Will 2008 be a turning-point election?

To add to the cognitive dissonance, there's Kristol's most recent column at WS root, root, rooting for an upsurge in Bush's popularity polling figures. It's typical deny-everything Kristol but this bit is relevant...

Quote:

This is the conventional GOP response to concerns about Bush's low approval rating: 2008 won't be about Bush. He's not running for reelection. Nor is his vice president. And the leading GOP candidates have a very limited association with the Bush administration. What's more, 2006, an off-year election, was a retrospective verdict on Iraq and Katrina. This year's election will be forward-looking. Rahm Emanuel can repeat all he wants that "George Bush is on the ballot in 2008." But that's just Democratic spin.

That's what most Republicans are saying. But the truth is that Emanuel isn't all wrong: It is important to Republican prospects in 2008, and to conservative prospects beyond, how the Bush administration is judged.

Kristol, who is more properly understood as a propagandist rather than any other descriptor, understands narrative and myth propagation. We recognize there's no cause a fellow like Kristol would actually risk life and limb and West Side condo for, but he'd be seriously happy to risk other people's stuff for, say, the maintenance of Reagan sainthood.

The sentence in red points out how, as Kristol correctly perceives, a continuance of such broad negative notions (among even republicans) about Bush and his administration will work serious damage up the road on 'the republican/conservative brand'.

And there's where the 'change election' idea fits in. Kristol is bright enough to know the connection between these two things.

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Probably meaningless but nevertheless interesting data point:

Quote:

Yesterday, in a tiny northern corner of New York state, in a blood-red district six hours from Manhattan, a Democratic assemblyman walloped a Republican opponent in a hotly-contested race for a vacant state senate seat.

The race is of interest not least because it represents a Democratic takeover of one of the most staunchly Republican constituencies in the state--the district was last represented by a Democrat in the early (00s-early) 20th century. It also closes the Republican margin in the state senate--GOP-controlled since the 1960s--to a single vote.

The district was last represented by a Democrat 100 years ago - that's pretty cool. All of and by itself:

Dairy Farming and the God Gap

Of course, the full story is more ambiguous - but even more interesting for it:

Quote:

Scads of local Democratic money and big GOTV efforts from progressive state organizations like the Working Families Party went into this more-than-symbolic victory. The real story, however, may be the political heterodoxy of both these candidates.

Darrel Aubertine, sixth-generation Democrat (and dairy farmer) and yesterday's winner, holds a staunchly pro-life position on abortion. William Barclay, conversely, is a lifelong Republican with a whiff of the aristocratic about him, who nonetheless supports choice.

Though electing Democratic candidates is the name of the game for liberals this election year, the Aubertine pill was hard to swallow for hardcore, upscale Democrats in New York City. A friend in local politics told me that the sense of trench warfare, especially among older voters for whom abortion rights are sacrosanct, made Aubertine seem "suspect."

Then there's the blogger's personal take on the matter:

Quote:

If the New York 48th district race proves anything, it may be that Democratic party affiliation is finally being freed of an outdated litmus test on choice. Amy Sullivan probes this "god gap" willingly and thoughtfully [..]. She details the massive failure of Democrats to reach out to people of faith basically since the 1980s, ceding valuable political ground and pigeonholing the party as one that "prized fealty to the pro-choice position over even party affiliation."

[..] There are also hints of greater changes to come if Obama is the Democratic nominee [..]. If the Democratic politicians do overcome the fear of religion and the self-imposed God Gap, I'd be the first to say the progressive agenda is in great shape.

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nimh wrote:

Probably meaningless but nevertheless interesting data point:

Quote:
Yesterday, in a tiny northern corner of New York state, in a blood-red district six hours from Manhattan, a Democratic assemblyman walloped a Republican opponent in a hotly-contested race for a vacant state senate seat.

The race is of interest not least because it represents a Democratic takeover of one of the most staunchly Republican constituencies in the state--the district was last represented by a Democrat in the early (00s-early) 20th century. It also closes the Republican margin in the state senate--GOP-controlled since the 1960s--to a single vote.

The district was last represented by a Democrat 100 years ago - that's pretty cool. All of and by itself:

Dairy Farming and the God Gap

Of course, the full story is more ambiguous - but even more interesting for it:

Quote:
Scads of local Democratic money and big GOTV efforts from progressive state organizations like the Working Families Party went into this more-than-symbolic victory. The real story, however, may be the political heterodoxy of both these candidates.

