2008

Facts did not matter in this election. This election was decided based on how much free stuff the candidates promised to hand out, and we just couldn't compete with Prince Barack.

But I really don't think that we lost as badly as everyone wants to portray it. Obama's edge in the popular vote is going to be less than 7%.  Considering that we have been through four years where every possible bad thing that could happen happened--natural disasters, botched Social Security reform, highest gas prices ever, botched immigration reform, costly wars, recession, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Republican scandals, the most unpopular Presidential term in U.S. history, the media functioning as a campaign arm for Prince Barack, a Republican candidate with no message, an election where the Republican candidate was outspent 4:1 and lost every debate by a wide margin--why Obama didn't win in a FDR-like landslide should be the question people ask, not why we lost.

To be sure, though, the exit polling/results indentifies some disturbing trends:

--White voters voted for McCain by the same margin they voted for Bush in 2000. But their percentage of the electorate declined from 81% to 74%. Meanwhile, minorities are even more Democratic than they were when Bush was elected.

This is going to be a huge problem for the GOP in Nevada, where the white vote declined from 77% to 69% in four years--and will continue when Prince Barack signs the amnesty bill. Remember,  Bush only narrowly won Nevada and Prince Barack won it by double digits this time around.

It's also a problem in Florida, where McCain lost because of a huge movement among Hispanics to Obama. Obama won hispanics there 57-42 while Bush won them by double digits in 2004. By contrast, the white vote in 2008 was identical to 2004.

--In Colorado there was a large shift among whites to Obama, who won them despite the fact that Bush carried them by double digits in 2004.

--We lost Indiana and North Carolina. I suspect we lost North Carolina for the same reasons we lost Virginia--more liberal migrants. But I really have no response to Obama winning Indiana other than to note it borders Illinois.

Other observations:

--Obama's four point margin in Ohio was unimpressive considering that Ohio is going through hard economic times and that Bush only won it by 2 points.

--People keep saying that we  need more white working class voters to make up for the more liberal white college graduates. But the loss of white college grads is made up for a gain in minority college grads.

Looking Back

The right way to read this election is in proper historical context and not against the relativistic markers that are being set-up by superficial, media driven analysis.  Indeed, the most remarkable thing about this presidential election is the utter unremarkability of its result despite the apparent uniqueness of the circumstances that surrounded it.

Despite Senator Obama’s race, name, and fundraising, Senator McCain’s age, Governor Palin’s sex, and the existence of Joe the plumber, Senator Obama won almost precisely as many votes as most professional forecasting models predicted he would at the start of the summer.  Among these, Alan Abramowitz's "time for change" forecasting model predicts over 90% of the observed variance in post-WWII presidential election results (two party popular vote) ont the basis of only three variables:  the length of time an incumbent party has held office, economic growth, and incumbent presidential popularity.

Each of these three key variables were working against Senator McCain’s campaign, and I discuss them in turn below.

 1. Incumbency

There are definite cycles and swing in American public opinion, at least since World War II, which translate into swings in the electoral fortunes of Republicans and Democrats as the country’s mood changes over time.  In particular, the ideological tenor of public opinion tends to move against the party in power.  Explanations for this range from impressionistic “time for change” approaches to more precise “thermostatic models.”  Whatever the reason, though, the electoral result at the presidential level is clear, two-term partisan presidential cycles are the norm and have been since President Eisenhower replaced President Truman.  The only exceptions to this rule of thumb are associated with Ronald Reagan: i.e. President Carter’s defeat in 1980 and Vice President Bush’s victory in 1988. 

Senator McCain could not help the timing of his campaign in this cycle.  Senator Obama’s campaign maximized the electoral benefit of this dynamic by emphasizing “change” as a campaign theme.  However, claims to “do something different” were principally effective because of their employment in relative to cyclical dynamics which were pushing the country towards the Democratic Party in any event.

2. Economic Growth

Milton Friedman wrote that government efforts to influence real economic growth are unpredictable and, at best, work with “long and variable lags.”  Nevertheless, voters are apt to hold presidents and presidential candidates of the incumbent party accountable for the state of the macro economy.  Moreover, most voters have short memories when it comes to judging presidents in terms of the economy.  Thus, a fresh recession along with reasonable prospects for a lengthy contraction is the worst possible recipe for an incumbent party presidential candidate.  Senator McCain’s campaign faced both.

