When Republicans win elections, the theme of liberal commentators (that is, almost all of the elite media) is how the extremism of the victors will alienate moderates. When Republicans lose, the theme is the impending extinction of their party as its elderly white base dies off. Democrats enter the analysis only as the beneficiaries of the GOP’s purported death wish.
In a contrarian spirit, I’d like to focus my own post-2012 thoughts on the Democratic Party, now beating its chest in triumph after doing not too much worse than in 2008. A few points seem to be abundantly clear:
1. Presidential elections and mid-term elections are not comparable events. The most straightforward explanation of the contrast between 2010 and 2012 is not that lots of Americans changed their minds but that different Americans came to the polls. When the Presidency isn’t at stake, turnout depends more no enthusiasm and less on organization. There’s not much doubt – the size and energy of the candidates’ rallies is evidence enough – that Mitt Romney won a majority of enthusiastic voters. The Democrats, however, whipped in a larger proportion of their unenthusiastic ones, and a vote is a vote, whatever the degree of fervor behind it.
To win the mid-term contests, the Democrats must either have a record that generates enthusiasm or find a way to improve turnout in non-Presidential years. Neither is an easy task. The first is likely to be especially difficult for President Obama. He hasn’t put forward much of a second term agenda, and he’s just coming into the inheritance from his first two years in office, including all of the unpopular parts of Obamacare (the individual mandate, cuts in Medicare Advantage and in payments to providers, cuts in flexible spending accounts, a flurry of new taxes, IPAB, etc.), Dodd-Frank’s unintended (though readily foreseeable) consequences, national debt at 100 percent of GDP, a paralyzed business community, a stagnant work force, and a collapsing foreign policy. (It’s not just the Fiscal Cliff!) Forecasts for 2014 would be premature. I’m not, however, placing any big bets against the Tea Party.
There’s a possibility that we’ll see a pattern: Democrats winning the Presidency, then suffering repudiation two years later, then winning again, and so on and on. That may, in fact, be the best the Dems can hope for.
2. The Democrats can depend only on their base. Mitt Romney carried independents by a solid margin, and there was very little Republican crossover vote to Obama. Democrats alone were sufficient to secure victory this year, but will that be true in the future? If Gallup’s and Rasmussen’s surveys are to be believed, party identification is at parity, and there’s no Law of Nature that gives Democrats a perpetual turnout advantage (or guarantees that the other side’s Get Out the Vote effort will be a fiasco). Without a strong appeal to independents, the Dems will be leaning heavily on organizational excellence (and, cynics who note the 99-plus percent turnouts in Philadelphia precincts where no Republican election judges were allowed in might say, vote fraud).
3. The Democratic base is a fragmented assemblage of incompatible interests. Labor unions, billionaires, celebrities, professors, public employees, left-wing clergy, unmarried women, under-30's, blacks, Latinos, Jews, homosexuals: That’s a hodgepodge, not a coalition.
Of course, a coalition by definition includes elements that don’t see eye-to-eye. This one, though, seems particularly friable, so that just a few major conflicts could dissolve it.
To take one possibility, when Obamacare’s individual mandate kicks in, young voters will face a choice between paying additional taxes or paying grossly inflated health insurance premiums. One of the system’s features is that premiums will be allowed to rise with age much less steeply than risks. Hence, young women will subsidize old men. Will they retain their enthusiasm for the architects of that arrangement?
4. And its numerical superiority is neither impressive nor growing. Although President Obama was reelected, his margin was closer to Bush 2004 than Obama 2008. Many of the Democrats’ Senate victories were similarly thin. The Obama coalition has a lot less heft than FDR’s or Reagan’s.
Notably, Obama was the first President since James Madison to be reelected with a significantly reduced majority from his first outing. According to the exit polls, his share of the vote fell among almost every group surveyed. Maybe that doesn’t really mean that the Democratic base is shrinking, but it certainly isn’t getting bigger.
The road to Democratic supremacy may be rockier than optimists on the Left and pessimists on the Right conceive. What’s more, this year’s Obama campaign, successful as it was in the short run, may have exacerbated his party’s long-run weaknesses. It was a “base election” in two senses: Obama won by getting out his base, and his rhetoric was tawdry, vicious and empty. “Not One of Us” and “Voting Is the Best Revenge” aren’t quite in a league with “Morning in America”.
Very significantly, there is no sign that the Obama campaign moved public opinion in the direction of his policies. As Ilya Somin observes, exit poll respondents favored repealing Obamacare and a smaller role for government in general. These figures suggest that a portion of the Obama vote was based purely on identity politics or anti-Republican animus (which the Obami worked hard to inflame).
Counting on votes from people who disagree with your main policies and principles is a risky strategy. Failing to make a real effort to convince them is suicidal. That’s why Obama’s reelection could be seen someday as the victory that paved the way to defeat.
Pop Quiz: When was the last time the United States had three two-term Presidents in a row?
Answer to be provided when I get around to my next post.
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