Author: Inoljt

This is the fourth part of an analysis of the swing state Pennsylvania. It focuses on the industrial southwest, a once deep-blue region rapidly trending Republican. Part five can be found here.



Pittsburgh and the Southwest

Pennsylvania’s southwest has much in common with West Virginia and Southeast Ohio, the northern end of Appalachia. Electoral change in the region is best understood by grouping these three areas together as a whole.

Socially conservative (the region is famously supportive of the NRA) but economically liberal, the industrial southwest voters typify white working-class Democrats. These voters can be found in unexpected places: Catholics in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, loggers along the Washington coast, rust-belt workers in Duluth, Minnesota and Buffalo, New York.

It was President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal that brought the working-class to the Democratic Party; before his time, the party constituted a regional force confined mainly to the South. In Pennsylvania, a Republican stronghold that had voted for President Herbert Hoover, Mr. Roosevelt laid the foundations for a lasting Democratic coalition.

For decades, voters in southwest Pennsylvania constituted this coalition’s foundation. Take, for instance, Democratic nominee Walter Mondale:

In 1984, the industrial southwest, badly hurting from a receding recession, cast a strong ballot for Mr. Mondale. It did so again for Governor Mike Dukakis, and twice for President Bill Clinton.

Ironically, it was during the presidency of Mr. Clinton – a man much liked by Appalachia – that the Democrats became regarded as the party of the coasts and the elite. Ever since his time, Pennsylvania’s industrial southwest has been in a bad way for Democrats.

More below.

Thus, whilst metropolitan Philadelphia has been moving steadily left, Pittsburgh and the industrial southwest have been marching in the opposite direction.

To get a sense of the movement in this region, compare these two maps:

In less than a generation’s span, one sees Democratic strength in northern Appalachia utterly vanish.

In a state where things have been going badly for Republicans, southwest Pennsylvania provides some consolation. Were it not for the southwest’s rightward trend, Pennsylvania would today be a fairly solid Democratic state.

Nevertheless, if I were to choose between Pittsburgh and the industrial southwest or Philadelphia and the suburban southeast, I would much prefer the latter. While Philadelphia itself is in declining, its metropolitan area as a whole has experienced rapid growth. The southwest’s population, on the other hand, remains basically stagnant, suffering the effects of economic decline.

In absolute terms, moreover, eastern Pennsylvania holds far more votes:

Republicans might take comfort in Allegheny County’s vote reservoir – were it not consistently blue. Indeed, Democratic strength in Pittsburgh ensures that, as a whole, the southwest will still vote Democratic for some time yet. Although – unique to practically every other major city – Republicans have been improving in Pittsburgh, its substantial black population limits their potential.

The puzzling thing, however, is why Appalachian working-class whites are moving so rapidly right. It cannot be simply race: both Vice President Al Gore and Senator John Kerry were white, after all, yet they still did progressively worse. It cannot be simply elitism, either: Governor Mike Dukakis and Governor Adlai Stevenson were intellectual technocrats, yet they won what Mr. Kerry and Mr. Gore could not.

Finally, it is not as if all the white working-class has suddenly turned Republican: voters in Michigan, northeast Ohio, upstate New York, and Silver Bow and Deer Lodge Montana, amongst other regions, still retain the Democratic habit. In Pennsylvania, working-class strongholds such as Scranton and Erie, surrounded by a sea of Republican counties, also continue to vote deep blue. They will be the topics of the next post.

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

Many Americans have heard of the Daisy Ad.



Most politics buffs probably watched this ad at one time or another. And after it was over, they may have wondered – how in the world was the daisy ad so effective?

By modern standards, it seems both outdated and completely transparent. The implication is most unsubtle: voting for Senator Barry Goldwater will bring nuclear war. Today’s viewer might find it somewhat ridiculous, even laughable. It would be as if Senator Barack Obama cut an ad implying that Senator John McCain would start World War Three.

Yet the Daisy Ad worked. Mr. Goldwater went on to lose the election by a landslide, partly as a result of said ad.

This was because in 1964, believe it or not, many Americans actually worried that Mr. Goldwater might use nuclear weapons.

