Republican Recriminations

Republican consultant Mike Murphy writes in TIME about the considerable challenge facing Republicans as they seek to return to power in the years ahead.

And, essentially, what he says is that the demographics are against the party.

That can change, of course. As the first decade of the 21st century has clearly shown, political power in America can be lost as easily as it can be won. In the early part of this decade, it was hard to foresee the time when the Republicans would no longer have a grip on power. Following the 2004 elections, the GOP held 55 seats in the Senate (compared to 44 for the Democrats) and 231 seats in the House (compared to 202 for the Democrats). But four years later, by the end of George W. Bush's second term as president, the Democrats had taken a 57–40 advantage in the Senate (with two independent senators who caucus with the Democrats) and a 257–178 lead in the House.

A string of events — the Terri Schiavo affair, Hurricane Katrina, the ill–fated Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers, the increasingly unpopular Iraq War, the economic meltdown — contributed to the reversal of fortune, and many Republicans are no doubt hoping the pendulum will swing back their way.

But those pesky demographics get in the way, Murphy insists. "A GOP ice age is on the way," he writes.

Murphy observes that it was a shock for Republicans when Barack Obama carried Indiana last year. I'm sure it must have been. Obama was only the fifth Democratic presidential nominee to carry the state since 1900. But, as big a shock as that was for the GOP, Murphy makes a valid point when he writes that "[t]he bigger news was how he did it" — with the help of Latino voters.

"Exit polls showed that they provided Obama with a margin of more than 58,000 votes in a state he carried by a slim 26,000 votes," Murphy writes.

I've been telling people for more than 15 years that the Latino segment of the population was growing faster than any other group in America. Once they discovered their political potential, I said, they would be in a position to affect the outcomes of elections from the presidency on down.

Perhaps that was easier to see in Texas, where Hispanic citizens now account for roughly one–third of the population. Hispanic voters in Texas haven't shifted the Lone Star State's political allegiance, but that day may well be coming. Murphy points out that the Hispanic share of the national vote more than quadrupled (from 2% to 9%) from Ronald Reagan's election in 1980 to Obama's election in 2008 "and Obama won that Hispanic vote with a crushing 35–point margin."

The GOP also has a problem with young voters. "Obama won voters under 30 by a record 33 points," Murphy writes. "And the young voters of today, while certainly capable of changing their minds, do become all voters tomorrow."

But in spite of recognizing these demographic trends, Murphy frets that "too many in the GOP are stuck in a swoon of nostalgia" for "the winning ways of Ronald Reagan." Many of those Republicans may be waiting for Obama to alienate these demographic groups so they can step in and fill the void, but that's an iffy strategy for seizing power.

"It is true that attitudes change," Murphy writes, but "[w]aiting and hoping didn't do much for the Whigs."

To appeal to the demographic groups they lost by wide margins last November, Murphy has some recommendations for Republicans.

• Young voters need to see a GOP that is more socially libertarian, particularly toward gay rights.


• Latinos need to see a quick end to the Republican congressional jihad on immigration.

I would add to that the party promoting an end to the war on drugs — which would halt the bloodshed along the border, provide a significant source of jobs and tax revenue at a time when America could use both and remove an irrational social and legal stigma from a substance that is used both medicinally and recreationally by millions — would go a long way toward attracting alienated voters.

Indeed, Murphy concedes that "[m]uch of this is still heresy to the party as it stands now." Well, the times they are a–changing. Today's Republicans may look back with fondness at the era of Reagan, but they would be wise to revisit their positions on some issues if they hope to avoid a political ice age.

The 'Left at the Altar' Syndrome

One of the most popular TV characters of the last quarter of a century was Dr. Frasier Crane, portrayed first as a supporting character on "Cheers!" and then as the lead character in his own series by Kelsey Grammer.

An element of Frasier's character was his ongoing difficulty with women — epitomized in part by his experience of having been "left at the altar" by the supposed woman of his dreams.

I've never been the groom in a wedding ceremony. I can only imagine how it must feel to be left at the altar. In an episode of his TV series, Frasier once described the experience as having left a "sucking chest wound."

But "left at the altar" is the phrase I've heard political analysts use to describe the final step in the transition that voters go through when they're making the decision whether to support the nominee of the party that is out of power.

Normally it happens in the closing days of a campaign. Call it a leap of faith, if you will.

