The Horserace

How can Bush lose in November? Ken Layne counts six ways. I don't agree with everything he says, but I sure got a kick out of hearing him say it.

Comments

[Shultz]

I'm not sure I understand what Layne means by "philosophical right". He writes that they don't like, "tax-cut & spend policies".

If he means defecit hawks, well, Reagan ran the same kinds of deficits and championed even greater tax cuts. Of course, Reagan won his second term in a landslide.

And who is running for the protest vote on the right this cycle? Perot is nowhere to be seen, and Buchannan is firmly ensconced on the McLaughlin Group.

I don't think the strategy guys in the Bush camp are losing any sleep over the "philosophical right".

[Warren]

The 'philosophical right' is a unicorn. It only exists in fairytales. The right tells these fairytales when the left is in power.

[Andrew]

"An electable, center-left moderate Dem candidate tough on defense (which does *not* mean rah-rah-ing the Iraq thing) & fiscally responsible.."

That is the description of a character for the next season on West Wing, where political figures have whatever history is concocted for them, and are assumed to be whatever they claim to be. What Democratic candidate could answer to that description, and how would their real record illustrate it?

How would you show you were "tough on defense", but not "rah-rahing the Iraq thing"...ride around in a little tank, like Dukakis?

How would a Democrat prove he was "fiscally responsible"...promise to tax us up to whatever level was needed to cover the tabs for the drunken sailor? Or promise to gut the defense budget after he finishes the ride in his little tank?

What is a Libertarian supposed to see in a Center-Left Moderate. Julian, Brian...which part do you like the best-- the Center, the Left or the Moderate?

[Dan]

Yeah, Layne should just have said "spending policies". The "philosophical right" favors tax cuts. He's wrong about Bush being unable to alienate the "social-conservative right", though, since that's the main group opposed to immigration. The "philosophical right" tends to be vehemently pro-immigration.

Anyway, the only way Bush is losing this election is if Kerry, Dean, Clark, and Edwards all get run over by trucks, and the Democrats are forced to do the sane thing and nominate Lieberman. Then Bush would be in seriously deep shit. The other Democrats fall into one of two categories: (a) nuts who'll scare people into voting for Bush (Dean, Clark) and (b) nobodies with nothing to say, who'll fail to inspire people into bothering to vote for them (Kerry, Edwards).

[Jesse Walker]

Andrew: Ken Layne's a liberal, not a libertarian, so just because he wants a center-left moderate doesn't mean any of us do. I'm not sure why you bring up Julian and Brian -- those guys don't even vote.

(Yeah, OK, so Julian did briefly climb aboard the Libertarians for Dean caravan. But then he recanted. And why Brian?)

[thoreau]

Bush would lose big time if Dennis Haysbert ran for President!

Especially if Haysbert promised to put Kiefer Sutherland in charge of Homeland Security!

(Those who don't watch 24 on Fox might not get this post.)

[SteveInClearwater]

I'm not sure how W wins by much.

He lost the popular vote in 2000.

Who of the 50million that voted Gore will not vote for the Dem candidate this time?

I think a modest percentage (2-5 pts) of those who voted Bush in 2000 might defect for any one of the reasons Matt suggests.

I think all of the Nader voters (2.5 pts in 2000) will vote Democrat.

I think Florida will go Dem, because I think the Dems will use FL Senator Bob Graham as the Veep nominee, regardless of the Prez nominee.

I would be holding my nose for Kerry, but wonder if perhaps the Edwards camp will be joined by the Clinton-endorsed Clark (worth 25% combined in New Hampshire) camp, who then rope in the Dean backers for a Edwards/Graham ticket that cleans up in the South, wins California and NY and hey it' s another late nite in November.....

[thoreau]

Steve-

You don't think any of the people who voted for Gore will vote for Bush this time? Surely there must be a couple percent who, for reasons good or bad, switch to Bush. Whatever people here think of foreign policy and how well/badly Bush has done, there's no denying that it changed the landscape for at least some voters.

I wouldn't predict anything right now, except that Dennis Haysbert could easily win this election.

[Andrew]

The Dems don't have anything going on in the electoral college. Edwards and Graham on the same ticket (with a promise to fit Clark in somewhere) won't win a single Southern state...including N Carolina and Florida-- the South is gone.
New York (call it Ground Zero) is also gone. And probably California is at least up for grabs.