More below.

Several events contributed to this perception. Firstly, Senator Goldwater publicly “proposed that NATO field commanders be able to initiate nuclear strikes in Europe without explicit permission from the White House.” This caused considerable controversy; most Americans criticized the proposal – rightly – as incredibly reckless, something that left humanity’s fate in the hands of one short-sighted general.

Mr. Goldwater also had a reputation for making careless statements – much like a modern-day Vice President Joe Biden, except far worse. Not all of these involved nuclear weapons (for example, the senator publicly supported shutting down the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was why he lost the state of Tennessee), but several unfortunately did. In one such instance, the candidate mused, “Let’s lob one (nuclear weapon) into the men’s room of the Kremlin.” In another, reporter Howard S. Smith asked about disrupting supply lines in Vietnam. Mr. Goldwater answered,

…There have been several suggestions made. I don’t think we would use any of them. But defoliation of the forests by low-yield atomic weapons could well be done. When you remove the foliage, you remove the cover…”

Even with the qualification, it is still disconcerting to hear Mr. Goldwater immediately suggest using nuclear weapons. Most Americans, however, heard something far worse: Republican candidate Barry Goldwater wanted to nuke Vietnam. The media generally left out the part where Goldwater said, “I don’t think we would use any of them.”

Mr. Goldwater did not do himself any favors in pointing out this fact. His clarification went:

I would never use a nuclear weapon when a conventional weapon would do. I would leave it up to the commanders.

Since this opened gigantic loopholes (if conventional weapons wouldn’t do, for instance), Mr. Goldwater still appeared quite reckless.

All these missteps gradually cemented a very negative perception: Barry Goldwater was a hawkish extremist, irresponsible and unfit to wield the presidency’s vast powers. “In your gut, you know he’s nuts,” went the Democratic refrain, and the majority of voters came to believe this statement.

The Daisy ad focused on this perception and shifted the national conversation to Goldwater’s recklessness. It worked not because it persuaded Americans that Senator Barry Goldwater would start nuclear war (not even the most effective negative ad can do that), but because it reminded them that he just might do so.

This is the third part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Pennsylvania. Part four can be found here.



Philadelphia’s Suburbs

There used to be a time when Republicans could count on Philadelphia’s suburbs to counter Democratic margins from the city. This is Philadelphia, circa 1988:

Not anymore. Philadelphia, 2008:

(Note: Because the Times stopped updating before all absentee/provisional ballots were counted, this map does not fully reflect the actual results. I have corrected the discrepancy.)

Indeed, in 2008 President Barack Obama’s suburban margins were so great that Democrats did not even need Philadelphia to win Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia’s suburbs stretch across four counties: Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery. Bucks contains more working-class, Catholic communities. Chester, on the other hand, is more exurban and conservative (in this century, Democrats have only incontrovertibly won the county twice – in 1964 and 2008).

More below.

The suburbs hold more importance than implied by the above maps, which tend to exaggerate Philadelphia’s size due to its one-sided voting pattern. While the city’s population continues its long, slow decline, its suburbs have grown at a rapid clip. Today, the number of votes they hold almost doubles the city’s reservoir.

While regional differences exist, Philly’s suburbs do have one thing in common: they compose the wealthiest area in the entire state. Chester, Bucks, and Montgomery Counties rank #1, #2, and #3 in the state’s median household income. They also lack diversity; the census classifies around 90% of Bucks County residents as non-Hispanic whites.

Given these characteristics, one might expect Philly’s suburbs to be rock-hard Republican strongholds. Until recently they did vote strongly Republican; Democrats only won the suburbs twice (in 1964 and – due to TR’s Bull Moose candidacy – 1912) before 1992. It was President Bill Clinton who changed this pattern; in 1992 he barely managed to turn Bucks, Delaware, and Montegomery blue (his greatest margin was 3.4%). Ever since then Democrats have been doing better and better.

