What does it mean? Not a whole lot.
There is now a lot of soul-searching about the direction of the Republican Party and much doubting of its future viability if does not adapt itself in some way to an electorate that has (it is said) fundamentally shifted over the last few decades. I am a scientist and not a political expert, but science has something to teach us that may be of relevance here: don’t over-interpret the data.
The tendency of “pundits” to over-interpret shows itself with almost every election. Each time a party is ejected from the White House or isn’t, it is supposedly because some new and enduring coalition has been formed and some old coalition has finally disintegrated, or because the nation has turned against (or toward) social conservatism, or an era of Big Government has ended or just started. All nonsense.
The obvious fact is that the national electorate is an extremely heterogeneous lot and votes on the basis of innumerable disparate considerations. This candidate is “presidential,” or sympathizes with people like me, or is hostile to Israel, or is going to cut taxes, or is pro-life, or is going to create green jobs (whatever the heck those are), or has a mellifluous voice¸ or is charismatic, or is weak on defense, or has an annoying voice, and so on. Most voters do not have fully thought-out or consistent positions on most issues, which is why pollsters get different results depending on how they phrase questions or on the order in which they ask them. They want more spending, lower taxes, and less debt all at the same time. Reading into a 52 percent or even a 60 percent victory some kind of Rousseauean “General Will” is absurd.
Why did President Obama win re-election? There are some very obvious reasons that have nothing to do with ideology and in light of which the outcome is not particularly surprising. First, there is the fact that since the days of Grover Cleveland, about 30 elections ago, there has been only one case where a party held the White House for just four years: Jimmy Carter, and he had the Iran hostage fiasco, high inflation, high interest rates, and high unemployment. It takes a LOT to make it happen. Now you might say that 8 percent unemployment should have been enough to do it. But this brings us to the second reason. People feel that President Obama was dealt a bad economic hand and so are less inclined to want to punish him for the state of the economy than they were in the case of Carter. Third, people have grown weary of war, and they hear less about war now (partly thanks to the media reporting on it less). And then there is the fact that most people seem to find Obama’s personality appealing.
Is this election somehow a repudiation of conservatism or the ideas of the Republican Party? If so, it is hard to understand why the GOP managed to win a sizable majority of House races. Moreover, it is generally the case that when a party has held the White House for four years they not only retain it, but get a larger margin of victory than the first time, as in 2004, 1996, 1984, 1972, 1964, 1956, 1936, and 1924. You have to go all the way back to Woodrow Wilson’s re-election to find a counterexample. (And even that is not much of one, because his first victory was in a three-way race in which his opponents, Taft and Teddy Roosevelt, split the Republican vote.) The fact that Pres. Obama’s margin this time is much smaller (almost unprecedented) tells us that he survived, not that he or his ideology has enjoyed some kind of rousing vindication.
This is not to say that conservatives shouldn’t do some hard thinking. But it is to say that we should not read too much into the result.
November 8th, 2012 | 10:49 am
There is a lot to be said for this analysis, but we were told endless times that this was an extremely important presidential election and the American people were offered a clear choice. I can’t help but feel that if Romney had eked out even the smallest victory, conservatives would be claiming that Americans had made a clear choice for massive tax cuts (especially for the wealthy), “smaller government,” repeal of Obamacare, replacing Medicare with a voucher system, and numerous other conservative proposals.
So what was, prior to November 6, a clear choice between two very different visions of government is now being portrayed as really not amounting to very much.
November 8th, 2012 | 11:27 am
In all fairness, David, I thought that the “clear choice” meme was a bunch of bunk from the beginning. Everyone who payed attention knew that Romney sent through the same legislation as Obamacare in Massachusetts, and that his waxing on socially conservative issues was sort of like Obama being a “moderate” on them in the 2008 elections. That doesn’t even touch their positions on war and the war on terror, where they never even pretended to be different. The truth is that the candidates themselves varied by a shade on most issues, but they had to push the “clear choice” meme or they’d get a tepid response from their polarized respective bases.
November 8th, 2012 | 11:30 am
While much of what you say is true, it is hard to argue with the fact that Obama won the Catholic vote. The fact that Catholics supported a man that launched a direct assault on their Church is disgraceful. The Catholic electorate may not be changing (much), but it represents a fundamental problem for conservative candidates who typically align better with authentic Catholic teaching. It is time we did something about it. Get out there and change the culture…
http://bit.ly/SSYg9r
November 8th, 2012 | 11:53 am
I think it’s time to take a deep breath and relax for a while. The election is over. It was decided. Now, the parties need to figure out how they are going to respond to each other in the governing of the country, though little has changed from before the election. The next election round will start soon enough.
