I was quite amazed at the reaction my ‘Toast’ post had. It was the second or third election post I put up. The first post talked about McCain focusing on Pennsylvania weeks before the election, before anyone noticed McCain’s strategy, and soon after that post, many people began to notice. Then I began talking about McCain aiming for Iowa. Sure enough, Palin and McCain and Obama all go to Iowa. So I began to feel confident about understanding McCain’s strategy (where everyone else was going “Why is going to this state? Crazy old man!”)
Soon after it appeared, somehow ‘Toast’ found its way through the Republican circle (mostly as Republicans were looking for hope). After the election, ‘Toast’ then found its way through the Democrat circle as something to laugh at (and I have the emails to prove it).
Many people don’t realize I am a contrarian by nature. Consider how I placed my bets: if I was wrong about the election (and I was), I am forgotten by the political side as a crank blogger. If I was right, I would have become the toast of the town and been given many opportunities. In investments, business decisions, and everything else in life, the path of the winner is not always being right. In fact, the path of the winner is being wrong most of the time but positioning yourself so that when you are wrong, you are wrong small and when you are right, you are right big time. The odds for a new business succeeding are around 1 in 10. Many people say, “Why start a business due to the risk?” The answer is that while many of your own business ventures may fail, you only need to be right once.
Two Mistakes I Made In My Election Analysis
One, I assumed that conservatives that stayed home in 2006 would show up in 2008. Most people show up during presidential elections. However, what happened in 2006 occurred in 2008: conservatives stayed home in large numbers. This is why less people voted in many of the states including Pennsylvania.
Two, the retirement crisis has hit sooner than I expected. Any longtime reader of this site knows that I believe a dark storm cloud of a retirement crisis to occur throughout the Western nations with the peak being around 2016. As there are more old people than young, this not only puts strain on the current systems, it means that those who are invested in the stock market means they will be pulling their money out near the same time. ERISA is a law that makes people take out their 401ks at a certain age in their early seventies. ERISA exists because the Government, who did not get their tax when the 401ks were made, want their pound of flesh and so, by law, these 401ks will be coming out. What we will see is that there will be more money exiting the stock market than entering it. People are losing their pensions left and right. The retirement crisis will be the number one concern of the electorate in 2012, 2016, and, apparently, 2008. I have always said I plan to leave America before 2016, and since the dark clouds are appearing sooner than I suspected, I have to further ahead my plans. As I said before, the only way for a Democrat candidate to get 50% + of the vote is for extenuating circumstances (such as a Depression, an Assassination, or a Watergate). The Retirement Crisis is such an extenuating circumstance. Exit polls show around 20% of conservatives (of the depressed turnout conservatives that did vote) went to Obama. Why? Retirement Crisis. It is easy to show how massive the Retirement Crisis is within the electorate by just hearing, today, people chatting worriedly about the government taking over their 401ks or other rumors they hear. There are some people I know who say they feel sorry for anyone who is president in 2012 and 2016 simply because of the Retirement Crisis. While the Retirement Crisis might have helped Obama this election, it will likely have the other effect four years from now. Unless America soil gets attacked, nothing is really going to trump the Retirement Crisis in the upcoming elections. And it cannot be fixed because the demographics simply are not there. There are more Baby Boom Generation than those that are younger.
In 2006, Karl Rove said how his internals showed his party to do fine in that election. Rove did not expect conservatives to stay home. President Bush called out Rove on this during a press conference.
If I made the same mistake as Rove did, then it shows I am doing something very right. I’m pleased to be making the error that the far better paid and better trusted professionals make.
Do you know the difference between analysis and prediction?
My analysis was right on (minus the errors stated above). However, my prediction was not. Alas, some readers do not know the difference.
Analysis is about understanding what is going on and why. For example, any analysis that does not try to understand both campaign strategies is not an analysis. When the McCain Campaign kept going into Pennsylvania, saying the campaign is ‘dumb’ or ‘stupid’ is not an analysis. They were doing it for a reason. They had a strategy. What was it? I nailed their strategy correctly. This is why during election night, Barone goes on TV and says ‘Pennsylvania is still in play’ because McCain Campaign was watching the returns as they came in from the state. Only when they came in from Pennsylvania in the 90% range or so, only then did McCain go out and concede.
