Last night Gov. Palin did what she needed to do: she introduced herself to the American people and made the case that she deserved to be standing where she was. As to whether her presence on the ticket will be enough to triumph in November I have no idea.
I continue to think that the election will be decided by events beyond the control of the campaigns.
Most elections are.
On the other hand, McCain had a problem, and the pick of Palin fixed it for him: McCain’s base didn’t support him strongly. Let me amplify that: the potential electorate can be roughly divided into four boxes. Three boxes, approximately equally sized, we can label “partisan Democrats”, “partisan Republicans” and “swing voters”. The first will vote always or nearly always for the Democrat, regardless of any other circumstances, and the second will likely vote always or nearly always for the Republican. The third group is where elections are generally won and lost. The fourth group, which appears to be around 40% of the potential electorate, doesn’t vote much, so let’s call them “non-voters”.
If you can tap the non-voter group, as Jesse Ventura did, you can beat any candidate from any party, even running as an independent. But that’s rare, because the non-voter group by definition does not tend to vote; it takes a huge orchestration and fortuitous circumstances to turn that vote out. Obama has been put forth as tapping a large part of that group (young voters not ordinarily interested in politics), and thus as inevitable to win overwhelmingly by bringing in new voters. If I hadn’t heard the same argument about every Democratic candidate for President during my lifetime, I might pay attention, but I have and I won’t.
The Republicans and the Democrats are divided into interest groups. The Democrats are divided into hundreds of interest groups, of which the largest are the blue dogs (essentially the DLC, what’s left of the Scoop Jackson/JFK wing of the party), the progressive partisans (think Kos: they’d throw the Democrats off in a moment for a more progressive party, if that party could win elections), the largest “cause people” groups like the environmentalists and the pro-choice activists, and the various groups of victim-identity mongers, of which the blacks’, womens’ and gays’ blocks are the largest. Obviously, some people are in more than one of these groups; the Democrats are a very complex coalition of very focused interests. Of all of these, the only group that Barack Obama does not have sewn up is the blue dogs, from whence the still-disaffected Hillary supporters come. The other groups, including the Hillary supporters who have or will come around, have already been backing Obama at least tacitly, and often enthusiastically.
The Republicans are much simpler. While there are some fringe groups (such as the Log Cabin Republicans or the Ron Paul Libertarian infiltrationist types), the Republicans are almost entirely in one of three camps: the pro-business socially liberal Hamiltonians (think McCain, Giuliani, Bush the elder, Rockefeller, Romney), the socially conservative evangelical Wilsonians (think Bush the younger, Huckabee, Condi Rice, James Dobson), and the socially libertarian small government economic conservative Jacksonians (think Goldwater, Reagan, Fred Thompson). There is little crossover between the groups; Republicans tend to be in one camp based on ideology, rather than several based on interests.
The primary was mostly about the first group, and it is the only group McCain really had the support of after the nomination became inevitable. To the other two groups, McCain was either too pragmatic and unprincipled (the social conservatives’ position) or too dismissive of the Constitution and too supportive of big government (the economic conservatives’ position).
With the Palin nomination, McCain managed to, at a stroke, bring all three groups behind his candidacy, because Palin appeals to both the social conservatives and the economic conservatives. With both McCain and Obama having cemented their parties support, the focus will move to who can win over the swing voters, who can break off parts of the other candidate’s base (Hillary supporters on the one hand, and Ron Paul supporters on the other), and who can motivate the most voters from the non-voter pool. In other words, once again, this election will be decided by the swing voters. And since swing voters are highly sensitive to current conditions, I suspect that, yes, events beyond the control of either candidate will be the largest determinant of who wins.
But that would not have been true had McCain made a poor VP choice.
I think your analysis is pretty solid, Jeff. I have a few quibbles with it, mostly about terminology. For example, I’m old enough to remember the Lindsay-Rockefeller branch of the Republican Party. While Rudy Giuliani would probably fit comfortably within that branch, there’s not a chance that John McCain would. I actually think that John McCain is more like a Goldwater Republican with a few Jacksonian overtones. He may be, basically, a Republican Jacksonian.
Also, I don’t think that GWB is a Republican Wilsonian. I think he’s a Republican Jacksonian who’s fallen under the sway of the actual Republican Wilsonians (the neo-conservatives).
But I think the kernel of your point, that Sarah Palin’s presence on the ticket is unifying the branches of the party, certainly appears to be correct.
My take on her is that she’s a pretty typical Alaskan populist. I’ve heard it called “redneck socialism” so that’s what I call it, too. I suspect it’s pretty closely related to TVA libertarians (which is what I gather Glenn Reynolds is).
I tend to think of the Rockefeller branch of the party as somewhat populist, as McCain most assuredly is. Could be that I’ve misunderstood that — that particular falling out was before my time, and I haven’t studied it extensively. Yet McCain doesn’t strike me as a Goldwater type, because no such person could have done what he’s done on campaign finance reform.
I think GWB started out as a Jacksonian, but was forced by events to move towards Wilsonian positions. It has changed him. I’m not convinced, at any rate, that it’s just that he’s fallen under the neo-cons’ sway; I suspect from his actions that he has himself become Wilsonian.
I could, of course, be wrong.
I think your last paragraph is utterly spot on.
I think what surprised me the most about the two VP picks was not McCain’s pick of Palin (which pleased me, but was not utterly out of the blue) but Obama’s pick of Biden. I like Biden (not personally, but politically) quite a bit, despite his misguided positions on a lot of things. He’s got the right instinct to probe for unexpected angles, and seems to me quite good at working through tough problems. He’s clearly a serious person.