November 8th, 2012 | 11:57 am
Dear David,
I think you are conflating two distinct issues. The candidates may intend to pursue quite different policies if elected, and may state that more or less clearly during the campaign. In that sense the voters are presented with a “clear choice”. But are the reasons for their choosing equally clear? The reasons people actually vote for one candidate or the other often have little to do with those policy differences. They may have to do with the personal qualities of the candidates. And even if they have to do with policy, they may be based on a general belief that something new has to be tried or that one should not change horses in midstream. And even when they are based on specific policy proposals, different issues matter to different voters, and the same voter may agree with a candidate on one issue and disagree on others.
What I am saying is not that there aren’t clear policy differences between Pres. Obama and Gov. Romney, but that there is not some tidy ideological explanation of how people vote.
In my view, if a candidate wins he does not necessarily receive a mandate in the form of a clear ideological, but he does receive an authorization to govern. The bigger the margin, the easier that will be for him (or her), both because his opponents will be intimidated and because he has a reservoir of good will or respect from the electorate.
Pres. Obama has authorization now to continue to govern. But can we detect some great trend in the political ideology of the people from this election?
November 8th, 2012 | 12:12 pm
The republicans won a majority of House seats because the laws of incumbancy still operate. especially in the House of Representatives. But even if we ignore the presidential election, look at the contested senate contests, the referendum, and even the loss of a few high profile “lightening rods in the congress (Walsh, West, almost Bachman). It’s hard not to conclude that some changes are incurring in the electorate. Why we cannot face truths that we do not like is beyond me.
November 8th, 2012 | 1:02 pm
Dear Jan,
We should face hard truths, but we better be sure we know what they are first.
You are right that incumbency is a large factor in explaining why the GOP won the majority of House seats. That simply reinforces my point: incumbency also is a large factor in explaining why Pres. Obama won — and specifically the fact that the Democrats have only had the White House for four years. In other words, there are powerful factors besides ideology involved.
Two Senate seats were lost this time that should have been easily won, and three in 2010, because substandard candidates were nominated who proceeded to put their feet in their mouths (or had done so even before getting nominated). These five candidates were nominated by a populist insurgency against the party establishment. There is a lesson to be learned here. There are hard truths to be faced.
But this lesson too is not about ideology or demographic trends.
I do think the GOP needs to think about its message. This is especially so with regard to the Hispanic vote. Also with how its positions on the social issues are presented.
November 8th, 2012 | 2:24 pm
Let’s not get too excited about the House results. I keep hearing that refrain: “But the voters gave the Republicans the House.”
Yes, and no. There was a lot of redistricting that ensure a certain number of GOP returns regardless of the will of the voters.
I’m not saying redistricting was wrong. I’m not saying this was a case of gerrymandering per se (though many on the left are). I’m saying it should be considered before someone argues that the House remaining in the hands of the GOP implies a mandate of some kind.
A reading from the other side:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/07/1159631/americans-voted-for-a-democratic-house-gerrymandering-the-supreme-court-gave-them-speaker-boehner/
November 8th, 2012 | 3:18 pm
Pres. Obama has authorization now to continue to govern. But can we detect some great trend in the political ideology of the people from this election?
Stephen M. Barr,
I am in almost total agreement with you. What I was trying to say was that if Romney had won, even by only a small margin, there would have been those who claimed the American people had made the “clear choice,” and that Romney should have felt justified taking the country sharply to the right. Whether that was what Romney actually wanted to do is anybody’s guess, and had he even wanted to, how much he could have actually done it is debatable.
I think you are quite correct in your assessment of how people vote. If people actually voted on ideology, it would actually be rather frightening to think that the country kept moving from left of center to right of center every few years.
And what are we to make of the voter who might have voted for Romney out of intense concern for the national debt, and then, had Romney won, opposed any proposed budget cut to deal with it? Are voters who oppose government spending in principle but want it in practice liberals or conservatives?
November 8th, 2012 | 4:04 pm
Actually incumbency is MORE of an advantage in the ho.use of Representatives than anywhere else-especially the presidency. In 2010 the majority Republican state houses and governors redistricted the congressional districts to lock in republican seats.
As far as the presidency, in a poor economic climate, incumbency is usually a disadvantage!
November 8th, 2012 | 5:56 pm
Dear Jan,
On the other hand the Democrats did very heavy-handed redistricting in Illinois and had hoped to win about a half dozen House seats that way. So the redistricting wasn’t all one-way.
