I’ve been swamped with WaMo duties, primarily getting our new January/February issue posted online so all you freeloaders can read it without getting a subscription to the print version.
When I have a chance, I will be responding to Paul Waldman’s assertion in the Washington Post that the next Democratic presidential nominee (presumably Hillary Clinton) will not need to do particularly well among white working class voters in order to win the election.
The short version is that this is correct but that, unless the next president wants to spend four to eight years limited to signing executive orders and issuing vetoes, they’ll need to do much better among so-called downscale whites than Obama did, or than the Democrats have been doing in midterm elections.
Winning the presidency is great. Being able to do something when you get there is much better.
It won’t take much to do much better than Obama among whites.
Just don’t be black.
It seems this should be true, and yet it isn’t. If you look at the white votes for Democratic presidential candidates (all white) over the last couple of decades, win or lose you will see that none of them did much better than Obama, and a few did worse. I have cited these statistics several times on this blog, too tired to look them up again now.
As for Hillary Clinton, forget white working class men for a moment; we hear so much about the changing demographic, younger voters of all races with far more progressive views, but who may not bother to show up for a candidate they don’t find exciting. I doubt they will find Hillary Clinton an exciting candidate.
(This was a reply to the comment of DerFarm.)
Actually, given that Hillary would be the first female president ever (p < 10^-13 indicative of male bias) and that’s she’s pushing for a minimum wage increase that will affect a lot of younger voters, I expect she will be exciting to younger voters. Nobody much younger than thirty-five will be much bothered by another Clinton administration, because they won’t remember the first time. And historically the Clinton years were the best for ordinary Americans since at least the sixties – it’s an appealing repeat for most people.
Indeed, HRC polls incredibly well with younger voters, particularly young women.
Look at the 3 million in the Ready for Hillary, look at the pics, the rallies, the bus, the selfies and what do you see?
And women are more likely to vote, too.
What people will not forget is that Hillary is a top dog Corporate Democrat. If the Republican came out for minimum wage increase, what difference would there be? Why would that matter anyway since it would never even get voted on in the House? Attacking a rigged system that has destroyed even the chance for upward mobility is something that would generate excitement across the board. If Hillary tries that, no one will believe her. If nominated Hillary will lose to the most extreme Republican you can imagine
If lightning strikes and the Republican comes out with support for a minimum wage increase, Hillary Clinton is competitive enough to up the ante just enough to stay ahead. Those corporations who support her have rather specific reasons for not supporting Republicans unless they are playing both teams.
I find it highly unlikely that Republicans could succeed running to the left of Hillary Clinton.
If Hillary Clinton loses to the most extreme Republican and that’s a big field, it says more about the media environment and political culture of the US (and the agenda of the powers that be) than it does about Hillary Clinton’s positions. I’m expecting a chameleon Republican.
Republicans don’t need to run to the left of Hillary but just do enough so Hillary and the DLC keep doing just enough to stay ahead in the horse race. We lost the midterms because the Democratic base went promptly to sleep and I’m getting tired already. If the race is between Corporate Republicans and Corporate Democrats there is really no difference so why bother. It’s the DLC as much as Hillary that will lose this next election.
If lightning could strike I want it to strike the DLC and kill most of it. There is an enormous progressive revolt just under the surface. If we can tap into that energy with a progressive agenda that would make the occupy movement proud and recruit candidates that not only challenge Republicans but Corporate Democrats as well we might win really big. Hillary is just the wrong person to lead something like this.
Why do I think a nut case Republican could win? I just watched it happen to my horror in the Senate race for Colorado. The only way to wake up the Democratic base is to give them something to vote and fight for that counts.
I’ve never seen any indication that Hillary was a Corporate Democrat. In the Senate she was close to the median Senate Democrat, and her platform was so close to Obama’s during the 2008 primary they had a hard time finding stuff to disagree on. Hillary has always been, first and foremost, a politician who wants to be elected. If she thinks the road to the White House is giving fire-breating liberal speeches to fire up the base, that’s what we’ll get. FWIW, by rumour she’s always been more liberally inclined than her official policy positions have indicated.
In terms of policy, the country has moved so far to the right any decent person is going to do us a lot of good. If we can get a substantive increase in the minimum wage, real voting right protections, and a Supreme Court that will be decent about basic human rights, I’ll be pretty content. Hillary will deliver all that, as long as we can get a House that will do it too.
I’ll admit to some concern she hasn’t recognized how profoundly politics has changed since Bill got elected running on an “appeal to the center” approach. Today it’s “excite the base without the media labelling you a loon”. But I don’t think many other politicians have recognized the change either.
I disagree about indications she’s a corporate Dem, but agree that she doesn’t recognize how much things have changed not how much politics has changed but how much the issues have changed. Watch her answering off the cuff questions. She seems to draw a blank and give some kind of non-statement. paradigmatic to me was when someone asked her about Ferguson. there doesn’t seem to be any there there in terms of convictions, beliefs, issues.
Besides she remembers being under fire in Bosnia. It will be good to have a combat veteran back in the White House, no?
Look at what she DOES, not what she SAYS. Actually, that’s good advice in general when dealing with human beings and reasonable facsimiles.
Presidential fixation has killed the Democratic Party over a whole swath of the US geography. It shows no sign of abating, even with Ms. Inevitable.
