Election ’08: A Democratic Year or a Realignment Year?
Strategists from both major parties agree that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama begins the general election battle with the upper hand over Arizona Sen. John McCain. The factors that will continue to define the political environment over the next five months remain unchanged – an unpopular war, an unpopular president in the White House, a housing crisis, spiraling gas prices, rising food prices, etc. What these factors have in common is that they aren’t likely to change any time soon and collectively they have placed a crushing weight upon the neck of the national GOP “brand.”
Looking ahead a little over five months from now (although always a dangerous thing to do in politics), the question weighing on the minds of most GOP pollsters and campaign strategists is “”How bad is this one going to be?” Were the campaign dynamics in place now to stay relatively unchanged, the answer is “pretty bad.”
Consider first the fundamentals of how Obama won the nomination. It’s almost a mathematical equation: take a strong campaign organization, add candidate message (“change”), plus candidate skill in delivering that message (charisma), plus voter enthusiasm for message and messenger (which in turn increased Democratic registration, Democratic primary turnout and most importantly, created an historic new network of small-donor contributors assembled over the Internet) and you get victory.
Now, consider that those factors are still in place, and probably growing in depth, over the next five months. Despite its frustrations, the Democratic fight this year did one thing that’s never been seen before in modern presidential campaigning – the length of the contest has allowed the winning nominee to put in place a functioning campaign structure in each of the fifty states.
To be honest, Sen. McCain is still looking for a message, must rely on his national party for campaign cash to offset the Obama money advantage, and has yet to establish campaign organizations in each of the states.
So, if these advantages and disadvantages were to stay essentially in place for the next five months, the question would become not “Does Obama win?” but rather, “What will the ‘Obama effect’ be on the ‘down-ballot’ races?”
The first factor would be massive African American voter turnout in states with high percentages of black populations. This could impact a number of Senate races where incumbent GOP Senators are seeking reelection and which would otherwise not be endangered this year – think North Carolina (Dole), Mississippi (Wicker) and Kentucky (McConnell). It also would very likely benefit the only Democratic Senator at any risk this year – Mary Landrieu in Louisiana.
But beyond an energized black vote, we would undoubtedly see an energized base Democratic vote coupled with energized pockets of newly registered voters (remember, in some states this spring newly registered, mostly young, Democratic voters, set registration records and they turned out at the polls). This could impact GOP Senators already in tight races – like John Sununu in New Hampshire and Gordon Smith in Oregon.
Then there are the House contests. If an Obama candidacy impacts a Senate race, couldn’t it also influence House seats (Louisiana 4th, a GOP open seat, or North Carolina 8th, a GOP incumbent)? Surely an Obama juggernaut could pull along GOP open House seats in his home state of Illinois (districts 10 and 11) while Democratic enthusiasm could impact open GOP seats in the northeast (New York’s 25th and 26th and New Jersey’s 3rd and 7th).
Of course, many of these seats are already on everyone’s watch list under differing degrees of vulnerability for a takeover. But an enthusiastic voter base will have an impact beyond a given House district’s historic voter behavior. And more importantly, it would likely spread to effect districts that are not currently considered as at risk for a takeover.
Which brings us to the crux of the presidential contest itself – as usual, this year’s contest will hinge on our old friends Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. These states remain the modern national political battleground. And depending on, if and to what degree the Obama campaign succeeds in each, these three contests could determine whether this year is merely a Democratic victory year or a landslide election that significantly realigns the national political terrain or some time to come.
Some food for thought: It’s become a popular anecdote of modern politics that if you get a young person to vote for the same party three campaign cycles in a row, that party has their vote for life. Young voters have now voted by large margins for the Democrats in 2004 and 2006.
Political Observations of the Week:
“I think it’s a mystery and an irony, and an irony in the sense that Hillary was seen as inevitable when it didn’t matter and Obama was seen as inevitable when it did.”
Geoff Garin, strategist for the Clinton campaign, on how the campaign lost the Super delegates they had at it’s start.
“There’s no bargaining. You don’t bargain with the presidential nominee. Even if you’re Hillary Clinton and you have 18 million votes, you don’t bargain.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, on the vice presidential race.
“She could accept losing. She could not accept quitting.”
Anonymous Clinton adviser, on why the campaign continued.
“Major candidates for president are by definition great dreamers. When their dreams are quashed they should be given the courtesy of a little time to internalize their loss.”
Michael Berman, veteran Democratic strategist, on Clinton.
“He’s all about a fundamentally new kind of politics. Picking a Clinton is by definition backward looking, and I just don’t think he wants that.”
Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way, on Obama’s choice.
“There’s a lot of repair that needs to be done there, but there is a shot. We’re talking essentially about Reagan Democrats. They went the other way (in past elections) because of cultural issues…But they were always Democratic on economic issues and my guess is the economic issues are going to take precedence this year.”
Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the study of the American Electorate, on what Obama must do now.
_____________________________________________
John J. Kohut is an independent political analyst in Washington, D.C. He has been writing about national politics for more than a decade, including stints as an editor at the Cook Political Report and as senior editor at the Rothenberg Political Report.
