Go read this blog. The whole thing. There’s only two entries. If I were you, I’d read the first one (at the bottom of the page) first.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/bigsort/default.aspx
Interesting idea, eh? That we, over time, sort ourselves by lifestyle, and that leads to a more and more polarized political landscape over time.
I have trouble poking a hole in his logic. It feels right.
Those of you who have read my site before (some have even written to mention it) have realized that no matter how rarely I may write, no matter how long I go without an update, you could count on me for some sort of hot opinion when the Presidential election came around.
And yet, this time? Silence.
Part of that has been disgust at the process. Disgust that has only gotten stronger as (in my opinion) genuinely scary people have been chosen to run. But another part has been my feeling that this election was a done deal. There was nothing John McCain could possibly do to get elected. He was going to run headlong into a steamroller named Obama, and like the cartoon Roadrunner, was going to end up as a little pancake left on the pavement.
I don’t feel that way anymore.
I was feeling uneasy before I read the above article, but I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t know WHY I felt like John McCain was doing a modern day Rocky impersonation… refusing to be knocked out, no matter how many times he was knocked down.
That blog put it in perspective for me. For all his talk of a unified America… I don’t believe any longer that Obama can do it. We’re more “sorted” than we were 20 years ago, and we were more “sorted” then than we were 20 years before that. And we will be even more “sorted” 20 years from now.
A 52-48 election is now considered a blowout. The only time larger margins are recorded is when, through a fluke of campaigning, the primary system turns out a TRULY unappealing candidate (don’t get me started on how the primary system is completely dysfunctional) [see: Mondale, Walter or Dole, Bob].
So 2008 is going to look just like 2000 and 2004. It’s going to be a very late night, with the terrible thought that we are not going to have Tim Russert’s whiteboard to get us through it. You can likely predict the very counties that will decide the election. (In 2000, it was Broward and Dade in Florida, in 2004 it was provisional ballots in Ohio) There were only 3 states that voted differently in the 200 and 2004 elections.
I don’t find it difficult to imagine an election almost exactly like the one in 2000, where the Democratic nominee receives more of the popular vote, only to lose in the electoral college. Why? Because it seems that many of Obama’s “new voters” are concentrated in areas that he would have won anyway. Youth and African American are his two strongest demographics. For the purposes of today’s discussion, we don’t need to consider the African American vote. The Democrat always wins the African American vote.
These young voters, though… they’re new. They have not voted before. Either they were too young, or they were disenchanted. But they’re old enough now, and they are fired up. But where is the 20-30 crowd living? On college campuses [Kerry and Gore won those]. In urban areas [Kerry and Gore won those, too]. On the coasts [both Kerry and Gore dominated both coasts]. Does it really matter if you win New York state 52-48 or 55-45? Not in the electoral college it doesn’t. Does it make any difference if you win California by 9 points or 15?
This is the reason that the Democrats’ 50 State Strategy is tragically flawed, and it will lead to defeat unless abandoned. It’s why Obama’s huge financial advantages will boil down to nothing. If the Democrats allow John McCain to spend his money in a focused way, spending his money EXACTLY where it is needed, while they try to win every vote, everywhere, they will find themselves outspent on the votes that really matter.
I’m sorry but money spent on Presidential campaign marketing in Texas is wasted money. New York? Wasted. Utah? WAY wasted. Ohio? Florida? Colorado? West Virginia? That’s where you fight.