What's going to be left of the Democratic base by Nov 2012?

Politics & Elections
1

Here are my concerns as best as I can state them. Obama is turning out to be the best possible Democratic president a Republican could hope for. The Democrats in Congress are even more splintered and less effective than normal because of his weak leadership.

This makes me worried that by Election Day 2012, even if the craziest of the crazy Republicans (take your pick) gets nominated, the Dem base is going to be so discouraged that many will simply… stay home. And then we’ll have 4 or 8 years of a Republican president that makes us yearn for the wisdom of George W. Bush. :eek:
Tell me why it will, or won’t, happen.

2

Well, I didn’t much care for Mitt Romney in 2008 because he just seems like a shallow vapid person who is basically just a politician for politicians sake. At one point in time at least McCain had an ethos, and I’d argue he still does; he just sold out a bit in what he felt was his best chance of winning.

I don’t think Mitt 2012 is a great candidate but given President Obama’s performance I won’t have any trouble voting for Romney over him. I don’t think a Romney Presidency will go down in the history books as much, but I don’t think it’ll be a disaster either. I suspect he’d be sort of like H.W. Bush in a lot of ways, and I suspect he might be a one and done too.

I always lean towards the incumbent when it comes to making predictions. I give little heed to approval ratings this far out; yes, Obama’s approval ratings are horrible right now. Additionally it’s undeniable some of the far left supporters of Obama have serious issues with him (check out various op-eds in Salon, Huffingtonpost, etc of liberals who are tired of Obama.) A lot of them will still want a Democrat in the White House over any Republican, so some decent portion of the base will always be going out to the polls. It’s still very much Obama’s election to win or lose.

Romney can win but it will require the country to be roughly in the shape it is now come 15 months from now, it will require him not making any colossal gaffes during the campaign, and it will require Obama to make a few missteps. A lot of the things that catapulted Obama to a significant victory in 2012 still will be true in 2008. He has strong ground game, strong organization, good money raising ability (Romney is rich but he’s only like $150m rich, that’s chump change in the era of billion dollar Presidential campaigns.) Politically Romney would have better chances if the election was this November and not next November, 15 months is long enough for the economic picture to improve enough for Obama’s approval ratings to go up.

Presidents don’t have to have > 50% approval to win, either. A President is only going to lose reelection if enough people in swing states want the President replaced with his challenger; so even if Obama is unpopular in Nov. 2012 he could still win reelection.

3

Money from sane corporations. Even those that consider the GOP better for profits had to have had a second thought when they almost deliberately drove the economy off a cliff. Plus, like you were saying, it will be a battle between whose fragmentation versus batpoop loco is stronger.

ETA: plus the GOP and the conservatives in general are more fragmented than usual as well. Some mainstream GOP supporters might stay at home this time, too.

4

The relevant part of the question is turnout. Will the Democratic base stay home? For that matter, if the candidate is weak, will the Republican base stay home?

The historic evidence is mixed, even for recent years. Turnout was almost steady in 1980 and 1984, an easy win for the incumbent. Turnout fell from 55% to 49% from 1992 to 1996, again in an easy win for the incumbent. But it rose from 51% to 57% from 2000 to 2004, when the incumbent was embattled and the election was close. So second term elections could go either way. The 2008 election was also a rounded 57%, but unrounded it went up a full 0.68%. That means turnout has increased for four straight elections and was the highest since 1968.

Why has turnout increased? My guess is that two trends are pushing in the same direction.

One is that the country is increasingly polarized. This has large downsides, as we just saw with the budget bill, but polarized voters are more likely to turn out to support their parties. The hard-fought 2004 election, with a close vote, did see increased turnout.

The other is that we live in a media bath today that is unprecedented. It was a lot easier to turn off national politics a generation ago. Today it’s everywhere, in every form of media.

Estimates are that each side will spend a billion dollars on the 2012 campaigns. People are far more likely to complain about the assault of ads than to say that they don’t know what’s going on. People may hate the ads but I know of no evidence that says that people vote less because of them. There’s always a gulf between what people say and what people do.

I’d wouldn’t be surprised if turnout was a bit lower in 2012 than 2008, but I would be surprised by two things. One, if the percentage difference was large, and two, if the lowered turnout was all on one side. The 2010 election was decided because Democrats stayed home, and the party leadership will be determined not to let that happen again.

A lot will depend on how the Republican challenger does. Both Mondale in 1984 and Dole in 1996 were considered to be poor campaigners, although their parties had next to no chance to win no matter what. Kerry was hardly a fireball on the campaign trail. Possibly a better candidate could have won, but beating an incumbent is always hard. That will be true in 2012 as well. Despite the bashing Obama takes, his numbers consistently beat any named individual candidate. If the Republicans don’t run an absolutely perfect campaign with a charismatic candidate and perfect strategy there’s no reason to think they can oust a sitting president. It happened with Reagan and Clinton, true, but you can apply charisma to each of those names. Romney doesn’t have it. Do any of the other candidates?

Anyway, low turnout by disgruntled Democrats is unlikely. There will be a billion reasons not to expect that by November of 2012.