Darrel Aubertine, sixth-generation Democrat (and dairy farmer) and yesterday's winner, holds a staunchly pro-life position on abortion. William Barclay, conversely, is a lifelong Republican with a whiff of the aristocratic about him, who nonetheless supports choice.

Though electing Democratic candidates is the name of the game for liberals this election year, the Aubertine pill was hard to swallow for hardcore, upscale Democrats in New York City. A friend in local politics told me that the sense of trench warfare, especially among older voters for whom abortion rights are sacrosanct, made Aubertine seem "suspect."

Then there's the blogger's personal take on the matter:

Quote:
If the New York 48th district race proves anything, it may be that Democratic party affiliation is finally being freed of an outdated litmus test on choice. Amy Sullivan probes this "god gap" willingly and thoughtfully [..]. She details the massive failure of Democrats to reach out to people of faith basically since the 1980s, ceding valuable political ground and pigeonholing the party as one that "prized fealty to the pro-choice position over even party affiliation."

[..] There are also hints of greater changes to come if Obama is the Democratic nominee [..]. If the Democratic politicians do overcome the fear of religion and the self-imposed God Gap, I'd be the first to say the progressive agenda is in great shape.

They also got 14-24" of snow Tuesday. Barclay did not sit well with people for some reason and the Dem's have more 4x4's I suppose. I doubt it repeats itself when he runs again in Novemeber this year.

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McGentrix wrote:

They also got 14-24" of snow Tuesday. [..] the Dem's have more 4x4's I suppose.

Congratulations! You have won the special prize for the most out in leftfield explication of an election result posted this year.

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nimh wrote:

McGentrix wrote:
They also got 14-24" of snow Tuesday. [..] the Dem's have more 4x4's I suppose.

Congratulations! You have won the special prize for the most out in leftfield explication of an election result posted this year.

Yay!

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After Hastert's old seat went in March, another House seat that was Republican for decades fell to the Dems in a special election this weekend:

Quote:

Democrats Call Victory a Sign G.O.P. Tactic Failed

May 5, 2008
New York Times

The Louisiana seat won by Don Cazayoux had been Republican for over 30 years. The incumbent had resigned to take a lobbying job. National Republican groups had spent heavily on advertising that sought to connect Cazayoux to Obama as the furor over Rev. Wright was raging.

To recapture the House in November, Republicans now would need to take over at least 18 Democratic seats, defend more than two dozen positions left open because of retirements and avoid losses by incumbents.

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Revisiting this thread after more than four years, I am more persuaded than ever that 2008 will be looked upon as a "turning-point election." There is a very good chance that the demographic shifts that were apparent in 2007 were not transitory blips on the political radar screen (like the South's defection from the Democratic party in 1928), but a long-term realignment (like the South's defection from the Democratic party in 1972).

There are, however, two demographic trends that I failed to identify in my initial post. The first is ethnic. George W. Bush did relatively well among the Latino community, but that support shifted decisively toward Obama in 2008, and Latinos have remained a solid constituency in the Democratic camp ever since. Asians, a negligible proportion of the electorate prior to 2008, are likewise trending Democratic. Together with blacks (who have been aligned with the Democrats since the turning-point election of 1932), these ethnic groups will have an increasingly important say in who gets elected on the national level as their numbers grow in the years to come.

The second shift is age-related. The GOP has become older and whiter over the past decade. That helped in the short-term, as whites represented an overwhelmingly large proportion of the electorate and older voters tended to vote in greater numbers than their younger counterparts. But, in the long run, the demographics are all working against the Republicans, as whites lose ground to minorities and old voters are being replaced by young voters who no longer can be counted on to share the core values of their parents. The recent success of gay marriage and marijuana ballot initiatives in several states, as well as voter reaction against anti-abortion rhetoric in the Indiana and Missouri senate races, shows that we may have reached a tipping point on some of these previously incendiary social issues.

If the Democrats have been able to put together a solid coalition of white educated urban liberals, blacks, Latinos, and Asians, we may see the kind of realignment that happens about every 32 years or so in American politics. That's bad news for Republicans, who can expect to roam the wilderness for the next few decades. But then it does provide them with some hope that things will start looking up for them again ... around 2040.

