Tag: politics

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

A mentor once told me not to study communism, because it was a dead system, and studying something dead is worthless.

In defiance of this sensible advice, I will be presenting two dead communist movements: the communists in Italy and the communists in France.

Most Americans have never heard about these two parties. For good reason: France and Italy were staunch allies of the United States in the Cold War; it does not seem as if they were remotely communist.

But, for decades, the communists in Italy and France commanded millions of votes and a powerful political machine. Their strength remains a fascinating, little-noticed part of history.

Here are how the French Communist Party (Parti Communiste Français: PCF) and the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) performed:



There are several patterns here that apply to both parties, and several patterns unique to each country. (Note: The French line after 1956 indicates Communist performance in the first round of legislative elections, whereas the Italian line indicates Communist performance in elections to the Italian Chamber of Deputies. France has a two-round election system; Italy has two chambers in its Parliament. All statistics cited afterwards relate to these specific criteria.)

I will be exploring French patterns in the next post, which can be found here.

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

Democratic candidates in Utah must feel as if they’re facing an impossible task. The state is often considered the most far-right Republican stronghold in the United States. Winning Utah is akin to slaying a mighty dragon with only a bow as one’s chosen weapon.

Like all dragons, however, Utah has a weak spot. The year 2012 may be a ripe time for Obama to shoot an arrow through it.

The majority of Utah’s voters are Mormon; the religion is a heavy influence on daily life in the state. The vast majority of Mormons are also conservative, because Mormonism is an inherently conservative beast. In every presidential election so far, Mormons have proved to be strongly Republican.

Mormons like to think of themselves as average, normal Americans. They’re good people. They help with the community. They love their children and teach them traditional values. Nobody cares if they have a different religion.

Except many people do care very much indeed, especially the type of person who tends to vote Republican. Many would never vote for a Mormon.

Imagine the following scenario, below the flip.

Mitt Romney decides to runs for president in 2012 and starts as the front-runner. The race quickly narrows down to Romney and another Republican – perhaps a Huckabee-type figure. Romney’s Mormonism becomes a strong undercurrent and then explodes into the media spotlight, much like race did in the 2008 Democratic primary. It becomes clear that Romney is losing support because of his religion; eventually he loses the primary and ends up faintheartedly endorsing the Republican nominee. The good folk of Utah, angered by Romney’s treatment, turn out in drastically reduced numbers during the general election. Many vote for Obama – enough that, in an election he’s winning by 10% or so – he barely takes the state.

An unlikely scenario? Not really. First, Romney seems nearly certain to run in 2012; even now he is running a shadow campaign. In 2008, Mormonism was a strong undercurrent; Romney even gave a speech on his religion. There is no reason to think why it wouldn’t be in 2012. I doubt Mitt Romney will win the nomination in a competitive race; apart from his Mormonism, he is a terrible politician who lost all the important states in the 2008 primary (except for Michigan, which he won by promising to bring back jobs that will never come back).

On the other hand, its not certain that the media will pick up on the Mormon issue. And Republicans are strong enough in Utah that they might still win the state, even if all the above did occur.

Then again, Obama won Indiana when everybody said it couldn’t be done. Moreover, in 2008 he made strong gains in Utah, improving by 18% from John Kerry’s performance. Partly, this is probably because Obama is very popular in the West.

And maybe, just maybe, the Mormon factor had something to do with it.

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



Some of you may recognize this map.



For those who don’t, this is Ronald Reagan’s landslide election over his hapless opponent Walter Mondale.

Unfortunately, for those who look for political trends, this map hides more than it reveals. For example, Reagan wins Massachusetts, but reasonable people would agree that Massachusetts is normally a Democratic state.

Here is a more revealing map.



You probably don’t recognize this map. There’s a good reason for that – there’s never been a presidential election with the above results.

More below the flip.

In fact, the previous electoral college is what would have happened if Walter Mondale and Ronald Reagan won an equal share of votes. The blue states are those in which Reagan won with less than 18.2%, the exact amount by which he beat Mondale.

