Bits and bites on US politics.
I started this blog to make myself do some relatively serious research and reading up on global liberal and neoliberal politics. After recent diversions into kids lit and John McCain, I've hopefully got some meatier posts coming up on Tony Blair and his upcoming EU presidency; the same-sex marriage dispute in Canada; the bizarre state of the Canadian House of Commons and the increasingly wacky Conservative party combined with Paul Martin's potential, and obvious desire, to make some serious Canadian political history; and an analysis of Judis and Teixeira's 2002 book The Emergerging Democratic Majority and its 2005 follow-up article in The American Prospect. But today's posting is just going to be bits and bites.
Regarding demographics, Chris Bowers at Kos uses the flap over Howard Dean's boneheaded* remark about the GOP being "pretty much a white Christian party" to call attention to a post he made on the changing face of the electorate over at his own site, MyDD, back in April.
Chris did loads of thought-provoking work on the religious-ethnic identity-voting tendencies and trends among the American electorate and concludes in this piece that "the quickest way to summarize the developing demographic trends of the two coalitions is a [shriking, Republican-voting] white Christian coalition versus a [growing, Democratic-voting] non-white and / or non-Christian coalition."
I don't totally agree with Chris' conclusions, other than the point about the vibrant, and probably permanent, Democratic pluralism. For one thing, not all secular whites mind the religious right enough to vote against them if the GOP appeals on other, for instance economic, issues. Outside of intensely-libertarian circles, the religious right has had the luxury of being an interest group that many people vote for but fewer people vote against (that may well change given its recent overreaching, but, if so, there's always John McCain). Also, part of the shift of non-White, non-Christian voters toward the Democrats between 2000 and 2004 that Chris has identified is accounted for by the swing-Muslem and Arab votes which, unsurprisingly, supported Bush (or Nader) over Marty Peretz in 2000 but swung heavily toward Kerry-Edwards in 2004 (the linked source, cribbed from MyDD, refers to the Muslem vote and excludes Christian Arabs), in response to John Ashcroft and the invasion of Iraq. It's less obvious that these groups would support (say) the AIPAC-friendly Hillary Clinton against (say) uber-independent John McCain. Meanwhile, a look at the trusty NYT exit spreadsheet shows that the white Protestant vote was identical in 2004 (66-33) to what it was in the last two-party election featuring a Massachusetts Democrat, 1988 (67-32). That the white Protestants voted about three points stronger Republican in 2004 than in 2000 might be simply attributable to the fact that the Democrats ran a southern conservative Protestant in 2000 and a northeastern liberal Catholic in 2004. And, given the many ways in which the 2004 election was unique, my guess is that, in assessing long-run voting tendencies, the 2000 numbers are more representative of how Americans usually vote and think about presidential elections.
But mainly, I disagree for the reasons I discussed on Monday regarding Kenneth Baer's and Third Way's recent discussion of income-based voting. More specifically, when Chris lists off the white Christian right's coalition of antis -- "gays, liberals, seculars, judges, immigrants, Muslims, scholars, entertainers, northeasterners, west coasters", he notably omits the groups that the right doesn't demagogue anymore: blacks, Hispanics and Jews, all of who fall into the "non-White or non-Christian" category, and whose votes the right is making serious plays for. Specifically, the GOP leadership is making appeals to the wealthy, and the perceivedly-upwardly-mobile, among those groups. As I discussed before, I don't think tomorrow's identity politics is going to be based on, or at least is going be decliningly based on, race or ethnicity or even, especially if the demographic shift toward secularism continues, religion (though both religion and marital status are likely to retain some of their bite). The big identity-determinant is going to be wealth, and the pseudo-class-distinctions forged between the upwardly mobile and those who perceive themselves as stuck further down the income ladder.
But what really sticks out to me in Chris' post is his pointing out the decline -- which I hadn't noticed before -- in the overall white vote, from 89% of the voting electorate in 1976 to 77% in 2004, mainly as the Hispanic bloc grows in size and, hence, in political importance (from 1% in 1976 to 8% in 2004). It's interesting to note that the white share was 87% as late as the Perot-fuelled-high-turnout 1992 election. But, even more interesting, is the fact that the relative share of the white vote vote declined four percentage points between 2000 and 2004 alone, from 81% to 77%, even as overall turnout among eligible voters increased from 51.3% to 60.3%. That is, even if Karl Rove's "four million evangelicals" did turn out this time (as they claim), the 17% of voters who didn't vote in 2000 had to be close to 2/3 nonwhite (according to most exit polls, Kerry's margin of victory among that 17% was 54-43). The 2004 election also saw the return to the Democratic fold of the mostly white liberal third party vote from 2000, which gave 71% of its 3% vote share to Kerry. What's really alarming here is that even such a large relative jump in the ranks of the pluralistic liberal coalition was not enough to keep the Democratic nominee from slipping a full 3% in the two-party match-up, and congressional Dems from slipping 2.5% against Republican congressional candidates.