This shift does not constitute an anomaly; Democratic candidates since Mr. Clinton have been winning a number of wealthy, white suburban counties that used to go strongly Republican. Before Clinton, Long Island and Westchester consistently gave Republicans double-digit margins; today they’ve voted Democratic for the past four consecutive elections. Detroit’s suburbs – Oakland and Macomb counties – have gone from Reagan Democrat fortresses to regions John Kerry tied. Senator John McCain barely won Orange County, that symbol of suburban Republican might.

Montgomery and Delaware counties are especially Democratic-friendly. They  identify more with the populous, sophisticated northeastern seaboard than the more conservative Midwest. As such, these counties by nature sympathize with liberal sentiment; George W. Bush lost both by double-digits. This does not necessary mean, however, that Montgomery and Delaware constitute bastions of acceptance; products of white flight from Philadelphia, they can at times be fairly hostile to people who are considered different.

Increasing Democratic strength in these well-off suburbs portends great trouble for Republicans. In 2008, Mr. Obama’s performance in Montgomery and Delaware counties eclipsed his suburban strength in practically every other swing state. Only suburbs in places like the Bay Area, Seattle, and New England voted more Democratic.

In total, Obama won the Philly suburbs by 15.56%. Combined with his landslide in the city itself, he came out of southeast Pennsylvania with a 682,392 vote margin. This meant that John McCain needed to win the rest of the state by 58.79%.

If Pennsylvania was like Missouri – if the remainder of the state voted strongly Republican – this might just have been possible. But Pennsylvania is not like Missouri; southwestern Pennsylvania used to be unchallenged Democratic territory, while Scranton, Erie, and the Lehigh Valley all lean Democratic. John McCain thus lost the state by double-digits.  His only successes occurred in southwestern Pennsylvania, which is reddening almost as quickly as the southeast is bluing.

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

This is part of an analysis of the swing state Pennsylvania. Part three can be found here.

(A note: There will be a lot of maps in this post.)

Philadelphia: Precinct Results

My first post on the swing state Pennsylvania focused on the city Philadelphia, an incredibly Democratic city. At the time, I looked for detailed ward and precinct results but was unable to find any. Recently, however, I have come across a website which maps Philadelphia precinct results across a whole range of elections; it is a literal gold mine. This offers the opportunity to substantially deepen the previous analysis.

Below is a map, derived from the website, of the 2008 presidential election in Philadelphia (by precinct!)



An analysis of this result below.

The legend ranges from President Barack Obama’s weakest precinct (25% of the vote) to his strongest (literally every single person voted for him). In total, Mr. Obama won 83.00% of the county’s vote – an amazingly high figure. For reference, below is a map of Philadelphia’s black population.

There is, of course, a distinct parallel between the two demographic maps; blacks vote heavily Democratic and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.

For decades, the city Philadelphia has trended Democratic. In percentage terms, its Democratic vote has increased for the past seven consecutive elections. In 1992, for example, former President Bill Clinton won 68.16% of the county. A comparison to Obama’s performance is revealing:

If there is any consolation for Republicans in all this, it is northeast (and parts of south) Philadelphia. Notice that in both maps above, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama perform distinctly worse here. This area of the city is populated mostly by white Catholics and Jews, although white flight has weakened their numbers. Nevertheless, northeast Philadelphia remains far whiter than the rest of the city, and as assimilated Catholics lose their traditional Democratic loyalties, Republicans have been gradually improving their percentages. John McCain actually did better than Bush in parts Northeast Philadelphia, supported by voters uncomfortable with Barack Obama’s race.

The above map hides this trend; many northeast Philadelphia voters cast their ballots for Ross Perot in 1992, so the Democratic percentage vote was artificially low that year (minority voters, on the other hand, generally did not vote for Mr. Perot). Comparing the Republican vote is more useful:

In general, Senator John McCain (who won 16.33% of the vote) does worse than former President George H.W. Bush (who won 20.19%). In the northeast, however, the opposite trend occurs. The shift is gradual and slow – not like West Virginia’s rapid red turn – but enough to be noticeable.

Under perfect conditions, growing Republican strength might result in something like this:

This is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s performance during the Pennsylvania primary. The senator won a respectable 34.80% of Philadelphia’s vote, fueled by support amongst white Catholics in the northeast. As evident in the map, the city contained extensive polarization; the majority of precincts gave over 70% of the vote to one candidate. In effect, Philadelphia split into two different blocs.