This map bears an eerie resemblance to today’s electoral maps. For example, here is the 2000 presidential election, in which Bush and Gore effectively ran to a dead heat.



There have been some changes since Reagan’s time. The Northeast has been turning blue; it is much harder today for Republicans to win a state like New Jersey or Maine. California has also been changing; Reagan would have lost it by only 2% in the hypothetical. To compensate, Appalachia has been moving the other direction; Democrats are hard-pressed to turn Tennessee and West Virginia blue nowadays. Places like Missouri and Kentucky were less than 3% redder than the nation in 1984. That was not the case last November.

By and large, however, what is striking is the degree to which the electoral maps look alike. For all the talk  nowadays about blue states turning red and red states turning blue, much more has remained the same than has changed. Democrats do well in the Pacific Coast, the Midwest, and the Northeast; Republicans do well in the Mountain West, the Plains, and the South. The Democratic and Republican coalitions remain much the same as they were two decades ago.

By: Inoljt, http://thepolitikalblog.wordpress.com/

The New York Times posted a very interesting map of Afghanistan’s recent election.



Before continuing, I must note that my purpose is not to question whether irregularities or fraud might have denied Abdullah Abdullah victory; I am simply analyzing the data as it appears.

There’s a lot of data here, and interpreting it is fairly difficult; few people know much about Afghan politics and demographics. This map indicates the margins each candidate won. Kabul is the big red circle. In total, Karzai won 55% of the vote, essentially doubling the vote of the second-closest candidate.

Compared to a similar maps of U.S. elections, several things stand out. The first is the extent to which polarization is apparent. Afghani society is very clan-based, and elections can reveal polarization like nothing else.

At the point most politicians win an election by more than 20%, maps like the one above tend to consist of something like below:



This is Barack Obama’s 24.03% landslide in California. Compare it to Karzai’s 27% victory: one might be forgiven for concluding that out of the two elections, Karzai did worse.

(Many) more maps below the fold.

Notice too that Ramazan Bashardost, who won only 9% of the vote, shows up as a presence on the map. This indicates a very regional candidacy, like that of William Wallace. Candidates who win 9% of the vote nearly never show up on any type of election map; Ross Perot, for instance, won less than a dozen counties with his 18.9% of the vote.

Abdullah Abdullah was also a regional candidate, as the following map reveals:



Mr. Abdullah  is almost entirely limited in support to the north; very few Pashtuns in the south seem willing to vote for him. This was not the case with Karzai; his total vote looks far more homogeneous:



There are several American states that the results Afghanistan’s election can be comparable to. The victor wins the one major city along with a number of more rural areas, although the opposing candidate summons strong support in one region. In this respect, Karzai’s victory resembles the coalition Bill Clinton assembled in many Appalachian states, such as Missouri and Tennessee (his loss in Oklahoma also bears similarities to Afghanistan). Recent presidential elections, on the other hand, generally do not follow this pattern; cities and rural areas rarely vote together (and cities never vote Republican). After Bill Clinton, only Obama’s Iowa victory comes to mind as a state with a “Karzai” coalition. Note that in all this states, the winner’s margin was far less than Karzai’s 27%.

The place that Afghanistan’s election calls most to mind, however, is Alabama. Both are extremely polarized: Afghanistan by tribe, Alabama by race. Republicans regularly win landslides in Alabama, yet always lose a particular region – the Black Belt – just as Karzai lost many Afghan areas despite his strong performance. Accusations of fraud have severely tainted the Karzai “landslide,” just as fraud of a different type was practiced in Alabama for many decades. Finally, both areas are extremely poor and will likely remain so during the forseeable future.

To end this post, here is McCain’s performance in Alabama.

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

It is a popular today to say that the South has switched from voting Democratic to Republican. Many people are fond of looking at previous electoral maps. Hey, isn’t that funny – the states have completely switched parties. It’s like the Republicans have recreated the Solid South.

That statement is unequivocally false. Most people have no idea how unbelievably Democratic the Solid South was. For half a century, Democrats in the Deep South did about as well as the Communist Party did in Soviet Union elections.

