The Lesson of 2004

[MCWAY]

This sums up what I've been saying, regarding the similarities between that election and this one.



The Lesson of 2004
Don’t immediately start looking for lessons.  




In many respects, the 2012 election played out as a close cousin of the 2004 contest. A vulnerable incumbent president in a bad political environment faced a weak challenger who lacked a core ideology and who articulated no clear vision for the country. In both campaigns the challenger chose to present himself as a default choice, rather than an insurgent. In both campaigns the president pursued a base-turnout strategy. And in both years the president won, by a margin of victory just around 2.4 percentage points.


The similarities continued following the elections. After Mitt Romney’s defeat, many Republicans and conserv-atives were caught surprised. In the days that followed there was fatalistic talk about how America had undergone a fundamental change. Some of this analysis centered on demographics. There was concern about a permanent shift in the racial composition of the electorate and about how changes in the institution of marriage—more divorce, more cohabitation, and later marriage—might be permanently increasing the pool of single voters. (The first worry seems mistaken: Romney’s main problem with white voters wasn’t that they were in decline—it was that so many of them didn’t show up for him. The second is more plausible.)

There was also a lot of talk about how Romney’s loss was a sign of a fundamental change in America’s character. People contended that this was no longer a “center-right” country. Or that the nation had turned its back on the free market. Or morphed into Greece. One of the more prominent lines of thinking was that the “takers” in America finally outnumbered the “makers” and that, per Ben Franklin’s warning, the electorate had entered a death spiral where it would continually vote itself more money. It all sounded eerily like Romney’s contention that 47 percent of the country isn’t responsible for itself and can no longer be persuaded by conservative argument. Doom to follow shortly.


The existential despair was familiar because liberals and Democrats said the same sorts of things immediately following the 2004 vote. Like Mitt Romney’s, John Kerry’s final polls before Election Day—not to mention the early exit polls on the day itself—suggested he had a reasonable chance of victory. So when defeat came, Democrats were both discouraged and shocked. And their first reaction was to conclude that America had changed in a fundamental way.

A week after the election, a group of African-American journalists gathered at Harvard to discuss the implications of Kerry’s loss. Summing up the meeting, the Detroit Free Press’s Rochelle Riley concluded that “it could be the end of civilization as we know it” because “Bush’s next term is not four years. It is 30 years, based on its impact.” In the Baltimore Sun, USC professor Diane Winston worried that Democrats were “ill-prepared for this new, faith-based world.” A Seattle Times columnist wrote, “after three decades of cultural and religious struggle—including a fair amount of concerted, premeditated political exploitation—the religious right is more mainstream in America than once-mainline denominations. This election confirms the influence and clout of those described by scholars as the socially conservative, theologically evangelical. They are our friends and neighbors, and unlike 18-to-29-year-olds, they vote in big numbers.” All of which led columnist Leonard Pitts to wonder, “Maybe this is where America ends. .  .  . Small wonder that everywhere I go, people are talking about moving to Canada. That’s the kind of joke you make when you no longer recognize your country.”

At the New York Times the hysteria was even more pronounced. Garry Wills called Kerry’s defeat “the day the Enlightenment went out.” Democratic operative Andrei Cherny wrote, “On Wednesday morning, Democrats across the country awoke to a situation they have not experienced since before the New Deal: We are now, without a doubt, America’s minority party.” Thomas Frank identified the Democrats’ problem as being one of perpetual weakness on the “values” subject:

    Democrats still have no coherent framework for confronting this chronic complaint, much less understanding it. Instead, they “triangulate,” they accommodate, they declare themselves converts to the Republican religion of the market, they sign off on NAFTA and welfare reform, they try to be more hawkish than the Republican militarists. And they lose. And they lose again. Meanwhile, out in Red America, the right-wing populist revolt continues apace, its fury at the “liberal elite” undiminished by the Democrats’ conciliatory gestures or the passage of time.
 
Thomas Friedman swallowed hard and croaked that “what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don’t just favor different policies than I do—they favor a whole different kind of America. We don’t just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.”

This last bit of wisdom was distilled in an Internet meme known as “Jesusland.” The day after the election someone on a video-game message board posted a Photoshopped map of North America. Canada, America’s West Coast, and the northeast corridor were colored pink and labeled the “United States of Canada.” The remaining territory, colored green, was labeled “Jesus-land.” The map went on to wide acclaim and was featured on nearly every liberal blog and website in the land. There was a Jesusland book. The hipster songwriter Ben Folds wrote a song about it.

Four years later Jesusland elected the most liberal Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson while simultaneously handing his party control of both houses of Congress.