 In the long-run, developing a reasonable conservative public prescription to limit the extent and duration of the current economic downturn is obviously important.  Yet, policy proposals were largely irrelevant to the election in the short run.  The “punish” incumbents dynamic of aggregate voter behavior in an economic downturn is largely immune to distinctions between left and right economic policies.  Thus, the election results should not be viewed as either a rejection of conservative, pro-growth economic policies or an endorsement of redistributive populism.  Instead, they are an irrational assignment of blame.

3. President Bush

The lack of support for President Bush is the final important structural element of Senator McCain’s defeat and, perhaps, the problem which raises the greatest prospective challenge to the Republican Party.  While scholars will spend years dissecting the Bush presidency, there is convincing preliminary evidence that the public’s rejection of the administration stems principally from its ownership of the war in Iraq and the growth of antipathy towards the war.  Despite the objective merits of the war and its many military and political successes, the failure to produce evidence of the Iraqi weapons program which justified the war a priori and the inadequacy of early counter-insurgency efforts—which were ultimately remedied by the surge—doomed the war in the public’s mind, particularly as the human and financial costs of the war accumulated over time.  Together, these elements created an impression of managerial ineptitude, which was almost certainly compounded by the handling of Hurricane Katrina, the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, and the US Attorney firing scandal, among others. 

Importantly, though, there is little evidence that the country rejected the ideological elements of President Bush’s domestic policy programs above and beyond the sort of “time for change” fatigue that is typically observed at the end of any president’s second term.  Politically important opposition to President Bush—i.e. opposition from malleable moderate elements of the electorate—is largely a function of perceived incompetence.  All else equal (i.e. given the war), there is a high probability that President Bush would have been just as (un)popular had he pursued other domestic policies that were more conservative or oriented towards reducing the size and scope of government, etc., but he would have been no less popular.

Looking Forward

This analysis suggests that the election results should not be read for ideological content.  President Bush is not unpopular because he is conservative, nor did Senator McCain lose because he is too conservative.  Instead, the country predictably signaled for a change in party control of government.

Taking the view that presidential election results are typically exogenous to party platforms, campaigns, and other acts of individual agency indicates a certain level of realism in preparing for the future.  There is no silver bullet, and Republicans are unlikely to regain control of the White House in 2012.  Barring a “sticky” Carter-like period of economic decline (a possible but unlikely outcome), the economy will be in recovery during the 2012 election cycle—which will benefit President Obama’s reelection bid—while “time for change” dynamics will not yet be ripe.

In any event, the best way forward for the Republican Party is to set itself up to take advantage of the historical cycles of American electoral behavior to maximize its cyclical advantages and produce important conservative policy changes that cannot easily be undone.  In other words, election victories will come and go independent of most of our efforts.  The object to win elections contra larger political cycles is counterproductive.  A more important and meaningful approach follows from leveraging victories, when they come, into strategic conservative policy changes that will accumulate over time moving America back to a more traditional, small government course.

Short Term: 2010

The first opportunity to leverage these cyclical advantages will come in the 2010 midterm elections.  Despite some recent exceptions, the party of the president usually suffers a net decline of seats in Congress during off-year elections.  This provides a realistic opportunity for the Republican Party to regain control of the House and reduce the Democratic majority in the Senate in the very near term.

This national cyclical advantage should be supplemented in four ways: 

1. Aggressive candidate recruitment: The pool of quality potential congressional candidates for the GOP should be quite large.  In particular, the drawdown of the American military presence in Iraq will make a pool of new veterans—largely inclined to conservative politics—available.
2. Web-based fundraising through bundling PACs:  Traditional bundling PACs accept and forward paper checks to listed candidates.  A smart web-based bundling PAC could allow donors to initiate a single transaction on the PAC’s  website that would be forwarded electronically to list candidates per the donors' instructions.
3. A young ground game:  Colleges and universities are enormous pools of high quality, low cost, and eager political talent.  Creative efforts to transport, house, and support college students as canvassers and phone-bank workers for targeted congressional races could help overcome the chronic lack of labor that make sophisticated GOTV efforts difficult for many congressional campaigns.
4. A new “Contract with America”: The evidence suggests that issues play a limited role in campaign outcomes.  But, the perception of the role of issues in an election outcome can be very important for developing claims of a mandate to enact policy changes after the election.  Within some limits, a strong policy platform is unlikely to either help or hurt a national campaign for Congress.  But, it can help provide a launching pad to actually enact conservative policies, particularly over the objections of a sitting President Obama.  Some potential items might include:
   
