. As such, abandoning the Liberals had less to do with ideological drift than Chruchill's ongoing desire to become Prime Minister.
Anyway, no matter who actually coined the phrase (it might have been Shaw, according to one Open Left commenter), in an American context it highly exaggerates traditional youthful support for Democrats and liberals. The following chart graphs the performance of Democratic presidential nominees among voters under 30 from 1976-2008. It shows that the Democratic over-performance among young voters was much larger form 2004-2008 than it was from 1976-2000:
Democratic Performance Among Voters Under and Over 30, Since 1976
While President Obama over-performed among young voters noticeably more than any other Democratic presidential nominee or mid-term class, Democratic over-performance among young voters had already set records in both 2004 and 2006. Even if Obama had not become the Democratic nominee, it is likely that Democrats would have over-performed among young voters by 9-10%, given recent trends.
Young voters are not trending more Democratic because they are somehow becoming even younger. Instead, the continuing trend toward Democrats among young voters is because young voters are becoming less white, less Christian, and less closeted. All of these voting demographics favor Democrats by roughly 3-1 margins, and they are over-represented among young voters. In a great article over at Larry Sabato's place, Alan Abramowitz charts what this demographic breakdown means for the partisan electoral balance by age group:
Perhaps there once was a time when younger voters broke toward Democrats and liberals just because they were young, and then grew more conservative as they aged. However, now young voters are breaking toward Democrats at record levels not just because they are young, but because they are non-white, non-Christian, and out of the closet.
This is significant, because while you might trade in your heart for your head when you get older, you don't get more white, more Christian, or less gay with age. As such, Republicans are not going to start winning these voters over until they start performing better among non-Christians, non-whites, and the LGBT community. Given that all of those groups are trending in the opposite direction, it seems entirely possible that the old cycle of trading in hearts for heads will breakdown entirely.
Obama has released his second attack ad on McCain in two days. Like the first one, this is still probably inadequate when it comes to driving the debate and establishing the elite narrative. Unlike the first one, it has a promising new avenue that could do just that, if used more boldly:
The part I find intriguing is the very first line: "John McCain: he's been in Washington for 26 years." The rest of the piece is pretty much the same litany of small-bore policies listed over rising music that we have come to expect from Democratic campaign ads over the past decade or two. While the latter won't do anything to change the debate or the narrative, which is really what a successful attack does, the first bit has potential. Here's why:
It's not entirely rational: In order to grab pundit and media attention, sometimes the straightforward, deductive arguments need to be left behind in favor of something more vague, more emotional, and more identity-based. The "been in Washington for 26 years" line attacks McCain as a long-term Washington insider, and hints, but does not state, a wide range of other attacks. These include cynicism, connection to special interests, connection to Bush and the Republican Party, and even possibly to McCain's age.
It will probably piss McCain off: In order to change the narrative, you need to get your opponent to personally respond to your attack. Given that McCain has been itching for Obama to attack him based on age, this line of attack his probably implies that just enough, without actually saying anything, in order to get an age-based identity backlash from McCain. If played correctly, such a backlash has the potential to change the narrative by creating a discussion about whether McCain has been in Washington, D.C., too long in order to make any significant changes. And, as I noted above, having this debate would bring along implications about McCain's cynicism, connection to special interests, connection to Bush and Republicans, and even to his age.
It is specific to McCain: While the attack connects to long-standing Democratic attacks on Republicans, like connections to large corporations, it is also specific to McCain. He has been in Washington too long, he is too old, etc. This is why it is a superior attack to "they" will try to scare you about me. It connects to regular anti-Republican narratives, but it is specific to McCain's identity.
Overall, I don't think that this attack is exploited well enough in this ad, but it has potential. If used with the proper level of rhetoric, the "McCain has been in D.C." for too long, could change the narrative, and start directing the balance of attacks toward McCain. It is also probably something that Obama personally believes about McCain, so I imagine we will see more of it. It is better than the "McCain is a flip-flopper" attack, which doesn't make any sense if you want to tie McCain to Bush. It is better than "McCain is a rich dude with $500 shoes and eight homes" attack, which is basically a responsive attack to the charge that Obama is elitist and doesn't change the narrative. It is more in the vein of "McCain is too tied to large corporations" attack, but it takes a less rational, more emotional, more identity-based approach. And that is what you need to do if you want to change the narrative.
