Nov 05 2008
The Day After
It looks like the state polls were more accurate than I had hoped (which brings me to my retirement as a cynic on polls). Drudge has the national popular vote tally as:
OBAMA: 59,524,759
MCCAIN: 53,553,241
I am sure this is not a complete tally, there were a lot of close states, but it is close enough to answer one question: which family of polls was closer to calling the popular turnout? In my last post on polls (hopefully for many years to come) I had estimated the ‘traditional’ poll group was more accurate and would come in around Obama +6.2%. I said the new ‘extended’ poll family represented fanciful turnout models which predicted an Obama win of +9%. The RCP average was coming in right between the two groups (being an average) at Obama +7.3%.
Before I do the math I must admit that what had nagged at me constantly was the fact the ‘traditional’ family had not narrowed to +3% for Obama. It had flirted with +4% before jumping back to +6% in the final two days, which was a bad omen I was hoping was wrong. Sadly, the uptick was correct.Â
By Drudges numbers Obama got 52.6% of the vote and McCain got 47.4%, or a win of 5.2%. So my minor vindication in all of this is to have proved the overly optimistic turnout models to be the garbage they were, and to remind RCP that they may want to do some sanity checking or quality control on which polls they include in their averages. My Strata-Sphere Traditional estimate was within +1% of the actual returns nationally.
Now, what happened in the states. To be honest I did not feel like being a harbinger of doom and deflating hope and turnout by harping on how bad the news was when IBD/TIPP and others started moving towards Obama (though they tried a last minute allocation to look like other polls and simply trashed there final call). There was a clear uptick nationally and state polls were trending downward – but simply not fast enough (as I complained regularly). When I saw the uptick I figured the downward trend has stalled, but held out hope that in a sea of outlying polls these were also outliers. They were not. At the time there was no way to know, so optimism seemed to be the best hope of fulfilling the upset verses pessimism which would seal the deal. There was no way to know which way the race would go for sure. I choice to be upbeat to the end. Sue me.
GWU/Battleground was closer too with their final numbers, before being contrary and showing a massive shrinking. Rasmussen was pretty close and I always wanted to put him in the traditional family, and clearly he belongs there since he was right on top of the my calculation. I was hoping that +6.2% in the final Bi-Poller was off, it sadly wasn’t.
The truth is we gave this race a great effort and I believe it will turn out that (when someone does the math) Obama’s EC count is high, but his margins in many states are small. He has a delegate mandate and some very tricky conditions to work in (more on that in a moment).
One big lesson here for the GOP is the RINO-Centrist did not win, but he probably did better than any other further right politicians could have hoped to in this kind of election year environment. By all rights the GOP candidate should have been squashed given the head winds of the war and economic meltdown. The only good news is truly bad news for America, Obama and the Dems will have to right the situation and we know their policies have a better chance of making things worse. That Obama supporter who thinks Obama is going to pay her gas and rent is now facing a rude awakening.
Obama promised to ‘change the world’ and ‘change America’. He set expectations so high he cannot help but fail, given the fact it will take years for the economy even to begin to show a full rebound.Â
But even given the fact liberal policies are going to be a painful lesson, the conservative movement has completely lost its connection with too many Americans. We should have been able to stop this. But something about the conservative movement is repulsing voters and we need to fix it. I am not going to point fingers today, it is a waste of time. But when you are not attracting in politics you are losing.
And please, don’t blame Bush – that is one of those idiotic things that repulses a lot of people and garners zero respect. Bush’s remaining supporters (like myself) are definitely not far right, we tend to sit more towards the middle. Blaming Bush because other conservatives cannot attract voters is a lame excuse of denial. There were upsets yesterday, it can be done regardless of Bush. The Dems failed to get their veto proof senate. Moderate democrats are still beating the GOP. This is not a Bush phenomena.
I am not sure how to rebuild a left of center to far right coalition to begin winning again. We came close this election as the walls started to come down with the PUMA alliances. It is a start. The question is whether the GOP is going to go back to their purity wars and shrink their base even more. Purity is a path to the minority.