To be clear, Republicans will have a very difficult time achieving a result like this. It would take a momentous change for white Catholics to cast more than 70% of their ballots for Republicans. If this happened, moreover, winning Philadelphia would be the least of Democratic worries.

The other possibility would be for Republicans to improve their percentage amongst African-Americans. Statistically, 90+% support for any party seems untenable over a long period of time. Republicans, however, do not appear anywhere close to achieving this goal. The fact that they are more likely to reach 60% support amongst white Catholics than 15% support amongst blacks says a lot about the state of the Republican Party (and the state of America, too).

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

In my previous post, I noted that almost all the counties President Barack Obama won have become more Democratic since 1992, while almost all the counties Senator John McCain won have become more Republican since 1992.

In fact, comparing maps of the 2008 presidential election and the county changes from 1992 indicates a striking correlation.

Here is the 2008 presidential election:

Here are the changes from the 1992 presidential election:



This hints at a disturbing picture of electoral polarization. More analysis below.

On the one hand, all this is somewhat intuitive. If a Democratic candidate does well in a specific place, he or she probably improved on a previous Democrat’s performance there – and vice versa. Moreover, these maps do not imply that all blue regions became more Democratic (nor the opposite); rural Appalachia, in the most famous instance, has trended sharply Republican, while much of suburban American has gone in the opposite direction.

On the other hand, this phenomenon does not constitute a mathematical rule. If a Democratic candidate wins a county, that doesn’t necessarily imply that he or she improved upon a previous Democrat’s performance. He or she could have done worse but still won; the previous Democrat might have overperformed, or the Republican might have encouraged cross-over voting.

Yet by and large, this has not been the case. Obama practically always outperformed former President Bill Clinton in today’s Democratic counties. Mr. McCain practically always overperformed former President George H. W. Bush in today’s Republican counties.

Taking a look at selected states provides a powerful illustration of this fact.

Here is California:

Here is Colorado:

All this implies something rather disturbing: electoral polarization has been steadily increasing. Obama only improved on Mr. Clinton’s performance in the counties Obama won. McCain only improved on Mr. Bush’s performance in the counties McCain won. The almost total lack of cross-over gain suggests that each party has come to depend on deepening their base, rather than widening the electorate and appealing to moderates.

That America is getting more divided has, of course, been known for a fairly long time. In some ways the maps exaggerate the polarization: 1992 Clinton appealed to many Republicans, while Obama’s strength lay amongst the Democratic base. Then there is the Ross Perot effect, which lowered margins in both party strongholds (e.g. New England, the Plains states).

But perhaps a bit of exaggeration is needed. Polarization has rarely been good for any country, and its increasing prevalence bodes poorly for the future of the United States. A map like this provides a potent illustration of polarization in action; indeed, I have never encountered a more striking image of its increase. Such a picture might do us some good.

(Note: Credit for all maps is given to the NYT; some images have been modified.)

This is the second part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Pennsylvania. The next part can be found here.

Like Florida, and unlike Ohio, Pennsylvania’s political geography can be divided into three. The industrial southwest is reddening, the populous southeast is bluing, and Pennsyltucky remains, as James Carville memorably described it, “Alabama without the blacks.” (Actually, Pennsyltucky is a fair bit less conservative.)

The following section will concentrate on Philadelphia, the region upon which Democrats draw the most votes.



Philadelphia the City

Although cities always vote Democratic, different cities contain different political characteristics. Not all big cities are liberal (see Houston, Phoenix), nor are all liberal cities are big (see San Francisco, Boulder).

Fortunately for Democrats, Philadelphia is both America’s sixth largest city and one in which four out of five inhabitants regularly choose the Democrat. It is, moreover, a city which has become bluer for eight straight elections.

(A note: All my statistics are taken from http://www.uselectionatlas.org/)

More below.

Philadelphia’s decades-long movement towards Democrats has corresponded with six decades of population decline; white flight has gradually weeded out Republican voters. Machine politics – characterized by such practices as street money – continues to play a major role in elections.