But why did Obama pick him? It was a completely conservative pick, of someone who did not himself do well before national voters earlier in the primaries, and who doesn’t bring anything to the Obama campaign except long experience in national politics. Well, Obama has some experience in national politics, and what he needed was either someone to smooth over the riled Hillary Clinton supporters, or someone to give him executive foreign policy experience. While she would not have been an exciting choice, Madeleine Albright would have been a better pick on both levels at once. So I really don’t get why Obama went with Biden.
Madeleine Albright is ineligible—she’s a naturalized American citizen.
I think that Sen. Obama picked Sen. Biden for comfort level. Probably both the voters’ and his own.
If you look around it seems pretty apparent that the progressive wing of Democratic Party is at heart uninterested in foreign policy. As loudly as they’d deny it I think they’re isolationists. Wishing that everything could be delegated to the UNSC is isolationism masquerading as internationalism. It’s putting lipstick on a pig. Relying for action on an institution that was designed to make action difficult and has evolved over the years so that action is impossible.
I am beginning to think events beyond the control of the campaign might be the blogosphere. Watching Charlie Rose after the debate, the MSM basically conceded that post-Edwards they were going to take the responsibility to ask the questions raised in the lower media. The McCain camp seemed outraged to have questions posed about when their new teammate conceived her child, but new rules I guess.
I particularly like Jeff’s point that Palin excites not only social conservatives, but she excites the economic wing with her background as an executive and reformer from outside Washington.
But I’ll agree with Dave, I think the Republican party is becoming more Jacksonian, both on foreign policy and domestic. McCain reminds me of Jackson, a Scots-Irishman who feels strongly the pull of honor, often deciding from the gut or trusted comrades. Not particularly ideological.
The Democratic Party is moving away from the working class; the Republican Party is being drawn into it. The old coalitions may fray.
The Democrats aren’t moving away from the working class. The working class is changing. The guy working in a steel mill has been replaced by the woman writing code in a cubicle. Look at where the Silicon Valley money is going, it’s going to Obama. The working class bangs a keyboard and stares at a monitor, it doesn’t drill, cut and hammer.
And the GOP isn’t primarily defined by splits between Jacksonians and Wilsonians. It’s less unified than that. It’s money, bombs and Jesus. Money republicans, foreign/defense policy republicans and the very religious. Fortunately for the GOP the Dems are in no position to entice any of those three constituencies.
Unfortunately for the GOP the Dems don’t have to. They don’t have small town America, they have the cities. And they may have lost the millworker but they gained the information worker. The Dems have growing racial and ethnic groups while the GOP has a declining one. This campaign exemplifies the choice: past or future.McCain talks about what hapened 40 years ago. Obama talks about ten years from now.
I did not know that. You know, there’s a rule I’d be happy to see die, and a Constitutional amendment I’d be happy to see. I can understand not wanting to have a new citizen running (too much risk of foreign influence, for one thing, but what about someone who came here as a child? To my mind there is no reason why Albright, or for that matter Arnold Schwarzenegger or — the female governor, I think she’s a Democrat, who was born in Canada — anyway, someone who’s been a citizen for a long time should not be eligible.
Michael’s comment reminds me of something that my earlier thoughts set in motion. I wonder if the way that the parties misunderstand each other is due to the nature of their coalitions. Democrats seem to see Republicans as hopelessly uniform and thus unthinking and unreasoning, while Republicans seem to see Democrats as utterly driven by group identity. Each characterization has some merit, but frankly not much. While there are some in each party who fit those characterizations, for the most part people are people. I suspect that the Democrats view their multiply-connected, chaotic and somewhat idealistic (and often unrealistic) nature as a true key strength, and that the Republicans’ lack of that is incomprehensible to them. Similarly, I suspect that the Republicans see their dedication to a few well-defined and time-honored principles as a true key strength, and are mystified by the Democrats’ utter indifference or even downright hostility to that. I think our civitas and polity are harmed by the failure to realize that both are necessary and useful in their place.
We’ve had a long primary..and now that the big sales pitch is over…the next two months will give us a much clearer picture of just who has what the people want and need. The training time is over, now it’s time for the games to begin…and I think the games will be very revealing.
There have been many surprising, I think there are many more to come.
michael, I’m using the term “working class” to describe those people with a high school degree, but not a college degree. And yes, that would include a lot of jobs in the service sector, including even skilled trades. The progressives, which are ascendant with Obama, generally favor government actions which value college educations.
Obama’s jobs program involves increasing environmental regulations which will increase the need for lawyers, engineers, consultants and managers. He also wants to subsidize education for green technology jobs.
You could look at this in one of two ways. Obama has married progressive environmental goals with populist demands for more jobs. Or he is merely solving the problems of the working class by trying to shrink it.
Why can’t environmental goals be thought of as ‘New Economic Industries”?
and in that case perhaps creating new manufacturing opportunities for American workers. Obama is thinking long term, what could be…he’s thinking of the future and where we can go. The energy issue is big, it is also connected the the environmental issue, but the two together..lots of possibilities. I think the opposite is true, that in the future the working class will grow if, and if we think in terms of our Nations future needs…energy, the environment, our way of life…it’s pretty clear that our current path had limits..I think this is one of those historical times when we move from the horse and buggy to the automobile..from goal and oil to other forms of energy..from a shrinking working class to a growing working class with good jobs that will move people from the bottom towards the middle.
My father’s generation were able to experience a comfortable middle class life without a college education…
Larry, my personal view is the environmental regulations with benefits that exceed the costs should be promulgated, but they should not be sold as jobs programs. Your pretty close to make-work programs otherwise. Is the income tax a jobs program for accountants?