If the voters decide not to take the alternative that is being offered to them, they will leave that nominee at the altar — even if that candidate was perceived to be ahead of the opposition earlier in the campaign.

And, then, presumably, that candidate experiences what Frasier experienced.

In a lifetime of watching presidential politics, I have never seen circumstances that seemed so favorable for the party that has been out of power to capture the White House. The president is very unpopular, the war he started is very unpopular, and the economy seems to be lurching toward a recession (if it isn't there already).

Some might say that the 1980 campaign was an example of a year in which the incumbent party faced impossible odds like the ones I've described. I would point out, however, that the United States was not involved in a war that year.

And another way in which 1980 differed from 2008 is that the incumbent president ran for re-election in 1980. In 2008, the incumbent president is barred by law from seeking a third term, and the vice president declined to run for the presidency.

So the Republican nominee is the proxy who must take the abuse that is really directed at the administration.

Nevertheless, I first heard the "left at the altar" analogy used in media discussions during the 1980 campaign, when Ronald Reagan was challenging incumbent President Jimmy Carter.

The consensus since that time is that Reagan reassured skeptical voters with his performance in his debate with Carter in the last week before the election — and went on to be elected in a landslide.

I heard the phrase used again 12 years later, when Bill Clinton was running against incumbent President George H.W. Bush.

In spite of Republican efforts to make Clinton's lack of military service during Vietnam, his experimentation with marijuana and rumors of his womanizing the issues, Clinton prevailed.

(I even heard a few pundits mention the "left at the altar" syndrome as an explanation for why Michael Dukakis wasn't able to follow through on his apparent leads over then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in the polls in the summer of 1988.

(But I never thought the voters left Dukakis at the altar as much as they were driven away by the image of him riding around in a tank and the viciousness of the Bush campaign's "Willie Horton," "Boston Harbor" and the prison "revolving door" TV commercials.)

I've been thinking about the "left at the altar" syndrome while reading an article that was co-written by Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, Alan Abramowitz of Emory University and Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, headlined "The Myth of a Toss-Up Election."

"While no election outcome is guaranteed ... virtually all of the evidence that we have reviewed — historical patterns, structural features of this election cycle, and national and state polls conducted over the last several months — point to a comfortable Obama/Democratic party victory in November," they write.

"[M]aybe conditions will change ... and if they do, they should also be accurately described by the media. But current data do not justify calling this election a toss-up."

The authors also reflect on the 1980 campaign in making their argument.

"[T]hese June and July polls may well understate Obama's eventual margin," they write. "Ronald Reagan did not capitalize on the huge structural advantage Republicans enjoyed in 1980 until after the party conventions and presidential debate. It took a while and a sufficient level of comfort with the challenger for anti-Carter votes to translate into support for Reagan."

That's really the point of the "left at the altar" syndrome. The voters need to reach that final "level of comfort" to justify leaving the party in power.

If they reach that comfort level, they proceed with the change. If they don't, they fall back on the familiar.

That's the challenge facing Obama — helping the voters reach that comfort level.

Earlier, I mentioned the combination of factors that makes it look like this should be the Democrats' year. Sabato, Abramowitz and Mann make a similar observation.

"You have to go all the way back to 1952 to find an election involving the combination of an unpopular president, an unpopular war, and an economy teetering on the brink of recession," they observe.

"1952 was also the last time the party in power wasn't represented by either the incumbent president or the incumbent vice president. But the fact that Democrat Harry Truman wasn't on the ballot didn't stop Republican Dwight Eisenhower from inflicting a crushing defeat on Truman's would-be successor, Adlai Stevenson.

"Barack Obama is not a national hero like Dwight Eisenhower, and George Bush is no Harry Truman. But if history is any guide, and absent a dramatic change in election fundamentals or an utter collapse of the Obama candidacy, John McCain is likely to suffer the same fate as Adlai Stevenson."

Perhaps. But I still feel race is the obstacle that the electorate must leap over before it reaches the point where it will proceed with voting for a black man for president.

Whether voters admit it or not, whether it's politically correct to acknowledge it or not, I believe race remains a barrier, albeit a psychological one, for many voters. They may want change, but they may not be ready for this particular change.

I mentioned yesterday that the Democrats already enjoy nearly unanimous support in the black community. What Obama needs to do is reassure members of groups that haven't been as supportive of Democrats in the past.