And we all better start accepting the idea of Sarah Palin for President in 2012 if we have any ideas of beating Obama. As Geraghty said, don’t get cocky when dems begin to flounder. They floundered for two years in this Congress and still gained seats. Not just any old conservative can beat the dems right now.
We need the new blood Sarah Palin and others like her bring. And they cannot be met with resistance by the old guard. Its 1992 again and we have another Democrat novice in the office. But this time Obama did not inherit Reagan’s strong economy or Bush Senior’s national security levels. Which means any bungling will make Hillary Care and Somalia look mild in comparison. That alone will not fix the conservative movement.
I like Sarah Palin, and I think she has potential if — and it’s a big if — she spends most of the next 4 years acquiring the depth she needs in national and international policy without losing her ability to connect with ordinary Americans.
Beyond that, it’s clear nominating the RINO was a disaster. There is ironic justice in the way McCain was outspent – hoist on his own petard of campaign finance reform. Too bad he took conservatism with him.
It’s also clear that all of the Bush, McCain, and Gang of 14 efforts to reach out to Democrats were a waste of time and political capital.
The Republicans lost their ‘religion’ as it were, and paid the price. My great-grandfather, a minister, was offered a Democratic nomination to the United States Senate in the 1880s in a Southern state, when that was tantamount to election. His wife told him she would refuse to go to Washington with him because he would lose his religion. It’s still true that substantial time in Washington almost always corrodes the soul.
I’m not sure there is much of a coalition to be rebuilt. Perhaps points of agreement will emerge and we will again agree to disagree on others, but I think the rift between the social conservatives — who are willing to use government to push their vision of morality — and the more libertarian and fiscal conservatives may not be bridgeable. A Palin, personally socially conservative but libertarian enough in her tolerance for others, offers a way out, but I don’t think most social conservatives would be willing to ‘live and let live’ on abortion with an approach that would not be perceived by the larger society as draconian. Immigration is broadly opposed by most conservatives, but there are those WSJ types and people like AJ who favor doing something for illegals other than showing them the door. That rift remains huge.
I suspect the points of agreement are (1) defense and (2) low taxes. But, that won’t satisfy the social conservatives.
I am loathe to blaming anyone at such times. It’s counterproductive. And for the record, I am a conservative who considers President Bush a saint for keeping us secure.
I wonder how much voter fraud figured into the results. Not that it will make any difference at this point, but I’d really like to know. ACORN’s fingerprints must be all over his victory.
One of the problems we face is that we have too many deadbeats in this country who want to be handed too many things. The kind of people who believe they have rights which aren’t rights at all, like healthcare and an education and a car and cell phones and gas for their cars. And there was BO allowing them to believe they’ll get everything their hearts desire, that it’s payback time and “the rich” will have to pay. hoo-ray.
…
Hi AJ,
Again, thanks for all that you’ve done this election cycle. I am always an optimist, and do wish our new president and his administration well for the sake of the country.
It seemed inevitable by Monday to me that, despite our hopes, Obama would likely win. However, I was very disappointed that we couldn’t appear to win many traditionally GOP states like Indiana, NC, and Missouri. I think a lot of it had to do with the economy, which (mysteriously) decided to tank about 30 days from the election. Had the economy been better, McCain would have had a better night.
I was also very disappointed that, despite the extremely low job approval of the Democrat congress, the congressional dems still were able to do so well. This was primarily due to the economy (where the Republicans could not seem to place the proper blame on the dems and their policies) and the Obama “change” effect. And then there was the “Murtha” phenomenon, whereby an incumbent can trash his constituents but still win reelection. In fact nearly all of the dem incumbents won reelection – why? I guess change only extends to the GOP.
And finally, I do believe the money advantage Obama and the dems in general had played a huge role. When you can outspend your opponent 4 – 5 to 1, you can get your message out, mobilize your supporters, register new voters, and many other things. So much for campaign finance reform – that idea is dead. The GOP better find a way to get it’s fundraising going for the next cycle, or this situation will repeat itself.
