Historians of American politics have often singled out certain presidential contests as being "turning-point elections." These are elections where there has been a substantial shift in electoral alliances, occasionally so massive that it inaugurates an entirely new "party system." Historians often single out the elections of 1800, 1832, 1860, 1896, 1932, and 1968 as such "turning-points." For instance, the 1968 election saw Nixon's "Southern strategy" successfully turn the once-solidly Democratic South into a bastion for the GOP. In 1932, it was the FDR New Deal coalition that wooed blacks and organized labor into the Democratic camp. In each of these elections, then, a portion of the electorate that had once been aligned with one party drifted over to another party, thus transforming politics for a generation or more.
If history is any guide, these turning-points take place at roughly 28-36 year intervals. The last turning-point election, 1968, should have therefore been followed by another turning-point in 2000 or 2004. Those elections, however, were about as static as any elections could be (only three states, NM, IA, and NH, switched party categories in those elections). No major shifts in allegiance there, even though Karl Rove fancied himself as a modern-day
Mark Hanna and explicitly sought to replicate the transformative election of 1896. As
he stated in anticipation of the 2000 contest: "'I look at this time as 1896, the time where we saw the rise of William McKinley and his vice president, Teddy Roosevelt ... That was the last time we had a shift in political paradigm,' Rove told the Austin American-Statesman in November 1998." Which only shows that Rove was as bad a historian as he was a prognosticator (not only did Rove forget about 1932 and 1968 as "paradigm shifts," he forgot that Teddy Roosevelt wasn't McKinley's running-mate in 1896).
If there is any validity to the theory of turning-point elections, then, we are overdue for one now. The same electoral alliances that were bred from Nixon's 1968 campaign were in place in 2004: Southern whites, evangelicals, law-and-order urbanites, suburban fiscal conservatives, and farmers/rural "libertarians" on the Republican side; urban liberals, blacks, union members, and college-educated "humanists" on the Democratic side. The question, then, is: what sort of electoral realignment might take place in 2008?
I think it's quite possible for there to be a major shift in electoral alliances in 2008. We have already seen inklings of it in the results of the 2006 congressional races. As I see it, there are three likely groups that are dissatisfied enough with the current alignment that they might shift their political allegiances:
[b]1. Social moderates/fiscal conservatives[/b]: Call them the "Jesse Ventura Republicans." These are people who place far more emphasis on economic issues balanced budgets and free trade than on social issues like abortion and gay rights. Currently, many of them feel that their concerns are being ignored by the GOP, which is catering to the evangelical wing of their party while neglecting core conservative fiscal values handed down since the era of William McKinley (1896, by the way, was a turning-point election because the "hard-money" Democrats split from their party and joined the Republicans -- it would be ironic if Rove finally gets his 1896-style turning point election in 2008 when "hard-money" Republicans split from their party and join the Democrats).
[b]2. Suburbanites[/b]: Dwight Eisenhower essentially created American suburbia. Through the massive federal highway programs of the 1950s, large numbers of urban dwellers finally had the means of living in the suburbs while commuting to the cities. This first-generation of suburbanites tended to be white, middle-class, and increasingly conservative, as their wealth was often tied to their homes, and the value of their homes was, in turn, tied to the maintenance of the status quo in their communities. That meant that suburbanites wanted, above all else, to avoid the evils of the urban core (read: living near blacks and other minorities).
Two things have changed over the past forty years, however: (a) suburbs are becoming to look more and more like the rest of the country; and (b) as the first-generation suburbanites are dying off, their kids are turning out to be more tolerant of racial and ethnic diversity. The proverbial "soccer moms" are, on the whole, more interested in educational reforms than they are fearful of a black family moving in next door. And like the "Jesse Ventura Republicans," they are less socially conservative (and more highly educated) than the evangelical wing of the Republican Party, to which they have been attached since Ike's administration.
[b]3. Western "libertarians"[/b]: These are the "gummint oughta' mind its own binness" kind of "libertarians," the ones who place individual rights above everything else. Although one can find these types everywhere, they're especially prominent in the Rocky Mountain region -- Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada (but not Utah). Long affiliated with a Republican Party that has proclaimed its adherence to the principles of "small government," they have lately been showing signs of restlessness over the Bush administration's eagerness to encroach on individual liberties. In the 2006 elections, the Rocky Mountain region was a fertile ground for Democratic gains (e.g. the elections of Bill Ritter as Colorado governor and Jon Tester as senator from Montana).
If any of these groups splits from the GOP, it would be significant. If two or more of them split, I think it would be safe to say that it would constitute a turning-point election. Much depends, however, on the candidates who are ultimately nominated as the standard-bearers for their parties.
I think that the nomination of Rudy Giuliani can, all by itself, potentially cripple if not destroy the Republican Party. It would, as the Marxists might say, "heighten the antagonisms" that already threaten to split the party. Evangelical Christians will either have to hold their collective nose and vote for a pro-abortion, pro-gay rights candidate, abstain from participating, or split off into a political wilderness of one-issue third-parties and electoral impotence. None of those options is particularly attractive, and so it is likely that all three will be followed.
Any other candidate besides Giuliani (even Romney) will be able to hold onto the evangelical wing of the party, but with every passing day it becomes less and less likely that they will be able to maintain control over the three groups identified above. In large part, that's because of the war (you were wondering when I'd mention that, weren't you?). The war in Iraq is the kind of single, momentous event that can catalyze these disparate electoral reactions, just as the depressions of the 1890s and 1930s and the civil rights movement led to the electoral realignments of 1896, 1932, and 1968. The war is the kind of event that, oddly enough,
Karl Rove hoped to base an electoral realignment upon (
Atlantic Monthly sub. req'd), and which he thought the attacks of 9/11 would be (they weren't). Rather than the fortuitous event of 9/11 being the basis for a turning-point election in favor of the GOP in 2004, however, it was calculated event of the Iraq war that has provided the possible basis for a turning-point election in favor of the Democrats in 2008.
Of course, just as the GOP candidate is an important ingredient in this mix, so too is the Democratic candidate. As I see it, all of the Democratic contenders could take advantage of the possible electoral realignments outlined above and make 2008 into a turning-point election -- except for one: Hillary Clinton. Clinton has the unique ability, among all the Democratic candidates, of uniting disparate and otherwise irreconcilable elements of the GOP behind a common issue: their abiding hatred of Hillary Clinton. Persons who might be tempted to desert the GOP over ideological issues, therefore, might be persuaded to stay put out of sheer animosity toward the Clintons. Just as Giuliani has the singular ability of crippling the GOP, then, Clinton has the singular ability of delaying or even quashing the kind of electoral realignment that history says is now overdue.
Oddly enough, it is Giuliani and Clinton who are currently leading their respective parties in the national polls. Both parties, it seems, are intent upon nominating the one candidate who can single-handedly destroy their best chances for electoral success -- Giuliani by splintering the GOP, Clinton by solidifying the post-1968 electoral alignment. If it is a Giuliani-Clinton election, then, we may be faced with a turning-point election that perversely refuses to turn.
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