Here is what I got correct in the analysis:
Youth Vote Never Appeared for Obama
There was no huge surge of young voters. Every four years, we are always told there is a huge surge of young voters. They don’t appear. Four years from now, you will hear talk about ‘young voters’ surging everywhere. But they won’t appear because they never appear.
McCain Campaign was counting on Hillary Clinton voters to vote for McCain
This is one of the big reasons why McCain targeted Pennsylvania. In the debates, McCain kept dropping Hillary’s name and on things he agrees with her. This backfired in that it made conservatives stay home. Conservatives despise everything about Hillary Clinton and are not happy that their candidate ‘agrees’ with Hillary Clinton more than the butter and bread conservative issues.
McCain Campaign thought the election would be like 2004 or 2000 and focused on McCain’s ‘reaching across the aisle’ brand to strengthen his win. It only made his base stay home.
Obama can only win if a repeat of 2006 occurs
I nailed this one. Conservatives see McCain as a type of ‘Judas’ figure to conservatism. Many would prefer Obama as president, have him get the blame for things, and then have a conservative candidate to come in to clean up. (Consider the election of 1976 and then 1980 for this point.) Many conservatives wish to punish the Republican Party. “But Malstrom! Obama got more votes than Bush did in 2004 and 2000!” And this proves my point. You have to understand that if McCain did become president, it would forever change the Republican Party. The party would have become the party of McCain and of ‘reaching across the aisle’. Conservatives want to win on their values. There are some conservatives that voted for Obama simply to vote against McCain. Other voters stayed home. Some voted for a third party candidate such as the Constitution Party. Do not underestimate the anger of the conservative base at McCain. (I figured this anger would have gone away after the Palin pick, but I was mistaken.) This explains why Obama’s coattails did not translate to equal Democrat pick-ups in Congress.
Retirement Crisis, Not Economy
One thing I don’t think many people are picking up on is that it is not the ‘economy’, as a de facto typical economy issue, that has been the matter. It is ‘Retirement Crisis’ which is far different than the standard economy, and I believe needs to be differentiated.
Social Security was always said to be the third rail (meaning that any politician that touches it, dies). This means that retirement, which is what many view Social Security as, is the umbrella that is the third rail. When the stock market began its steep slide down, it was clearly ‘Retirement Crisis’ that is the concern. Economy was just as much as a concern when oil prices shot up and cost of food rose. However, as oil prices dropped, so did the gas prices. In that manner, the economy actually improved. But the drop of the stock market, which many Americans are counting for retirement, should be differentiated from the standard ‘economy’ issue and should be treated as an extenuating factor.
The Retirement Crisis is a dark storm will be causing a constant nightmare for politicians until after 2016. It’s not going away folks.
Emails
As you can suspect, I have had a slew of smug emails. Let us take a look at some:
Too funny; I’ve rarely read something as wrong as this blog post. I mean, Palin Fever? Pennsylvania is now red? FiveThirtyEight Is Propaganda Site Masquerading as a ‘Calculation’ Site? Hilarious. Pretty much all of your points were wrong. It’s always amusing to me to watch people claim their gut is more accurate than what the number crunchersthink, and then be completely wrong. You should have the decency to apologize to 538, who got it WAAAAAAY more right than you. But I doubt you will, and I’m sure you’ll go on betting from the gut. And sure, sometimes you’ll be right, and you’ll use that to justify your bias against actual, rigorous study. But a lot of the time you’ll be wrong, and you’ll have to eat a little toast. But you won’t even be able to get that right. “Pennslyvania was far, far closer than people gave credit for.” Too damn funny.
Going backwards through this:
1) In regards to Pennsylvania, I am referring to projecting the state based entirely on exit polling (which many people are plucking that sentence out from its context and of the fact that not all precincts had counted in yet). This happens in every election for some reason. With no votes counted, they call Pennsylvania. In 2000 and 2004, the totals ended up being extremely close. In 2008, the totals may not have ended up close but it is far closer than what people gave credit for which is a reference the demographics and strategic nature of the campaigns. Why on earth would anyone call a battleground state before any votes had been counted? The reason for the spread was not because Obama was gaining more votes than ever in Pennsylvania, but conservatives stayed home with McCain and did so on a national scale. I thought 2008 would not be a repeat of 2006 with conservatives staying home. That error got me off not just on Pennsylvania but on all the states. Note how no one else can or did explain McCain’s strategy in Pennsylvania. Also note that McCain only conceded once the Pennsylvania totals came in.