   1. A balanced budget amendment that includes requirements for reasonable debt payment timetables
   2. Income tax simplification to make one-page filing a reality and increase transparency
   3. Income tax reduction on the first $10,000 of income from interest and dividends to encourage savings and investment
   4. Healthcare reforms to allow doctors to charge on a sliding scale without risking reduced payments from insurance companies.
   5. Strong web use privacy laws limiting the type of information that websites can collect and store about users
      

Intermediate Term: 2012

Conditions for a Republican presidential victory in 2012 are unlikely to materialize.  However, evidence of slow economic growth or continued recession and, perhaps, important foreign policy or military errors (akin to the Iranian hostage taking during the Carter administration) combined with a Republican candidate with substantial objective managerial competence will have a nontrivial chance at success.

A number of plausible candidates meet these conditions including Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, and General David Petraeus (should he have political aspirations in civilian life).  Since there is little historical data to adjudicate among these choices, I will refrain from speculating on their respective merits except to note that each of these candidates has a background as a governor or high-ranking military officer and that these executive backgrounds are probably most aptly symbolic of the competence that a 2012 victory would demand.

In any event, 2012 is likely to be most consequential as part of an ongoing effort to re-establish Republic parity with Democratic fundraising and voter mobilization.  These efforts deserve high priority in any long-term planning.

Long term: 2016

Though it seems far-off, the historical data suggests that 2016 will be the Republican Party’s most favorable point for returning to the presidency.  The long time horizon prohibits meaningful speculation about specific personalities or issues that will be ripe for the effort.  However, it is important that the cyclical advantage that Republicans will enjoy should be reinforced at the margins by a strong, national infrastructure of web-based fundraising and network-driven GOTV efforts. 

Also, Republicans should come to the 2016 election with a clear “Contract with America” style platform of specific policy proposals that link presidential leadership with a congressional commitment to act.  This target is unlikely to be helpful in winning the election beyond the cyclical trends that will advantage Republicans.  Rather, the document will provide a credible claim of an electoral mandate for the changes endorsed by the platform.

[Promoted - Pete Snyder, a colleague of mine, combines his pollster, campaign and social marketing hats to offer this very good analysis of the 2008 Presidential campaign and election.  Jon Henke]

There is no doubt that this year presented the toughest political climate for Republicans since Watergate; indeed, this campaign has been an uphill fight for McCain or any GOP nominee. That said Barack Obama, David Axelrod and their team deserve a huge amount of respect and credit for running a nearly flawless campaign.

They didn’t fight today’s war with yesterday’s weapons and most importantly their campaign was based on a superior strategy. For the purposes of this column, let’s forget about the issues, let’s forget about the climate and let’s ignore message for a moment. The simple fact is that Obama and his campaign chiefs understood two of the most significant (but little talked about) changes of this campaign cycle:

1. The Election Timetable fundamentally shifted from being just about Election Day or even the last 72 hours (as was the rule of thumb for decades) to being decided as early as six weeks in advance.
2. Due to the seismic changes in how voters get and process information that we marketers have seen for quite some time, just like consumers, the voter is now in control and, thus, would be open to making their voting decisions earlier than ever.

Combined, these two critical assumptions that turned conventional campaign wisdom on its head, helped provide Obama with a major strategic advantage over McCain. Here’s how:

Via Twitter and from friends, I had collected some turnout numbers this morning from precincts in Northern Virginia that I'll share here.

Turnout in my precinct -- Fairfax County #517 (Willston) was very high -- about 440 by the time I voted at 9:30 a.m. -- or about 45% of 2004's turnout of 976 voters. A poll worker said that 250 people had voted by 8 a.m., or 26% of 2004 turnout. I expect my precinct to go 70-30 for Obama.

A source in downtown Leesburg placed his turnout at 750 of a 2004 total of 1,768 at 11 a.m. That's 43% of 2004 -- roughly the same number as in my precinct, but an hour and a half later. This precinct went narrowly for Bush in '04 and I expect it will go narrowly for Obama this time.