So where do we go from here? I think it starts with 2010. Find the vulnerable seats, find appealing candidates with a good message, then work hard towards the goal of moving towards a GOP majority, at least in the House – it happened in 1994 and can happen again, particularly if Obama stumbles by attempting to enact ultra-liberal policies too quickly.
There – I feel better now :^)
cheers,
Archtop
Cato:
Oh please, not the gang of 14. The gang of 14 not only got you Roberts and Alito, without it Republicans would have been royally screwed if they had lost another Senate seat or two. The whole thing with that nuclear option is that it benefits the majority, whichever party that might be.
The real problem with Republicans is their willingness to abandon their own, blame their own and publicly humiliate their own. I have no idea why so many Republicans seemed to think that going after Bush was going to do anything but hurt their party. They make themselves look disloyal and then they wonder why they don’t get loyalty.
And kitty has a point about what people expect. Republicans are the party of limited government and right now there are people out there who expect government to do everything for them. Somehow we need to break that cycle.
after going on about how wrong you were, you come out with this gem; “…the only good news is truly bad news for america, obama and the dems will have to right the situation and we know their policies have a better chance of making things worse…” – completely oblivious to the very real possibility that you are still wrong. you have been wrong about the so-called war in iraq, about climate change, about the economy. your wrong-headedness does not discriminate between foreign and domestic policies, issues big or small. and yet you continue to pound your chest like you are the smartest f***er in the room. an intelligent person would step back and try to learn from the schooling they had just recieved. not you. the hate and the fear-mongering and the race-baiting will continue. what a sad pathetic example you are.
republicans are the party of limited government? please. do you have no grasp of reality? the republicans have grown government exponentionaly. they just nationalized a huge part of the banking sytem. get a clue would ya.
The only way to break the cycle is for a majority of the voters to see that (1) the government does a damned poor job of doing things for them and (2) it directly costs them a whole lot more in taxes to have the government do things for them poorly than it would if they kept their money and did for themselves.
For things to get to that point it will take more than 4 years, especially with the left’s penchant for election fraud and intimidation. It may well take a generation or more, as it took from 1932 until 1980 to elect a real limited government conservative.
I agree that part of the problem with the Republicans was the willingness to abandon and blame their own, but the Gang of 14 was an integral part of that. I’m glad now that we have the filibuster, BUT, I think if we’d been true to our principles, had abandoned the filibuster for judges when we controlled the Senate and filled the federal bench with conservative judges, we’d probably still be in control, and, even if we weren’t now, we would have a much stronger bulwark in the judiciary against the usurpations of a Democratic Congress and Socialist President.
AJ, I have to disagree with you on some points.
I think this was a bad year to be campaigning as a Republican. And George W. Bush was a big part of the problem. He was never very clear on what he and the Republicans stood for, had accumulated a record of being eager to compromise for the sake of compromise itself (as opposed to political horse-trading), and had earned a reputation for marginal competence in execution. Kindly note that Obama was constantly using Bush to hammer McCain.
It didn’t help that the stock market tanked…and I would dearly love to see some investigation into that. There are Leftists rich enough to tank the market deliberately – and callous enough to do just that.
In any event, the Left won’t have Bush to kick around any more…and I suspect that history will regard him as the Republican Harry Truman, whose reputation grew with time.
As to the future, I think that you are 100% right about the need for the Republicans to get leaders from outside the Beltway. Palin may well be one of them. Bobby Jindal is another possibility. I like both of them.
CatoRenasci, I’m not sure you’re right, either. I think there is a very strong case to be made for a Small Government platform. I believe that most Americans want the Federal Government’s nose out of their business, and it’s hand out of their pockets.
To a degree, this campaign was reminiscent of the 1996 campaign – it flushed a lot of weak candidates out of the system.
There is one lesson that I think we MUST learn from the PUMAs. The normal conservative response to this sort of defeat has been dejection. NO! Our response MUST be determination. The Left may have won a battle…but NOT the war!
At least immigration is going to be off the table soon – be assured that Congress will pass a widespread general and full amnesty (the real kind) bill soon. Once again, this is why the bill that conservatives fought so hard a year and a half ago should have been passed.
