Open Left - realigning election

My Election Projection--From October, 2006

Paul Rosenberg — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:30:00 GMT

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.

Here's a chart from my October 20, 2006 post, "What A Dem Landslide Could Mean", with a bit of explanatory text:

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.
About 10 days after that diary, I wrote another one, " Beyond Red & Blue---The Possible Underpinnings of A November Sweep", which got into the question of challenging the reigning narrative as one of the key ingredients in pulling off a realignment. I'd like to excerpt some parts of that diary, to ressurrect my thinking at that time--and then comment on it a bit.

My underlying argument is that the biggest, unrecognized gap in American politics is between extremist movement conservatives and ordinary conservative voters, and that compared to this, ordinary liberals and conservatives have a good deal in common. It's the reigning narrative that hides this, and that needs to challenged and overcome. Here's what I said about that at the time:

It is the movement conservative narrative that construes politics in terms of liberal/conservative polarization, and obscures the degree of overlap between liberals and conservatives by demonizing liberals. The realigning potential of this election consists in part of ~~the~~ fragmenting [the] grasp of the ultra-conservative narrative.

Explaining the nature of that potential is the purpose of this post.
I will do this in three parts: (1) De-mythologizing liberal/conservative polarization. (2) Highlighting the conservative/ultra-conservative split. (3) Discussing the potential for narrative reconfiguration.

Skipping through most of the post, here's what I say about #3:

(3) The potential for narrative reconfiguration.
To date, the most comprehensive, up-to-date work dealing with conservatives narratives comes from cognitive linguist George Lakoff. Lakoff's work centers on cognitive metaphors, and the more general phenomena of cognitive and linguistic frames. These are not narratives per se, but they are the underpinnings of narrative. Furthermore, Lakoff's own work is not primarily directed in a way to help us work on opening up the conservative/ultra-conservative gap. It illuminates the differences between liberal and conservative worldviews-and even, more subtly to the differences between what he calls "ideological conservatives" and "pragmatic conservatives." But even this last distinction is not the one I'm aiming for. It's not what isolates a mere 1% or so of the population.
The effective core of conservatism is identity politics. It's what binds ordinary conservatives with reactionary ultra-conservatives. Mostly, it's about race, religion and ethnicity, depending on these to over-ride class. But opposition to unions is also part of the mix. Free and Cantril found a striking correlation between operational conservatism and opposition to power-sharing with outgroups:

This opposition to organized political power is easily translated into everyday language: "They're okay, as long as they know their place." Although the nature and degree of such exclusionary attitudes has certainly altered over time, the GOP's reliance on anti-gay initiatives and hysteria about illegal immigration are clear reminders that the basic logic remains firmly in place.

And, of course, we've seen a whole carnival freak show of GOP boogeymen fantasies trotted out this time to try to smear Obama. Nothing new under the sun.

But here's something important, about the differece in how liberals and conservatives approach challenging problems, and starting with the thread of different approaches to the immigration issue, I move on to the question of how to frame an open-ended identity politics of inclusion--which, I think, is a good summary of what's been key to Obama's success:

Moreover, the example of illegal immigration shows that there can even be a rational foundation for such fears. Illegal immigration is a problem-it's just that it's part of a whole complex of problems tied to neo-liberal "free trade" economics that conservatives have no intention of examining, much less challenging. It's much easier to blame the victims with the darkest skin color. This is the essence of the liberal/conservative split: liberals engage in systematic analysis, seeking out complex patterns of cause and effect, while conservatives are quick to place blame on entire groups of individuals who in reality have very limited power or choice to do things differently, given the systemic forces they face.
Writ large, the problem that liberalism faces is just this: how to promote policies that change the systemic forces people face, when conservatives keep insisting that the problem is the people themselves. The answer, of course, is that conservative rhetoric only goes so far. Despite the hold it has, only the hardcore ultraconservatives steadfastly refuse to embrace liberal policies that work. Furthermore, new such policies can be introduced, but they need to be framed in the right sort of rhetoric.
Ironically, the best example of this is recent years is probably Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, with its rhetoric of "putting people first," and standing up for those who "work hard and play by the rules." Clinton's campaign rhetoric was pitch perfect-ironically, since his GOP-lite governance did not deliver what it promised. Yet, the answers are there, if we combine that sort of rhetoric with policies that actually deliver what Clinton promised.
One key aspect of Clinton's rhetoric deserves special note-his talk about people who "work hard and play by the rules." This is a formulation for a broadly inclusive counter-identity to set against conservative identity politics. It says nothing about who people are, in terms of race, religion, skin-color, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. It defines them by shared values-not values talk, but actual, real-life, day-to-day values. And this, of course, is what the promise of America has always been about. This is what liberals-and Democrats of all stripes-ought to be talking about every day. It's what underlies everything we want to do, which is why we should bring it up every time we talk about doing anything.
This is hardly a panacea, but it is a starting point, a foundation. Narratives of inclusion, based on shared aspirations are an antidote to narratives of exclusion. And a Democratic House-even if it stands alone-can be a perfect place to start launching such narratives, via legislation such as increasing the minimum wage, empowering bulk purchases of prescription drugs in Medicare Part D, increased spending on veterans' health care, etc. Above all, the House can become a place for holding hearings and staging debates-both about the widespread and systemic scandals and failures of Republican rule, and about what can be done to repair the damage done. and replace the policies that caused it.