Via Twitter, Justin Hart (who lives in exurban Loudoun) reported that he was around #600 in a precinct that voted 4,015 people in 2004 and went for Bush 60-40. However, his tweet references 3,000 people registered, so it's not outside the realm that the precinct was split. Assuming a turnout of 2,400 people, that would be 25% voted by 9:00 a.m. about what it was at 8 a.m. in my precinct.

I'll submit this FWIW. Based on this and the exit poll debacle, it seems that Democrats vote early in the day, and Republicans later. So we'll see.

If you voted in Virginia today, leave a comment with your voting number and what time you voted. And remember to estimate the total number of people voted in all lines not just yours. You can look up the 2004 turnout figures from your precinct here.

As we draw closed the curtain on this campaign, Nagourney has an Election Day look back on how 2008 changed the way campaigns are run. And not surprisingly, the chief protagonist is the Internet:

“The great impact that this election will have for the future is that it killed public financing for all time,” said Mr. McCain’s chief campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt. “That means the next Republican presidential campaign, hopefully a re-election for John McCain, will need to be a billion-dollar affair to challenge what the Democrats have accomplished with the use of the Internet and viral marketing to communicate and raise money.”

“It was a profound leap forward technologically,” Mr. Schmidt added. “Republicans will have to figure out how to compete with this in order to become competitive again at a national level and in House and Senate races.”

This transformation did not happen this year alone. In 2000, Mr. Bush’s campaign, lead by Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman, pioneered the use of microtargeting to find and appeal to potential new supporters. In 2004, the presidential campaign of Howard Dean was widely credited with being the first to see the potential power of the Internet to raise money and sign up volunteers, a platform that Mr. Obama tremendously expanded.

“They were Apollo 11, and we were the Wright Brothers,” said Joe Trippi, the manager of Mr. Dean’s campaign.

If Republicans conclude that 2008 was simply a mechanical failure -- that it was all about how Barack Obama "used" the Internet or ran an otherwise flawless campaign -- then they will draw the wrong lessons from this year.

Take a close look at Obama's final video released tonight:

None of this would have been possible had Obama not been the cult figure we first saw at the 2004 Democratic convention. Had it been another candidate with the 25-person new media team, the corporate graphic design team in-house, a founder of Facebook on staff, the millions spent on search marketing alone, we still would have applauded, but it wouldn't have been the same. Because there has to be something organically right about it for it to work. This is why some candidates and causes catch on online and others just don't, despite trying every tactic in the book.

The central fact of Obama is the incredible political skill of the candidate. And a campaign was built around him that complemented his strengths. Technology allowed the enormous energy around a candidate like Obama to be harnessed in ways that tangibly helped the campaign, first by dramatically changing the fundraising landscape, and second by making possible a massive influx of volunteer energy (that the publicly funded campaigns of yesteryear simply couldn't have digested). In that it allowed him to reach for the $1 billion spending mark, the Internet was absolutely central to Obama's campaign, even if only a small fraction of that money was spent online. 

But as important as these strategies and tactics were, the fundamental building block is the candidate. The candidates who are successful online are the ones who don't just lead campaigns or political parties -- they lead movements. When they ask people to get involved, they really mean it. Our 2012 candidate has to be comfortable with building a movement. Before a change in strategy can work, our candidates need to change. Layering a good Internet strategy on top of someone running for President of the cocktail party circuit whose campaign only cares about bundling the most big checks in Q1 or Q2 of 2011 will not work. That model died in 2008.

Cross posted from Old Line Elephant

There has been a lot of talk about the potential impact of the Bradley Effect on this year's election.  On top of that, I just read a short but nonetheless interesting article in which Father Jonathan Morris, a Fox News contributor, argues why this election is going to be close.  All of this discussion got me thinking:  what if the unexpected happens?  What if going into Election Day, Barack Obama maintains a lead in all of the polls, and state polling indicates he's going to win an electoral college landslide (as it does currently)?  And what if, as the polls begin to close on Election Day, all the major media networks' exit polls show Obama trouncing McCain, resulting in the networks calling the race early for Obama?  But what if when the results come in, something astonishing happens: John McCain, in one hell of a nailbiter, edges out Senator Obama and becomes the next President of the United States?