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@edgarblythe,

Dont worry. The Isralies will lead our idiots into another war with Iran so nothing will really change.

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This is one thing a whole lot of us can probably agree upon: 2008 was a turning point election. Unfortunately, a great many of us believe the country reached a point in 2008 where it made a wrong turn.

Time will tell.

No doubt there will be leftwing folks telling us all is well and getting better right until all the lights go off.

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@joefromchicago,

Hello, joe (and Finn, etc)

When Romney got the nomination, I thought of you. We'd both presumed (I think I recall this correctly) that Romney would have no chance to gain any future nomination from the party's evangelicals, because of his Mormon faith. That they did fall into line, if with diluted passion, probably lends weight to your thesis here. They wanted to win and an interim placeholder of the electable sort might be their best bet, they apparently hoped. Though it isn't as if they have no history of falling for con men with a mane of hair and a godly chin who say what they want to hear.

Most of us did miss the demographic changes taking place. It was the more serious wonks who saw this early on. Likewise, the potentials in new modes of communication and organization (a sort of leap-frog on the earlier direct mail tech of Viguerie and Rove) to optimize the demographic changes. Among them, clearly, were people in Obama's team (thank you jesus).

There seems to be little now that is working in favor of the Republicans' future electoral chances (Craven has a brief post up making this claim and I'm sure he has it right). Where they yet have strength is in a lot of state houses, a near endless stream of big money donors of the Bircher sort, a significant institutional structure (in Josh Marshall's observation - "DC is wired for Republicans"), a media universe of their own and the epistemic closure which it facilitates, and no small access to serious marketing expertise. How much damage they can yet do isn't clear to me but I'm not at all sanguine about this.

In any case, lovely to see you again.

And to Finn, I think you can relax. I mean, it is not as if progressive legislation and values were absent during the period of time from between the wars and up through the eighties when America rose to world economic dominance and when the prospects of the middle class were rather more rosy than has been the case since Reagan (who also had great hair and chin).

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@blatham,

Quote:

When Romney got the nomination, I thought of you. We'd both presumed (I think I recall this correctly) that Romney would have no chance to gain any future nomination from the party's evangelicals, because of his Mormon faith. That they did fall into line, if with diluted passion,

It means Bernie and Joe got it wrong and the "diluted passion" is brought in as an excuse. The bookies had it right from the start.

I'm sorry Bernie but you know how much you liberals believe in the plain, unvarnished truth.

How are you doing?

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@blatham,

Re institutionalization and funding, let me note this item I just ran across in an AP report on the NRA going silent right now. Look at these figures...

"In all, the group spent at least $24 million this election cycle - $16.8 million through its political action committee and nearly $7.5 million through its affiliated Institute for Legislative Action. Its chief foil, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, spent just $5,816.

On direct lobbying, the NRA also was mismatched. Through July 1, the NRA spent $4.4 million to lobby Congress to the Brady Campaign's $60,000." http://apne.ws/WmtCIG

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

In any case, lovely to see you again.

And you as well. Don't be a stranger.

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@blatham,

Welcome back blatham.

Did Obama winning re-election wake you from an enchanted sleep imposed by an evil Tea Party sorcerer?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Hi Finn
I stopped by to offer my respects when Dys passed away a year ago. And again just before the election to say hello to georgeob and to check to see what his thoughts were on the state of his party and movement (I had just received a phone call from a mutual friend, lifelong conservative, who told me she was voting for Obama). George's responses were friendly and engaging, as always, but then he went on about his preference for "liberty". Such a handy word, that one. It's a wrench! It's a bottle opener! Why, it's even a marital aid! I didn't really press the issue very diligently, presuming George had been napping during the entire GOP primary/Bertolt Brecht performance.

The Tea Party was all the rage there for a bit, wasn't it. I'd like to better understand why it now polls in the range of the dentist in Marathon Man.

1 Reply

@blatham,

I know we disagree on a few minor points Bernie but your creative writing style is something A2K needs more of. Desperately.

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@spendius,

Well, that's very kind of you. On both counts.

How are you?

1 Reply

@blatham,

I'm starting to show the first signs of galloping acrocomologa. Otherwise I'm okay.

Will 2008 be a turning-point election?

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