The McCain campaign has just played an entire campaign's worth of identity politics in a single ad. At the beginning of this latest bit of respectful campaigning, Obama is compared to Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears:
Let's do a quick rundown of the identity politics at work in such a comparison:
Obama is a girly-man. The ad only compares Obama to female celebrities, which is a direct shot at Obama's "manliness."
Obama will sleep with your white daughters: Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears are known for their sexuality as much as anything else. That must go for Barack Obama, too. And the history of attacking African-Americans in association with white women is such a positive one.
Obama is too young: For a campaign that is hyper-sensitive to attacks on McCain's age, they certainly have no problem attacking Obama's age. Which is what comparing Obama to Spears and Hilton is.
Obama is a Hollywood liberal: This is also a run of the mill attack on Obama as a Hollywood, liberal elite, in line with decades of conservative backlash narratives.
This is really atrocious stuff, and trying to bring out all of the worst aspects of America in order to win an election. At this point, the McCain campaign is just hitting Obama with whatever it can think of, and seeing if Obama will respond. It works, too, as they get tons of free press out of it. Given that political attacks take on their own life, the best response for Obama is probably to start making attacks of his own.
The latest in a long line of aging, center-left laments that young people these days do not precisely resemble a stereotypical image of 1960's left-wing American political activism comes from Sally Cohn in the Christian Science Monitor:
Coming together in local committees, led mainly by young people, they used the tools of face-to-face community organizing, developing shared strategies to address shared problems. And they took shared action; in sit-ins and Freedom Rides, they formed groups that were more than the sum of individual parts.
By contrast, Internet activism is individualistic. It's great for a sense of interconnectedness, but the Internet does not bind individuals in shared struggle the same as the face-to-face activism of the 1960s and '70s did. It allows us to channel our individual power for good, but it stops there.
There is nothing new about this lament. Last year, Al Gore wondered why "there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants." Two months later, Thomas Friedman pined:
Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy didn't change the world by asking people to join their Facebook crusades or to download their platforms. Activism can only be uploaded, the old-fashioned way - by young voters speaking truth to power, face to face, in big numbers, on campuses or the Washington Mall. Virtual politics is just that - virtual.
The sentiment that young people these days just rely too much on the Internet and are not properly emulating, in precise terms, now stereotypical images of left-wing activism from the third quarter of the twentieth century, has been around for a while. Eight years ago, I remember the poet Ron Silliman saying a variation on the same theme when he was the guest instructor in a graduate seminar I was taking. It is a bizarre and aggravating charge that willfully ignores all of the following:
Another lesson worth noting from the frothing attacks Republicans are now delivering on Wesley Clark is that the McCain campaign really, really wants a prominent Democrat to demean his service record. This is a prospect they are drooling over, right along with their hopes that a prominent Democrat will attack McCain in age-based terms.
The McCain campaign is clearly trying to push the age card, and create an age-based backlash among senior, at this point. Check out the end of his latest ad:
The last 80 frames or so make use of a startling but effective profile photograph, with McCain's facial crags (read: valleys of experience) played to full effect.
This isn't the first time this week that the McCain campaign is actually trying to emphasize McCain's age. In a much discussed article at Daily Kos, Markos wondered why the McCain campaign is making no attempt to whiten McCain's teeth. The answer is simple: the McCain campaign is actually trying to emphasize his age, and they are spoiling for an identity-based fight over ageism is an attempt to win more senior votes. This is something they have been doing for at least a month now.
McCain's attempt to force an age-based backlash actually makes perfect sense. Seniors tend to be the most socially conservative voters, and senior Democrats will be Obama's most difficult group when it comes to securing the party's base. Over the past few months, the national media has repeatedly mocked McCain's age, and so it won't be hard to point out that he is being attacked on ageist grounds. Also, the Democratic nomination campaign demonstrated that candidates can have real success among certain identity groups if they are perceived to be attacked in ways related to that identity group. If the perception of sexist attacks against Clinton can help her among women (as I think most observers will agree was the base in New Hampshire), and if the perception of racist attacks against Obama can help him among African-Americans (as I think most observers will agree was the case in South Carolina), why can't the perception of ageist attacks against McCain help him among seniors?