5

This was a typo, I obviously meant that the things that catapulted Obama to victory in 2008 will still be true in 2012. Either that or I have inadvertently let this slip out because I actually live in reverse and have already experienced 2012 and am looking toward the 2008 elections to see how everything got to this point.

6

I think the best thing that can happen for the Democratic base is for somebody like Bachmann to get nominated. Obama has become a pretty tepid President and the turnout for him might be lukewarm. But people would turn out to vote against Bachmann.

7

Since your user name is almost an Anglicization of Myrdin Wylt, who famously “lived backward in time” I think you’ve let your secret slip.

I hope you’ll let us each ask one question about your memories of the future. But I find early 21st-century politics much too depressong. How about: “Is there balm in Gilead?”

8

Obama is not stupid, and has a plan to heat things up come next summer, I’m pretty sure.

9

The pure Democrat base will always be there, no matter how weak Obama becomes. It’s the “middle of the road” and independent voters that have mostly already deserted him and are not likely to return.

Question is, if the GOP can field a candidate that will be able to encourage enough of them to get out and vote. If they do, landslide victory is theirs

10

Is that safely tucked away with his job growth and debt reduction plans?

11

Obama’s Democratic approval has been extremely stable. Pretty much every poll for the last 15 months has it between 75% and 80%. The drop in his approval is not among his base, but among conservatives and independents. Independents should not be conflated with moderates. Obama wins moderates handily, and has since 2008, though the numbers are getting closer to 50/50. Independents have historically been majority conservative, which is why GOP party ID tends to hover around 25% and Dem part ID tends to hover around 33% but the GOP still wins some elections (plus turnout differentials).

So the real question is why are conservatives and some moderates disapproving in greater numbers? One could imagine they see Obama as too liberal, but the few polls actually asking that question don’t see those numbers going up much. A lot of Republicans voted for Obama, and their impressions of his liberalism haven’t changed that much. The most likely factor, given that economic indicators are a much better predictor of Presidential approval that policy, is that Obama is getting more blame for the economy over time.

That’s a boring and hardly surprising hypothesis, but probably true. It does mean that the thing to do is try to improve the economy, and not worry about optics and “strong leadership.” Failing that (which may be impossible with the current GOP), the goal is to put the blame where it belongs: on the party blocking reasonable economic policies like trade deals, payroll tax cuts, patent reform, and further stimulus.

12

Ideally, the GOP would like to put forward a nominee that would attract independent voters. I think that’s what they were going for with McCain in 2008. But I don’t see any of the current crop that have that kind of appeal.

So the GOP will go with Plan B: nominate somebody that will turn out the conservative base while hoping the left is too disillusioned to turn out for Obama and the center sits the election out. It could work as long as they don’t nominate somebody so extreme it triggers a backlash of votes against their candidate.

The GOP’s problem is the Tea Party. They don’t want a quiet conservative - they want a loud reactionary. So the Republicans have to find somebody who’s far enough to the right to placate the Tea Party but not so far out there that he or she scares the rest of the country.

13

With the Tea Party one of the big X-Factors is also the third party candidate aspect. Unless the Tea Party movement shows significantly greater political maturity than they have up to this point, if we nominate a mainstream conservative type that will not be acceptable to them and they will run a candidate of their own. Across the country in 2010, even as desperate as the Tea Party was to see the Democrats lose control of Congress they repeatedly did things that undermined more mainstream GOP politicians and cost the GOP seats it could have won. The Tea Party will not care at all that by putting up their own Presidential candidate they will totally destroy any chance of Obama being unseated. As everyone knows a third party candidate doesn’t have to get more than 2-3% of the vote nationwide to undermine the mainstream Presidential candidate on their side of the aisle (George W. Bush would never have been President if not for Ralph Nader in 2000.)

14

The counterbalance is that if the Republicans nominate a Teavangelist like Perry or Bachmann, the moderate independents will stay home, so it will be a wash.

15

Won’t happen. You overestimate the willingness of a considerable number of Republicans to vote the party line or stay at home rather than vote for Obama.

2012 is beginning to look like 1996 - just when you think the White House is ripe for the taking by the Republicans, they just can’t get the right candidate for some reason.

16

[Martin Hyde beat me to it]

17

The Repubs have no intention of passing anything that will help Obama. It will ensure the country will suffer for a long time, but they play hardball. They have little feeling for the suffering of the citizens. They just want to get their hands on all the power again. Bush did not finish what they want done.

18

I don’t understand this statement. The party doesn’t pick the candidate, the voters do in the primary. Voters in the primary vote for the candidate they like, not the one they hope others will like.

I agree with this. contrary to popular belief, Clinton was beatable in '96. But Bob Dole couldn’t have beat Jimmy carter in 1980. Hell, he wouldn’t have beat Hoover in '32.

Unless something drastic happens with the economy the 2012 election is the Republicans to lose. And lose it they just might.

19

I think it the exact opposite. If the GOP runs up another candidate from the good old boys GOP club, then the voters will stay home in droves, or vote 3rd party - either way, we have 4 more years of this madness.

20

Would first require Obama actually putting forth a plan…