And he needs to close the deal with these groups.

In 2004, for example:

• John Kerry won the voters who were under 30 — but those voters represented only 17% of the participants in the election. George W. Bush, meanwhile, won a majority of the voters who were 30 or older. Obama needs to reassure older voters, who have proven to be more reliable election participants, while encouraging his energetic young supporters to show up at the polls.
• It has been suggested that Obama's presence on the ticket will energize blacks in the South and lead to a massive increase in black participation in that region. In 2004, whites were the only racial group that voted for the Republicans, but they represented 77% of the vote, and they gave 58% of their vote to Bush (a margin of about 16 million).
  
  There aren't many black votes left for Democrats to win, but there apparently are many white votes to be won.
• Meanwhile, the South produced 32% of the 2004 vote — and the Republicans cruised to victory in the South, 58% to 42%. That's a margin of more than 7 million.
  
  (I've heard it said that Bob Barr may be in a position to influence the outcome of the race — particularly in some Southern states, especially his home state of Georgia — by siphoning off votes from McCain. But Steve Kornacki says, in the New York Observer, that "it is highly, highly unlikely that Barr will be a consequential player" in the election.)
• Because of the animosity of the primary campaign, rumors persist that many of Hillary Clinton's female supporters (and possibly some of her male supporters) will either support McCain or choose not to vote at all.
  
  That would be bad news for Obama. Democrats won the female vote against Bush in 2004, 51% to 48%, but they haven't won the male vote since 1992.
  
  They need to follow a strategy that will retain their female supporters while gaining ground among male supporters.
• Remember Obama's remark about people who cling to guns and religion? It might be wise to avoid that kind of remark in the future.
  
  In 2004, 54% of voters who participated in the election were Protestants — nearly 60% of those voters supported Bush. And 27% of the voters were Catholic — but Kerry, who is also Catholic, lost that demographic to Bush, 52% to 47%.
  
  Gun owners were a minority in the 2004 electorate — 41% of participating voters said there was at least one gun owner in the house, and 63% of those voters supported Bush.

There are many demographic groups that are capable of swinging a close election to one side or the other.

It is not wise for a campaign to take victory — or defeat — in any group for granted.

Hunting for Clues to Voter Behavior

It's an occupational hazard for political operatives — trying to anticipate voter behavior.

And that task is being put to the test in 2008, with the first black presidential nominee.

So political operatives would be well advised to read what Paul West has written in the Chicago Tribune, comparing two statewide political campaigns from 2006 that featured black candidates.

Actually, there were more than two such races in the last election — and, of course, each was subject to its own set of issues, the dynamics of the voter pool and the quirks of each candidates’ styles and personalities — but the races to which West refers were noteworthy and could prove instructive for political analysts.

Those campaigns were the gubernatorial race in Massachusetts and the Senate race in Tennessee.

In Massachusetts, the black candidate, Deval Patrick, was elected. In Tennessee, the black candidate, Harold Ford, lost.

Both candidates are Democrats. In the interest of fairness, it’s worth pointing out that there have been black Republicans (not many, but a few) who ran for statewide office in recent elections — for example, former Pittsburgh Steeler wide receiver Lynn Swann lost the race for Pennsylvania governor (receiving only 40% of the vote) two years ago.

West suggests that ”racial attitudes are going to influence” the race between Barack Obama and John McCain. ”But there is growing evidence,” he writes, ”that race is losing its potency as a determining factor in U.S. politics.”

He acknowledges ”some uncomfortable moments” during the primaries that were brought on by observations of ”similarities between language that [Patrick and Obama] had used,” leading to charges of plagiarism.

Nevertheless, ”Patrick won in a landslide, after a general election campaign that resembled the one Obama is running against John McCain. He exploited the public's desire for change and tied his Republican opponent to an unpopular Republican administration in the state.”

But, as West points out, ”[b]ecoming governor is not the same thing as gaining the presidency … and culturally liberal Massachusetts is not America.”

From Obama’s perspective, there isn’t that much to be learned from the Massachusetts experience — except, perhaps, that it takes a special set of circumstances that are favorable to Republicans and either a unique nominee or a weak opponent for the GOP to win a statewide race there. And none of those conditions appear to apply in 2008.

