Barone Surveys the Aftershocks of 2004
Very interesting editorial in the Washington Times today, adapted from the introductory essay, “American Politics in the Networking Era”, to the great Michael Barone’s newest edition of the Almanac of American Politics.
Some highlights of their highlights:
During the fall of 2003, for example, the news media marveled at Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean’s list of 600,000 e-mail addresses. Virtually unreported, however, was the fact that the Bush campaign had collected six million e-mail addresses. For the general election campaign, compared to the 233,000 volunteers assembled by the Democratic National Committee, the Bush campaign recruited six times as many, or an unprecedented 1.4 million. Thus, the Democratic turnout effort mostly “depended on paid workers persuading strangers to get out and vote.” The 1.4 million GOP volunteers, however, were deployed through sophisticated networks that enabled them to use tailored messages in their contacts with prospective voters who had much in common with themselves. Boy Scout leaders, for example, were dispatched to contact other Boy Scout volunteers.
Among those we can thank for the above is Ken Mehlman, the brilliant current head of the RNC.
Recalling that his post-2000 commentary described America as “the 49-percent nation,” evenly split between the two parties, Mr. Barone today concludes that “America is now, perhaps momentarily, or perhaps at the beginning of a long period, a 51-percent nation, a majority — a narrow majority — Republican nation.” Exit polling last year revealed party identification at 37 percent for both Republicans and Democrats, making 2004 “the first election in which Republicans achieved parity in party identification since the invention of random-sampling polling in the 1930s.”
There is more, much more, and most of it music to the ears of Republicans.
The wildcard, of course, is Iraq. Indeed, this is the challenge facing the Democrats, and it’s a difficult one: an opportunity is there to turn public unease about Iraq into a repudiation of the Republicans in the 2006 midterms and 2008 election. The hard part is tapping into that disquiet without turning irresponsible, angry, and radical, and thus losing middle America. Barone’s long-term analysis is excellent and heartening; the short-term is very much dependent on how well Iraq is handled by the two parties.
The Democrats basic problem is that they think they can beat someone with no one. Or rather, something with nothing. Besides being Anti what exactly is their economic policy? Their foreign policy? Their domestic policy?
Their position on Social Security? Their position on Terrorism? Their position on tax reform? On immigration? On illegal aliens? On trade? Specifically, what bills would they push if they controlled congress?
I’m starting to get really worried about report of US railroading of the Iraqi constitutional process. See McCarthy’s post in The Corner. I sense that we’ve made some big administrative blunders in Iraq, but our magnificent military has diluted (for now) any bad effects–and our luck won’t hold forever. As I said over at my blog, if it becomes obvious that we’ve forced an American solution on the Iraqis for our political expediency, it could very easily combine with the widespread dissatisfaction over GWB’s lack of leadership on the immigration problem, and that 51% may well flip over on top of us.
Speaking of the Democrats, the Washington Post has a piece on their inability to come to a consensus position on the war:
Of course, not having anything coherent to say on national security doesn’t enhance the public’s confidence in their party either…
Good link, thanks – my favorite bit: “The wariness…reflects a belief among some in the opposition that proposals to force troop drawdowns or otherwise limit Bush’s options would be perceived…as defeatist.” Yep, giving up will get you labelled as defeatist every time…