Well, of course, the House as a whole did a terrible job of living up to its promise, even if some members, such as Henry Waxman, did a great deal of exemplary work. But, on the plus side, Barack Obama did articulate a narrative of aspirational, inclusive identity. And now we'll have another chance to get Congress back on the track it should have been on the last two years.

So I don't know that much about the smaller stuff--and I'm not pretending the small stuff isn't important. One damn hanging chad is important. Getting 60 Senate seats is important, rather than 57 or 58... even if Obama can "work with" a couple of Republicans here and there. He shouldn't have to be doing that. But what I mean by small stuff is simply this: If we have the vision and the narrative right, then everything else can follow from that. But if we don't, then everything will be a struggle. Including those last couple of senators. And it won't even matter if they're Republicans or Democrats. Because if you don't have the vision and the narrative right, then Mary Landrieu and Max Baucus and Ben Nelson can be just as hard for us as any Republican we might hope to pick up.

But with all that by way of caveat, okay. Here goes: I say we make 60 in the Senate without Lieberman: Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, Alaska, Minnesota, Kentucky and Georgia. I say it not coming from my head, but from my heart--with the proviso that my head had a chance to veto it, and did not. Ditto the House: we pick up 33 seats. And Obama wins all the Kerry states plus Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Indiana.

My heart would like to add Montana, Arizona and Goergia, but my head has to veto something and so it vetoes those.

I really hope my head is wrong.

Realigning Elections--A Bit of Historical Perspective

Paul Rosenberg — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:46:48 GMT

I've been writing about realigning elections for quite some time now, looking forward to this November, starting back in 2006. Now that we're just one month out, signs are stronger than ever that this will be a realigning election, though of course, nothing is certain until election day. Still, it's such a strong probability that I can't help asking the next question: what kind of realigning election will it be? It's a question of sharply increased urgency, particularly in light of the just-passed Wall Street bailout, the only legislation that Barack Obama has acted as a party whip on.

One thing seems clear: whatever this election turns out to be like, it won't be 1932, although that is clearly what we need. But what will it be like? My short answer: Nothing we've ever seen before. But that doesn't mean we can't get some hints by looking at the past. That's why I've put together some electoral maps to look at the lead up to four other realigning elections--in one case, actually, a de-aliging one. Our first realigning election was 1800, but that was the most anomalous one, since it threw out a party that formed in government, and it represented the effective beginnings of two-party system. I want to look at all the other examples, except for 1932, to see what they tell us aobut the ebb and flow of 2-party power.

So join me on the flip.

1828 was a realigning election that that swept Andrew Jackson into power, and ended the period of exclusive East Coast dominance.

Leading up that election, the Democratic Republicans had increasingly marginalized the opposition Federalists, who never recovered from losing the election of 1800. By 1820, the Federalists were so weak that they failed to carry a single state, and by 1824, all the presidential candidates were Democratic Repbulicans, revealing a sober fact of American politics, that would be seen again in the Democratic "Solid South": a one-party system is a de facto NO party system. The fragmented result was brokered in the House of Represenatives, and Andrew Jackson seethed for 4 years before gaining his revenge in a sweeping victory that redefined the party system for the next two decades plus.

Jackson's enemies came in two different flavors--the Northerners, who hated him for his autocratic ways, and for smashing the central power of the US Bank, and the Southerners, who hated him for his autocratic ways, and for not being decentralist enough. Somehow, after Jackon left the scene, the two factions managed to cobble themselves together into the Whig Party, and even win some elections. But those of you thinking that the Dixiecrat enbalbed New Deat coalition was an odd duck, should spend a little time contemplating the Whigs.