Gore isn't running, a LOT of his voters were changed by 9-11, and THAT drunken sailor doesn't get to buy California this time.

It is difficult to craft an electoral strategy for Democrats-- the Republican "electoral lock" is back...with a vengeance!

[Alex]

OT: The New York Post is reporting in its latest edition that the govt's star witness (Doug Faneuil, P Bacanovic's asst.)in their case against martha s. will be cross examined by team stewart about his marijuana use.

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/15817.htm

[thoreau]

Andrew-

I'm curious what you think of the electoral college, since you brought it up. You and I have talked in various threads about structural changes to our government. You usually (but not always) say that my suggested changes are efforts to engineer a particular outcome. However, you also seem to be a fan of greater democracy (e.g. you suggest Supreme Court retention elections). So, I'm curious what you think about the electoral college vs. popular vote.

Needless to say, I would support abolishing the electoral college. However, and please, everybody, let me say this before I get flamed I doubt it will ever happen, I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to happen, and I won't be wasting any effort trying to make it happen. Those who want to can flame me about the electoral college, but I would just observe that the arguments over the electoral college have been hashed out so many times in so many places (although rarely on Hit and Run, I admit) that it will be nothing more than a repetition of the same old back and forth. So those who want can flame me, but there's really no point in this argument.

However, I will post one point to ponder: The large states may have more to lose from popular elections than the small states. Right now, 100% of California's large bloc of votes are guaranteed to the Democrat, and 100% of Texas's large bloc of votes are guaranteed to the Republican. There's no way that partisans in the CA legislature would want to see a popular election divide CA's large bloc of votes, sending some to the Republican. (Yes, I know, it would be a different bloc of votes, millions of regular citizens instead of 55 electors, but the basic idea remains the same.) Likewise, there's no way the TX legislature will want some of its large group of votes to go to the Democrat. And a large swing state like Florida would lose even more. Right Floridians can swing 100% of a large bloc of votes one way or the other. With a popular election, only a few percent of FL's large bloc of votes would be up for grabs, so that few percent of Floridians would be no more important than the same number of people anywhere else.

Anyway, just an observation.

[Douglas Fletcher]

"Those who don't watch 24 on Fox might not get this post."

We get it, we just don't watch the show. For very long, anyway.

[Sam]

Bush lost about five million votes last election because a lot of people weren't sure he was personally up to the job (especially when it was revealed he had drunk driving conviction just days before the election). These people voted for Gore but could easily be tipped back.

As to Nader, both candidates had challenges to the far side of their party, and Bush got his people to vote for him while Gore didn't.

[thoreau]

"That baby was the anti-Christ. Bush simply returned it to hell where it belongs. The liberal media conveniently forgot to show the 666 tatooed on his head. The word is safe from Satan's planned destruction thanks to George Bush, but the liberal media just wants to insist that Bush is a baby killer." And Fox, instead of showing "Terror Alert: High" on the screen, would show "Anti-Christ Alert: Abated" after the sacrifice of the baby.

Dean-

Without the EC there's no doubt that candidates wouldn't do campaign stops in places with low population density. They want to shake as many hands per dollar as they possibly can. But shaking hands and putting on a campaign circus aren't the only ways to pay attention to people's interests. Candidates don't have time to stop in every small town in America, but that doesn't stop them from talking about farm subsidies to rural areas, or cultural issues like guns and "values" that are generally believed to be more popular in rural areas than urban areas.

If there are 2 blocs of voters, each with a million people, but one group is spread out geographically while one group is concentrated, the concentrated group will get more campaign appearances. But the other group has just as many people, so they'll also get plenty of attention in the messages sent out.

Put another way, Wisconsin (my home state) was a swing state in 2000. Milwaukee was bombarded constantly with visits and events. Rural Wisconsin didn't get as much in the way of visits, but as far as phone calls from campaigners, and red meat in speeches (e.g. farm subsidies, "values", etc.) rural Wisconsin got just as much attention as Milwaukee. The only difference is that Secret Service didn't routinely overrun Ripon with agents to disrupt life in the name of "security" before campaign visits.

Final thought: Wyoming wasn't a swing state. Wyoming got zero attention in 2000. With a popular vote, Wyoming probably wouldn't get many candidate visits, but if there were voters from swing groups in Wyoming they'd get their issues mentioned in speeches.

[Andrew]

Jack

Well that could be. But I would like to see Giuliani give it a try. It is time to start picking Bush's successor, and...