Also watch for Obama’s first Supreme Court Appointment – I’m giving 10-1 odds it’ll be Hillary. What better way to get her out of Obama’s hair besides a juicy appointment for life. Hillary Clinton, Supreme Court Justice. Get used to the idea, she could be there 20 or 30 years.
National health care? Here it comes!!!
I admire you for being an optimist, Archtop, but I can’t see anything to be optimistic about. Few people want to visualize just how bad things are going to get over the next 4 or 5 years, both socially and economically. Far too much damage is going to be done to ever be turned around no matter what happens in future elections. This country’s golden age is over, and all that is left is a long, sad, irreversible decline.
In weak defense of Obama, there’s a chance this would have happened with McCain as well. Now it will happen much faster. But every society and every age gets the government they deserve.
Here’s a tidbit on the disparity in funds for congressional races from Fox News:
“Democratic candidates raised $436 million, compared with Republicans’ $328 million, according to federal data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee poured $76 million into competitive races and the National Republican Congressional Committee spent $24 million.”
Also, one thing to recognize – the tactics the Dems used the last four years against President Bush worked.
They should be able to work against Obama.
“The real problem with Republicans is their willingness to abandon their own, blame their own and publicly humiliate their own. I have no idea why so many Republicans seemed to think that going after Bush was going to do anything but hurt their party. They make themselves look disloyal and then they wonder why they don’t get loyalty.”
Terrye,
You describe John McCain here very well. Had the GOP allowed a conservative fighter to be the nominee, instead of an old, inarticulate, lifelong Senator , with a history of pissing on his own party and backstabbing his commander in chief we could have won this thing.
The reach across the isle bi-partisan crap by McCain and W. just got the GOP another smack in the mouth, hopefully one that will wake them from their slumber.
W. has been great on the W.O.T., the economy, but horrible on articulating a vision and leading, he has been far to kind to the oppostition and it has gotten us where we are. I hope history is kind to him but alas I fear the history of George W. Bush will be written by the liberal media as was Clintons before him.
You have to fight to win! Queensbury rules won’t win a street fight, and the Dems bring all the dirty tricks!
CatoRenascion 05 Nov 2008 at 9:25 am
Good Post Cato,
Palin 2012
You folks keep leaving out the media.
You think without them we would have had McCain and Obama.
Treasonous bunch of scumbags!
Spartan,
We have one despite the media before. There is a flaw in the conservative approach – it still has lost the center. Look at VA and FL and OH and PA and NC if you need any evidence this is not the truth.
We’ve elected a certified crook. By some accounts up to $200M of illegal internet contributions and intimate affiliations with voter fraud ACORN. There will now be no meaningful investigations of either.
‘The One’ is an American version of Hugo Chavez. Look for all kinds of free speech suppression and judicial activism along with the breaking down of voter registration protections. All aided and abetted by the MSM.
There is much more passion on the left right now and they are going to take over more than our worst nightmare.
Obama and his ilk will be in office a long time unless the next GOP generation of Palin and Jindall can win in 2012. Give Barry until 2016 and he will so weaken our constitutional protections it may be too late.
In this environment I doubt your center left/right coaliation will manifest itself any time soon. It’s going to be a rocky road for America but especially for the conservatives you seem to distain so much.
FWIW, Your analytical posts are teriffic and I enjoy them very much. You will be back for the next go round but remember the ‘Trads’ ARE pretty accurate and MOE’s don’t seem to matter much in this game (go figure).
Also, the best vote counters remain detached from wishful thinking. They have an edge that you seem to eschew. Don’t take your marbles and go home, hang in there and apply your considerable skills to actually counting votes from all the polls you study.
As an investment adviser, I constantly try to adapt and adjust to changing and challenging conditions. If you go back over your work, in hindsight, you will see things you missed the first time. Keep reworking your spreadsheets until your models are consistant with the results that you are satisfied with and meet your standards.
This exercise will make you better in the future, just like it does for me and the portfolios I manage.
The InTrade postions were spot on. Now that is another bucket of data to analyze.