The state has had a reputation for liberalism that goes back at least to the 1972 campaign, when it was the only state to support George McGovern against Richard Nixon.

It’s true that three Democratic nominees in the last five decades (John F. Kennedy in 1960, Michael Dukakis in 1988 and John Kerry in 2004) were favorite sons from Masssachusetts — and two others from the Bay State, Ted Kennedy and Paul Tsongas, sought the nomination.

It’s also true that Massachusetts voted for Ronald Reagan twice (both times by narrow margins), and it supported popular war hero Dwight Eisenhower twice in the 1950s.

But, realistically, other than the Reagan and Eisenhower elections, Massachusetts has been voting for Democrats for president since the stock market crashed in 1929, and most observers expect it to support Obama this fall.

I think there’s more to be learned from Tennessee, a Southern state that isn’t part of the ”Deep South” and was more receptive to the civil rights movement in the 1960s than some of its neighbors, like Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.

I believe it is in the states located along the geographical edges of the Old South where the Democrats may have the best chance to pull off an upset. At the moment, I'm still inclined to believe the Republicans will sweep all of the Southern states, that attitudes haven't changed as much in the South as some people think.

And I also question the logic of an influential increase in the black voter turnout capable of reversing the outcomes in some Southern states.

Obama’s campaign has been talking about increasing black turnout in the South and, consequently, flipping normally ”red states” to ”blue.”

That may well happen, but I haven’t seen much evidence to support that scenario.

West sees in Tennessee an opportunity for Democrats to (pardon the use of the word) ”overcome” the South’s history of racism, even though Tennessee did not elect Ford to the Senate.

”Ford lost, but by less than three percentage points,” he writes. ”The close finish sent a clear message: race was becoming less of an impediment for black candidates, even in the South.”

Well, I’m not so sure about that. If the 2000 election taught you anything, isn't it that you only need to get a majority of the electoral votes to win the election? And George W. Bush only received one vote more than he needed.

And, in a Senate race, electoral votes are not a factor so all you need is one popular vote more than the other candidate. In Tennessee, Ford lost the popular vote by 50,000 votes.

Let's take a look at some of the numbers from the 2004 presidential election.

• In 2004, Bush won with 51.2% of the vote. Kerry received 48.3% of the vote. Bush's margin in the popular vote was 3 million.


• More than 120 million people voted in that election. The percentage of the voting age population that participated was higher than it's been for any presidential election since 1968 (which was before the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18).


• In 2004, the black vote accounted for 11% of the national vote. Kerry received 88% of the black vote nationally. The black population in America (which includes those who are old enough to vote and those who are not) accounts for about 12.8% of the total.


• As a minority group, black Americans have been the most active demographic group in the United States — perhaps owing to the high-profile sacrifices so many Americans, white and black, made to ensure that basic right.

As I say, it has been suggested that black Americans, energized by having one of their own nominated for president, will come to the polls in record numbers.

What I want to know is, if the demographic group itself is already more engaged in the political process than any other minority group and the Democratic ticket received nearly nine out of every 10 black votes in 2004, how many more votes can that demographic provide? Isn't that like drilling in an oil field that is known to have run dry?

And, for an increase in black voter participation to influence the outcome, doesn't that depend — at least in part — on the participation level of the other demographic groups (especially white voters) dropping or remaining unchanged?

Along with the black vote, Kerry won the Hispanic vote (which provided 8% of the total) and the Asian vote (which provided 2% of the total).

But the Republicans won the white vote (which provided more than three-fourths of the ballots). Bush received 58% of the white vote.

If Obama can't raise his comfort level among white voters, he needs to work on bringing more Hispanic voters into the Democratic tent. Unlike the black community, there is plenty of ground for Democrats to gain in the Hispanic community — Kerry took 53% of Hispanic votes while Bush received 44%.

Hispanics could well hold the key to close races in a number of the so-called "swing states" — like Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

It's possible that black participation will increase, but my point is that it's going to require some additional factors — like, for example, a pronounced increase in the non-participation of members of some reliably Republican demographic groups — to be at work at the same time before it's likely to have an effect.

That also is possible. And that's an area that McCain can do something about — by picking a running mate who energizes the traditional Republican supporters while demonstrating his commitment to selecting someone who would be qualified to take over if necessary. Whether McCain is able to do so will be a crucial test of his leadership qualities.

