I would agree – but, let’s face it, by American standards, anyone who posits “capitalism” and “democracy” as antonyms or as alternatives to choose between, as Moore did in his latest movie, is to say the least breaking new ground.
See, I would argue you don’t have to control for the economy; you have to control for the ideology. That is, the performance of the country as a whole (foreign and domestic) is an order of magnitude more important than just how far left or right the candidates are on the political spectrum. Elections are by and large won by the group of voters that don’t have a strong political ideology, but definitely know whether they perceive the country to be headed in the “right direction”, whatever that means for them.
Or, to answer my own question:
-
In 2006 and 2008 the Democrats won because Iraq was going very poorly, the economy was stalling (and then crashing), and (at least in 2006) political corruption was seen as a GOP failing.
-
In 2010 the Republicans will win because the economy has not recovered quickly, BP dumped oil into the gulf for months, we still have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and political corruption (and “politics as usual”) is seen as a Democratic failing.
Presidential elections are quite a bit different, because personal character and charisma is much more of a factor.
“Left” and “right” have little to do with it, IMO. The country didn’t swing from Commie Pelosi to Mama Bear Palin in just two years, ideological.
It appears that you’re just trying to shoehorn in your theory into the “perceptions” you’ve been seeing. Compared to how Congress is normally seen, I don’t see even a lot of generalized complaints of corruption (which there usually are,) let alone specific accusations of corruption by Democratic Congresspeople. This, despite the obvious displeasure with the electorate with their decisions.
Heck, I don’t even recall any Teabaggers accusing the Democrats of being corrupt – stupid, socialist, and not representing the voters, yes. Corrupt, no (well, possibly there might be some, but I’d expect them to be the No True Scotsman sort of crazy type that the Teabaggers generally try to disown.)
I agree that “corruption” is the wrong word - that’s why I added “political”, but that doesn’t fully capture it etiher, so I added the parenthetical “business as usual” - still clumsy.
What I was getting at was the general sense that Congress is broken, not helping, cronying, unresponsive, etc… the generic sense that government = Democrat and government = bad. Or, more specifically, the way things like Health Care Reform were brokered, pushed, pulled, and generally coaxed through the legislative process. A generic “vote the bums out” feeling.
At least here in MO the big push on both sides of the Senate race seems to be who can tie the other to Washington DC (Blunt as a GOP House member for years, Carnahan as a political dynasty who’ll rubber stamp the “Obama/Pelosi/Reid axis of evil”).
I may be off-base re: the ubiquity of these type of campaigning nation-wide.
Also, in many right-wing circles there are specific corruption complaints against Reid, Rangel, and a few others I can’t remember.
Nope. The currrent administration and congress didn’t do a damn thing and THAT is what is annoying the electorate. They don’t like ineffectual politicians.
Of course, if the Republicans take control of Congress, there’s going to be even less getting through for the next two years.
Jeebus on a pogo stick. If you think what we have now is center right, I would hate like hell to see what you consider left wing.
:eek:
Well, propositions involving the economy and war are statistically testable. The surprise is that once economic and incumbency fundamentals are controlled for, there’s only a swing averaging ~1.5 percentage points remaining, at least in Presidential years. That includes Presidential personality, by the way. Admittedly, I have the sense that off year electoral relationships are a little noisier.
Thatcher’s Britain was far to the left of Carter’s or Obama’s America. The same could be said of any European country. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are currently further left than the US, as they have UHC. After 2014 though, I’ll have re-calibrate that assessment of Asia.
]
It’s really hard to take as intellectually serious claims that certain policies are extreme leftist when they are exactly the same policies as espoused by the right a few years after they were prosed by someone with an R after his name.
Um, I think conservatives can be evil…at least the ones at the top…at least in the sense of being sociopathic…
I think most conservatives are just more conventional thinkers than I am. That’s not to say stupid, just different. (On the other hand, if the stupid fits…and if you believe in “facts” that have been debunked all over the place…then the stupid fits…)
And before I came to this board, I was called “dumb” and “stupid” for thinking liberally. I kept trying to tell the guy how an ad hominem attack reflects poorly on the attacker’s rhetorical skill, but…well…I think that went right over his head.
(thank you, SDMB mods).
So true. America is pretty much the most right-wing of any developed nation, and the Obama administration is far from left-wing by any rational standard. Frankly I’d be scared to live in a country that had a much more right-wing government.
And I wish that the right-wing would stop calling themselves ‘conservatives’, because in 95% of cases they aren’t. A conservative is simply someone who advocates slow change (in any direction) and preservation of the status-quo. Generally Americans who call themselves conservative are actually right-wing reactionaries or regressives. They want change, just in an opposite direction to ‘the left’.
In fact I would argue that the Obama administration is extremely conservative, since they appear to have done very little to change anything.
Not once you’ve tried it, you won’t. Come on! All the cool kids are doing it! The first hit’s free! 
Well, that’s a pretty all-important important reservation. I was talking about each group’s view of the other’s mass base. Those at the top are a very different breed of donkelephant, always.
But W, at any rate, was more stupid than evil. (Cheney and Rove, OTOH . . .)
That’s certainly interesting stuff, and if I’m understand you correctly, it pretty much matches what my intuition is - circumstances have far more to do with who wins elections than ideology. Am I interpreting your comment correctly? That fundamental political alignments (“the base” if you will) plus economic and military conditions account for >98% of election outcomes in recent years?
My one hesitation is that we have so few data points. You’re talking what, fewer than 10 presidential elections?
The Depression was still going on in 1936, but FDR won a second term anyway.
Weeelllll . . . no, not exactly.
Yeah, but we don’t really have polling data from that era. I would imagine that the “right track/wrong track” question re: the economy is more important than the actual economic indicators. Maybe in '36 folks felt that things were going much better than in '32, for example.
Also, wasn’t '33 the (first) bottom, with things improving a fair amount leading up to the Recession of 1937?
Well, that’s kind of my point. Using the small c implies that you are aligned with the dictionary definition of the word. I mind less if people call themselves big-C conservatives since it makes it clear that it’s an arbitrary political label, but when you are actually a right-wing anti-government regressive labelling yourself as conservative (big or little) it still seems to me to be calculated attempt to seem more sensible and non-threatening that you actually are.
A “big-C conservative” would be a member/supporter of something named “the Conservative Party,” and nothing else.