Except that, as xtisme noted, you are ignoring the magnifying effect of uncontested races. Fully 2.5 MM of the ~3 MM difference in 2004 is accounted for by Obama’s win over Alan Keyes, for example. One can see that as a liberal v. conservative battle if one wishes, as Senator-Elect Obama is indeed liberal and Mr. Keyes is indeed conservative. But in reality Mr. Keyes is a bat-shit crazy carpetbagger who only came in after the prior candidate got caught up in a sex non-scandal and who got about thirty two dollars of funding from the state party. The same is doubtless true in the opposite direction, too – I’ve got a guess as to how much the Democrats invested in whoever they sent up against John McCain, for example.
And people don’t like to vote for people they don’t know (or, usually, who are bat-shit crazy).
Additionally, some Senate races are not reflective of standard liberal-conservative battles. Senator Reid from Nevada is an example. Whilst I have every confidence that his opponent was more conservative than Reid, and whilst I’m pleased that the Democrats had the good sense to make him minority leader, I don’t think a reasonable person could argue that he represents the liberal wing of the party. Do you?
Thus, the Senate votes don’t really tell you very much about national trends. There are too many local variables to make the data useful.
For the record, I don’t belong to any party.
I agree with both parties on several issues, and I hold some views which would be considered liberal and some views which would be considered conservative.
In general though, even though I have no problem with the conservative movement, I find that the Republican party itself (as a party) is horrible.
Well…but I noticed you didn’t answer my questions as to why those numbers are relevant to you (still)…you keep repeating the same exact phrases you already posted without amplifying. Saying you are non-partisan is well and good…but it doesn’t explain what I was asking for Pol.
Way to buck up the troops! I noticed though that YOU didn’t come out and say you endorsed (or even understood) his, er, points blowero. Funny that. Or maybe you were going to wade in and explain how those numbers Pol is talking about are relevant…and how the Dems are poised to retake the government based on those numbers alone.
I didn’t answer your questions because I see that this is going nowhere.
And the proof that this is going nowhere is your post:
If you think that I meant that the numbers I showed implied that the Dems are poised to retake the government, then there is no need to debate this any further.
No, they don’t. They show that you can get odd parsings of votes to elections depending on how you break them down. If you consider America as a homogeneous mix of various types of people, then you may have a point. However, since it is not, ans since some geographical differentiation is not unwarranted, you don’t.
Does that at least address your point enough that you can stop shouting?
Wouldn’t you want to look at the numbers over the entire term, rather than just one quarter, or one year? Just as a hypothetical example, wouldn’t 5% unemployment mean something different if it were down from 10% in previous years, as opposed to, say up from 3%?
Well, the unemployment rate is not a great measure of the labor market since it reflects only those who are still actively looking for work, not those who are too discouraged.
Also, unemployment fell from 7.1% in January 1993 when Clinton took office to 5.2% in October 1996 when he was running for re-election. And, in that period, there was significant growth in the total number of jobs. (I leave it as an exercise to the reader to dig up those numbers.) By contrast, under Bush, it rose from 4.2% in January 2001 to 5.4% now. And, the economy actually lost jobs…or at least private sector jobs…over that period.
Another fun economics number comparing Bush and Clinton’s first terms (from the historical tables of the FY2005 US Federal Budget):
Change in surplus or deficit as % of GDP from 1993 to 1996: +2.5% (from -3.9% to -1.4%).
Change in surplus or deficit as % of GDP from 2001 to 2004: -5.8% (from +1.3% to an estimated -4.5%).
You’re mixing apples and oranges. I’m not talking about whether the economy improved more from 1993 to 1996 than it did from 2001 to 2004. I’m talking about what the state of the economy was at the time of the election. And all of the leading indicators in 2004 were approximately the same as in 1996.
I see your point, but gotta disagree. Even though the temporal points you picked have a logical basis, the data points you picked were cherry-picked and miss the crux of what’s wrong with the economy and the US’s fiscal health. Like the deficit and standing debt. I’ll also try to dig for some cites about what average pay was, in normalized dollars, for the people who weren’t unemployed, but were underemployed in those two time periods… And for all employed people below the top, say, 1%. I’ll see what I can find.
Please do. However, my point in bringing this up wasn’t to say “Bus4 1z a r0xx0r w4iz with teh ec0n0my.” My point was that the leading indicators- inflation, unemployment, and GDP growth- were about as good in 2004 as they were in 1996. And most people who vote by their pocketbook don’t vote by whether their pocketbook in 2002 was better than their pocketbook in 1997; they vote by how they feel they are currently doing. And the deficit barely registered in the minds of most people.
Interesting facts-
According to the CNN Election exit polls, 71% of the voters felt their family situation was the same or better; 28% said worse. But only 47% felt that the economy was in Excellent or Good shape- 52% said Not Good or Poor.
Most interesting- 49% of Americans said they’d trust Bush to handle the economy. So at least 2% of Americans voted for Bush believing he’d mess the economy up. But only 45% of Americans felt Kerry would be able to handle the economy.
What bup said. Also, I don’t really think “the state of the economy” is something that exists in a vacuum, disconnected from its recent past. Or, at least, I think such a “state” is of limited utility in actually understanding the current economy, the effect of economic policies, and the perceptions that people will have in regards to the economy.
Polerius, I agree that your thread is being met with deliberate obtuseness on the part of various posters here. Your thesis, as I understand it, is simple: With roughly half of all votes cast b eing cast for Dem candidates, cries that the sky is falling and Dems must radically change their approach are wrong.
I agree with you: Dem changes that could pick up 4 or 5 percent of votes here and there are all it would take to change the current trends in Dems’ favors. A more vigorous approach to developing Dem media might be all it takes to do the trick,or maybe changing positions on a secondary issue, like gun control.
I suspect that most who don['t get your point are doing so because they don’t really have any sound argument for what you have said – therefore they argue over things you haven’t said.
Exactly. No one pays attention to the total number of votes for Dem vs Pub Senators because IT DOESN"T MATTER. Most incumbents are re-elected, so there often isn’t a good challenger. Same thing goes for the House, with the added complexity of redistricting.
You have to judge a game by its own rules. The Yankees scored more total runs against the Red Sox in the playoffs, but Boston went on to the World Series because they won more games. Nobody cares how many total runs the Yankees scored. Same thing with Electoral vs Popular vote for president. Presidential candidates don’t campaign in order with the popular vote, for judging the results of an election by those rules is completely besides the point.
And here from the title I thought that the debate was going to be over the “mandate.” I think if this was a true mandate, the percentages would have been different in the popular vote.
Judging from the presidential elections since 1904, this is about the sixth closest of those 26. I don’t see how 3% makes a mandate or a thumping. Reagan in 84, Johnson in 64, Clinton in 96…now those were thumpings.
The Republican won. The popular vote was close, and the electoral vote while clear, was not a landslide. There is no reason for the Democrat party to become a clone of the Republican party. They have different philosophies. If the Democrats become just like the Republicans, then there is no need for the Democrats anymore. If both had the same goals and agendas and philosophies, then one of them is redundant.