Seniors are the key swing vote in this election, and we all know that they vote in droves. Also, the two oldest states in the country, Pennsylvania and Florida, are key swing states. The McCain campaign is clearly gunning for them with an all-out attempt to create a backlash against the perception that McCain is too old. As such, the national media is doing a real disservice to Obama by making age based jokes on McCain. Further, all Democrats would be well advised to never, ever follow this line of attack against McCain themselves. In fact, Obama should make a speech that strongly denounces age-based attacks on McCain, while simultaneously whacking him on privatizing social security and the Iraq War. Those will be huge weak spots for McCain among seniors, who are very pro-Social Security and more anti-war than other age groups. Obama will need to make them centerpieces of his campaign.
I posted this diary as two parts, the first to thank second-wave feminists like Ferraro, Clinton, and Steinem for forcing attention to misogyny/patriarchy/etc. This second part is a critique, in part of them, but also of how widely of that school of feminism's messaging has been allowed to reverberate throughout this primary process to the exclusion of some important realities of the way real men, women, and others live. The wikipedia entry on third-wave feminism states succinctly:
"Third-wave feminism seeks to challenge or avoid what it deems the second wave's "essentialist" definitions of femininity, which often assumed a universal female identity and over-emphasized experiences of upper middle class white women."
"Vote by Gender": Male 49% Clinton, 51% Obama; Female 59% Clinton, 41% Obama
OR
"Vote by Gender and Race" - White Men 57% Clinton, 43% Obama; White Women 68% Clinton 32% Obama; Black Men 7% Clinton, 93% Obama; Black Women 12 % Clinton, 88% Obama; Latino Men N/A, Latino Women N/A
The issue of sexism and misogyny and patriarchy in the primary process has risen to prominence, and we should be thankful to those who have done a lot to bring it to our attention. The primary was marked by the reemergence of Second Wave feminists into political relevance (Geraldine Ferraro, Gloria Steinem, etc.). I have had a lot of critisms of the way that they have approached it (put in another diary), but this basic point should be reiterated, particularly for those of us who need to hear feminist messages more often (which I assume includes almost everyone :) Without Clinton running and resisting calls for her to drop out and without articulate women supporting her, we would probably not be talking about gender issues now.
If you thought the nomination campaign was too steeped in identity politics, don't expect the general election to be any better. We have already seen race and gender make divisive forays into the national political discourse, and now age is entering the campaign, stage right.
In the two days before the New Hampshire primary, Hillary Clinton was pilloried the media, in very gender specific terms, for showing emotion while speaking to a group of women. Then, on January 8th, women voted for Clinton in record numbers, rebuking that identity-based attack.
Back in 2007, before Obama was the target of several racially tinged attacks, he ran roughly even with Hillary Clinton among women. However, over the last five months, as Obama has been attacked as a supposed Muslim, a supposed drug dealer, a supposed "uppity" figure, and as just another angry black dude for his association with his pastor, African-Americans have flocked to Obama. The result of these racially tinged attacks is that Obama's overwhelming support among African-Americans has pushed him over the top in the Democratic nomination campaign.
Age-based attacks on John McCain have much the same potential for backlash as gender-based attacks on Hillary Clinton, and racially based attacks on Barack Obama. Now that McCain's age has become a national punchline, many seniors might back McCain simply because they take offense at that narrative. This is particularly dangerous in a general election campaign when seniors will be the main swing group. Even though the electoral effectiveness of the conservative backlash narratives against liberal elites and the civil rights movement have been seriously diminished by changing demographics, these narratives are still somewhat salient among seniors. Combining these conservative backlash narratives with an additional, age-based backlash could prove problematic for Obama.
Now, this problem might be hard to see, since Obama currently leads McCain according to thirteen of sixteen public polling firms that have published national surveys in the last month. Overall, Obama leads McCain by 3.7% in Pollster and 4.8% in Real Clear Politics. However, as strong as Obama is currently performing, he could be doing much better if he were to solidify the Democratic base. Obama leads by about 4% right now, despite only receiving between 65% and 75% of self-identified support according to the latest Rasmussen, Quinnipiac, and LA Times / Bloomberg polls. If Obama were to push his Democratic support up to 85%, then he would gain another 4% against McCain, and deliver a virtual knockout blow.