From there, a couple of notes on 2008, which the media has already decided is going to be Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain. On his weblog, Eric Alterman writes:
Reading the ABC/WP poll, I do not relish a Hillary Clinton/John McCain race. Senator Clinton has a 51/46 favorability rating, before being election-campaign slimed. John McCain’s is 57/32, though I don’t see how McCain can get the Republican nomination, given that he turns out to be a liberal almost any time he decides to give any issue any thought. At a dinner party last week, we had an argument over whether Connie Bruck’s New Yorker profile was a mash note or not. I tended to think yes. But two editors insisted no, it made him seem to be a boorish egomaniac. Anyway, as of now, it seems that Hillary will get the Democratic nomination unless the opposition coalesces around someone else, rather quickly. The most obvious choice is Edwards, assuming Al Gore does not run. Kerry strikes me as hopeless, thank goodness. But I also keep hearing terrific things about Mark Warner, about whom I know nothing.
And yesterday, Atrios wrote on his blog, Eschaton:
People Who Will Never Be the Democratic Nominee for President
This is not about my personal preferences. Just stating the facts:
Bill Richardson
Ed Rendell
Joe Lieberman
Bob Kerrey
John Kerry (take 2, obviously)
Howard Dean
Both Alterman and Atrios are being a bit disingenous here, in my opinion. Why exactly does John Kerry look "hopeless"? He's still running second in the most recent opinion polls behind Hillary Clinton, ahead of John Edwards. And if we assume that these polls are meaningless, Kerry's real fortunes depend on how much Democratic donors and activists like him come the primaries. Depending on how much power the amateur and semi-pro liberal blogosphere has in four years time, and how well its views correspond to the views of most Democratic activists and donors, the fairly wide-ranging online belief that Kerry is history on the national level may (or may not) hurt him. But right now he has the two things a potential candidate needs: name recognition and a soapbox, the Senate floor.
So my very-early prediction (and definitely not my personal preference) is that the Republicans will in fact nominate John McCain (and Alterman is right that the Bruck piece was a mash note but, if it was actually meant to be critical, then that makes the rosy prospects reported there for McCain among his GOP breathern even more believable), with Newt Gingrich as the dark-horse and Virginia's Senator Allen and Kansas' Senator Brownback as the fallback establishment candidates. On the Dem side, my early money is -- yes -- on the party re-nominating John Kerry, with Hillary Clinton the not-very-dark-horse candidate taking a pass (this is actually the serious prediction), Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen (rather than Virginia's Mark Warner) as the actual dark-horse candidate, and with Edwards and Wes Clark as the fallback establishment candidates. You read it here first.
Finally, speaking of Kerry, this week we finally found out why he didn't sign Form 180 during the election campaign: because of his revealed low grade-point average at Yale (lower than Bush's!). There's been lots of discussion over the past two days about whether or not Kerry was a jerk not to release the papers during the campaign since they contained more refutations of Swift Vet allegations (including praise of Kerry by actual Swifties). My view: Kerry was not a jerk to hold back the forms; he was smart. The right wanted to paint Kerry as an unserious clambake-attending dilletante, the kind of warmed over New Leftie who'd flunk his way through the Ivy Leagues, protesting against the Vietnam War all day and partying with his comrades all night before moving into the Senate to vote against weapons systems. Meanwhile, the Swift Vet allegations had nothing to do with reality, literally or metaphorically. They were there to remind voters of the New Left and of what "dishonouring the troops" once meant, and of how the New Deal coalition once fractured. Another few factual refutations of their claims would have accomplished nothing for Kerry. Proving Kerry to have been a bad student at Yale, on the other hand, would have been something fresh for the right to pound him with. And caving in to the sweaty lynch mob demanding that Kerry release his records -- records that his detractors didn't and still don't have any right to see -- would have been far more wimpy than what Kerry actually did: defend his privacy, and the dignity that a president needs, in an impossible, intangible situation.
* Just as a final note, I don't think all of Dean's recent controversial commetary, like about how many Republicans "haven't done an honest day's work in their lives" or about how Tom Delay "ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence", or immitating Rush Limbaugh snorting coke at a rally in Minnesota, are boneheaded. And I think he was the obvious choice to head the DNC. The Democrats have been too afraid to make waves -- and to ridicule prominent Republicans -- for too long (they ought to listen to Canadian pols talk!). Dean gives activists, particularly perpetually-dissatisfied liberals, something to cheer about without, usually, seeming like a flaming libeal himself. And unless Dean is saying these things at crucial moments, like on-stage at the Democratic convention like leftwing Pat Buchanan, the specifics of his comments are irrelevant. Also, the Business Week-fostered meme about Dean not being an effective fundraiser is also bogus, as Keelin O'Donnell over at &c ought to know. But suggesting that the GOP is "pretty much a white Christian party" is dangerous and, even if broadly true, is untrue in the details (maybe Dean should read that Third Way study), not to mention just screaming out to be mau-maued.