Abraham Lincoln's victory in the realigning election of 1860 was the historically inevitable outcome of the unstable Whig alliance under the stress of Northern industrial expansion.

The Whig victory of 1848, their fortunes plummeted rapidly, barely hanging onto anything in 1852, and vanishing from the national electoral college results by 1856. The Republicans won out over the the Know Nothings in replacing them, and by 1860, they won a mere plurality, yet decisively won a four-way race, which was then followed by the secession of the Southern states, and the beginning of the Civil War.

In summary: the Party of Jackson reasserted itself, and destroyed the opposition party, only to have a unified northern fragment ressurect itself and emerge triumphant.

The 1896 election is considered a classic realigning election, yet it did not involve the replacement of one dominant party by another. A "me too" Democrat, Grover Cleveland, won two out of three elections--1884 and 1892--with strong Populist sentiment raging in the west oin 1892. The next election saw the merger of the Populists and like-minded Democrats behind Wiliam Jennings Bryan, and loss of all Electoral College votes in the Northeast.

The victorious Republicans characterized themselves as "progressive" as opposed to the Populists, who they characterized as obstructing progress. But more intensely self-identified progressives had something more specific in mind, which didn't include a lot of corrupt business practices. The next two decades were largely defined by a various struggles over the term's meaning.

The 1968 election has been dubbed a "de-aligning" election because it resulted in a prolonged period of divided government, rather than a reaslignment into a newly characterized dominant party & its subdominant opposition party. The runup to this saw Eisenhower, a war hero "me too" Republican, win 1920's style landslide victory, losing only the Southern core, followed by an electoral map of a kind never seen before in 1960, and then in 1964 and almost complete reversal of the 1956 map, another map never seen before, followed by the 1968 map, similar to the 1960 map, but with the notable Third Party defection of the Southern core.

This dealigned state proved surprisingly robust, as the Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress for 6 of the 8 years that Bill Clinton was President.

Common Factors

There are two common factors of these re(de)aligning elections that deserve coomment:

(1) A more or less destabilization of the two-party system. This was most extreme in the case where the subordinate party disappeared entirely. It was least extreme with the emergence of a new Third Party.

(2) The politically victorious parties were not necessarily capable of dealing with the problems that brought them to power. Most could make a good deal of political hay for a while, but they proved largely unequal to the task of governing, and disputes continued witin the dominant party/ideological coalition as well as within the polity as a whole. Technological and demographic driving forces overwhelmed the polticial infrastructure.

Thus, the Jacksonians represented the political periphery of the country, but the drive of modernization in the industrial Northeast determined the main thrust of national development, in direct opposition to the core of Jacksonian ideology. First the Civil War frustrated the Republican hope for a peaceful, gradual end to slavery, and the post-war resurgence of Southern terrorism thwarted the radical Republicans hope for a just racial order. Morepver, the post-Civil War explosion of corruption-fueled industrial development left the Main Street Republican base wondering what the hell happened, not for the last time in the party's history. The progressive's woes have already been commented on.

Finally, the backlash politics beginning with Nixon was unable to reverse desegregation, or any of the related cultural changes that came in its wake, nor could it dismantle the welfare state, but only weaken it substantially. And no workable positive vision was ever proposed. The Democrats fared no better, primarily holding on to past gains, but accomplishing very little that was new.

Conclusions

In light of the above, two things need to be said:

(1) The 1932 realignment was unique in its degree of success in effectively dealing with the problems that brought it power. This fact is vastly underrated in most assessments of our history. It stands in stark contrast to all other realignments, most tragically, of course, that of 1860.

(2) We appear to be very much in line with these other, less successful realignments. The Third Party emergence of Ross Perot seems to indicate that our current realignment has been unnaturally delayed, compared to the normal time-table, but our current state of relatively amorphous, though sharp discontent appears to portend that we will not have a materially successful response come out of this realignment, unless we find some way to avoid the patterns of the past.

What A Landslide In The Making Looks Like

Paul Rosenberg — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 01:00:26 GMT

This is one view of what a coalescing landslide election looks like. It's from the Princeton Election Consortium, and it's a distribution map of all possible election outcomes in the Electoral College. On the left is the distribution bssed on polling through Septbember 30. There is just the tiniest tail of the distribution across the red line where McCain wins. The highest peak of blue lines is close to 7% for one specific distribution giving Obama a vivtyory with over 320 votes. On the right is the distribution based on polling just two days later, on October 2. There is no longer any part of the distrubtion across the red line, giving McCain a victory. What's more, the highest peak of blue lines now reaches 14% and it is for more than 350 electoral votes. Of course these are just two snapshots in time. But they do show how dramatically the race has moved in the direction of an Obama landslide, just as early voting is aobut to begin.