Congress and legislatures are what will turn policy. And the big money has not stopped working to 50-state federalism a straitjacket around Congressional policy.
And then there’s the newfound self-consciousness, politicization, and independence of the “guardian” class. The Oathkeepers movement is going to look so weak and innocent in a year or so. And the extortion will become more blatant; Patrick Lynch is only the Capistrano swallow of this trend.
And DeeCee will remain in their gloriously rewarding bubble as the rest of the country collapses in self-perpetuating lunacy.
And the political contradiction is that if the voters believe that the government should have no role in the economy (yeah, yeah), then there is absolutely nothing to appeal to the white working class voters but ending taxation. At least, the way that policy is currently formulated.
And the sick part of the political culture and dynamics is that the Republicans are not obligated to deliver anything in order to satisfy their voters. And the Democrats only have to pretend to deliver something while taking payments to make sure that it is ineffective. Continuing to dignify the rigged game with the traditional American political rhetoric of politics as usual and horse-race commentary hides the fact that we are in a huge political and Constitutional crisis as serious as any since the Civil War.
It’s nice to see someone talk about the Civil War in relationship to today’s political climate. I wonder what compromises President Obama will be forced to make in order to keep the country running. Not looking forward to the New Year.
Sorry this is not the 1860’s. It’s the 21st century the right is so unprepared to deal with. I do not believe the white voters will not notice the GOP is now the tax collector that fails to direct any of that revenue back to their communities. There is no way to predict what will be going on in the global economy by Feb. 2015 or Nov 2016 and whatever happens will have nothing to do with corporate tax rates.
I’m somewhere in between. The crisis in Washington really is that severe, I think, but it’s playing out in different ways around the country. We’re actually doing at least some sensible things in California, and our state isn’t imploding the way Kansas is. Some of what’s going on is even on the local level, not even the state government, like the push to increase minimum wages. But for instance we’re also putting some serious resources into expanding and improving our rail networks (even apart from high speed rail), and our current legislature has made a priority of fighting climate change. I’m pretty annoyed that Jerry Brown hasn’t banned fracking the way Andrew Cuomo did, but if we keep pushing we can get there.
So yes, there is a lot of self-perpetuating lunacy going on. But that’s not all.
Hopefully, as has been predicted, control of at least part of Congress will change. But hasn’t HRC polled better than the president?
It’s easier to poll well when you are not in office. The fact is that she missed polling better than the President when both were in the Senate. Any comparisons after the Great Compromise in the summer of 2008 are now pretty irrelevant. You are matching a proven President against a not-yet proven one (and being First Lady doesn’t count in this comparison no matter how active she was).
The destinies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama diverged the moment she left the Secretary of State’s office. They now can be compared only on the other side of her completing two terms as President.
Who needs Congress? Never mind a majority in same.
What you need is a true progressive in the White House.
Who leads, with leadership.
And steely resolve.
And iron determination.
Serving as a conduit for the popular will.
Expressed via signing statements, and executive orders.
Congress doesn’t stand a chance…
Well, the next two years should test that hypothesis about as strongly as it could be tested.
there was just a wee bit of sarcasm there…
I ran two sets of numbers. SO there is truth in what Waldman writes. But there is a larger issue with downscale whites which I don’t think is reconcilable.
You need to say more about those models.
Also, it seems they could be run for the years from 1944 on as well. Just to span some institutional changes that might be a source of false assumptions. This would act as if the 1960s civil rights movement did not exist as a major long term effect and see whether that assumption gets nullified.
It would also be good to know the variance of the two models you put up.
Easiest way is to take an example. In 1980 Reagan won the following groups:
Whites, 88% of the electorate, and he won 56-36
Blacks, 10% of the electorate, and he lost 83-14
Hispanics, 2% of the electorate, and he lost 56-37
In 2012
Whites were 72% of the electorate, Romney won them 59-39
Blacks were 12% of the electorate, Obama won them 93-6
Hispanics 10% of the electorate, Obama won them 71-37
How would Reagan have done if he won the same % of votes in each sub-group, but the electorate reflected the 2012 numbers instead of 1980.
Reagan won by 10 in 1980. He would have won by only 3, however, if the 2012 electorate was in play. In fact, Romney did as well among Whites as Reagan did. But Whites fell as a % of the electorate from 88% in 1980 to 72% in 2012.
Similarly, if Obama won the same % of vote in 2012 among the sub-groups, but in a 1980 electorate, he would have lost by 8.
The point is the difference between 1980 and 2012 is almost entirely a result of the different racial composition of the electorate.
The White electorate voted the same way in 2012 as it did in 1980. There are just less of them.
Does that make sense?
please explain what these charts are, I don’t understand them
Shouldn’t the first graph be labeled “Carter margin”? It would be depressing if Reagan could beat Carter even today with the less-racist electorate, but 10% is a lot to overcome, I suppose.
Reagan wins by 3 in a 2012 electorate.
“Winning the presidency is great. Being able to do something when you get there is much better. “
Unless “doing something” means more trade treaties,ore assaults on SS/Medicare, more kissing Wall Street’s collective ass.
Every president seems to get a kick out that whole war, murder, torture thing so that’s the something Clinton will get do. The idea that the president will do something for you or me ought to be put to rest.