Let’s take a look at a model Republican southern state: Alabama. John McCain won 60.32% of the vote here, his second best showing in the South. Below are the counties in which Mr. McCain won over 70% of the vote (all my statistics below are from http://www.uselectionatlas.org/ – an amazing website).

That’s a lot of counties. The Republicans are doing quite well – about as well as the Democrats used to do in Alabama, many would say.

Here is another map, filled with blue counties.

It is the 1940 presidential election. I invite you to guess – what do these blue counties represent? Counties in which Roosevelt won over 70% of the vote? 80%? 90%? Remember, Roosevelt was quite a popular guy. He must have done pretty well in Alabama, part of the Solid South.

Continued below the flip.

In fact, the blue counties are those in which Roosevelt won over 95% of the vote in 1940. In all, he won 85.22% of the good folk of Alabama.

Those are incredible numbers. If today that result occurred, we would all cry fraud.

Of course, fraud – of a sort – was occurring in Alabama at that time. As everybody knows, blacks were not allowed to vote at that time. Notice how all but one of the blue counties surround Alabama’s Black Belt. What is less well known, however, is that many poor whites (more likely to vote Republican) were also unable to vote. The poll tax didn’t hurt just African-Americans, after all.

Different southern states enacted different voting restrictions with an intent to continue Democratic dominance. Some were more strict; some were less so. Republicans in North Carolina, for example, generally held Democrats to below 60% of the vote; they even won the state in 1928. On the other hand, South Carolina probably disenfranchised the most voters.

Here is the result:



The blue indicates a county that gave the Republican candidate less than 10% of the vote – for nine straight elections, from 1912 to 1944. From 1900 to 1944, South Carolina’s average vote (per election) went 94.89% Democratic, 3.98% Republican.

How did South Carolina achieve this amazing result?

A revealing clue is provided by looking at the voting count numbers. For example, in the year 1912 a total of 50,405 people voted in South Carolina (48,357 of whom supported the Democrat). At that time the census had just reapportioned electoral votes; South Carolina had a total of nine.

By comparing South Carolina to states with similar populations, one can get an idea of how many potential voters were disenfranchised. Kansas, for example, had ten electoral votes; 365,560 people in the state voted that year. West Virginia had eight electoral votes; 268,828 people voted in that state (remember, this was before women’s suffrage). In South Carolina, therefore, several times more citizens “should” have voted than actually did.

In conclusion, to state that the Solid South always voted Democratic is a misnomer. Even to say that it voted extremely Democratic might still be inaccurate. It would be like saying I’m interested in politics. Technically its true, but the picture the words imply far and away understates the reality.

By: http://thepolitikalblog.wordpr…

This is the last part of my review of the swing state Ohio.

Republican Ohio

What parts of Ohio vote Republican?

All of it, of course, except for the parts that vote Democratic.

That is a pretty facetious answer to a fairly serious question, but there is something to it. Blue Ohio has a set of defined, separate characteristics. Red Ohio does too, but not to the same degree. It is far easier to describe Democratic Ohio than Republican Ohio.

The following map is a good beginning in exploring Republican Ohio.



These are the places which most heavily supported John McCain (for those who are curious, the most Democratic counties were Cleveland, Toledo, Ohio University, and Youngstown). They are located primarily in the southwestern portion of the state, away from the Democratic ‘7’. Interestingly, practically none are part of Appalachia – considered Obama’s weakest region in the country.

Southwest Ohio historically – and to this day remains – the most conservative part of Ohio. Geographically, it is the Republican base; even in Democratic landslides, it often will vote for the red candidate.

There is another trait the highlighted counties have in common: most are semirural and somewhat less populated. Another map helpfully illustrates this.



Compare the two maps. Very few of the counties in which John McCain took over 60% of the vote were populated enough to appear on the above map. There is very little overlap between the reddest parts of Ohio and the densest parts of Ohio – except, importantly, the suburbs of Cincinnati.

More below the flip.

This does not mean, however, that all counties with over fifty thousand votes went blue. Quite the opposite, in fact: many of the yellow counties voted for McCain. Only counties with over one hundred thousand votes tread Democratic. Take a look:



What does this mean?