Full size versions on the flip
Here are the full-size versions, Septbember 30 first:

And October 2:

Ovtober 4 is very similar to October 2, so this is a good representation of where the race is right now, through this lens.

Here is an additional angle on the race, from Pollster.com. Their scoring system has 250 EVs as "lean Dem" or better, compared to 163 "lean Rep," and the distribution of tossups heavily favors Obama. Indeed, the addition of Colorado and Minnesota bring Obama to 269--a tie--giving him five different ways to win with states he currently leads in:

As Kos notes, McCain has been outspending Obama 10-1 in Minnesota this month, with over $1.25 million in ads, but he still can't flip it. If McCain did come any closer, Obama could easily dump $100k, no doubt quickly gain back a few points. McCain faces this same sort of uphill terrain everywhere he looks, as the earliest voters are about to start casting votes.

And with another debate on Tuesday, and the Troopergate Report on Friday, this week doesn't look to be any better for McCain than last week was.

Barack Obama, Superstar? Yes And No--UPDATED w/ 2 Charts

Paul Rosenberg — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 18:28:09 GMT

Barack Obama's strong rise in the polls has pretty much everyone happy, and even--dare I say it?--excited. As someone who's been writing about a realigning election this year since October 2006, and who's been writing about a 10-20% landslide, I am definitely no exception. But when folks talk about Obama as leading the way, in a pure numbers sense among voters, I just have to step in and say, "Wait a minute!"

For example, yesterday, fwiffo wrote:

Tides
A rising tide raises all Democratic boats. In this metaphor, Barack Obama is the fucking moon.

When it comes to mobilizing volunteers, or raising funds, I have no quarrel with this. But when it comes to attracting voters, Obama is much more like a surfer on the wave--who has very skillfully avoided some very treacherous obstacles, than he is like the moon.

It's hardly surprising, really. John McCain was the ultimate media darling, possessed of a totally bogus, superhero-style image in the press, which yielded him high levels of personal approval even among liberal Democrats. And Barack Obama, of course, is black. This is a doubly stacked deck, so it's entirely to be expected that Obama would be underperforming the Dem/Rep partisan split. So this is by no means an attack on Obama, depsite the subtantial substantive criticism I have of him. It is, rather, yet another attempt to remind folks that we're in the midst of a broad and historic period of transformation that overshadows every one of us as individuals, even our candidate for President, our country's first black President to be.

Numbers to prove it on the flip.
The most straight-forward comparison to see how strong Obama is, as opposed to the underlying shift of voter sentiment away from the GOP is to compare how he does compared to the generic Congressional ballot. Rasmussen has been polling both for some time, so I begin with their polls from this year:

As can be seen, the Democratic margin has alway exceeded Obama's margin over McCain, sometimes only barely, by 1%, sometimes up into the double digits. The margin has been shrinking since early September, and as the campaign focuses increasingly on him in the closing weeks, it could well flip-flop in the end, but it's taken a long, long time to do so.

Now let's take a more microscopic look at daily tracking polls over the last few weeks. First, here's Diageo/Hotline:

On a more fine-tuned level, this tells basically the same story as Rasmussen for recent weeks: Obama's lead over McCain is inching upwards to match the generic Dem/Rep lead.

Finally, another tracker, DKos/Research 2000, shows Obama at his strongest, but still not consistently ahead of the generic ballot:

The pattern here is generally similar to the two previous ones: Obama has been gaining strength compared to the generic ballot for the last several weeks. The difference is not the trend, but the level and magnitude, which shows Obama inching ahead of the generic ballot. In the long run, this does not surprise me. Looking forward to a 10-20% landslide means I've been rooting for this to happen, and I'm glad to see it. But the long, long time that Obama has been trailing the generic Congressional ballot is, I believe, a sure sign that Obama is riding a long wave of political realignment, not causing it.

It's entirely fitting that he should rise to his highest level, like a surfer gaining perfect balance atop a cresting wave. Nothing would make me happier than a 20% blowout margin of victory. But the reason for that is the profound need for change, the hunger for a new direction, that manifests itself only once in every 9 or so presidential elections. And it's up to us--not just Obama, but all of us--to make the most of it.

UPDATE: Here are two charts, showing the margins for Obama and generic Dems in the two tracking polls, and the differences between them.