Tuesday, December 14, 2010

To repeat: Dems and R's don't "swing" a lump of voters back and forth; they compete for different "independents"

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"Instead of standing up for progressive values, [Democrats] give in and 'move to the right' on every issue, thinking that there are voters 'in the middle' who will then switch sides and support them, when what they are actually doing is convincing those in the middle who might have shown up at the polls to stay home and not bother."
-- Dave Johnson, in the blogpost "The Elusive 'Swing' Vote"

by Ken

Last week with some trepidation I took issue with a writer for whom I have the highest regard, Mark Lilla, for his contribution to the New York Review of Books' post-election coverage. One of my points of disagreement concerned his assumption that Democrats and Republicans are fighting over the same bloc of independent voters, a piece of conventional Village wisdom so deeply embedded that it's hard to even question, but everything I read and hear says it's mostly wrong.

"What we saw in Tuesday’s election," Lilla wrote, "was a large-scale shift of independents, many of whom must have voted for Barack Obama in 2008," and he quoted David Chalian on NewsHour:
In 2006, when Democrats swept into control of the House, independents split 57 percent for Democrats…39 percent for Republicans. 2010, the exact flip—56 percent of independents went to Republicans; 38 percent went to Democrats. That right there is the biggest story of the election.

"Well, no," I wrote,
not if you're assuming that the same voters, not to be confused with the same percentages, flipped D to R. Some did, no doubt. But to a large extent, it wasn't the same independents in the D column in 2008 and the R column in 2010. An awful lot of the "D independents" from 2008 stayed home in 2010, and "R independents" who hadn't shown up in 2008 returned to the polls in 2010.

This seems so clear that I'm astonished how many political "insiders" don't seem to know it. And it's important, because on this misunderstanding rest a whole series of disastrously misguided policy choices. So I was delighted to see one of the smartest writers I'm familiar with, Dave Johnson, tackle this very subject in a "Speak Out California!" blogpost called "The Elusive "Swing" Vote."
Have you heard of the "Moveable Middle?" This is the idea that there are voters on the left who will always vote on the left, and voters on the right, who will always vote on the right, and then there are voters between them who switch back and forth. They are called "swing voters."

So the idea in politics is that in order to win elections you have to take positions that appeal to these voters, and they will "switch" and vote for you instead of for the other side. This is a fundamental mistake.

"No voters 'switch,'" Dave insists, which seems to me an overstatement. I'll bet some voters switch -- you'll always find anecdotal evidence of this. (TV reporters seem especially adept at finding them.) But again, voters who switch almost certainly don't account for a significant portion of the "swing" among "independent" voters.
There are not voters who "swing"; there are left voters and right voters in this middle segment who either show up and vote or do not show up and vote, and this causes this "swing" segment to swing.

The lesson to learn: You have to deliver for YOUR part of that swing segment or they don't show up and vote for you. That is what makes the segment "swing."

Any Democrat politician who thinks that any conservative will vote for any Democrat, no matter how far right they move, is learning the wrong lesson. All that does is cause your voters in that swing segment to turn away from you, and stay away from the polls.

Dave chalks this up as the lesson of Karl Rove, who "understood that you can get the right-voting part of the "middle" roused up to come to the polls by moving the Republicans to the right," and accordingly "got Bush and the Republicans to stand up for conservative principles and refuse to compromise, and the result was that the right-leaning part of the swing segment started to show up at the polls."

He quotes Greg Sargent ("Progressives and centrists battle over meaning of indy vote"):
Independents are not a monolith, and what really happened is that indys who backed Obama in 2008 stayed home, because they were unsatisfied with Obama's half-baked reform agenda, while McCain-supporting indys turned out in big numbers.

. . . The key finding: PPP asked independents who did vote in 2010 who they had supported in 2008. The results: Fifty one percent of independents who voted this time supported McCain last time, versus only 42 percent who backed Obama last time. In 2008, Obama won indies by eight percent.

That means the complexion of indies who turned out this time is far different from last time around, argues Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. His case: Dem-leaning indys stayed home this time while GOP-leaning ones came out -- proof, he insists, that the Dems' primary problem is they failed to inspire indys who are inclined to support them.

"The dumbest thing Democrats could do right now is listen to those like Third Way who urge Democrats to repeat their mistake by caving to Republicans and corporations instead of fighting boldly for popular progressive reforms and reminding Americans why they were inspired in 2008," Green says.

In the Obama White House it was apparently a founding article of Rahmist faith that the votes they needed to court were those mythical "centrist" ones, meaning Conservadems and those elusive "independents." But they've never seemed to understand that they're not going to get any more support from right-inclined independents than they will from outright Republicans. You'd think they would have been shaken by the alarming numbers in which 2006 and 2008 Democratic-voting independents stayed home in 2010, for the obvious reason that Dem pols had given them no compelling reason to vote.

