Before the Independence Day weekend, I received my emailed version of Campaigns and Elections Maganize, and noticed an interesting article by John Zogby, CEO of the namesake polling firm. Here are some snippets of how he describes swing voters throughout recent electoral history:
We're also working to identify the hallmarks of two new kinds of voters. We call them the Equinox Voters, because they fall into two distinct groups: the "Spring-Aheads" and the "Fall-Backers." The Spring-Aheads are the economic winners in America today, who largely reside in regions that have turned themselves around. These are areas growing in diversity and in the population of the "creative class." And, for the Democrats, these areas are the antidote to other areas mired in economic decline.Those are the areas populated by many Fall-Backers, who have suffered from changes in the U.S. economy over the past 15 years. They have not been able to recover from the movement from a manufacturing to an information economy.
This might be true now, but is it true for past generations? The Spring-Ahead and Fall-Back explanation works with the economy we have now. But what about economic shifts we've seen in the past? Have we seen similar and parallel political shifts? (I haven't started to read the Douthat and Salam book, but so far I've heard that they provide a good historical context. Maybe I'll find the answer there.)
The Equinox voters carry with them a political irony. The Fall-Backers used to be Democrats, because Democrats are supposed to be the party of the people, of the working class. But now, they are identifying in greater numbers with Republican ideas and proposals. Meanwhile, the Spring-Aheads would traditionally be Republicans-entrepreneurs and burgeoning voters on the move.
So what's behind this flip? What's making the Republicans more attractive to the economic losers and the Democrats the party of the economic winners? With an economy that's still in transition, Republicans have still not quite adjusted. In many ways, this is old economy vs. new economy.
I've seen past posts on the pseudo-populism that some politicians like Huckabee and Pawlenty have been making to help transition the Republican Party to attract Fall-Backers, and I've seen other posts that look at the enormous amount of money coming out of Silicon Valley to the Barack Obama campaign and to other Democrat candidates.
In the short term: How can the next conservative movement continue to attract the Fall-Backers? We saw some cues from the Clinton campaign in their late surge of Appalachian state victories, but her campaign was based on the same old liberal rhetoric of trying to stick it to the big guy. I remember Pat Buchannan once saying that the three biggest fears in a democracy are Big Business, Big Labor, and Big Government. Attacking big business has been the M.O. of the Democrats, and attacking big government has been the M.O of conservatives. Attacking big labor has not worked as effectively as we would like. What else can we do?
In the long term: Can the next conservative movement build a coalition of Spring-Aheads and Fall-Backers in an "information economy" or "new economy"? What message can we send, without being inconsistent or "flip-floppy", that will attract both groups?
Or maybe we should critique Zogby's analysis of what he considers the historical swing voters. Maybe it has nothing to do with the economy, stupid. Or does it?
- MM
