Fans of R4’08 know that I loathe the “R” word, which I think is used way too much these days by pundits just to sell a book or make a headline, but Michael Barone is a smart guy, and he has some compelling numbers to back up his?use of that-word-which-shall-remain-unsaid.
Barone demonstrates that 2006 will be a year in which Republican candidates win in various states and congressional districts that have been blue for the better part of the last decade, while Democratic candidates are doing well in red states and districts.?
My first thought was that Barone is cherry-picking races to fit his reality, and what we’re really looking at is a good Democratic year giving Republicans a hard time, combined with a few anomales in the northeast.? After giving his column a closer look, that doesn’t appear to be the case.? Even in races that have a clear regional flavor to them, such as the Senate races in Maryland and New Jersey, Republicans Steele and Kean are overperforming Bush in traditionally blue areas of their respective states while underperforming Bush in the red areas.? Moreover, this seems to be a national trend.
Barone suggests that the red/blue divide of the last few years may have had more to do with President Bush’s cultural appeal than anything (or lack thereof, depending on the region) and that a GOP nominee like Rudy, Romney, or McCain, with an entirely different demographic and cultural appeal, will prove the 1994-2004 realignment to be a false one.? I’m not ready to give up on my theory that 2004 was the beginning of a sunbelt Republican majority just yet, though Barone has at least gotten my attention.? Numbers don’t lie, and we’ll just have to wait and see how 2006 plays out to see whether Barone’s right or whether my sunbelt theory, which I’ve articulated on R4’08 numerous times (that’s code for the fact that I’m too lazy to link to it) is vindicated.? Until then, I maintain that a Rudy or a Romney could easily expand the GOP majority into the swing states of 2004, like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota, without losing any of the red states by running sunbelt, center-right campaigns with a broader cultural appeal.
September 27th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
The polling data I have seen shows minorities of voters in both parties who are totally wedded to voting a straight ticket. Most folks are willing to consider voting for the other party and many do not affiliate strongly with either party. So under such circumstances I fail to see how there can be any realignments.
Politicians I have worked with make a fundamental mistake of ego in thinking that there is much loyalty to party or to incumbents. Elections are about comparisons, who is relatively better than the other. There are not nearly as many absolutes as folks think. How else do you get so many Republican governors in California, as Democrat a state as there is, and 20 straight years of Democrat governors in Utah, as Republican a state as there is, from 1965 to 1985?
And I hasten to add, as a pet peeve, that congressional and state legislative hegemony is so often manifest as a result of biased political boundaries drawn by the vary incumbents who must run in those districts as one of the most egregious conflicts of interest there can be. It is hard to decipher realignments when the political maps are so unfairly tilted.
September 27th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Gerrymandering is one of my big pet peeves too. Sometimes it helps our guys. Sometimes it helps their guys. But it never ever helps democracy.
September 28th, 2006 at 12:32 am
Bingo and bravo, murphy. Gerrymandering is just wrong. A blight on democracy. We have outlawed competitive elections in so many jurisdictions. The districts for entire states as big as California are being drawn so that all of them are either overwhelmingly Democrat or overwhelmingly Republican.
But in addition to fairly drawn districts made by third parties without a conflict of interest, we also need, in my opinion, serious campaign finance reform. And here I am for unlimited spending and contributions that are immediately reported over the Internet. If Steve Forbes can spend $25 million of his own money to run for president then why can’t he instead donate that money to Jack Kemp to run, as Forbes said he would rather do?
If folks, including justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, believe that they need to worry about corruption and candidates being bought, why not let voters know immeidately over the Internet who has given to whom so that the voters can decide? Can the U.S. Supreme Court in their infinite wisdom really calibrate the level of contribution at which corruption may be filtered out, especially with bundling techniques being legal?
We should have fair elections, not term limits. How many elected officials do you hear pushing this issue?
October 3rd, 2006 at 7:45 pm
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December 5th, 2006 at 4:17 am
Kimberly Thompson
The 4915 Thomas Mitchell blog