2) I am a former number cruncher. I never gave any reasons from the ‘gut’. I showed evidence for my reasons such as movements of the candidates, where they were spending money, and so on. But you have to realize that elections are not about numbers, they are about people. Polls are always off every election cycle. If anyone believed the polls, then Hillary Clinton and Rudy Guliani would have been the two presidential candidates. I am also a contrarian who actively goes against the conventional wisdom. Why? Because any idiot can say what everyone else is saying. And no one wants to read something everyone else is saying. The way how I was accurately predicting McCain Campaign’s movements when everyone else couldn’t should reveal some of my professional skill.
3) Nate Silver, of 538, is a hack. I’m sorry this makes anyone feel bad, but the truth is the truth. He uses other people’s data and calls it his own. He doesn’t even show the ‘methodology’ of how that data is put together. It is not the act of a professional. No one in this business would say Obama has 98% chance of winning or McCain has 1% chance of winning. The reason why I call 538 a site of propaganda, and somewhat of the Politico, is because there is zero effort of analysis (analysis means understanding what the two campaign strategies are. There has been little to no effort in trying to understand the strategy behind the McCain Campaign). There has been no focus on why McCain Campaign did the things it did or its strategic vision behind them. A real analysis looks at both campaigns. When 538 begin trying to analyze instead of vomiting out numbers, it sounds no different than a surrogate from the Obama Campaign. Dan Rather was revealed to be a partisan hack in 2004, and MSNBC has essentially lost all credibility (more so than most of the media outlets). The fact that Nate keeps associating with these clowns simply reinforces my points are quite and, unfortunately, true. Believe me, I am no fan of the meltdown in the political analysis sphere.
4) Pennsylvania would have easily been red provided that McCain attract similar Bush support in the state in 2004 (not an unreasonable assumption) while picking off Hillary Clinton voters (also not unreasonable) and obtain the Reagan Democrats in the state (also not unreasonable), and that by losing those Democrats, Obama would underperform in the state which was very close in 2004. In the Pittsburgh area, this did occur. McCain did beat Bush’s performance and Obama underperformed. The rest of the state, this obviously did not occur. Murtha, who called his constituents racists, was re-elected by a comfortable margin. However, prior to the election, Murtha was calling for help, Governor Rendell kept asking Obama to visit the state again, and a new flurry of polls showed congressional races in Western Pennslyvania becoming more competitive. Any objective observer would have said, “Look! There is something going on in that state.” In fact, those who were saying the opposite, that there was nothing going on and no need to pay attention, I consider unobjective. You simply cannot ignore states where the campaigns both send their candidates and tons of money. My prediction was wrong, but my analysis was correct.
5) Palin Fever is real. Evidence: the VP Debate being the most watched debate of this election and more watched than any debate since 1992 (I doubt people were watching for Biden). More evidence: Palin’s appearance on Saturday Night Live making it the highest rated in the show’s history in like a decade. There is real interest in Palin. Unfortunately for the McCain Campaign, people vote for the top of the ticket. With Biden’s numerous gaffes, he obviously didn’t hurt Obama. Edwards didn’t hurt Kerry. Quayle didn’t hurt Bush. VP candidates don’t appear to make much of a difference in the long run.
Let us go to another email…
The reason your predictioon failed was you misunderstood how to adapt disruptions to
the political arena.
In the political alignment there exists a cleavage between the parties, one party is on one side of the cleavage the other party on the other side, this cleavage is defined by the issues that the parties fight over. The electorate for the most part fall on one side or the other, even those who are considered indpendents usually have opinions that tilt one way or the other overall, ut they tend to be more towards the center. Now throughout history especially duing times of high voter apathy and disconnect with the major party organizations, when the issues that define the current cleavage are no longer as relevant, the political structure is disrupted by an issue or cluster of issues that cut across the current line of cleavage. This is disruptive because it doesn’t follow the current line of cleavage, so the parties themselves are polarized, as is the electroate at large, most of the times the parties try and straddle the issue for a time, but eventually have to either polarize or risk being ripped apart and supplanted. During this time, many voters change their voter attachments, and new and lapsed voters enter, or reenter politics, energized by the importance of these issues, as a result the party structure is reorganized along this new issue or set of issues.