The point of all this isn’t to suggest that Republicans are on the cusp of a resurgence or to argue that all politics is cyclical. Both, or neither, of those things might be true. Rather, it’s a reminder that the future is uncertain. In 2004 Democrats believed that the culture of America had irrevocably changed. Then came the housing bubble, the financial collapse, and Barack Obama. Events happen, individuals matter, and the first lessons learned are rarely helpful. Or right.



http://weeklystandard.com/articles/lesson-2004_662224.html?page=2

[whork]

Bush won on fear of the AQ and Kerry seemed weak

Seing how Obama wins on foreign policy these days repub could not win on this issue

[MCWAY]

Bush won on fear of the AQ and Kerry seemed weak

Seing how Obama wins on foreign policy these days repub could not win on this issue

Romney didn't do himself any favors, as many conservatives BLASTED him for not going after Obama on Libya.

Pat Caddell (yes, on Fox News) called Romney's campaign the worst he'd ever seen in his life.

Bush also won with "value voters", whom the left blamed for Bush's re-election. And, as stated earlier", Bush INCREASED his tally among blacks and Latinos.

In 2000, Bush got 8% of blacks; in 2004, he got 11%

In 2000, Bush got 31% of Latinos; in 2004, he got 40%.

The similar "the country is changing" argument that you and others are making now, after Obama's re-election, was made back then, after Bush's re-election.

[Straw Man]

Did any one at The Weekly Standard write anything like this before the election

[MCWAY]

Did any one at The Weekly Standard write anything like this before the election

I'm not sure.

But, looking back the similarities are there. Again, Dems were just as shocked that Bush got re-elected then as we Republicans are shocked that Obama got re-elected now.

Between Iraq, Afghanistan, lack of WMDs, and vengeance for being "robbed" in 2000, Bush was supposed to be a dead duck.

I thought the same about Obama, between ObamaCare, 8% unemployment for 44 straight months, two credit downgrades, and a pounding in the 2010 midterms.

And check this passage out:

At the New York Times the hysteria was even more pronounced. Garry Wills called Kerry’s defeat “the day the Enlightenment went out.” Democratic operative Andrei Cherny wrote, “On Wednesday morning, Democrats across the country awoke to a situation they have not experienced since before the New Deal: We are now, without a doubt, America’s minority party.” Thomas Frank identified the Democrats’ problem as being one of perpetual weakness on the “values” subject:

Sound familiar?

[Straw Man]

I'm not sure.

But, looking back the similarities are there. Again, Dems were just as shocked that Bush got re-elected then as we Republicans are shocked that Obama got re-elected now.

Between Iraq, Afghanistan, lack of WMDs, and vengeance for being "robbed" in 2000, Bush was supposed to be a dead duck.

I thought the same about Obama, between ObamaCare, 8% unemployment for 44 straight months, two credit downgrades, and a pounding in the 2010 midterms.

And check this passage out:

At the New York Times the hysteria was even more pronounced. Garry Wills called Kerry’s defeat “the day the Enlightenment went out.” Democratic operative Andrei Cherny wrote, “On Wednesday morning, Democrats across the country awoke to a situation they have not experienced since before the New Deal: We are now, without a doubt, America’s minority party.” Thomas Frank identified the Democrats’ problem as being one of perpetual weakness on the “values” subject:

Sound familiar?

The only true similarity I see is the need for the losing side to find a reason why they lost when they expected to win

any recollection on the allegation election fraud in Ohio in 2004

You were big on being above 50% in the Gallup poll and I think if I recall your posts you said that Bush was over 50% leading up to the 2004 election so, given that it shouldn't have been a suprise that he won in 2004 and of course no one had any idea of the shit storm that was coming in the next 4 years

[MCWAY]

The only true similarity I see is the need for the losing side to find a reason why they lost when they expected to win

any recollection on the allegation election fraud in Ohio in 2004

You were big on being above 50% in the Gallup poll and I think if I recall your posts you said that Bush was over 50% leading up to the 2004 election so, given that it shouldn't have been a suprise that he won in 2004 and of course no one had any idea of the shit storm that was coming in the next 4 years

Bush was the incumbent, not the challenger. The stat I cited from Gallup was about challenger winning, when being at 50% of higher.

And you make a good point. Nobody saw the storm coming in the next four years.

What happens if (or when) that storm hits Obama? What happens if unemployment goes back up to 9 or 10%? What if an even worse economic disaster than 2008 hits?

Then, what excuses do Obama supporters make?

[Straw Man]

Bush was the incumbent, not the challenger. The stat I cited from Gallup was about challenger winning, when being at 50% of higher.