However, an age-based identity backlash could prevent Obama from delivering this knockout blow. Today's Q-poll showed an 11-point age gap between voters younger and older than 45, and the LA Times poll showed a 20-point gap, both of which successfully keep Obama's numbers low among self-identified Democrats. As such, it isn't surprising that the McCain camp is already angling to create further problems for Obama among seniors by playing the age card:
The McCain campaign said Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois who leads Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, was hinting at something when he used the words "losing his bearings."
It was "a not particularly clever way of raising John McCain's age as an issue," said Mark Salter, a McCain adviser, in an e-mailed statement.
Expect more of this. The massive Democratic advantage in partisan self-identification, combined with Obama's strength among independents, means that McCain needs to peel away a decent amount of Democrats in order to compete. Having learned lessons from the Democratic primary, it appears his campaign has decided it they can win over self-identified, Democratic seniors by playing the age card, and creating an identity backlash against a supposedly "ageist" Obama campaign. Current polling indicates that this strategy might just be working, since the only reason McCain is still within striking distance of Obama, instead of being blown out of the water, is because Obama has not locked down older, self-identified Democrats. McCain will continue to do whatever he can to open this wedge further, because as soon as it disappears, the general election could turn into a blowout.
In the end, that's what I take away from these many essays about generational dynamics…people are looking at Obama and assigning to him the values they want him to represent, be they generational, cultural, political, and social. This is both something that can work in Obama's favor, as he strives to be all things to all people, but it's also a weakness-for when you are painted as the avatar of a generation's values, what do you do if you don't live up to them?
I think this statement is not only true of the various commentaries on Obama and generational dynamics, but also true of early discussions of Obama in general and of generational dynamics in general. One of Obama's great strengths early in the campaign in that, as a relative and multi-faceted unknown, people were able to pour their own values into their perception of Obama. This allowed him to rapidly rise in national polls from December 2006 through early May 2007. However, as the campaign developed, Obama became better known, and a tipping point occurred were more people had a developed opinion of him than were still viewing him as a tabula rasa. As a result, Obama's climb stopped, and Clinton rose in national polls from mid-May to late October. It probably also helped Clinton that the longstanding caricatures of her built up by the Noise Machine began to melt away as she received more national exposure.
If Obama was once a tabula rasa on which people were able to assign him the values they want him to represent, discussions of generational dynamics are always forums where people assign huge swaths of the country the values they want those swaths to represent. The notion of broad, generational behavior simply does not hold up under scrutiny. For example, take "my" generation, "Gen X," which is supposedly a bunch of cynical, apolitical slackers. Such an image is difficult to square with the 1992 election, which was both the first election where all of Gen X could vote and also the highest youth turnout election in history. I am also pretty sure that Gen X has the highest percentage of post-graduate degrees of any generation in history, and has faced the longest work week of any generation in sixty years. But please, tell me more about how people born from 1965-1976 in America are a bunch of cynical, apolitical slackers.
Commentaries on generational dynamics simply don't hold up to scrutiny because ideology in this country is produced by things like family, media, church, school and work, rather than age. Certainly, those are all institutions that change with time, but they do not change at the same rate and they do not change uniformly across the country for all people of the same age. While it is true that younger voters are disproportionately progressive and Democratic compared to the rest of the nation, the difference is only about 7-10% on the partisan level and 12-14% on the ideological level. Further, those differences are caused primarily because younger Americans disproportionately represent more significant demographic demarcations, especially being non-white and non-Christian. Young voters are not progressive and Democratic because they are young, but rather because they are less white and less Christian than older generations. Outside of GLBT issues, older non-whites and older non-Christians hold pretty much the same political views as do their younger counterparts. The generational differences are simply the result of these demographic groups representing different percentages of the arbitrarily defined generations.
I'm just not into the analysis of generational dynamics. Even the widespread fixation on "Baby Boomer" politics of the 1960's seems to intentionally ignore the fact that the vast majority of political participants in the great political battles of the 1960's were from older generations. Most of the participants in the civil right's battles of that era, for instance, were not born in 1946 or later. In fact, virtually all of them were born at an earlier date, and even the ones born after 1946 didn't share a singular view on the matter. Just like there isn't a single, national, American culture, there aren't singular behavioral patterns of people born on a certain date. Divining behavior based on when people were born is the business of astrology, not of serious demographers and political analysts.