Regarding demographics, Chris Bowers at Kos uses the flap over Howard Dean's boneheaded* remark about the GOP being "pretty much a white Christian party" to call attention to a post he made on the changing face of the electorate over at his own site, MyDD, back in April.
Chris did loads of thought-provoking work on the religious-ethnic identity-voting tendencies and trends among the American electorate and concludes in this piece that "the quickest way to summarize the developing demographic trends of the two coalitions is a [shriking, Republican-voting] white Christian coalition versus a [growing, Democratic-voting] non-white and / or non-Christian coalition."
I don't totally agree with Chris' conclusions, other than the point about the vibrant, and probably permanent, Democratic pluralism. For one thing, not all secular whites mind the religious right enough to vote against them if the GOP appeals on other, for instance economic, issues. Outside of intensely-libertarian circles, the religious right has had the luxury of being an interest group that many people vote for but fewer people vote against (that may well change given its recent overreaching, but, if so, there's always John McCain). Also, part of the shift of non-White, non-Christian voters toward the Democrats between 2000 and 2004 that Chris has identified is accounted for by the swing-Muslem and Arab votes which, unsurprisingly, supported Bush (or Nader) over Marty Peretz in 2000 but swung heavily toward Kerry-Edwards in 2004 (the linked source, cribbed from MyDD, refers to the Muslem vote and excludes Christian Arabs), in response to John Ashcroft and the invasion of Iraq. It's less obvious that these groups would support (say) the AIPAC-friendly Hillary Clinton against (say) uber-independent John McCain. Meanwhile, a look at the trusty NYT exit spreadsheet shows that the white Protestant vote was identical in 2004 (66-33) to what it was in the last two-party election featuring a Massachusetts Democrat, 1988 (67-32). That the white Protestants voted about three points stronger Republican in 2004 than in 2000 might be simply attributable to the fact that the Democrats ran a southern conservative Protestant in 2000 and a northeastern liberal Catholic in 2004. And, given the many ways in which the 2004 election was unique, my guess is that, in assessing long-run voting tendencies, the 2000 numbers are more representative of how Americans usually vote and think about presidential elections.
But mainly, I disagree for the reasons I discussed on Monday regarding Kenneth Baer's and Third Way's recent discussion of income-based voting. More specifically, when Chris lists off the white Christian right's coalition of antis -- "gays, liberals, seculars, judges, immigrants, Muslims, scholars, entertainers, northeasterners, west coasters", he notably omits the groups that the right doesn't demagogue anymore: blacks, Hispanics and Jews, all of who fall into the "non-White or non-Christian" category, and whose votes the right is making serious plays for. Specifically, the GOP leadership is making appeals to the wealthy, and the perceivedly-upwardly-mobile, among those groups. As I discussed before, I don't think tomorrow's identity politics is going to be based on, or at least is going be decliningly based on, race or ethnicity or even, especially if the demographic shift toward secularism continues, religion (though both religion and marital status are likely to retain some of their bite). The big identity-determinant is going to be wealth, and the pseudo-class-distinctions forged between the upwardly mobile and those who perceive themselves as stuck further down the income ladder.
But what really sticks out to me in Chris' post is his pointing out the decline -- which I hadn't noticed before -- in the overall white vote, from 89% of the voting electorate in 1976 to 77% in 2004, mainly as the Hispanic bloc grows in size and, hence, in political importance (from 1% in 1976 to 8% in 2004). It's interesting to note that the white share was 87% as late as the Perot-fuelled-high-turnout 1992 election. But, even more interesting, is the fact that the relative share of the white vote vote declined four percentage points between 2000 and 2004 alone, from 81% to 77%, even as overall turnout among eligible voters increased from 51.3% to 60.3%. That is, even if Karl Rove's "four million evangelicals" did turn out this time (as they claim), the 17% of voters who didn't vote in 2000 had to be close to 2/3 nonwhite (according to most exit polls, Kerry's margin of victory among that 17% was 54-43). The 2004 election also saw the return to the Democratic fold of the mostly white liberal third party vote from 2000, which gave 71% of its 3% vote share to Kerry. What's really alarming here is that even such a large relative jump in the ranks of the pluralistic liberal coalition was not enough to keep the Democratic nominee from slipping a full 3% in the two-party match-up, and congressional Dems from slipping 2.5% against Republican congressional candidates.
