Legal Commentary

Politics Is Stupid, Cont'd

By Big Tent Democrat

Obama and the Dems are polling badly, and people wonder why. It's the economy, stupid. Consider this:

In a follow-up interview, one poll respondent, Judy Berg, an independent from Morton Grove, Ill., said she voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 because she was “looking for a change,” adding, “the change that ensued was not the change I was looking for but something totally out of left field.” This year, Ms. Berg, a registered nurse, expressed a preference for Republicans because “I’m pro-life and I’m also looking at the immigration issues and the tax issues.” She added, “I like the Republican agenda on these issues better than the Democratic agenda.”

(Emphasis added.) If Ms. Berg voted for Obama and Dems because of the issues of choice, immigration and taxes, then she would never vote for a Republican. There is a clear difference between the parties on these issues and always has been. If you are anti-choice, anti-immigrant and anti-taxes on the wealthy, then you should vote for Republicans every time. How did Ms. Berg come to vote for Obama and the Dems? It was the economy I surmise. There is nothing Obama and the Dems could say to this person that could persuade her on the issues. Only one thing could - good governance and economic performance. The "issues" for Ms. Berg clearly are not important - how the economy is doing is. Most American "swing voters" are like this. Most "swing voters" don't care about issues. Most Americans "swing voters" almost exclusively care about how they are doing personally. More . . .

This is an obvious and persistent phenomona, but what does it mean politically? Too many analysts misapprehend the significance of this insight. They think it means you should favor all tax cuts. This would be true if that were good policy. But it isn't. The Clinton years proved that.

The other point is that while the Ms. Berg type voters comprise the majority of the "swing voter" segment of the electorate, "swing voters" do not comprise the majority of the electorate. The mistaken path of trying to appeal to Ms. Berg type voters on the issues (mistaken because Ms. Berg type voters do not vote on the issues but rather on their personal economic condition) hurts Democrats with their base voters, who are less likely to vote because of appeals to the Ms. Berg types. This becomes a double whammy - you don't get any Ms. Bergs and you lose base voters. You'll notice that Republicans generally do not do this. When Republicans govern, they generally screw things up. That's because their ideas are bad. But they do not win or lose voters by shifting their ideas. (One exception was the Bush/Rove push on immigration to attract Latino voters. This did create tension with GOP base voters and is in fact a long term problem for the GOP.)

Politics is stupid. But what is even stupider is the way Dems and their pundits do not understand and accept that politics is stupid. If you are going to be involved in politics, this fundamental reality must be understood and acknowledged. Otherwise it will never make sense to you.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 28, 2010 (boomark / email).