I've decided that I disagree with those people who complain that the presidential race starts too early. Iowa and New Hampshire may have begun the race in one form, but they also represented the end of the race in another form. Consider the winnowing of the race that started right after the first caucus and first primary. Even a few well-funded and well-supported candidates such as Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and John Edwards are now finished. Even though many voters have yet to have their say in the nomination process of either party, their choices have become very limited. Indeed, this phase of the election is very much of a process -- we are now in the midst of determining just who will be the nominee of each party, and after that we will move on to determine who will be the next president. It wasn't always like this.
I must admit that the 2007 side of the election wasn't always enjoyable, even for a budding political junkie like myself. It was hard work watching all those debates and researching all the candidates. Personally, I skipped a few debates and neglected several candidates; I still regret not looking more at the candidacy of Chris Dodd. Nonetheless, I find myself sometimes wishing we were back in that phase of the election again -- I call it the ideological phase. Back then there wasn't a process underway, really; instead, there was a battle for attention as each candidate scrambled to get his or her message out. Although Mike Gravel and Ron Paul are still in the race, candidates with alternative viewpoints are heard much more often and much more loudly in that first phase of an election. That's not entirely due to the media -- the race itself draws attention away from candidates with limited support once primaries and caucuses begin to be won or lost. I can't even argue that winning the ideological phase is vital to later success in the election. John McCain's candidacy, in particular, seemed to really start thriving in the process phase. I do feel that the ideological phase is vital to the intellectual health of America's political debate, however, and I'm already looking forward to 2011.
That isn't to say that the general election will be bereft of ideological debate. If, for instance, John McCain ends up the Republican nominee and Barack Obama obtains the Democratic nomination, then we'll have two candidates expressing very different views on important issues like Iraq and health care. Still, we'll only have two voices, and I suspect that those voices will frequently be speaking of "experience" and "hope." Personally, I'm casting a vote for hope right now with a prayer: political gods, please grant us a strong third party or independent candidate that can get in the post-convention debates and help shape the dialogue!
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Super Tuesday: Do People Vote in Groups?
I tend to think of voting as being a very individualistic process. Each voter must ultimately cast his or her own ballot singly so it seems natural to me that each voter should also make his or her mind up concerning who to vote for more or less independently as well, though of course everyone is influenced by the people and circumstances that surround them. That isn't quite how most political pundits seem to see it, and perhaps not quite how most politicians see it either. The pundits talk on and on about groups whose support a candidate has earned or is attempting to win. The candidates themselves seem to vie for the support of groups by attending special events geared towards certain groups and sometimes by pandering directly towards a specific group in speeches or debate performances. Which is it...do people vote more often as individuals or as parts of groups?
Exit polling data from Super Tuesday seems to make it fairly clear that group affiliation does play a big factor in how many people choose to vote. Barack Obama won a startling 80% of the African American vote yesterday, but, as the linked article also notes, Hillary Clinton garnered a large degree of support from the Hispanic community. Although Mitt Romney didn't have the day he had hoped for, it certainly wasn't because Mormon voters didn't support him in droves. Some of these percentages are just too big to ignore. How could Obama possibly win 94% of the African American vote in Illinois or Mitt Romney win close to 90% of the Mormon vote in Utah? In my experience, nine out of ten people don't agree on much of anything -- these overwhelming majorities at least raises the possibility that there are a significant number of people out there who aren't voting for a president so much as they are voting for their own race or religion, especially when you consider that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama hold many similar political positions just as Mitt Romney and John McCain do. Mike Huckabee arguably benefited more than anyone else from religous voters because the Christian conservative vote powered him to primary victories in several Southern states, though Huckabee didn't win a huge majority of these votes. There are similar stories to be told concerning women supporting Clinton, young people supporting Obama, and older voters supporting Clinton and McCain, but we also don't see 80% of any of these groups supporting a single candidate. Clearly, group affiliation impacts elections, but most groups don't cluster overwhelmingly around a single candidate, so individuals acting relatively individually still have a big impact.
Perhaps one of the great cultural questions surrounding this presidential election has been whether or not candidates like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney could draw widespread support from outside their particular groups. Neither sexism, racism, nor religious chauvinism has prevented men from supporting Clinton, whites from supporting Obama, or non-Mormons from supporting Romney. If nothing else, this presidential election ought to encourage many people from diverse backgrounds to at least consider running for president in the future. Given that race and religion seems to have influenced the vote for Romney and Obama so much, it seems likely that there was also a sizable percentage of people voting for other candidates for whom Obama's race or Romney's religion were negative factors. Nonetheless, when all was said and done, Obama and Romney remained viable candidates after Super Tuesday...though Obama is now in a much stronger position than is Romney. At the end of the day, it seems like it can finally be said that anyone can be elected president, though the coming general election will likely also add another chapter to this story.