And, if you read further into West’s analysis, you will find indications that race — while not an overt issue — served as subtext to Ford’s defeat.

One of Ford’s pollsters (who is performing the same service for Obama’s campaign this year) told West, ”[Race] was not an issue [Ford] ran on. … He was very clear that the election was not about race.”

But Republicans used tactics that, while not mentioning race directly, injected it into the campaign.

”Late in October, the national Republican Party ran an ad that attacked Ford for attending a Super Bowl party sponsored by Playboy magazine. In the ad, an attractive blonde cooed, ‘Harold, call me,’” writes West.

”The ad was criticized as racially tinged and quickly became ‘a big distraction’ that interfered with the Democrat's effort to communicate his message through the news media, his pollster said.

“Paul Begala, a key strategist in Bill Clinton's rise to the presidency, said the attack on Ford contained ‘one of the most powerful messages that Republicans always try to pin on Democrats: (that) he's not one of us.’”

Political observers have asserted that the Tennessee race is an example of what has come to be known as the ”Bradley effect” — which was first observed in 1982, when Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, a black man, ran for governor of California.

In the days prior to the election, Bradley was ahead in the polls but he lost the election. The ”Bradley effect” refers to the phenomenon that was observed in that election — in which white voters tell pollsters before an election that they can support a black candidate but behave differently when they vote.

The campaign manager for Bradley’s opponent actually predicted this behavior a month before the election. He had to resign from his position because of the negative response to his remarks — but subsequent events proved he was right.

Over the years, political observers have noted additional examples of the ”Bradley effect.” It’s been given other names, too — for example, it’s been called ”the Wilder effect,” after Doug Wilder’s gubernatorial campaign in Virginia was almost derailed in 1989.

It’s also been dubbed ”the Dinkins effect,” after David Dinkins barely defeated Rudy Giuliani for mayor of New York in 1989 (Giuliani was elected mayor in 1993 and re-elected in 1997).

In recent years, the existence of this phenomenon was said to be responsible — in part — for Colin Powell’s decision not to run against President Clinton in 1996.

Powell’s decision was widely reported to be a concession to his wife, who was said to harbor serious misgivings about such a campaign. But a comment he made suggests that concern about racism — even as polls were showing a wide respect among both Republicans and Democrats for Powell’s abilities and even indicating a lead for Powell in a hypothetical match with the president — was a factor.

”Every time I see (black publisher) Earl Graves,” Powell said, ”he says, 'Look, man, don't let them hand you no crap. When [white voters] go in that booth, they ain't going to vote for you.’”

Did Ford lose the race in Tennessee because of such an effect? Was it neatly obscured by, as Begala put it, Republican attempts to portray the Democratic candidate as ”not one of us?”

As West points out, racism has come to be regarded as more ”socially unacceptable” than it was when I was a child in Arkansas in the 1960s. But it's not completely gone. It remains a factor.

As a Democratic pollster, who conducted surveys in Tennessee during and after Ford’s campaign, told West, ”Saying race is not a factor at all is naïve. It’s that race is one of many factors that have to be dealt with.”

We have witnessed — and we continue to witness — race’s changing role, as West puts it, as ”part of a gradual evolution, rather than a sea change, in voter attitudes.”

Such change doesn't happen all at once. West correctly points out that part of the complex dynamics of racial politics is generational.

The Tennessee pollster told him, ”Twenty years ago, most voters had grown up in a society that was still legally segregated. But now, to have a recollection of that you have to be over 55.”

That’s not completely true. I grew up in Arkansas, and, although I’m not yet in my 50s, I can remember elements of segregation in my hometown.

The public schools were integrated when I entered first grade in 1966 so my high school class — which, coincidentally, is holding its 30th reunion this weekend — was the first class in my hometown to be integrated from first grade through high school.

But I have vivid memories of blacks and whites sitting in segregated sections of the movie theater in my hometown.

Otherwise, I have no real memories of living in a segregated society. So I would concede that the Tennessee pollster was right — at least when you're talking about the South's border states — like Tennessee and Arkansas.

Integration was already occurring in those states while racially motivated murders were still being committed in the Deep South.

If you grew up in Mississippi or Alabama or Georgia, the segregationist policies remained in effect well into the 1960s — and, in some cases, persisted into the early 1970s.

Old habits die hard.