Thoreau

I have never reviewed any arguments FOR the electoral college, and my impression is that it makes candidates avoid campaigning to all Americans...and that seems bad.

[thoreau]

Andrew-

I agree. The EC focuses attention on a handful of swing states. However, if you google it you'll find lots of arguments made in favor of it. I don't really buy those arguments, but they are abundant (albeit illogical).

Sadly, I suspect that the EC will be with us forever.

[Andrew]

Thoreau

About the only thing I can imagine, would be if Bush and Gore championed the idea, after 2008...or 2004, as the case may be. Both candidates could candidly acknowledge that they would have campaigned differently had they been contesting a simple popular majority-- Gore would have had every reason to seek more votes in Texas (and throughout the South) and Bush would have had every reason to seek more votes in California (and throughout New England).

There is no telling what the simple majority would have yielded in that different terrain (the national will WAS very evenly divided), but it would not have required a microscopic recount in a single state-- no doubt the percentage difference nationwide would have precluded a recount. (Same in 1960 I imagine).

Bush and Gore together, could nearly demand a constitutional remedy-- probably the only time an ex-pres (and ex-vp) ever do anything actually useful.

One can dream.

[J]

?I think the same about the electorial college
as I do about two Senate seats from each state.

They hold us together.?

I?m not sure I understand this argument. The reason rural states have power in the senate is they have the same number of senators as larger states. But in the electoral college that?s not the case, so a large state like California or Texas can still ?cancel out? several smaller states. It seems to me that with the electoral college certain regions are ignored by candidates (not that that would be so horrible ? I wish I was ignored a little more), and with the popular vote certain regions would be ignored by candidates; those regions would just be somewhat different.

[Dean]

No EC? We can win this. First we'll go to California, and to Texas and to Florida and New York. Then back to California and Texas and Florida and New York. And then we're going to go back to Florida and to California and to New York and to Texas...YEEEEEEAAAAGGGGHHH!

[Jack]

J, while you're correct that larger states enjoy more of an advantage in the EC than in the Senate, you have to remember that a state's EC count can never fall below 3. The EC vote-per-resident ratio is boosted substantially in low population states. For example, there is 1 EC vote for approximately every 150,000 residents of Wyoming, but in California it takes 618,000 residents to equal 1 EC vote.

[thoreau]

Electoral college proponents sometimes say that if one opposes the EC one must also oppose the Senate, which is far more malapportioned. That need not be the case if one believes that the best way to structure a federal republic is via concurrent majorities.

The design of the US Congress is based on concurrent majorities: A policy must be supported by the House (which is apportioned to reflect the popular will) and the Senate (which reflects the federal nature of our republic).

Now, many Presidential decisions require the input of the Senate: Executive appointments, judicial appointments, and treaties must all be approved by the Senate. Sure, there are plenty of places where the President makes decisions without Senate input, but the most significant decisions do require Senate approval. How his administration is run depends in large part on the composition of his cabinet, where the Senate has a say.

Also, the third branch of government is chosen by the joint agreement of the President and Senate. If one believes in the logic of concurrent majorities, then it is best if the President reflect the popular will so that the judicial branch is chosen according to concurrent majorities, the popular will vs. federalism.

[Dan]

Who of the 50 million that voted Gore will not vote for the Dem candidate this time?

Myself, my parents, probably my siblings, most of my friends, and several of my coworkers. Millions of other swing voters, too, unless I miss my guess.

The common reason: a lot of us were mildly freaked out by the thought of what a disaster it would have been for Gore to be the one reacting to 9/11. We look at people like Dean, Clark, and Kerry, and think "holy shit... the Democrats actually found someone *worse* this time around".

Basically the 2000 election was a choice between "bad" Gore and "slightly worse" Bush. This time around it's a choice between "bad, but good on defense" Bush and "where'd they find this dipshit, anyway?" Kerry/Dean. I'm holding my nose and voting for Bush.

[Ruthless]

This thread is the case study of "wonkish."

Dubya will lose because he's incapable of the "vision thang." It's congenital.

Kerry will be the next Prez. Not because he has a vision, but because he can fake one better.

[Jim Walsh]

"Bush's constant fellating of the born-agains..."

Yeeeeeeccchhhhhhhhh!

[Thorley Winston]

Let?s go through the ways in Ken Layne's column:

An electable, center-left moderate Dem candidate tough on defense (which does *not* mean rah-rah-ing the Iraq thing) & fiscally responsible ... who can go a whole eight months without doing something incredibly stupid.

