Clearly, Christie’s approval rating reflects the coming Republican landslide and absolute domination of American politics. The only political question that will be worth discussion is whether the Presidential/VP ticket is Christie/Jeb Bush or Jeb Bush/Christie.
I’ve been arguing for years that national political parties are brands and that issues are virtually meaningless.
If you look at presidential elections, the largest landslides in the last century - Harding in 1920, Roosevelt in 1936, Johnson in 1964, Nixon in 1972 - top out at 61%. Apparently nothing can persuade 40% of the voters to give up on their party brand. That’s why conventional wisdom is that each side starts out with a firm 40% of the voters and competes for the remaining 20%, who are in the middle or congenially undecided or unaware.
The only major exceptions to this are single-issue voters, who are more anti- than pro- and will refuse to vote for anyone who disagrees. Those issues are not what are normally talked about in civics classes as election issues: abortion, gun rights, gay marriage. Foreign and economic policy do not function this way overall, although there are exceptions to the generalization.
One of the exceptions is not really an exception, but a special case. I’ve said repeatedly that Republicans have done a remarkable job of branding themselves as the party of intolerance since the 1960s. It’s not just their handling of bills and laws, but the loud public stances that Republican officials and candidates has proffered that drives away minorities. Voting on a president allows minorities to vote for or against this branding, especially since no Republican presidential candidate has actively and loudly repudiated it or the party members who say it.
Does the national party brand carry over into state and local elections? A qualified yes. For the most part, people vote for parties over individuals. But individuals can make connections that are impossible in a national campaign. And single issues can dominate an election in a way that rarely happens in a presidential race. Again, these issues aren’t policy as much as handling of an event, corruption or scandal, or some particular issue that suddenly dominates a cycle and then disappears.
Christie is old school conservative. He’s never going to be part of the Tea Party wing but he’s a long distance from being a Democrat. He has an appealing personality and he won points in the handling of an emergency, which trumps everything in local politics. To my knowledge, he doesn’t utter the hate-filled language that is commonly issued by Republican pols. He embraced Obama and pissed off Republicans elsewhere. All that allows minority voters to back off on automatic disapproval and give him some support. You’ll find that they will simultaneously support Cory Booker for Senate in large percentages.
To the OP, I’ll also repeat what I’ve said before. The Republicans have no hope drawing minority voters in presidential elections as long as they loudly and actively drive those voters away. It’s not that the party can’t attract them; it’s that they refuse to consider the possibility. The Democratic brand is inclusive; the Republican brand is exclusive. Brands can be changed, but that takes years if not decades. It’s not going to happen in 2016 because every action the national party is taking still reinforces that brand. coughshutdowncough That narrows the window, because the redistricting after the 2020 census that will first hit in the 2024 election means that the Republicans have no electoral winning scenarios if states like Texas flip to Democratic. (This is not the same thing as saying that the Republicans can’t win in 2016 and have the incumbent win in 2020. That’s possible since the incumbent president can’t run, but it means they have to do every single thing right to flip a half dozen states they lost in 2012. Possible, but very hard.)
The OP has it exactly backward. The anomaly is blacks giving the Democratic presidential candidate more than 90% of their votes. As long as Republicans believe this is the norm and slant all their behavior that way, it will continue. But looking at the norm existing elsewhere and wondering how it’s possible is doom for the party.
If it’s an anomaly though, doesn’t that actually spell big problems for Democrats? What path to victory would they have if they won “only” 70% of black voters?
Won’t happen. Because Christie is an anomaly. You said so yourself. This means that he is not representative of the whole. Which means that the nation will not go the same way. Which means that a Democrat will never win only 70% of black voters nationally.
You have explained why you’re wrong in your conclusion in your own assumptions; Christie is an anomaly, in that his popularity will not translate nationally.
Sort of a permanent majority?
Yes, but Exapno said the 90% going for Democrats was the anomaly. If that’s true, then where does that leave Democrats when things go back to the way they should be? But for what it’s worth, I agree with you that 85-90% is the normal percentage Democrats should expect nationally.
You’re still making several big assumptions that probably wouldn’t bear out in a national election. Putting all of them aside, it might have much less effect than you think. I could see it having an impact in North Carolina and Virginia and Florida, but if you check the data, you’ll find most of them are states Republicans are guaranteed to win anyway.
They will only go to “back to the way they should be” in Expano’s excellent analysis when the GOP successfully changes the brand image from a a party of exclusion to a party of inclusion. At best that is a many years process and one that the portion of the party with the most impact on the brand (those who control the primary process) will fight tooth and nail (and pichforks) against. The current conglomeration of conservatives only includes a third to less than half that will buy that brand. Not enough to get a nomination.
Your misunderstanding his use of the word “anomaly”. Considering the Southern Strategy and present extreme disrespect for the first black President among many Republicans in office, it’s not at all surprising that they fail to get more than a very small percentage of black votes.
