Sabato’s Crystal Ball: Another Twofer
Larry J. Sabato on OLD MATH, NEW MATH, AND THE DISPUTE OVER THE “POPULAR VOTE” AND Alan I. Abramowitz on THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING REPUBLICAN BASE.
Give Hillary Clinton credit. She has shown toughness, stamina, and persistence in one of the longest presidential campaigns in American history. She has fought hard and come back time and again in the 2008 primary season, defying the pundits who insisted on writing her political obituary prematurely. She has held the charismatic phenomenon named Barack Obama almost to a draw in the fight for votes and delegates in the Democratic Party’s nominating battle.
As some of Obama’s weaknesses become more apparent — and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright continues to bask in the spotlight — her arguments are drawing new attention, and Democratic leaders are considering them. It’s easy to see why. Imagine if John F. Kennedy’s priest or bishop had proven divisive and taken the public stage in 1960, claiming the campaign had become an attack on the Catholic Church, just as Rev. Wright has insisted that the controversy over his sermons are an assault on the “black church”. There would have been no JFK presidency.
All that being true, the odds remain long that she will overcome Obama’s lead. With just seven states (plus Puerto Rico and Guam) remaining on the primary schedule, Obama is ahead by close to 160 elected “pledged” delegates and, overall, by about 130 delegates, once the superdelegates are included. This may not sound like many in a convention that will host more than 4,000 delegates, but the party’s strict proportional allotment regimen makes it difficult to gain a sizeable number of delegates quickly. (Incredibly, a candidate can win a big state and net a mere handful of delegates. The Democrats have developed a system so fair that it is unfair.) Despite their name, pledged delegates are not truly bound to back their candidate, but they have been carefully chosen by the campaigns and are highly unlikely to shift allegiance.
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THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING REPUBLICAN BASE
Societal trends reshaping the American electorateDiscussions of the current political situation and comparisons between the 2008 election and earlier contests frequently overlook a crucial fact. As a result of changes in American society, today’s electorate is very different from the electorate of twenty, thirty, or forty years ago. Three long-term trends have been especially significant in this regard: increasing racial diversity, declining rates of marriage, and changes in religious beliefs. As a result of these trends, today’s voters are less likely to be white, less likely to be married, and less likely to consider themselves Christians than voters of just a few decades ago.
The combined impact of these trends on the composition of the electorate has been dramatic. Married white Christians now make up less than half of all voters in the United States and less than one fifth of voters under the age of 30. The declining proportion of married white Christians in the electorate has important political implications because in recent years married white Christians have been among the most loyal supporters of the Republican Party. In American politics today, whether you are a married white Christian is a much stronger predictor of your political preferences than your gender or your class — the two demographic characteristics that dominate much of the debate on contemporary American politics.
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One Response to “Sabato’s Crystal Ball: Another Twofer”
They have lost many a battle since 1980, but the Dems still are winning and likely have won the war. People tend to look to government, and particularly Washington when they look to government, first and foremost. Oh, there is obvious contempt for the more degenerate, destructive, nihilistic, pathological radicalism of the late 1960s Left and its legacy. An example addressed in one book I got when I went to St. Louis several days ago is by McWhorter, “Winning the Race,” about the large part of the black American community who has not progressed, if anything, done the opposite. He discusses the radicals “anger for anger's sake” and what was happening then and continues to happen now, aped by Chomsky-ish naive kids in every year's succeeding generation — “therapeutic alienation.”
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/winningtherace/
But overall, the Dems have won the war. Maybe the conceit as well as anger and destructiveness in the late 1960s was sparked by the same event that is said to have been the nadir and start of the revival of the Right in this country, namely the 1964 Presidential election. When you think about it, Goldwater tried to struggle against the New Deal and all it was encouraging Dems to attempt in growing arrogance — but the New Deal (and the modern welfare state with Washington forming a de facto if not de jure national all-supreme government) won.
And one result of that victory, and all it represented back to the New Deal — “We will tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect” — is what appeals to an ever-larger-every-year community: Those who are addicted to entitlements (their opiate).
That more than any demographic changes that favor the Dems (not only minority population growth, but aging and dependence on Washington for health care by the older Americans alone, with more groups to come), the view of an all-powerful Washington and dependence on entitlements (leveraged if new entitlements can ever be created), has the Dems looking strong for the future, with the GOP these days and likely in the future as little more than The Opposition (without amounting to much of a real, political, fiscal, philosophical opposition, especially these days in the Northeast).