And you make a good point. Nobody saw the storm coming in the next four years.

What happens if (or when) that storm hits Obama? What happens if unemployment goes back up to 9 or 10%? What if an even worse economic disaster than 2008 hits?

Then, what excuses do Obama supporters make?

?

Obama and Bush were both indumbants

[MCWAY]

?

Obama and Bush were both indumbants

I know that. The stat I posted from Gallup was regarding the success rate of challengers vs. incumbents.

[Straw Man]

I know that. The stat I posted from Gallup was regarding the success rate of challengers vs. incumbents.

which stat was that

for awhile you seemed to be talking about Obama's approval rating less than 50% even though it was at or over 50%

then you were talking about Gallups poll of likely voters and then it was something else

here is the real lesson from 2004 and any other year

the losing side always does some soul searching to figure out why they lost and this is certainly what is going on now

Dems cleaned up in this election winning the POTUS and gaining seats in the House and Senate and they also gained seats in state house too

This was a clear vindication of the Democratic agenda and this is the thing the Repubs are in the most denial about

They can't believe there is a problem wtih their message and it must really just be a problem with the messenger, the media or, this is the best one.....The Voters

[Dos Equis]

This sums up what I've been saying, regarding the similarities between that election and this one.



The Lesson of 2004
Don’t immediately start looking for lessons.  




In many respects, the 2012 election played out as a close cousin of the 2004 contest. A vulnerable incumbent president in a bad political environment faced a weak challenger who lacked a core ideology and who articulated no clear vision for the country. In both campaigns the challenger chose to present himself as a default choice, rather than an insurgent. In both campaigns the president pursued a base-turnout strategy. And in both years the president won, by a margin of victory just around 2.4 percentage points.


The similarities continued following the elections. After Mitt Romney’s defeat, many Republicans and conserv-atives were caught surprised. In the days that followed there was fatalistic talk about how America had undergone a fundamental change. Some of this analysis centered on demographics. There was concern about a permanent shift in the racial composition of the electorate and about how changes in the institution of marriage—more divorce, more cohabitation, and later marriage—might be permanently increasing the pool of single voters. (The first worry seems mistaken: Romney’s main problem with white voters wasn’t that they were in decline—it was that so many of them didn’t show up for him. The second is more plausible.)

There was also a lot of talk about how Romney’s loss was a sign of a fundamental change in America’s character. People contended that this was no longer a “center-right” country. Or that the nation had turned its back on the free market. Or morphed into Greece. One of the more prominent lines of thinking was that the “takers” in America finally outnumbered the “makers” and that, per Ben Franklin’s warning, the electorate had entered a death spiral where it would continually vote itself more money. It all sounded eerily like Romney’s contention that 47 percent of the country isn’t responsible for itself and can no longer be persuaded by conservative argument. Doom to follow shortly.


The existential despair was familiar because liberals and Democrats said the same sorts of things immediately following the 2004 vote. Like Mitt Romney’s, John Kerry’s final polls before Election Day—not to mention the early exit polls on the day itself—suggested he had a reasonable chance of victory. So when defeat came, Democrats were both discouraged and shocked. And their first reaction was to conclude that America had changed in a fundamental way.

A week after the election, a group of African-American journalists gathered at Harvard to discuss the implications of Kerry’s loss. Summing up the meeting, the Detroit Free Press’s Rochelle Riley concluded that “it could be the end of civilization as we know it” because “Bush’s next term is not four years. It is 30 years, based on its impact.” In the Baltimore Sun, USC professor Diane Winston worried that Democrats were “ill-prepared for this new, faith-based world.” A Seattle Times columnist wrote, “after three decades of cultural and religious struggle—including a fair amount of concerted, premeditated political exploitation—the religious right is more mainstream in America than once-mainline denominations. This election confirms the influence and clout of those described by scholars as the socially conservative, theologically evangelical. They are our friends and neighbors, and unlike 18-to-29-year-olds, they vote in big numbers.” All of which led columnist Leonard Pitts to wonder, “Maybe this is where America ends. .  .  . Small wonder that everywhere I go, people are talking about moving to Canada. That’s the kind of joke you make when you no longer recognize your country.”