Demographics underlie Democratic strength in the city (as they do throughout American cities). A full 44.8% of the city’s population is black, a heavily Democratic voting bloc. Latinos (another Democratic voting bloc), while fewer than elsewhere, comprise a solid 11.8% of Philadelphia.

A large majority of Philadelphia’s white voters must vote Democratic, too. In 2008 Obama took 83% of the vote, in a city whose non-Hispanic white population was 39.0% according to the census. Assuming minority turn-out proportional to their actual population, and assuming every single non-white person voted Democratic, then at a minimum, 56.4% of Philadelphia whites supported Obama. Under a more realistic assumption (e.g. 90% non-whites voting Democratic), 72.08% of Philadelphia whites would be supporting Obama. (The equation to get this is simple: 83.01 = 0.90*61.00 + x*39.00).

Philadelphia’s white vote revolves around two factors: liberal whites moving in through gentrification, and long-standing white ethnic communities. The former voting group – often young, single, and gay or gay-friendly – is liberal by orientation; the latter group, a consequence of long-gone anti-Catholic sentiment, still votes Democratic on economic issues but is slowly treading Republican.

All in all, Philadelphia’s existence constitutes an enormous advantage for Democrats. For the past three presidential elections, it has been around 60% more Democratic than the nation as a whole. If George W. Bush had won 80% of the vote in 2008 (and John Kerry had won 20% of the vote), he still would have lost Philadelphia by 3.60%. That is a shocking (and sad) statistic. As long as Republicans keep on losing the city by 4-1 margins, they’ll have a very difficult time winning Pennsylvania as a whole.

Finally, notice how – for the first time in history – Philadelphia’s suburbs now lean Democratic. That shift, which I will cover next, should disturb even the most confident Republican.

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

This map is not what you think it is. Take a moment to guess what it represents.

The answer below the flip.

At first glance, it looks a lot like the results of the 2008 presidential election. The northeast and midwest are all blue. Then there’s the west coast – a long line of blue counties. One could be quite easily forgiven if one took this map for a county-by-county map of the 2008 presidential election.

In fact, here are the real election results:

[Note: If you want to better compare the two maps, open two tabs of this (the first map) and

this (the actual results). Then switch between them.]

There is an extremely strong correlation between the two maps. Almost all the same counties are blue or red. Peering closer only cements this impression. Nevada has three blue counties – the exact three Democrats won. In Texas, only the cities and the Hispanic southwest are blue – a precise replication of the real results. One can go on and on, spotting these types of similarities.

Yet there are minor anomalies. Central Indiana and southern Florida are uniformly blue; President Barack Obama generally lost these areas. More significantly, the vast majority of Minnesota shows up red – strange, given that Democrats won the state by double-digits.

Minnesota should provide a clue of what the first map represents. Although the Democratic candidate won the state, it has been trending red for several elections. Before reading more, take a minute to refine your first guess.

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If you haven’t figured out what the first map represents by now, here’s a bigger hint: look at Arkansas. Notice how uniformly red it appears in the first map, despite the several counties Mr. Obama won. Try to guess again – you probably can figure it out now.

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Here’s the answer: the first map represents voting shifts between the 1992 presidential election and the 2008 presidential election.

As you have seen, there is quite a startling correlation between the two maps. Over the past four elections, the vast majority of counties President Barack Obama won have become more Democratic, while the vast majority of counties Senator John McCain won have become more Republican.

In the next post, I will attempt to analyze the meaning of this.

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

I think we all remember the 2008 Democratic primaries, that exciting and epic battle. In many ways the campaign caused more excitement than the general election, whose result was never really in doubt (especially after the financial crisis).

Both candidates drew upon distinctly different coalitions. In an influential article, Ronald Brownstein analyzes the difference this way:

Since the 1960s, Democratic nominating contests regularly have come down to a struggle between a candidate who draws support primarily from upscale, economically comfortable voters liberal on social and foreign policy issues, and a rival who relies mostly on downscale, financially strained voters drawn to populist economics and somewhat more conservative views on cultural and national security issues.

