The news that Democrats have just selected Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi to continue as House Minority Leader has led a number of commentators to note her continuing unpopularity. Blogger Nate Silver, for instance, recently came up with a column titled "Is Pelosi America's Most Unpopular Politician?"
There is no denying that Ms. Pelosi is very, very unpopular. This is old news, and relatively boring stuff.
What is more interesting is exploring how Ms. Pelosi became one of the least-like politicians in America.
A common charge of Republicans during the 2008 presidential campaign was at Senator Barack Obama's perceived liberalism. Republicans often stated that Mr. Obama was the most liberal senator in the United States, according to a ranking by the National Journal. The attack against Mr. Obama's liberalism has continued during his time in office.
The ranking by the National Journal, however, seems to be flawed in several ways. Take the 2004 rankings, for instance. Guess who was ranked the most liberal Senator in 2004.
This is the last part of three posts analyzing the Democratic Party's struggles during the 1920s, when it lost three consecutive presidential elections by landslide margins. This will focus upon the 1928 presidential election, when the Democratic Party began to change into what it is today.
The 1928 Presidential Election
The 1928 presidential election marked the beginning of a great shift in American politics. It was when the Democratic Party started changing from a minority and fundamentally conservative organization into the party that would nominate Senator Barack Obama for president.
This is the second part of three posts analyzing the Democratic Party's struggles during the 1920s, when it lost three consecutive presidential elections by landslide margins. This will focus upon the 1920 and 1924 presidential election, when white ethnic immigrants abandoned the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party of the early twentieth century was composed of two bases (both of which no longer vote Democratic). These were Southern whites and immigrant, often Catholic, whites from places such as Ireland and Italy. Southern whites voted Democratic due to the memory of the Civil War and could be reliably whipped up with race-baiting appeals. Immigrant ethnic whites, on the other hand, saw the Democratic Party as a vehicle of defense against the dominant, Republican-voting WASP majority in the Northeast and Midwest.
The two groups had precious little in common, save distrust of the dominant Republican Party. One of the constituencies would often only lukewarmly support the national Democratic candidate (this was usually the immigrant camp, because without Southern whites the Democratic Party was nothing).
In 1920, ethnic whites walked out of the Democratic Party.
This is the first part of three posts analyzing the Democratic Party's struggles during the 1920s, when it lost three consecutive presidential elections by landslide margins.
The biggest presidential landslides are two elections you've probably never heard of: the 1920 presidential election, and the 1924 presidential election.
This is the last part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Colorado.
Conclusions
Colorado is much like the previous state analyzed in this series: Virginia. Both states were seen until recently as Republican strongholds and rightfully so; President George W. Bush handily won both states in 2004 and 2000.
Yet in 2004, both states showed signs of shifting Democratic. Virginia barely moved Democratic even as the South swung heavily against Senator John Kerry. As for Colorado - it actually shifted 3.7% more Democratic, against the national tide. Indeed, in 2004 Mr. Kerry performed better in Colorado than he did in Florida.
This is the fourth part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Colorado. It will focus on the complex territory that constitutes the Democratic base in Colorado. The last part can be found here.
Democratic Colorado
In American politics, the Democratic base is almost always more complex than the Republican base, a fact which is largely due to complex historical factors. Democrats wield a large and heterogeneous coalition - one which often splinters based on one difference or another. The Republican base is more cohesive.
The same is true for Colorado. Republican Colorado generally consists of rural white Colorado and parts of suburban white Colorado. Democratic Colorado is more difficult to characterize.
A look into President Barack Obama's strongest counties provides some insight:
This is the second part of two posts analyzing New York's recent Republican primary. It will focus upon Republican weakness in New York City, as revealed by the primary. The previous part can be found here.
New York City in the Republican Primary
One of the more interesting things about American politics is the rural-urban divide. The weakness of the modern Republican Party in urban areas is quite astounding. Much of this has to do with the history of the American city, especially the way in which many cities have become reservoirs of poor minorities.