These events are rare, only four have occured in the last 150-160 years of the American
party system. The first was the civil war realignment, when the issue of slavery and
related issues disrupted the system and destroyed the Whig party, the
second was the populist realignment, when issues involving farmers and other groups
disrupted the party structure and the Democrats adopted a populist vein by absorbing
the populist party, the third was the new Deal realignment, during the great
depression, when the Democrats when from the minority party to the majority party and the two parties were divided along left and right win economic policies, and the fourth was the culture wars realignment when the new deal coaltiion of the democrats were
disrupted by a series of issues including the vietnam war, the civil rights issue, the 60’s
counterculture, the religious right, and white backlash. However each instance the party
structure was disrupted and reformed along new lines.
Currently it is my theory that a fifth such event is occuring right now, not as fast as
the new deal however, which was the fastest of the realignments, but one that is
building up over a series of elections. The issues that are acting as disruptive,
include Iraq, the Economic situation that is occuring now, the increasingly extreme
position of the right wing, and the Bush administration in general. Usually in these
realignments, one party is disrupted and polarized to a greater degree than the other,
and usually is the one that suffers more from the events of the realignment. In the
culture wars realignment, it was the Democrats who were disrupted to a
greater degree, and as a result the Republicans came to dominate for some time,
however that is changing, of course we are only in the middle of this realignment, and
it has some ways to go before it completes, part of the final result will depend on the
successes and failures of the Obama administration.
Good grief! Why are people applying ‘disruption’ to areas where it has no business belonging? Politics is not business.
Anyway, there has been no ‘re-alignment’. Disinterest is the main opponent, not people who are voting for the other guy. McCain Campaign believed in ‘the Great Middle’ and the entire strategy was to get Democrats and Independents to vote for him and this turned off his base.
There is also the Retirement Crisis extenuating factor here that must not be ignored. Americans would vote a cat into office if they believed the cat would allow them to retire. As the storm builds, we are going to see the Third Rail on steroids.
Another email…
“Pennslyvania was far, far closer than people gave credit for. It is
quite annoying when networks project states based on 1% of voting.”
RCP had the polling average in PA at 7.3
538 had the average at about 8 I believe, based on about something
like 22 polls over a couple months of polling right up till the end.
Obama won by 11.
How is that “far, far closer than people gave credit for”? Who are
these “people”?
Also, in your “Toast” column, you asserted that ignorant big city
pollsters thought PA was a New England state. This is ludicrous. No
sane pollster or political analyst or for that matter B- political
science student would categorize PA as a New England state, no matter
how insulated a tower of elitist latte sipping academia they were
coccooned in. And none of them would fail to recognize such a basic
and obvious feature of the state as the East (Philly and suburbs)
/T-and-West demographic split or the influence of Ohio on the border.
Once I read that “insight” in your essay I knew the rest was likely
junk.
Stick to Nintendo.
I’m amazed people don’t realize that with Nintendo, I attempt to analyze their strategy and then place the prediction on the contrary ground (to whatever conventional wisdom out there). Predictions are just icing on the cake. I laughed at Pachter not because he thought Playstation 3 was going to ‘win’ but because he thought Playstation 3 was going to be the most sold video game player because people would be buying it for Blu-Ray movies. Such analysts made a bad analysis because they thought the main rocket underneath video game players’ sales was the non-gaming elements where, in fact, it is the games. I’m doing nothing differently in this regard than I did with my articles on the gaming industry.
What I said about the lack of analysis in the campaigns still stands. The ‘analysis’ that Obama would win because of the ‘youth vote’ was totally wrong. My ‘analysis’ that Obama would win only if there was a repeat of 2006 conservatives punishing the Republicans was totally right. My ‘analysis’ that only an extenuating factor would push the Democrat candidate above 50% in the popular vote ended up being totally right (the Retirement Crisis, while I didn’t think would come into play this election, I have talked about frequently on my blog.). I talked about Pennsylvania before anyone else had picked up on it. I talked about Iowa before others picked up on it. In other words, my analysis keeps getting the strategies right while others just reach for things out of thin air (i.e. “Why is McCain going to that state? Is he crazy?”).
I have to laugh when someone cites Real Clear Average and 538’s “different results” when they are relying on the same exact polling data. The difference is that Real Clear Average clearly says the data is not their own, while 538 takes the polling data, puts on Nate’s “special sauce”, and calls it his own data (and he does not describe what changes he applies in his ‘special sauce’).