It is not just incumbency that I am citing. LBJ would have lost had he run in 1968 even though he was an incumbent— which is why he did not run. Ford lost in 1976, though an incumbent. And Bush senior lost in 1992 though an incumbent. The point I was making had to do with turning a PARTY out of the White House after they have held it only 4 years. In 1968, the Democrats had already held
the White House for 8 years. The same for the Republicans in 1976. And in 1992 the Republicans had held it for 12 years.
November 8th, 2012 | 7:21 pm
Jan wins those points.
November 8th, 2012 | 8:51 pm
Yeah, Stephen, the fact remains that more national votes were cast for Democratic House candidates than Republicans.
And if we’re now moving to the “shoe on the other foot” argument (The Democrats redistricted, too), you appear to have conceded the point that House elections do not represent a mandate.
November 8th, 2012 | 11:04 pm
John, your claim “The fact that Catholics supported a man that launched a direct assault on their Church is disgraceful.” is without foundation. Here is why.
According to Reuters, white Catholics supported Romney 56-43 while Hispanic Catholics supported Obama 76-23. Moreover, according to Fox, Catholics who attend Mass weekly supported Romney 57-42 while those attending Mass less than weekly supported Obama 56-42.
Is it disgraceful that cultural Catholics did not support the Church? Probably more disgraceful for the Church than for these persons who have left her. The real question is how much Hispanic Catholics care about the bishops’ appeal.
November 9th, 2012 | 3:15 am
Actually, Bush #1 lost re-election as well. So we have Carter and Bush #1.
November 9th, 2012 | 7:26 am
“… the fact remains that more national votes were cast for Democratic House candidates than Republicans.”
I’m not sure that I understand this. What is a “national vote” in relation to a race in a particular Congressional District?
November 9th, 2012 | 11:31 am
Dear Rick: I do not just concede, but heartily heartily agree that there is no “mandate” for the GOP in the House!! I think that this whole concept of winners of elections having “mandates” is usualy nonsense and is another example of the tendency to overinterpet elections.
Winners of elections have the authority under the laws of this country to take office and exercise the powers of their offices. Period. There are times when one can say that a large majority of the people favor the policies advocated by the winner over those of the loser.
Then one can speak of a mandate. But in a narrow election, or in an election (such as this one) where neither side articulated a clear philosophy or plan, it would make little sense to speak of a mandate. (This would also be true if Romney had won.) And even if there is a big margin of victory, that could be for reasons having nothing to do with policy or political philosophy. Does anyone think that Akin losing big in Missouri means that the voters were giving a mandate to McCaskill. McCaskill was quite unpopular, but voters held their noses and elected her because Akin was (or at least appeared to be) an idiot.
People seem to be misunderstanding my post. I am not saying there were no reasons for the results of this election, or that they have nothing to do with party identification. Quite the reverse: If you reread what I wrote you will see that the factor I think was the main one in this presidential race was party: Historically, people seem reluctant to have a party turnover of the White House in under 8 years. I think this would have been a powerful factor in Obama’s favor even if people somewhat preferred Romney’s philosophy over Obama’s. What I AM saying is that people who deduce things from elections about the political philosophy of the people, or grand movements of history and the Zeitgeist, or “mandates” are generally seeing what isn’t there.
November 16th, 2012 | 12:25 am
Dear Mr. Barr,
I became a great admirer of yours after reading your excellent book, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, which I belatedly discovered earlier this year
However, I must disagree with some of the things you seem to be implying in your posts.
Firstly, you seem to be implying that Obama’s victory was “narrow” and that he “survived”. Really? The facts tell a different story. His 332 electoral vote win was decisive. He comfortably won all but one of the nine so-called tossup states. Granted his margin of victory in Florida was small, but it was not small enough to trigger an automatic recount. He won the national popular vote by well over 3 million, which is about 3 percentage points. The Republican majority in the House was reduced and the Democratic Senatorial majority remained intact.
Secondly, you said “neither side articulated a clear philosophy or plan”. I thought Obama did articulate a clear vision of where he wanted to take the country and how he would get there: vis-à-vis the economy, reduce the deficit by restoring the Clinton tax rates and growing the middle-class, reform the tax code, ending the wars, improving efficiency in entitlement spending etc. You would have to be living under a rock, if you were not sure where he stood on social issues (gay marriage, abortion, immigration etc).
The fact is: the electorate (and Catholics, in particular) did have a clear choice , weighed the choices and voted accordingly. His resounding victory, in my opinion, could be interpreted as a mandate to take the country in a certain direction.
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