There aren?t any. Each of the Democratic candidates is on the record as wanting to spend even more money than Bush and opposes entitlement reform (so much for fiscally responsible) and with the exception of Lieberman, each has been flip-flopping on national security issues.

Enough dislike of Dubya's tax-cut & spend policies by the philosophical right to keep 5-10% either home or making a protest vote. (See Ross Perot, 1992.)

Also known as ?cutting off your nose to spite your face.? Bush 41 lost the fiscal conservative vote in 1992 because he broke his ?no new taxes? pledge. Bush 43 seems to have learned from that mistake.

Enough pissed-off interest groups that would otherwise be in the GOP's pocket (see this USA Today editorial, "Conservative sportsmen turn against Bush," from yesterday's paper). The monster quote: "Taking this block of voters for granted on account of Second Amendment rights is a miscalculation."

Oh please, there are always members of the conservative/Republican coalition (just as there are members of the leftist/Democratic coalition) who find some policy or policies of the majority to be objectionable. For some reason though, the media seems to like to hype only those of the rightest coalition.

The growing oddball coalition of left-leaning civil liberties groups and constitution-abiding hard-right Republicans against Ashcroft's weird, disturbing makeover of DoJ (see this month's Vanity Fair article on this subject).

A criticism of which it is increasingly becoming obvious is more hype and rhetoric rather than substance.

A small angry chunk of the traditional Republican voters outraged by the Bush immigration moves (which many "liberals" may support, even though they wouldn't vote for Dubya no matter what he did).

I am on record as opposing this policy (as I am the spending and the steel tariffs) but considering that (a) conservatives did not abandon Reagan over his amnesty in the 1980s (nor for the deficit spending) and (b) the likely Democratic nominee would want more of an amnesty while being weaker on national defense and more prone to supplication before the UN ? I think that the more nationalist voters will still rally behind Bush.

"Normal" left-leaning voters -- not the drooling minions of MoveOn.org or whatever --.

Such as?

getting disgusted enough by Ashcroft and the mutated DoJ,

How so?

Bush's constant fellating of the born-agains, idiotic domestic crusades regarding high-school sports & gay marriage,

Crusades which are supported (right or wrong) by the majority of ?normal? voters as well as the ?born-agains.?

the pathetic wreckage of federal spending gone mad, etc.,

Except that each of the Democratic candidates is worse than Bush when it comes to spending as well as refusing to support entitlement reform.

[dj of raleigh]

So, I'm curious what you think about the electoral college vs. popular vote.

=======

Good topic, wrong thread.
I think the same about the electorial college
as I do about two Senate seats from each state.

They hold us together.

Where would the less populous states be with a popular vote?
...Just like in the house, no bodies who don't count for much.
Don't assume that the states can be ignored.
The United States means just that, that states
have dominion and power.

The unequal popular votes that Senators represent,
and the electorial college give rural states what power they have.

[dj of raleigh]

Florida is NOT a southern state,
but the most southerly northern state.
Graham will not carry the south,
and may not carry Florida, either.

The Democrats will still win the cities.
The Republicans will still win the rural counties.

There are maybe 10% of the voters to reach,
and 5% to turn off from voting.

[dj of raleigh]

Bush/Powell will take the taken for granted black vote
from 92% to 70%.
Cheney has heart attack jokes made about him nightly on Leno.
Another example of political assassination via humor.

[Jack]

Andrew, while I fully expect Bush to roll over whoever the Democrats pick by a double-digit margin nationwide, I think you're dreaming when you say that Bush has a lock on New York. He lost it by a 25% margin (60 to 35) and that was with Nader taking 4%. And since 9/11, New Yorkers have seemingly spent most of their time bitching that their "terrorfare" checks weren't big enough. I will go out on a limb and predict Bush will do better in California than he will in New York.

[BT]

Actually I think that if Bush sacrificed a baby to Satan on CNN, the social-conservative crowd would argue that it was taken out of context. Maybe if it was on Fox..

[80sfan]

Is this guy supposed to be a musician or a political analyst?
Cuz that link sucked

[Gadfly]

I like poetry that rhymes.

[dj of raleigh]

> I like poetry that rhymes.