The yellow counties are an imperfect representation of what famously cost John Kerry the state: the exurban reaches of Ohio, especially in Columbus and Cincinnati. Most of them are well-off and home to middle-class folk, like exurbs in general. White flight played an important role in their formation (although it was not, as some maintain, the biggest motivator). Both McCain and Bush got their largest margins from these places; they constitute an important – perhaps the most important – block of the GOP coalition today.

This has not always been the case. Before 2000, Hamilton County (Cincinnati) tended to give Republican candidates their biggest margins in the state. Today, it has been replaced by the surrounding counties, rapidly growing exurban communities. Nevertheless, Hamilton County remains a reliable Republican stronghold.

Contrary to popular perception, the city Cincinnati itself is not that conservative (not anymore); its deep red suburbs account for the county’s Republican lean. Cities in general never vote Republican, but in GOP strongholds – like Cincinnati – the overwhelmingly red suburban vote outweighs their Democratic lean.

For a visual illustration of Cincinnati’s importance, here is how George Bush did in Ohio:

Cincinnati and its surrounding exurbs provide the largest Republican margins. The exurbs of Columbus are going heavily Republican; so is much of eastern Ohio.

Note, however, that George Bush only won the state by 3.5%. Unfortunately the Times does not have maps of stronger Republican victories (e.g. 1988, 1980).

How has the Republican base changed since 2000? The following map provides a sense of how things stand today.



There is not too much to show. One can see a coherent north-south divide; northern Ohio has become more Democratic, southern Ohio less so. Most of the rural southwest is fairly lukewarm to Obama – but so is the blue east. Interestingly, the exurbs seem to have moved Democratic more than their rural brethren. Note that most counties are blue because the country as a whole voted more Democratic in 2008.

It is difficult to tell how much of this is permanent and how much was specific to 2008. Perhaps the exurban counties were only bluer because of the housing crisis. Certainly a place like Cincinnati (with its large black population) voted for Obama as a person, not the Democratic party. Then again, maybe not; the county supported Bush ’04 by only 5%.

But as a whole, red Ohio seems to vote the same way it has for the past few years (or generations). Neither it nor the Ohio Republican Party has changed much in recent years. The same cannot be said for the Democrats.

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

Like most states, Ohio contains several swing areas. Some lean Democratic; others lean Republican. A good politician will usually pick up most of these regions on his or her way to victory.

Swing Ohio

The following map provides a sense of swing Ohio.



Providing balance, the map encompasses two solid Democratic victories and two solid Republican victories. Bearing this in mind, one can readily make out the structural ‘7’ of Ohio politics. Absent three counties, swing Ohio roughly encompasses the outer edges of Ohio’s northern and eastern borders, creating a shape that resembles the number ‘7.’ Strong Democrats win these swing counties and fatten the ‘7.’ Strong Republicans do the inverse.

Let’s look again at Bill Clinton’s 1996 victory.



As noted previously, Clinton is creating a fat ‘7’ in his re-election.

There are several other things that should be observed about Clinton’s victory with regard to swing Ohio. At the bottom of the state, Clinton is winning a group of thinly populated, Appalachian counties. One of these counties is Athens County, home to Ohio State University; it is reliably liberal due to the college. The rest lean Republican. A strong traditional Democrat can and often will win southeast Ohio; if this happens, his Republican opponent is probably going down to defeat.

Bill Clinton is also winning three counties surrounded by red. One of these – Dayton – is the Democratic equivalent of southeast Ohio: it leans Democratic but will occasionally turn up on the other side. In that case the Republican will soon be receiving a concession call.

The other two counties are moving in opposite directions. In Clinton’s day, Clark County – Springfield – and Columbus were two cities squarely in Ohio’s swing category. Since then, however, Springfield has been drifting right: Gore won the county, Kerry and Obama lost it. Meanwhile, Columbus has been doing a hard swing left, so that neither it nor Springfield are swing regions anymore.