And if you look at the paragraph my sentence about Pennsylvania being ‘far far closer than it is’, you will find that I am referring to media outlets who keep projecting the battleground state of Pennsylvania without any votes being counted. I find this annoying because it was done in 2000 and 2004 where it ended up being won by a razor thin margin.
I never referred to pollsters saying that PA is a ‘New England’ state. I am referring to media pundits for that belief which they have stated which is why they could never analyze PA correctly. They have dropped the ball entirely on reporting what was going on during the campaigns, especially regarding McCain Campaign’s strategy. Now, it ended up being the losing strategy, but any analysis means you must strive to understand the strategies, whether they lose or win. Anything else is punditry.
The reason why I relied on candidate movements and money being spent instead of poll numbers is because (it is a healthy assumption) that the internal polls of the campaigns are more accurate than what is out there. McCain Campaign’s internal polls were obviously wrong. But here’s the rub, so were Karl Rove’s internal polls in 2006. Both Rove in 2006 and the McCain Campaign did not expect conservatives to stay home during those two elections.
Another email….
Sean,
I hope I’m not the only person telling you this, but good for you. Personally I’m glad you were fairly dead wrong with your election predictions but I laud your willingness to own up to it. I’m also glad that while you missed the mark on this one, your analysis and predictions for the gaming industry have been pretty spot on. I enjoy those posts and articles a lot more anyway, so looking forward to some more.
Sincerely,
XXX
This email was not a snarky one which was refreshing.
I’m a contrarian by nature. I don’t actively pursue taking the opposite of the conventional view, but when something occurs that looks like a possible upset to that view, it is fun to get behind it. No one wants to read what everyone else is saying. It also takes no skill to say what everyone else is saying. Anyone who plugs in poll numbers into a map and declares that to be an ‘analysis’ reveals a total lack of critical thought. Critical thinking isn’t easy which is why almost everyone in the political realm tend to say the same exact thing..
I know the usual viewers of this site will be relieved that these election posts are over (there will just be one more) as things return to normal. But remember, this site is not about the game industry. It is about Malstrom trying to make money. I’m studying Nintendo only because they are insanely profitable but also no one else has really seems interested in studying the company (so I feel a little like a pioneer on virgin soil here which makes it fun).
Keep in mind that my ‘toast’ post attracted more hits than anything I have ever written on this website. I am actually amazed the post found its way into the political blogosphere (for I didn’t put it out there). The reason why I think it received so much attention (including people laughing at it after the election) is because it was not just contrarian but a firebrand contrarian. People like to read things that are different from the conventional wisdom, even if they don’t agree with it at all or that it turns out wrong in the end.
Right after writing the above, I then read this email:
I thought your “Toast” entry was excellent.
I was a professional stock market analyst for many years. I really loved my job but had to quit because it was literally driving me nuts. It happened to me then, and it still does: I really get all turned on by solid (i.e. well argumented) contrarian views on anything.
That’s why I liked your entry so much.
A well-known (here) Spanish cartoonist once ran a very famous cartoon where a guy was saying something along the lines: “Us, economists…. well, we are really like the rest of the crowd, in that we are equally taken by surprise by anything that happens in the economy or markets. What makes us different is that we can explain extraordinarily well the reasons that led to actual events”.
So, I’d be one of those grateful readers that would appreciate your explanation of the “reasons that led to actual events”.
Best regards
I’ll do another post on this later, but the major factors were:
1) Retirement Crisis- I differentiate this from the ‘economy’ because Retirement Crisis has the same effect as the ‘third rail’ of Social Security (any politician who touches it, dies). The Retirement Crisis is that many Americans are scared about being unable to retire. With the stock market crashing, they don’t feel secure. They will vote in anyone to make the stock market go up so their 401ks can go up as well.
2) Obama Ran a More Conservative Campaign Than McCain
After the election, some people asked me, “Is this not a right of center country anymore?” I reminded these people what Obama ran on. Obama Campaign masterly stayed on message of middle class tax cuts and tied the stock market to McCain (and Bush’s) necks. Obama ran as a tax cutter. After the Joe the Plumber incident about ‘spreading the wealth’, there is a reason why the Obama Campaign essentially froze. They almost dropped the ball.
