I think in the industrial midwest it will be hard for the Democrats to claim even one scalp, and it’s likely the Republicans are going to take Illinois.
Walker has done very well as governor, although even I agree that he handled the union issue in a hamfisted way. But the results speak for themselves. THe public doesn’t care about government unions except to the extent that those unions make government services better. If they make them worse, then screw 'em. Liberals go on and on about how corporations should serve the public interest, but if the public interest and government unions are in conflict, liberals always side with the unions.
Well, there is no pendulum. Trends only reverse themselves for definite causes. Some political trends, e.g., the present growing acceptance of SSM, reflect demographic/cultural/generational changes, and such do not reverse themselves.
I think sometimes States move away from one party at the State level (meaning statehouse and state executive branch elected offices) as a reaction to long periods of one party rule. I think when a party is unchallenged for too long they can get anemic and prone to misbehavior in relationship to their constituents. That allows for opportunities like Chris Christie coming in and defeating John Corzine, without necessarily indicating a broader political shift in terms of ideology.
Quite true. But none of these changes have been radical enough in just 10 years to change the electoral map. I believe that Barack Obama changed the electoral map, and only for elections in which he was at the top of the ballot. Economic conditions and satisfaction with the direction of the country, plus candidate quailty, are still affecting elections more than changing trends. So you see more of a pendulum effect in the short term. By 2030 things will be different, but from 2004 to 2014 you shouldn’t see huge changes in the electorate.
The country is still closely divided enough that the party in charge will be booted if they do a poor job, and retained if they do a good job.
As I recall, the sentiment of many voters was that they disapproved of Walker but did not feel that his brute force handling of the labor issue rose to the level of warranting a recall.
Not necessarily. A recall is a very serious measure to undertake and essentially Democrats tried to recall him over a mere policy difference, which I imagine even a lot of Democrats thought was unacceptable.
An election is a different thing entirely. I wouldn’t have supported a recall of the President over ACA, but I sure as hell wanted to see him defeated in 2012 over it.
Actually, you can; e.g., large numbers of individuals changing their minds about SSM. Cultural change is sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but usually irreversible.
The parties are also changing with the public on the issue. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are pretty much in the center of their bases on the issue. Parties can be left behind if they don’t change with public opinion, but that’s not happening on the SSM issue. What’s the divide right now, like 55-45 in favor? As long as you’re looking at 40% or more against, it will make sense to have a party against in a two party system. Once that number drops below 40% though, and it will, the GOP will probably become pro-SSM, starting with the bluer states.
W got reelected the same way Obama got reelected. He had a base that still supported him and he won enough independents by making the election as much a referendum on his opponent as on him.
But there’s no rocket science to this. Both had approval ratings in the high 40s, which means a tough race, but usually a winning one for the incumbent.
It is still true that an incumbent with 50% or above approval will win reelection nationally, and it’s still true that an incumbent 45% or below will lose. Between 45-50, it’s a race.
A recall IS an election. And 363991 more votes were cast in it than the original gubernatorial election!
And Walker received 205,509 more votes in the recall than he received when he was originally elected, and received them against the exact same opponent.
It could, it all depends on how SSM views change based on region. If the Bible Belt holds firm, then Bible Belt representatives will continue to be anti-SSM(including some Democrats), while everyone else is pro-SSM. That’s how the civil rights issue went, region still had more to do with views on civil rights than party until eventually it just ceased by be an issue. And I’m sure SSM will go the same way. Give it about 20 years.
But it’s not going to change voting patterns. If anything, the issue going away will help REpublicans because gays tend to be wealthier than straights.
Remember, one result of the civil rights issue was the parties swapping substantial parts of their constituencies and becoming more ideologically homogenous. Yes, regions had a lot to do with it, which is how the GOP’s base shifted from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West. But, that process is done and can’t be repeated – there’s no more swapping left to do. If the GOP leadership endorses SSM any time in the next 20 years, a substantial part of the base will get fed up and go third-party (not Dem, of course). Later than that it won’t matter, because by then that part of the base will be dead, and not generationally replaced, their kids don’t see the world the same way; but they ain’t gonna change while they live.
I don’t like to use the word “swapping” because it makes it seem like the racists and progressives just switched parties, when in actuality what happened is that once race was off the table economic interests became more important, which made the parties more homogenous. Southern Democrats could be either progressive or conservative on economic issues, but once the civil rights issue was settled, economic conservatives had no reason to stay.
The GOP will only go so far on SSM as their base lets them, just like the Democrats did. Once you’ve got 51% of Republican voters favoring SSM, it’s a done deal. The religious fanatics either surrender on the issue or become irrelevant.
And there is still some potential for base swapping as you call it in the wake of LGBT civil rights. LGBTs themselves could see some movement, but so could religious voters. Once stopping gays from marrying ceases to be the main issue, some will go back to the Democrats because of their economic views. And likewise, wealthy liberals who hate the GOPs views on gays have less reason to stay away from the GOP once both parties are essentially the same.
As a lifelong (over 50 years) Californian, I’ll believe that when the state elects a Republican as either Governor or Attorney General this November. (I don’t see the first one happening, and the only chance the second one happens is if the Republicans make it a referendum on Proposition 8, since a Republican state Attorney General would almost certainly try to get the Supreme Court to rule on its validity, which it refused to do in Hollingsworth v. Perry as the petitioner did not have standing to make the appeal.)
That is exactly what happened. Racist Dems migrated to the GOP and liberal Pubs migrated (or were driven) to the Dems. That accounts for the geographical change in the parties’ bases.
They always have been, and the process you are describing did not make them any more so. Actually, that was around the same time that other social/cultural issues, such as abortion and creationism, became more important; they were hardly relevant in American politics before the 1970s.
No, racists, and other social/religious RWs, had no reason to stay.
Or go third-party. They’re always muttering about doing that if they can’t take over the GOP.
Not anymore. Too many members of the democratic party got themselves arrested or suspended. The latest was from outspoken gun control advocate Leland Yee who is accused of not only corruption, but of arms trafficking to terrorists.