President Barack Obama assembled a coalition from the former, these “wine-track” Democrats. When most Americans think of liberals, they think of wine-track Democrats. Mr. Obama, then, was the liberal candidate; Mrs. Clinton the “beer-track,” working-class representative.

So candidate won the most liberal place in America?

In fact, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the state of Massachusetts (you may have realized this by reading the title of this post). The result wasn’t even close; Mrs. Clinton’s margin was 15.37%.

These results are most strange. Barack Obama supposedly built a coalition upon liberal Democrats – yet he lost Massachusetts, the very image of liberalism. He then proceeded to win the nomination.

I will attempt to explain this puzzling result below.

There are several elements to it. Firstly, the state Massachusetts does not contain as many wine-track Democrats as most Americans tend to think. Rather, it includes a number of working-class, beer-track Democrats. These voters support Democrats based upon economic issues (which is not to say they are socially conservative). The state holds a strong union presence along with a high percentage of Catholics, numbering almost half the population. While in many places Catholics no longer vote Democratic, in Massachusetts they still are loyal to the party. According to exit polls, Catholics (45% of voters) went for Clinton by a 2-1 margin, while union households (27% of voters) supported Clinton 60-35.

Nevertheless, Clinton’s overwhelming victory remains surprising. Taking working-class support for Clinton into account, one still would expect Obama to do relatively well.

Remember, however, that this is Hillary Clinton we are talking about. Hillary Clinton, the champion of women’s rights. Hillary Clinton, the powerful and polarizing First Lady conservatives absolutely hated. Though the memory has dimmed, Hillary Clinton once stood at the forefront of “wine-track” liberalism. In February 5th, 2008 many liberal Democrats still remembered Hillary the feminist. Only later did Hillary the working-class fighter emerge.

Moreover, at that time Barack Obama continued to be a relative unknown, a bolt of lightning who had come out of nowhere. Hillary Clinton, therefore, made substantial inroads into Obama’s coalition, just as Obama took away a central pillar of working-class Democrats (blacks). Exit polls indicated that 62% of women supported Clinton (36% supported Obama); progressive white women probably went for her even more strongly. Throughout the primaries, Jews and gays (both deeply liberal groups) tended to support Clinton.

I am not terribly satisfied with this analysis; it does not seem to fully explain how the most liberal state in the union supported the more conservative candidate. The result perplexes me even today.

Nor did Massachusetts constitute an anomaly; Clinton did well in other liberal areas. She and Obama, for instance essentially tied the San Francisco Bay Area:



Reasonable explanations behind this result also exist. Working-class Latinos gave Clinton strong support; thus her large margins in heavily Latino San Jose and Fresno. Moreover, upper-class Asians – a major Bay Area constituency – supported her 3-1.

Yet the fact remains that, out of the two most liberal regions in the nation, Hillary Clinton won a landslide in one and tied another (if one adds together the Bay Area’s nine metropolitan counties, Obama actually wins by 1.2%). All this against an opponent whose base lay amongst liberal Democrats. It is all very puzzling.

Note: All images are modified pictures taken from the NYT.

This is the first part of an analysis of the swing state Pennsylvania. Part two can be found here.

In the dying days of his campaign John McCain mounted a quixotic attempt to win Pennsylvania. Despite his efforts, Obama cruised to a double-digit victory; from May to November 4th, only one poll showed McCain leading.

Two years previously, Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum – a Republican politician who had ambitions of becoming president – ran for re-election. A hard-line, nationally known conservative, he was overwhelmingly defeated by challenger Robert Casey.

These two instances provide a sense of Pennsylvania’s political climate; the state, while not exactly liberal, naturally leans towards Democratic candidates. The average Republican must overcome a formidable Democratic machine to win Pennsylvania.

More below.

There used to be a time when the opposite was the case; Republicans could usually count on Pennsylvania turning up in their column. If, by chance, the state didn’t go red – well, it didn’t really matter, because they were probably losing a landslide anyways.

This state of affairs ended in 1952.

Since then Pennsylvania has been an average of four percent more Democratic than the nation at large. Structurally, the state is a tough nut for Republicans to crack – tougher than most Republican strategists realize. There are several very tall obstacles a Republican must overcome to win.