3) There is a reason why Bush defeated McCain in the 2000 primaries. McCain could never rally his base. McCain is the type of politician who likes getting attention from media and Washington type people. He gets much attention from going against conservatives in the Senate. McCain is consistent in being the most unloyal person to the conservative movement. The press, who liked this behavior, called it ‘maverick’ to praise him running against his party. 2008 clearly reveals that New Hampshire never truly liked McCain even though he wins the primaries there. What I suspect is that New Hampshire, being an open primary, had Democrats coming and voting for McCain in the Republican primary. I don’t think McCain ever attracted any significant support from Republicans.
4) The Republican Party is in a state of inner civil war of two ideologies. The first is from conservatism who wants the identity of the Republican Party to be conservatism. The second is from republicanism who wants the conservatives’ votes but not their values. George W. Bush campaigned as a conservative but was actually a follower of republicanism. After 2004, when he didn’t have to win any elections, the conservative mask came off (watch how fast Bush sells his ranch he ‘loves’ once he leaves the White House). Bush began doing things conservatives hated such as pushing for amnesty for illegal aliens, putting up Harriet Meirs for Supreme Court nominee, mishandling the Iraq war (until the strategy was remade with the ‘surge’ taking place), and letting the ‘new tone’ translate to growing government like never before. The question of low approval numbers for Bush is not why the left hates him but why the right, the people who voted for him, now does. After a couple years in office, Bush had a Republican Senate and Republican House and ended up losing both and losing the successor presidency to a Democrat. (George W. Bush has been the best thing ever to happen to the Democrat Party.) Bush only articulated conservatism when he campaigned. In office, he never defended it, articulated it, or even defended himself. He had no desire to lead a movement. He chose Cheney as the VP who was never going to run after Bush’s term (as most VPs do). Bush’s abandonment of conservatism has unleashed a civil war of conservatism and republicanism over the party and has the traditional Republican machine in tatters.
In contrast, the Democrats had the most ‘Perfect Storm’ I’ve ever seen.
-Democrat candidate had little to no record so a ‘blank slate effect’ occurred. Obama might as well nickname himself as ‘Tabula Rasa’ as his entire campaign was ‘change’ but the specifics were never really quite there. Obama’s political record is very thin which means there is little history to draw on for specifics. (It will be fascinating to see how people react once Obama does something specific).
-Stock market crashes a few months before the election when most Americans look for the market as their retirement.
-Oil prices plunge that takes the issue of drilling off the table.
-The Democrat candidate was black which created some odd effects. Americans tend to treat black people like trophies especially if they act ‘white’. The fear of being called ‘racist’ hangs over opponents of black candidates which they act softer than they normally do. Obama Campaign did also use the race card as frequently as possible (and did the same during the Democrat Primary).
-The Republican candidate was loathed by the conservative base. Many simply would never vote for him. The drop of this conservative turnout is one of the reasons why McCain lost so many states where the demographics were in his favor.
-In hindsight, the Palin VP pick was the McCain Campaign’s “Hail Mary”. Republicanists do not like conservatives and would have preferred anyone but Palin. But Republicanists don’t like losing elections as anyone else does. Notice how after Palin was picked, they tried to turn Palin into a McCain carbon copy. Palin was easily drawing far larger crowds than McCain. When the VP candidate is more popular than the presidential candidate, it is a big problem. Had McCain won, I now suspect that a McCain Administration would have done everything it can to have removed Palin and put in someone who follows Republicanism in her place.
-Obama Campaign outspent the McCain Campaign on a scale of 4 to 1. Money doesn’t determine elections (Kerry outspent Bush on a scale of 2 to 1), but it most certainly helps.
-After 8 years of any presidency, there is a certain ‘fatigue’ effect at work. There was never any national hatred at Bush. Bush doesn’t come across as a jerk to anyone. The way how he abandoned the conservative base has ticked them off and they have been in the process of ‘punishing’ the Republican Party, and it doesn’t appear it will stop anytime soon. In Modern Politics, no party has ever won three presidential elections in a row. While Republican Party only won the last two presidential elections, fatigue was clearly setting in combined with the conservative anger at their ‘guy’. Keep in mind this conservative anger hit Bush Elder much the same way and was one of the reasons why Clinton won and why third party Perot bizarrely did so well in 1992 (Perot got 19% of the vote! Huge by third party standards).