Finally, one may note that many places I define as “swing” are colored light red, rather than purple in the first map. This was because of Barack Obama’s peculiar performance in Ohio. The president won the state with an unconventional coalition: he lost much of swing Ohio and made up for it by performing extremely well in Columbus, Cincinnati, and northern Ohio. Whether this coalition was unique to 2008 or foreshadows a structural shift in Ohio is unknown. Personally, I prefer the former explanation.

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

This is the second part of an analysis on the swing state Ohio.



Unlike Florida and Pennsylvania, Ohio cannot be easily divided into geographically distinct regions (although they do exist). Instead, I will be examining it through the lens of both partys’ strongholds in the state.

History

During the late eighteenth century Ohio was a consistently Republican state, the equivalent today of North Dakota or Arizona. Democrats often came close behind – four or five points – but never quite won the state until 1912. Their stronghold lay in a ring of rural counties populated by German immigrants (a pattern that has completely disappeared today). But this was never enough to overcome Republican strength everywhere else.

It was Franklin Roosevelt who changed this pattern forever. He laid the foundations of Ohio’s structural politics, which exist to this very day. Roosevelt brought in previously hostile working-class counties along the northeast section of the state. He also shifted most of Ohio’s northern cities to the Democratic side – which had previously leaned Republican.

To see the effect, here is Roosevelt’s 2.85% victory in 1932:



Here is his 4.4% victory eight years later:



The maps are practically inverses of each other – courtesy of the New Deal.

Democratic Ohio

Today Roosevelt’s coalition remains, for the moment, intact; Democrats still dominate the union vote and northern cities. Because both populations reside along Ohio’s northern and eastern borders, Ohio’s Democratic results often form a blue “7.” The greater the Democratic margin of victory, the “fatter” and more defined the shape becomes.

For example, below the flip is Bill Clinton’s 1996 performance, in which he took the state by 6.4%.

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

Is Ohio a liberal place? Or is it a conservative place?

I suspect far more people would say the latter rather than the former.

In many respects, Ohio is politically similar to Florida. Both are well-known swing states that hold a bountiful electoral prize. Both lean Republican. Both have large cites that function as pools of Democratic votes. Both also have considerable rural, Republican regions.

But in other ways they could not be more different. Sunny Florida is diverse, growing, and service-oriented. While Florida often votes Republican, it is not exactly conservative. Cold, northern Ohio is a rust-belt giant. It is not very diverse. It is definitely not growing. Florida is new. Ohio is old and conservative.

For the moment Ohio is a bit more conservative than the country at large. For the past eight out of nine presidential elections, it has been a bit redder than the nation. Not much redder, but enough to be noticeable.

I do not think that the future looks bright for the Democratic Party in Ohio. The two are moving in opposite directions. Demographically, Ohio is staying static while the country at large changes. And there are not many truly liberal spots in Ohio – places like Boulder, CO or Seattle. There never were.

Ohio has a lot of unionized, working-class folk who are still voting against Herbert Hoover; they are a core part of its Democratic base. I am not sure how long they will continue to support a party that is becoming, quite frankly, fairly upper-class in ethos. People in West Virginia certainly don’t anymore.

Not that Ohio is doomed to become a Republican stronghold. Places like Columbus are rapidly turning blue, perhaps fast enough to offset losses in working-class counties. And it isn’t inevitable that those counties will start voting Republican. If West Virginia is a prime example of working-class voters who deserted the Democratic Party, Michigan is a prime example of working-class voters that still support it. Barack Obama won a landslide in that state.

Nevertheless, my gut still tells me that Ohio and the Democratic Party are shifting farther and farther away from each other. These things can reveal themselves very quickly in politics. In 1988, California was a red state that had voted Republican for six elections in a row. Then one day it was won by Bill Clinton – and it has never gone back since then. In 1996 West Virginia had gone blue for five out of the past six elections. Then George Bush won the state – and now we consider it a rock-hard Republican state.

That may be the fate of Ohio.

Jon Cooper said it was an eye-opening moment for him. He was watching the press conference announcing Governor David Paterson’s selection of Kirsten Gillibrand to serve as New York’s junior U.S. senator. His spouse Rob inquired out loud if that was former Senator Alfonse D’Amato standing on the platform with her.