The first is Philadelphia, a very big and very Democratic city. The second is Pittsburgh, another fairly big and Democratic-leaning city. Either Republicans must do well in Philly and Pittsburgh, or they must overcome their margins elsewhere. The first option is a non-starter; most Republicans don’t even try winning big cities anymore. Twenty years ago, Republicans could use Philadelphia’s suburbs to balance Democratic margins from the city itself (that was how George H. W. Bush won the state). Not anymore: the suburbs voted Democratic for the past five elections. Republican candidates are therefore forced to rely on exurban and rural votes along the “T” and – sometimes, but not often – in the dying industrial west.

So Republicans are in trouble right off the bat in Pennsylvania.

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

By: Inoljt, http://thepolitikalblog.wordpr…

Last night’s election exhibited two trends: one positive for the country as a whole, and one more ominous for Democrats. Firstly, Americans rejected negative campaigning and extremism – whether it be in Virginia, New Jersey, NY-23, or Maine. Secondly, the electorate as a whole shifted quite profoundly to the right.



Negative Campaigning and Extremism

In the most-watched races, voters chose the side that espoused moderation and ran a positive message. The Democratic candidates in both Virginia and New Jersey focused on the negative: state congressman Creigh Deeds of Virginia spent most of his time attacking Attorney General Bob McDonnell’s college thesis, while Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey launched a barrage of negative ads. Both candidates lost.

The other races featured the victory of moderate politics over extremism. In NY-23,  a Republican-represented district since the Civil War, conservatives sabotaged the moderate Republican candidate in favor of hard-line Doug Hoffman. Fortunately, voters in upstate New York rejected the Glenn Beck nominee and instead chose Democrat Bill Owens, an independent turned Democrat.

Thus the election results enforced a positive trend in politics – one of moderation and positive campaigning focused on the issues, rather than divisive personal attacks. For Democrats like myself, however, the other trend – a rightward shift – is more worrisome.

A Rightward Shift

For Democrats, the election’s most worrying result was not in Virginia, New Jersey, or Maine. It was the special election in CA-10.

At first glance, this might seem a bit puzzling. Democrats won that election, after all – and they won it by a comfortable 10% margin.

Yet, when compared to previous elections, this result is quite an underperformance. Barack Obama, for instance, won this congressional district by three times that margin. Since 2002, moreover, former Democratic congressman Ellen Tauscher had never polled below 65% of the vote.

Moreover, the election revealed more about the national mood than, say, Virginia or New Jersey. Those races were heavily dependent on local factors (e.g. the quality of the Deeds campaign, the unpopularity of Governor Jon Corzine). In CA-10, you had two low-recognition candidates and little publicity; it was closer to a generic ballot poll.

If  CA-10 could be characterized as a generic ballot poll, then Democrats should be extremely worried. In 2009, CA-10 went from a 30% Democratic victory to a 10% one: a 10-point shift to the right. Similar shifts were seen in New Jersey and Virginia; the electorate as a whole moved substantially to the right. The Democrats were very fortunate that Tuesday did not constitute a full-blown congressional election; they would have been crushed.

There is good news, however. Democratic weakness two days ago resulted more from an energized Republican base than a fundamental shift in the national mood. Republicans, motivated and unhappy, turned out; President Barack Obama’s coalition did not. The president still attains approval ratings in the low 50s – hardly the sign of an unpopular incumbent.

The bad news is that I am not sure if Mr. Obama’s coalition will turn out for the 2010 congressional elections. His voters have been curiously lethargic ever since his election; their low turn-out was how Senator Saxy Chambliss in Georgia went from a 3% general victory to a 14% run-off victory. Republicans, then, may do well next year.

In fact, I am not even sure Mr. Obama’s coalition will re-emerge in 2012, when he goes up for re-election. The president, after all, ran on a campaign of hope, change, and idealism. The difficult compromises forced by governing have tainted this brand, and it will inevitably continue to be diluted over the next three years. Obama’s 2008 coalition may go down as unique in American history, much like former President Jimmy Carter’s coalition.

I hope it will not. There is that word again.