As Dave concludes,
The Democrats have taken the entirely wrong lessons, and election results show this. Instead of standing up for progressive values, they give in and "move to the right' on every issue, thinking that there are voters "in the middle" who will then switch sides and support them, when what they are actually doing is convincing those in the middle who might have shown up at the polls to stay home and not bother.

Is it really possible that none of this has occurred to anybody in the White House?
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10 Comments:

At 6:05 AM, Blogger Retired Patriot said...

Is it really possible that none of this has occurred to anybody in the White House?

Yes.

This has been another short answer to easy questions. :)

RP

 
At 6:53 AM, Anonymous wjbill said...

Republicans seem adept at getting ballot measures in play to inspire fears and hates and to insure their voters come out to vote. Dem's not so much. For me I will continue to humbly support some Blue America folks you recommend, other than that I am pretty much a no show until I see more inspiration from a political party other than conservative

 
At 7:06 AM, Blogger Taylor Wray said...

Beyond conventional wisdom, what sort of evidence is the swing voter myth based on? What sort of evidence, in contrast, can you marshal to support your "stay-at-home" hypothesis?

Intuitively, I agree with you that people don't swing nowadays - they either vote or don't vote, and their willingness to vote is very much influenced by how excited they are about their party's candidates and message, as well as how well the party has been delivering on important issues.

You're right, but until the political scientists see data and other evidence to support you, the swing vote myth will persist.

 
At 9:29 AM, Anonymous Balakirev said...

[i]In the Obama White House it was apparently a founding article of Rahmist faith that the votes they needed to court were those mythical "centrist" ones, meaning Conservadems and those elusive "independents."[/i]

Still is, Ken, because Obama only has respect for high-flying corporate types, people who have "made it" to the top of their businesses. Doesn't mean he lacks for concern over the rest of us; it just means our opinions don't matter, because we aren't proven success stories.

So no matter what sages are brought in to read the election entrails, they will always be interpreted to read the way Obama looks at the world, and (sadly) a good part of the national party agrees with him, too.

At least, such is my take.

 
At 9:48 AM, Anonymous Gary Doyle said...

When Fascism comes to America it will come from a prestigious University, expenses paid by a Federal grant, informed by NBC and the New York Times and surrounded by Union Thugs from the SEIU, with billy clubs and tire irons. And many in the mob will be carrying Peace Signs, and in cars with Co-Exist bumper stickers. This mob will tell everyone what they are allowed to eat, and drive and plug into their electric outlets and think. And these people with their detailed list of regulations enforceable with fines and jail, will pronounce themselves pro-choice. And they will celebrate the power of the government. To tell people what to do. And these Fascists will revile the Constitution as a document that promotes negative liberties, and was written by white imperialists. And these thugs will run websites with statements about how Fascism will come, as they promote fascism through the government buying and controlling the Auto Industry, the Energy industry, the Banking industry. The Fascists are the Left. They dislike Freedom. They will never leave the people alone in any activity. These Leftist give the State the power to regulate all, because they believe "they" can create heaven on earth, given their superior intellect. Thus, they fight to impose their will on all the people. That is Fascism. That is the Left. They hate Freedom, and mostly they hate God, because these things do not submit to their authority.

 
At 10:05 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Note to Black Helicoter Team sixteen

Make sure this guy named Gary Doyle is on the priority list and sent to the Utah re-education camps.

He's getting too close to the truth, although he hasn't glommed onto the one child per family dicta and the mini-neutron bombs in the Catholic churches and Mormon temples to thin the herd.

 
At 10:21 AM, Blogger KenInNY said...

Confidential to Gary D: It always makes me sad to see a brain reduced to spewing such silliness. While the likelihood is that you've just been too lazy to actually learn anything at all about the world around you, preferring to wallow in these moronic delusions that make you feel so good, it's always possible that you're suffering from a treatable mental illness.

It's worth a shot at trying to get mental help.

Whereas our "hellicoter"-loving Anon, unless he's joshing, which he doesn't seem to be, appears to be just a garden-variety self-made moron. Seriously, how do you guys breathe with your heads lodged so far up your butts?

Cheers,
Ken

 
At 11:16 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks Ken, we needed that. 2 to 1 says Doyle is a fat slob who smokes.

 
At 11:19 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anyone notice Doyle rhymes with boil.

 
At 7:23 AM, Anonymous Balakirev said...

Just looked like a generic cut-and-paste, anyway. Had no relevance to subject, which means he/she probably posts it whenever they get upset about something. Rather like crying loudly at being told they have to eat carrots.

 

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