Nobody under about 45 remembers the Carter administration from an adult perspective. When I hear Obama use words like “Windfall Profits Tax” the goosebumps come up on the back of my neck. I was young, in my 20’s, during the Carter years and it was scary to have double-digit unemployment, double-digit inflation, and mortgage rates nearing 20%.
Overall, this will probably be a good thing to give people under 45 a chance to experience what happens when you give a liberal President a liberal Congress. Sadly, we still have people fighting and dying due to Carter’s mistakes. I just hope Obama doesn’t follow the same “run away” tactics Jimmy Carter did throughout the middle east and central America.
Very true.
Over the years, I’ve noticed a cycle…every 12 years, the electorate decides to give the Left a crack at total power. And runs screaming from the disaster.
Think about it…
1976: Carter gets elected, the Dems control Congress.
1980: Reagan gets elected, Republicans take the Senate. Republicans control the White House for 12 years.
1992: Clinton gets elected, the Dems control Congress.
1994: Republicans take Congress, control it for 12 years.
2008: Obama gets elected, the Dems control Congress.
The only question is whether the Republicans will get Congress in 2010, or the White House in 2012.
“But something about the conservative movement is repulsing voters and we need to fix it. I am not going to point fingers today, it is a waste of time. But when you are not attracting in politics you are losing.”
I’ll disagree with you a little bit, AJ. It isn’t conservatism the voters rejected, so much as it is a rejection of a ruling class that lost its way from 2000-2006 and then couldn’t convince voters it would do better if given a second chance. It also didn’t help that the Democrats spent eight years telling people how bloody awful everything was, when it wasn’t. Tell a big lie often enough, and some people will believe you. If Republicans got back to principles of fiscal probity (or even sanity), that would be a good start to rebuilding the Right-Moderate coalition.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, however, that the last thing we need is a purity war. I’m Center-Right, myself, and few things are more frustrating that Hard Righties who damn everyone who disagrees with them as a RINO. A governing party with a stable majority in a nation as diverse as the US has to have a broad tent.
One other point I agree with you on: Palin in 2012. 🙂
AJ and Crosspatch are right. Once you look at all the states, this is a 40-20-40 country. FL-OH-PA show what happens when you can’t get enough Independents (one definition is socially moderate, fiscally conservative, competence in what government should do, and 2/3 want a stable Iraq before withdrawal). I always thought Mark Warner might provide the coattails for Obama to barely take Virginia. Evan Bayh had won re-election in Indiana in 2004 with two million more votes than Bush, and Bayh and Obama mentor Lugar helped in Indiana.
North Carolina was demographically strong for Obama.
When I heard presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin gushing on the Daily Show Monday night about the historic need for an African-American president, I realized that Obama was symbol divorced from realities of governance for enough people to make this win happen.
Shelby Steele writes in today’s Los Angeles Times (sorry, too tired to give you the URL but it’s a great essay):
“A real post-racialist could not be bargained with and would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally.”
Crosspatch and I totally agree about Carter. When McCain first said Carter’s 2nd term, I went ouch, and it worked (I am 56).
This is the only time I have cried when my candidate lost in 8 out of 12 losses. Before yesterday, I was a highly educated knee jerk Democrat. One graduate course in presidential history in 2004 changed me.
Conservatives need to get beyond their recent litmus-test ideology. There are more than enough of us in the middle who want smaller government to do it’s job well absent social engineering from either end of the spectrum.
I was wrong about New York, but only about 50% of voters bothered to vote yesterday. The NYC Board of Elections was warning of 90% turnout. It was 35% of people over 18 in The Bronx, even allowing for non-citizen immigrants, that is still not so high.
Maybe see you guys again if you want to enlarge the dialog beyond how McCain failed the true consevatives. Ageism and sexism hurt him as much as the credit crisis. Before you talk Palin in 2012, wait to see how the economy fares. Someone like Judd Gregg might be the answer in 2012. I love Sarah Palin, but at 44, she has time. Let her fulfill her campaign promise from 2006 to “wean Alaska off hydrocarbons and lead the country in alternate energy technologies”. By 2012, America will need an economic pragmatist. Palin can serve to get foreign policy experience in that cabinet.