History and anecdotal evidence suggest that this situation, as improbable as it may be, is certainly not out of the question.  But how would the country – particularly Democrats and Obama supporters, including the mainstream media – react?

I'm not entirely sure what the answer is, but after what we witnessed with the Florida fiasco in 2000, I think that this scenario is a troubling one.  It also is one for which we should be prepared.

Aaron Marks is President of Three Group, LLC, a Pittsburgh-based new media firm that focuses on providing technology-based solutions for Republican candidates and organizations, and in particular has built Web 2.0 campaign management software called Mission Control.  Aaron also worked in new media and voter outreach on Senator Rick Santorum's 2006 re-election campaign.

Part 2 of our discussion between Culture11 and The Next Right has been posted at Culture11.

• Soren Dayton says things could get very, very bad if Democrats get sufficient majorities and Republican factions cannot unify.
• Jon Henke says the worst case scenario is a God, Guns and Butter realignment.
• James Poulos says the danger is in "capitulating to phony bipartisanship for phony bipartisanship's sake."
• Conor Friedersdorf says the danger is selling out important things for minor gains elsewhere.

 Read the whole thing at Culture11.

This is the first of a two-day discussion between TheNextRight.com (Soren Dayton and Jon Henke) and Culture11.com (James Poulos and Conor Friedersdorf) about the Best Case and Worst Case scenario for the Right in 2008.  Conor Friedersdorf's contribution is here.  James Poulos contribution is here.  Jon Henke continues.

I had assumed that, in this exchange, I would be the cranky misanthrope who took the "better off fighting with Democrats than disappointed in Republicans (again)" approach; however, it seems Conor, James and I share some similar sentiments: the likelihood that we face an Obama presidency, the primary importance of rejuvenation.

The electoral outcome is, in some ways, almost irrelevant to the prospects for the Right. Sure, there are some very important things at stake in the next four years, but the best case scenario for the Right is not about tactical victory in the immediate fights, but about the long-term construction of a Movement.

You might object, “The Right already has a movement! Why do we need to build another one?” We need a major movement construction project because – as I wrote a few months ago – the Right’s movement is broken.

The Right made the “limited government” arguments, but never had the politically viable game plan for doing something about it; once elected, they were captive to the systemic incentives to distribute rewards to the rent-seeking interest groups.

It is not the ideology that has failed. Indeed, while the politicians themselves have failed, that is not even the root of the problem. What has really failed is the movement itself. A political movement’s support system is its destiny. The Right has a support system that ultimately supports the Republican Party, not the ideology. Rather than creating an infrastructure that develops and implements politically viable ideas for effectively limiting government, the Right has built an infrastructure for a political party that can appeal to the public’s range of “conservative” interests, but cannot implement them. The Right’s infrastructure is sustaining only half of the equation – the maintenance of power, without the implementation of the vision.

A half-vast right wing conspiracy is not enough.

The best case scenario for the Right is a fundamental reorientation of the movement toward (a) politically viable policy innovation that addresses the underlying political incentive problems, and (b) movement infrastructure that supports the ideology and agenda, rather than merely enabling the Party. In short, the Right will only win if the Right emerges with a better vision and a better support system to pursue that vision.

It’s not clear how the outcome of the 2008 election impacts this.  In fact, either an Obama or McCain victory could prove beneficial or detrimental and I don't think we can guess how the variables involved will play out.

• If Obama wins, the Right has nothing left to fall back upon; Republicans will be forced to change. What’s more, Democratic consolidation of power – an Obama Presidency and Democratic control of the House and Senate – will give Republicans the unifying grievances they need to begin turning the political pendulum back to the Right. Of course, those “unifying grievances” are “Democratic victories”, so this isn’t exactly a painless scenario.
• If McCain wins, Republicans get an opportunity to mitigate the short-term damage while reorienting the movement. But will the Republican Party make the fundamental changes it needs to make while still hanging onto power – however intangible, unsuccessful and unproductive that power is? That’s a less painful short term outcome, but the longer-term change is less certain.

Fighting against Democratic schemes to grow government and engineer society is what Republicans do best. Republicans are good as a minority party. Unfortunately, the Right has never figured out how to translate that limited government tendency into a governing agenda.

So, whatever the result of the 2008 election, the best result for the Right is to return to fighting Democrats and stop apologizing for Republicans.