From there, a couple of notes on 2008, which the media has already decided is going to be Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain. On his weblog, Eric Alterman writes:
Reading the ABC/WP poll, I do not relish a Hillary Clinton/John McCain race. Senator Clinton has a 51/46 favorability rating, before being election-campaign slimed. John McCain’s is 57/32, though I don’t see how McCain can get the Republican nomination, given that he turns out to be a liberal almost any time he decides to give any issue any thought. At a dinner party last week, we had an argument over whether Connie Bruck’s New Yorker profile was a mash note or not. I tended to think yes. But two editors insisted no, it made him seem to be a boorish egomaniac. Anyway, as of now, it seems that Hillary will get the Democratic nomination unless the opposition coalesces around someone else, rather quickly. The most obvious choice is Edwards, assuming Al Gore does not run. Kerry strikes me as hopeless, thank goodness. But I also keep hearing terrific things about Mark Warner, about whom I know nothing.
And yesterday, Atrios wrote on his blog, Eschaton:
People Who Will Never Be the Democratic Nominee for President
This is not about my personal preferences. Just stating the facts:
Bill Richardson
Ed Rendell
Joe Lieberman
Bob Kerrey
John Kerry (take 2, obviously)
Howard Dean
Both Alterman and Atrios are being a bit disingenous here, in my opinion. Why exactly does John Kerry look "hopeless"? He's still running second in the most recent opinion polls behind Hillary Clinton, ahead of John Edwards. And if we assume that these polls are meaningless, Kerry's real fortunes depend on how much Democratic donors and activists like him come the primaries. Depending on how much power the amateur and semi-pro liberal blogosphere has in four years time, and how well its views correspond to the views of most Democratic activists and donors, the fairly wide-ranging online belief that Kerry is history on the national level may (or may not) hurt him. But right now he has the two things a potential candidate needs: name recognition and a soapbox, the Senate floor.
So my very-early prediction (and definitely not my personal preference) is that the Republicans will in fact nominate John McCain (and Alterman is right that the Bruck piece was a mash note but, if it was actually meant to be critical, then that makes the rosy prospects reported there for McCain among his GOP breathern even more believable), with Newt Gingrich as the dark-horse and Virginia's Senator Allen and Kansas' Senator Brownback as the fallback establishment candidates. On the Dem side, my early money is -- yes -- on the party re-nominating John Kerry, with Hillary Clinton the not-very-dark-horse candidate taking a pass (this is actually the serious prediction), Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen (rather than Virginia's Mark Warner) as the actual dark-horse candidate, and with Edwards and Wes Clark as the fallback establishment candidates. You read it here first.
Finally, speaking of Kerry, this week we finally found out why he didn't sign Form 180 during the election campaign: because of his revealed low grade-point average at Yale (lower than Bush's!). There's been lots of discussion over the past two days about whether or not Kerry was a jerk not to release the papers during the campaign since they contained more refutations of Swift Vet allegations (including praise of Kerry by actual Swifties). My view: Kerry was not a jerk to hold back the forms; he was smart. The right wanted to paint Kerry as an unserious clambake-attending dilletante, the kind of warmed over New Leftie who'd flunk his way through the Ivy Leagues, protesting against the Vietnam War all day and partying with his comrades all night before moving into the Senate to vote against weapons systems. Meanwhile, the Swift Vet allegations had nothing to do with reality, literally or metaphorically. They were there to remind voters of the New Left and of what "dishonouring the troops" once meant, and of how the New Deal coalition once fractured. Another few factual refutations of their claims would have accomplished nothing for Kerry. Proving Kerry to have been a bad student at Yale, on the other hand, would have been something fresh for the right to pound him with. And caving in to the sweaty lynch mob demanding that Kerry release his records -- records that his detractors didn't and still don't have any right to see -- would have been far more wimpy than what Kerry actually did: defend his privacy, and the dignity that a president needs, in an impossible, intangible situation.
* Just as a final note, I don't think all of Dean's recent controversial commetary, like about how many Republicans "haven't done an honest day's work in their lives" or about how Tom Delay "ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence", or immitating Rush Limbaugh snorting coke at a rally in Minnesota, are boneheaded. And I think he was the obvious choice to head the DNC. The Democrats have been too afraid to make waves -- and to ridicule prominent Republicans -- for too long (they ought to listen to Canadian pols talk!). Dean gives activists, particularly perpetually-dissatisfied liberals, something to cheer about without, usually, seeming like a flaming libeal himself. And unless Dean is saying these things at crucial moments, like on-stage at the Democratic convention like leftwing Pat Buchanan, the specifics of his comments are irrelevant. Also, the Business Week-fostered meme about Dean not being an effective fundraiser is also bogus, as Keelin O'Donnell over at &c ought to know. But suggesting that the GOP is "pretty much a white Christian party" is dangerous and, even if broadly true, is untrue in the details (maybe Dean should read that Third Way study), not to mention just screaming out to be mau-maued.
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