As I’ve said before, presidential elections are not a case of a Risk board. Individual state strategies matter mostly when it is a close election. But the popular vote is like a rising and falling water level on the elevation of the electoral college. For example, in 1984, it didn’t matter what Mondale’s individual state strategies were because there was no way he could win with the national vote being what it was. Ditto for 1988, 1992, and 1996. 2000 and 2004 got many people to believe the Electoral College is a presidential Risk board due to one state determining the election. But that is often not the case. In 2008, it didn’t matter what McCain’s state strategies anywhere as there was no way he could win if his base didn’t show up to vote for him.
Political Wizards Have Egg on Face
Is it not amazing that with all these record voter registrations, and all the wizards of smart saying that turn out in 2008 would be bigger than ever, that the 2008 turnout ended up being flat compared to 2004? Many of you will not want to believe that. Already, many are already firing up your emails to send to me, “But more people voted in 2008 than in 2004!” By what, a million votes? When you factor in that the country is still growing, and that new voter registrations were off the charts, and everyone and their dog was predicting unprecedented record turnout, none of it appeared. This suggests a more depressed turnout since, with the increased registrations and growing population, the number of voters should have gone up at the same level as it did in the last few presidential elections
The fabled ‘youth vote’, like the Loch Ness Monster, also never appeared.
A new report from American University’s Center for the Study of the American Electorate concludes that voter turnout in Tuesday’s election was the same in percentage terms as it was four years ago — or at most has risen by less than 1 percent.
Anyone who is saying this is AMAZING TURN OUT is likely playing the part of the pro-Obama ideologue. With record voter registration and a growing population, the turn out should have been far higher than above ‘even’ of 2004.
“A downturn in the number and percentage of Republican voters going to the polls seemed to be the primary explanation for the lower than predicted turnout,” the report said.
Republicans didn’t turn out for their candidate. This is why the election results were as they were (I expected Republicans to turn out in my analysis which is why my prediction ended up being so off). But at least I knew the reason why Obama would win is if Republicans didn’t turn out. Everyone else kept citing youth vote, record voter registrations, African American vote, “re-alignment”, and tons of nonsense. Since many people’s predictions were right, they will mistakenly believe their analysis was correct. This is frequent in the political world where everyone believes he or she is the wizard.
“Many people were fooled (including this student of politics although less so than many others) by this year’s increase in registration (more than 10 million added to the rolls), citizens’ willingness to stand for hours even in inclement weather to vote early, the likely rise in youth and African American voting, and the extensive grassroots organizing network of the Obama campaign into believing that turnout would be substantially higher than in 2004,” Curtis Gans, the center’s director, said in the report. “But we failed to realize that the registration increase was driven by Democratic and independent registration and that the long lines at the polls were mostly populated by Democrats.”
I was not fooled. This is more confirmation I was correct in my analysis. The “analysts” who kept citing the above were generally propagandists. The truth has always been that Democrats only become president when conservatives stay home. There was never a huge, never before seen, groundswell support for Obama. It was the same Democrat voters as always. Aside from Republicans staying home, many millstones were wrapped around the Republican candidate’s neck this election with the stock market crashing and all. Considering all this, it really shows how weak Obama performed contrary to expectations.
The word ‘landslide’ has been overtly used. Here is what real landslides look like:
1964-
LBJ 61.1% to Goldwater’s 38.5%
1936-
FDR 60.8% to Landon’s 36.5%
1920-
Harding 60.3% to Cox 34.1%
1904-
Roosevelt 56.4% to Parker 37.6%
1972-
Nixon 60.7% to McGovern 37.5%
1984-
Reagan 58.8% to Mondal 40.6%
However the popular vote ends up forms a type of water lever where all the electoral votes go. The reason why I am saying this is because the last two close presidential elections have created in many people’s minds the myth of Electoral Risk Board which simply doesn’t exist (where candidates can pluck individual states such as McCain winning PA and losing OH. But that is absurd and unrealistic. Obama is not going to win Texas while losing Iowa. Elections don’t work that way.). Only when candidates are close in the popular vote does it really matter about the micro-strategies in each state.
Anyone who called the Bush victories in 2000 and 2004 a huge win was a propagandist. The same is true for the Clinton victories in 1992 and 1996 (Clinton didn’t even get 50% of the vote but that was due to Perot). In 2008, the vote ended up being Obama 52% to McCain 46%. It is a decisive, even comfortable, Obama victory. But anyone calling it a landslide is a propagandist.
It is really quite stunning how all these people predicting record turnout all ended up being wrong.
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