Last week, I spoke with Cooper about his possible candidacy, his career and why he is interested in running for a seat that was once held by Hillary Clinton, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Robert F. Kennedy.

At first, Cooper dismissed the notion that a former Republican U.S. senator from New York – the same man Senator Chuck Schumer beat in 1998 – would be at a ceremony for Republicans. But, much to his dismay, there D’Amato stood mere feet away from Gillibrand as she was introduced as New York’s newest senator.

Cooper makes it clear that he has ideas. He isn’t just going to run an anti-Gillibrand campaign, but he can’t help but point out her record. He mentions her past ties to Big Tobacco, the 100 percent rating she received from the National Rifle Association and her evolution on numerous issues that could be perceived as politically convenient.

“Her past position (on gun control) was of concern,” he said. “There are some people are distrustful of her evolution on this and other issues and are concerned about what they see as flip-flopping and see this as insincere or they question her character. I’m not saying I do. But there are those who do.”

For Cooper, however, it is different. He is not yet a declared candidate but he is touting his own record and why, if he were to run, he should be considered a serious contender to Gillibrand.

“I have, many times over the years, took stances that might not have been politically popular with my constituents but I believed it was the right thing to do,” he said.

As an openly gay and happily married man, Cooper is the father of five children he and his spouse Rob have adopted. He has served 10 years on the Suffolk County Legislature and currently is the majority leader for the legislature’s Democrats. He lists two key pieces of legislation as highlights of his career. He wrote the first law banning the use of hand-held cell phones while driving in the country. Since then, a number of states (including New York) have adopted such laws. In addition to that, Cooper also authored legislation that banned the sale of ephedra. That effort led to the federal government imposing a ban on the dietary supplement.

Jobs and the economy is an area that Cooper knows all too well. Cooper is running the family business, Spectronics Corporation, in Westbury. He said that while he is on the corporate side of things, he also is very much pro-labor and supports workers.

In the 2008 presidential primaries, Cooper backed an underdog named Barack Obama. Cooper was the first elected official from New York to endorse Obama and went on to be the Long Island chair of the Obama campaign. He said that, at the time, people asked him if he realized the political risk he was taking. Cooper said he had supported Hillary Clinton in the past but once he met Obama, he was sold. It was through the Obama campaign that Cooper met many grassroots organizers, some of whom are now aiding him in his exploratory efforts and organizing meet and greets throughout the state for people to meet him. Cooper was in upstate New York this weekend meeting voters in Buffalo and Rochester and will be back in upstate New York again, especially if he decides to run.

Cooper knows that he has a long way to go. He realizes that Gillibrand has millions in her bankroll. He realizes that she has received nearly every county chair’s endorsement to date. But one thing he references to is that Obama was counted out too. No one thought Hillary Clinton could be beaten. But with the greatest grassroots campaign ever, Obama pulled it out in the primary and won the general election.

A vast majority of Obama organizers and activists that Cooper worked with in 2008 are urging him to run and are supporting him. Democratic clubs have urged him to run. Progressives are supporting him. And while he says he isn’t comparing himself to Obama, the comparisons are glaring.

“The party establishment, for the most part, quite understandably is falling in line behind our Democratic incumbent senator regardless of how she got to that office,” he said. “But she’s the incumbent Democrat now and I expect most of the political establishment to back her. But a lot of the grassroots leaders that had been early supporters of Obama seem to be lining up behind me or at the very least, urging me to run so that we will have a choice, which is what this is all about: Offering Democrats in New York State a choice.”

While Cooper doesn’t have a full slate of issues on his platform yet (understandable at this stage), his platform stresses the importance of economic development, pushes for progressive values and support of the environment and the fight for health care, consumer protection, gun safety and middle class tax cuts.

So when will we know whether or not Cooper is running? He says by the end of the year he will have a decision. He is testing the waters right now to see just how much support he has and what the response is statewide. I spoke with him over the weekend and he seemed to be very pleased and excited by the response in Buffalo and Rochester. So we’ll see just how far he is willing to go and if he is going to make an upset bid for the U.S. Senate.