I can well understand why some people would look at the 80%+ support for Obama among African Americans and Romney among Mormons with dismay and disappointment. Such a plurality does suggest that an awful lot of people are still voting for whoever seems to be most like them, just as critics of democracy that fear the "rule of the rabble" have long predicted. The fact that other groups did not vote so much in "lock-step" is one positive, and I think there is another factor worth considering: namely, that Obama and Romney are actually strong candidates with wide bases of support. Obama's candidacy is not centered around the fact that his father was from Kenya, and Romney has not made his Mormonism the focus of his campaign. Both have a history of success in politics, albeit not particularly long histories; Romney has also been successful in the private sector. My feeling is that it is the quality and electability of these candidates that has enabled such large majorities to be built within their particular communities. It's not fair to say that most African Americans or most Mormons that are voting for Obama and Romney are primarily motivated by their candidate's group affiliation; it is closer to the truth to say that Obama and Romney's group affiliations are just another positive that have encouraged (not caused) African American and Mormon support for Obama and Romney, respectively. My evidence for this? Al Sharpton, Carol Moseley Braun, Orrin Hatch. Good presidential candidates, all, but as I recall none of them made a big splash in the races they competed in. Sharpton won 17% of the African American vote in the 2004 South Carolina primaries, in contrast to Obama's comfortable majority in 2008.
Exit polling data from Super Tuesday seems to make it fairly clear that group affiliation does play a big factor in how many people choose to vote. Barack Obama won a startling 80% of the African American vote yesterday, but, as the linked article also notes, Hillary Clinton garnered a large degree of support from the Hispanic community. Although Mitt Romney didn't have the day he had hoped for, it certainly wasn't because Mormon voters didn't support him in droves. Some of these percentages are just too big to ignore. How could Obama possibly win 94% of the African American vote in Illinois or Mitt Romney win close to 90% of the Mormon vote in Utah? In my experience, nine out of ten people don't agree on much of anything -- these overwhelming majorities at least raises the possibility that there are a significant number of people out there who aren't voting for a president so much as they are voting for their own race or religion, especially when you consider that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama hold many similar political positions just as Mitt Romney and John McCain do. Mike Huckabee arguably benefited more than anyone else from religous voters because the Christian conservative vote powered him to primary victories in several Southern states, though Huckabee didn't win a huge majority of these votes. There are similar stories to be told concerning women supporting Clinton, young people supporting Obama, and older voters supporting Clinton and McCain, but we also don't see 80% of any of these groups supporting a single candidate. Clearly, group affiliation impacts elections, but most groups don't cluster overwhelmingly around a single candidate, so individuals acting relatively individually still have a big impact.
Perhaps one of the great cultural questions surrounding this presidential election has been whether or not candidates like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney could draw widespread support from outside their particular groups. Neither sexism, racism, nor religious chauvinism has prevented men from supporting Clinton, whites from supporting Obama, or non-Mormons from supporting Romney. If nothing else, this presidential election ought to encourage many people from diverse backgrounds to at least consider running for president in the future. Given that race and religion seems to have influenced the vote for Romney and Obama so much, it seems likely that there was also a sizable percentage of people voting for other candidates for whom Obama's race or Romney's religion were negative factors. Nonetheless, when all was said and done, Obama and Romney remained viable candidates after Super Tuesday...though Obama is now in a much stronger position than is Romney. At the end of the day, it seems like it can finally be said that anyone can be elected president, though the coming general election will likely also add another chapter to this story.
I can well understand why some people would look at the 80%+ support for Obama among African Americans and Romney among Mormons with dismay and disappointment. Such a plurality does suggest that an awful lot of people are still voting for whoever seems to be most like them, just as critics of democracy that fear the "rule of the rabble" have long predicted. The fact that other groups did not vote so much in "lock-step" is one positive, and I think there is another factor worth considering: namely, that Obama and Romney are actually strong candidates with wide bases of support. Obama's candidacy is not centered around the fact that his father was from Kenya, and Romney has not made his Mormonism the focus of his campaign. Both have a history of success in politics, albeit not particularly long histories; Romney has also been successful in the private sector. My feeling is that it is the quality and electability of these candidates that has enabled such large majorities to be built within their particular communities. It's not fair to say that most African Americans or most Mormons that are voting for Obama and Romney are primarily motivated by their candidate's group affiliation; it is closer to the truth to say that Obama and Romney's group affiliations are just another positive that have encouraged (not caused) African American and Mormon support for Obama and Romney, respectively. My evidence for this? Al Sharpton, Carol Moseley Braun, Orrin Hatch. Good presidential candidates, all, but as I recall none of them made a big splash in the races they competed in. Sharpton won 17% of the African American vote in the 2004 South Carolina primaries, in contrast to Obama's comfortable majority in 2008.
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