You keep saying “when” instead of “if”. There can be no “when” given current circumstances. If the Republicans change their party to such an extent, the attraction of black voters would be a small fraction of the vote shifting that would occur. The rest can’t be predicted unless we knew just how the party changes, how long it takes, and how the party treats those who don’t change, not to mention what the Democrats do in response.
Remember that the Republicans earned their minority among minorities. They need to unearn it. How that could happen is mysterious to me and no sensible prediction can be made about it.
Okay, so has Christie done that? And if he has, why can’t it be done at the national level?
He addressed this man.
-
Locally things like events play big and can overcome brand.
-
National brand is less important locally. (Not addressed by Exapno, I know many who vote consistently one party for national offices who will flip all over at mayoral or governor levels.)
-
He embraced Obama for doing his job and helping his state and told Repubs who had a problem with that to essentially fuck off.
For it to work on the national level, Republicans would be required to admit and repudiate the Southern Strategy- and give the (metaphorical) boot to the old guard who refused to do this. They’d have to totally repudiate any sort of “states rights” or nullification-esque arguments. They’d have to admit and repudiate the very disrespectful behavior of many Republican office-holders towards President Obama, and give the boot to any who refused to do this.
That’d be a start.
I agree that if the Republicans changed to appeal more to black voters, it would shift coalitions. But would it cost them white support? Only if we assume that Republicans actively win white voters, as opposed to Democrats losing them. I think that the latter is what’s actually going on.
Southern Strategy I get. States’ rights? You mean, um, the Constitution? Sorry, never. Which is one reason I’ve always been skeptical that the GOP can ever appeal to black voters. That’s a dealbreaker for both sides.
Also, you can’t boot politicians out of a party. We’re not a European parliamentary system. Democrats own Lyndon LaRouche and Cynthia McKinney and don’t really have a choice in the matter. And it’s not like they ever booted their segregationists, they just respectfully waited for them to die or retire. They suffer no penalty from black voters for honoring those segregationists even today. Fulbright scholarships anyone?
As has been stated upthread, Christie is the beneficiary of a couple of things:
-
Handling a major disaster with good sense, and being seen to be putting politics aside to simply do what he can to help the state.
-
Treating the president with a measure of respect. He does not call him names, does not try to convince others he’s the “enemy”, does not call him the AntiChrist, etc.
These things are not transferable to the national level. #1 because it depends on one person’s response to a major natural disaster and #2 because the mass of Republicans at the national level are simply unable or too gutless to do this.
It could be done, but it would require a 180° turn in Republican policy. Right now, Republicans are treating them democratic voters with contempt - see Romney’s “47%” comments, welfare queens, “real” America, etc. Instead of trying to attract black voters, the party is just trying to make sure as few of them vote as possible (on the mathematically sound but ultimately self-defeating principle that 90% of a smaller number will hurt them less than 80% of a bigger number). At the same time, you guys are doing everything you can to alienate Latino voters as well.
As long as the party is doing that, the anomaly isn’t going to change. And while I think changing that strategy would result in a long-term benefit to the Republican party, it would also result in a short-term loss of loyal voters. Absent a few absolutely devastating defeats, I don’t see any way your guys are going to do it.
You don’t get it- Republicans can fight for conservative values and greater power for states and localities. They just have to be careful about how they do it. They need to recognize that the Civil War was not about states rights, and that, historically, “states rights” was used as a tool to oppress. I don’t think black voters would necessarily react badly to an argument like “laws about abortion should be left up to the states”, but they probably would to “the federal government needs to stop usurping state power!”.
Historically, “states rights” has been about oppression, plus a few other things. But mostly oppression. If the Republicans truly believe some federal powers should revert to the states, they should take that into account when framing their arguments. They need to repudiate the Confederacy in every way, including the way they use language.
Not only do those wackjobs not hold major office, but LaRouche and the other wackos are persona non grata in Democratic circles. Steve King, Michelle Bachmann, Allan West, etc? They are office-holders and celebrated heroes in many Republican circles. That’s the difference. If the Republican party really wanted to move forward, it’s standard bearers would need to repudiate King, Bachmann, and others. They’d need to come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who suggested that Obama was un-American, unpatriotic, secretly Muslim, or who suggested the Confederacy fought for a noble cause, etc.
Voter ID, opposition to any number of government services… other than rejecting the Medicaid expansion, this stuff doesn’t affect Christie very much in NJ. If he were running nationally, it would. He might stanch the bleeding but you wouldn’t see a quarter of black voters shift to the Republicans.
No, you can’t. But you can stop them from running the party, which Republicans haven’t done. Everybody outside of Cynthia McKinney’s district agreed she was nuts. Bachmann had enough support to run for president and a chunk of Republicans thought she really had a shot. LaRouche has never held elective office and doesn’t come anywhere near the mainstream of the party.
Federally funded.