[Andrew G]

Thorley Winston notes that the Democrats are on the record as wanting to spend even more than Bush, but remember that the president doesn't get everything he wants. When there are actually different parties controlling Congress and the Presidency, there might actually be a veto used. Remember Bush hasn't vetoed a single bill, and the GOP has been passing massive pork bills. Conservatives have signed off on a lot of big spending bills like the medicare one because Bush has strongly encouraged them. Had a Democratic president proposed that bill and urged its passage, Republicans would have assailed it mercilessly.

[dj of raleigh]

> With a popular election, only a few percent of FL's large bloc of votes would be up for grabs, so that few percent of Floridians would be no more important than the same number of people anywhere else.

[alma hadayn]

"New York (call it Ground Zero) is also gone."

Are you kidding? Gore took it by 25 points last time and it hasn't voted for a Republican pres candidate since 1984. And you'd be surprised by how many New Yorkers don't think that Democrat=terrorist-lover. This may be because Democrats outnumber Republicans about 5 to 3. I think Bush would be lucky to crack 40% in NY.

[Stephen Fetchet]

Abolish the Electoral College & two seat senate representation?

Wow. Amazing.

I'm getting to think that most of the libertoids posting here haven't a clue about why the government is set up the way it is.

If you want to go over to direct democracy, we can do that. No problem. But please keep in mind, New York, California, and any third or fourth populous state they care to partner with - say Massachusetts -- will have a lock on Congress. Schumer, Clinton, Boxer, Feinstein, Kennedy, Kerry. Yeah, that's who I want running the country.

Minority representation through the Senate was set up so smaller states could rein in the larger ones, and prevent abuse at the hands of big states with lots of people. If you have to have government, it's smart to set up barriers that prevent the 800 pound gorillas from sitting anywhere they please. It was called factionalism. The framers thought pretty highly of it. If you've read the federalist papers and still think it's illogical... well, I'm not surprised. This place is getting more like Atrios every day.

Point being, direct democracy is often just as oppressive as a complete lack of democracy. Democracy itself isn't liberty; it's how the laws are structured and the government - and the majority - are constrained that protects liberty.

[thoreau]

Proportional allocation of electoral votes would work fine, and it would give Vermont and Wyoming their oh-so-needed protection from those evil Texans. It would also end the perverse tyranny of the intra-state majority. If you're a Democrat in Texas or Wyoming your vote will have no impact in 2004. If you're a Republican in Vermont or California your vote will have no impact in 2004. However, with proportional allocation a voter in any place could have an impact, and people in more sparsely populated places would receive disproportionate weight to assure that they also get the joy of their downtown being put out of business for a day by Secret Service agents preparing for a campaign visit.

Of course, most states will never go for this. Why would the Republicans in TX and WY, or the Democrats in CA and VT, want to see the minority party have any say in the process? And why would FL want to go from being a 25-or-so vote hulk (I forget the precise number) to being a bloc that will only swing 1 or 2 electoral votes?

So, basically, I have no hope of ever reforming the EC. And popular elections won't happen. If the majority party in a state won't support dividing up its electoral votes, there's no way it will support popular election that basically achieves the same goal in large states.

[thoreau]

I should clarify. I mean that we keep the same allocation of electoral votes among the states, but within each states the votes are allocated according to what percent of the vote each candidate got.

[Wild Pegasus]

The Senate was not set up to rein in the power of the big states. The Senate was set up to rein in the power of the US because the Senate was made of representatives of the several states. Legislation would have to make it through the representatives of the popular will (the House), representatives of the states (the Senate), and the representative of the electoral college. This would slow down bad legislation.

Well, that was the theory, at least. 🙂

- Josh

[joe]

"Minority representation through the Senate was set up so smaller states could rein in the larger ones, and prevent abuse at the hands of big states with lots of people."

I'm cool with minority representation. I thought the GOP's whining about the fillibuster last year was a demonstration of wanna be tyranny. But what bothers me is that the only minority to secure this representation is the overwhelmingly white, rural population of small states. If the EC was divided into roughly equivalent districts, the arguments in support of it would be a lot stronger. Right now, it's about conservatives' favored minority getting special powers.

One person, one vote needs to the first principle of any democratic system.

[joe]

Another good solution would be to require each state's electoral votes to be based on Congressional districts, thus protecting minority voices within states, not just among them. Perhaps the two "Senate" electors could be given to the overall winner of the state, and the winner of the majority of districts in the state.

[Geyer Laura Talley]

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DATE: 05/20/2004 09:56:23
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