A Small Dose of Perspective
In 1964, when Barry Goldwater was roundly defeated by Lyndon Johnson, there was much talk of the death of the GOP, or at least the need for a radical reorientation thereof. Four years later, the Republicans were back in the White House.
In 1972, when Democrat George McGovern was overwhelmed by Richard Nixon, the Democrats were written off as an effective national force. Four years later, the Democrats were back in the White House.
Now the talking heads are talking seriously about the death of the Republican coalition and the permanent changes that the 2008 election will have on American politics. Well, some things have changed: we now have an African American president, a change of no small magnitude. But I share with my fellow Monkey Cagers the strong sense that this election was won or lost on the enduring fundamentals — most notably the state of the national economy and the international situation — rather than on some sea change in American politics. Permanent changes in American politics have a way of unraveling in a very short time.
Comments
On the other hand, it is also fair to say that the GOP changed dramatically by the end of the 1960s, and that Carter’s single term did signify the beginning of a wilderness period for the Democrats, which only ended with Clinton.
Posted by: Greg Weeks | November 5, 2008 01:35 PM
I think that the real question on how lasting the effects of Tuesday are will be answered by the GOP. Between 1964 and 1968 (and my history may be wrong), I don’t think the GOP engaged in a policy of mutual recrimination. They simply accepted that Goldwater was too conservative and that the Democrats were the majority party at the time.
In 2008, the GOP seems, to me, poised to purge itself of the non-believers. That’s a great way to lose adherents. I think that over 50% of voters are currently willing to consider voting for the GOP candidate. That might not persist if the GOP tells them it doesn’t want their votes. I’m not predicting it, but I think it’s a more real possibility than post-1964.
Posted by: Matt Jarvis | November 7, 2008 05:00 PM
Well, to have used 1964 as ‘evidence’ of partisan ‘death’ would not make much sense. Nor 1972. Those elections were about as personal as can be—referring here to the concept of the ‘personal vote’ as applied to presidential candidates.
More deeply, I am referring to the concept David Samuels and I define as Electoral Fusion of Purpose, which is essentially how correlated are the votes of a party’s presidential and congressional candidates/lists, at district level.
Among US elections from 1945 to 2004, the election of 1964 was by far the lowest Fusion. That is, LBJ did well in places where Dems did not. 1972 was similar, albeit not as dramatic.
On the other hand, 2004 was very high Fusion, by US standards. Of course, I have not compiled the data for 2008, but clearly it will have been quite high.
I would suppose that a high-fusion election would present a greater case for the ‘death’ of a party than would a big blowout by a presidential candidate that did not extend deeply to the national legislature.
Then again, party support swings one way, and it can swing the other way…
Posted by: Matthew Shugart | November 9, 2008 02:09 PM
Matthew:
Re: your first paragraph. Your point is clear four decades after the fact; indeed, it was pretty clear four years after the fact. But go back and read a lot of the gloom-and-doom (from the GOP side) or celebratory (from the Democratic side) accounts from the immediate post-election period and I think you’ll find an abundance of what I was referring to.
Posted by: Lee Sigelman | November 9, 2008 07:02 PM