The Republican gubernatorial primary constituted a particularly powerful demonstration of Republican weakness in American cities. To illustrate this, let's look at a map of turn-out in businessman Carl Paladino's victory over former representative Rick Lazio:
The recent mid-terms were, by all accounts, very bad for Democrats. They lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives and 6 seats in the Senate. In many ways things were worse than in 1994, when Republicans won landslide victory.
There is another analogy to 1994, however, which will probably make Democrats happier. President Bill Clinton, after devastating mid-term losses, went on to win a comfortable re-election campaign. Can Mr. Obama do the same?
The book "The Keys to the White House," by Professor Allan J. Lichtman provides a fascinating answer. Mr. Lichtman argues that the results of a presidential election can be predicted months or years beforehand by a series of thirteen "keys." According to this theory, if the incumbent party or current president captures a certain number of "keys", it will win the election. Otherwise it will lose.
This is the first part of two posts analyzing New York's recent Republican primary. It will focus upon the upstate-downstate divide revealed by the primary. The next part can be found here.
The 2010 Republican Gubernatorial Primary
On September 14th 2010 the Republican Party held its primary in New York. In the gubernatorial primary, party favorite Rick Lazio was defeated by the Tea Party Candidate: businessman Carl Paladino. Mr. Paladino won a comprehensive victory, with 62% of the vote to Mr. Lazio's 38%.
In the long run, this primary did not matter at all. Already the primary is forgotten by even the most politically intense folk. Most Americans probably weren't even aware that there was a primary in the first place. Mr. Paladino went on to a stunning loss against the Democratic candidate in the general election.
Yet, whatever its long-term importance, the primary constitutes a valuable tool for exploring New York's electoral geography. Mr. Paladino's victory revealed two interesting facts of New York politics. This post will explore the first one.
This is the third part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Colorado. It will focus on the swing areas in Colorado - the parts that will vote for both Democrats and Republicans. The fourth part can be found here.
Swing Colorado
The swing areas of Colorado lie on the edges of the Democratic base in Colorado, which forms a rough "C" shape (more on this in the next post). They can be mapped as below:
Former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin is one of the most influential Republican figures today. Her "mamma-grizzly" endorsements have won a surprising number of victories, and much of the Republican base holds admiration for her. It is almost natural, then, that many pundits consider her as a front-runner or strong candidate for the 2012 Republican nomination.
Democrats like this. They salivate at the prospect of a Palin candidacy, believing that her unpopularity with non-Republicans will enable any standard-fare Democratic candidate to crush her in a presidential election. This belief is probably true; it would take a remarkable set of circumstances for Ms. Palin to win a general election against Mr. Obama.
But Republicans know just as well as Democrats do that Ms. Palin could not win a general election. That is why they will never nominate former governor Sarah Palin for president, no matter how popular she is amongst the Republican base.
This is the second part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Colorado. It will focus on the Republican base in Colorado. The third part can be found here.
History
Once upon a time, Colorado was a loyally Democratic state. Influenced by prairie populism and anger against powerful Republican businessmen in the East Coast, the state usually voted further left than the country at large. The trend continued for seven straight presidential elections.
This ended at around 1924. Colorado voted twice against President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and throughout the remainder of the twentieth century remained a mainstay of Rocky Mountain conservatism. As late as 2005, a Republican politician might have good reason to see this as a permanent condition.
The country Poland is comprised of two main political parties; the first is Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc (PiS) - "Law and Justice" in English. This party is a populist group which runs upon anti-corruption and anti-Communist credentials. The second party is the Platforma Obywatelska (PO) - in English the "Civic Platform" - a group espousing support for free market capitalism.
On October 2007, Poland held parliamentary elections between the two parties. Most of the Western media backed the Civic Platform (PO), disliking the unpredictability of the Kaczynski twins (leaders of Law and Justice). Here is a map of the results:
This is the first part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Colorado. The second part can be found here.
Starting six years ago, a massive Democratic wave swept through the state of Colorado. Starting with the election of former Senator Ken Salazar, the Democratic Party took control of almost every state office there was to take. The results of this transformation are pictured in the table above.
STATE BLOGS