At the New York Times the hysteria was even more pronounced. Garry Wills called Kerry’s defeat “the day the Enlightenment went out.” Democratic operative Andrei Cherny wrote, “On Wednesday morning, Democrats across the country awoke to a situation they have not experienced since before the New Deal: We are now, without a doubt, America’s minority party.” Thomas Frank identified the Democrats’ problem as being one of perpetual weakness on the “values” subject:

    Democrats still have no coherent framework for confronting this chronic complaint, much less understanding it. Instead, they “triangulate,” they accommodate, they declare themselves converts to the Republican religion of the market, they sign off on NAFTA and welfare reform, they try to be more hawkish than the Republican militarists. And they lose. And they lose again. Meanwhile, out in Red America, the right-wing populist revolt continues apace, its fury at the “liberal elite” undiminished by the Democrats’ conciliatory gestures or the passage of time.
 
Thomas Friedman swallowed hard and croaked that “what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don’t just favor different policies than I do—they favor a whole different kind of America. We don’t just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.”

This last bit of wisdom was distilled in an Internet meme known as “Jesusland.” The day after the election someone on a video-game message board posted a Photoshopped map of North America. Canada, America’s West Coast, and the northeast corridor were colored pink and labeled the “United States of Canada.” The remaining territory, colored green, was labeled “Jesus-land.” The map went on to wide acclaim and was featured on nearly every liberal blog and website in the land. There was a Jesusland book. The hipster songwriter Ben Folds wrote a song about it.

Four years later Jesusland elected the most liberal Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson while simultaneously handing his party control of both houses of Congress.

The point of all this isn’t to suggest that Republicans are on the cusp of a resurgence or to argue that all politics is cyclical. Both, or neither, of those things might be true. Rather, it’s a reminder that the future is uncertain. In 2004 Democrats believed that the culture of America had irrevocably changed. Then came the housing bubble, the financial collapse, and Barack Obama. Events happen, individuals matter, and the first lessons learned are rarely helpful. Or right.



http://weeklystandard.com/articles/lesson-2004_662224.html?page=2

Great commentary.  I agree with this.  There hasn't been some sea change in the electorate.  Can't read too much into this election. 

[Dos Equis]

Commentary from Gingrich:


Stop talking and spend some time thinking
By NEWT GINGRICH | 11/12/12 

We were wrong.

We were wrong about the turnout.

We were wrong about the makeup of the electorate.

We were wrong about the advertising mix and message that would work.

We were wrong about the effectiveness of President Obama’s turnout mechanism.

The simple fact is Republicans spent more and achieved less than Democrats in 2012.

This was not just a personal defeat for Governor Mitt Romney and Congressman Paul Ryan.

We lost Senate seats we should have won in North Dakota and Montana.

We lost Senate seats we might have won in Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Virginia, New Mexico, and Massachusetts.

We had two candidates throw away Senate seats in Indiana and Missouri.

In 2010, we had three candidates throw away Senate seats in Colorado, Delaware, and Nevada. Why have the Democrats not suffered similarly from candidate missteps (as in Massachusetts)?

We had a chance to pick up four governorships. We won one (North Carolina) and lost three (Montana, New Hampshire and Washington).

We lost a handful of congressional seats but did especially badly in the West.

State legislative results are still coming in but we clearly fell from the 2010 high water mark. After the extraordinary 2010 results of 680 additional elected Republican state legislators and 25 switches, the GOP had more state legislators than any time since 1925.

This was a party-wide defeat and should be thought of as a profound wake up call.

The voting population is different than Republican models.

The turnout mechanism is different than Republican models.

The communications systems (both macro and micro) are different than Republicans thought.

Some Republican analysts and strategists are rushing around with new explanations of what happened and what we must do.

The fact is less than an a week after the election they don’t know what happened and they can’t possibly know what we should do.

Some have suggested the changing demographics mean campaigns no longer matter.

Others have suggested we did the best we could.

Neither approach is right.

For the conservative movement and the Republican Party to succeed in the future (and while they are not identical the two are inextricably bound together) we will have to learn the lessons of 2012.

An intellectually honest and courageous Republican Party has nothing to fear from the current situation.

If we learn and implement the right lessons we will have a tremendous 2014.

If we then continue to implement the right lessons we will win the presidency in 2016.

If in that period we have developed a generation of activists and leaders who understand the modern world and understand modern politics and government we will earn the American people’s support for a generation of growth-oriented, solution-oriented, innovative government that combines the American Constitution and traditional principles of self government with 21st-century solutions to meet 21st-century challenges.

First, we must learn the facts of the 2012 election and the campaign which preceded it.

Then we must think through the lessons of the gaps between our pre-election understanding and the Election Day realities.

Only then can we develop a program for the future of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

This will be the work of six months not six days.

Remember that the next time you hear a discredited “expert” tell you their current glib explanation of the world they clearly don’t understand.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83702.html

[whork]

An intellectual and honest repub party has nothing to fear...

Here lies the problem.

The repub party is anti -science and anti- truth

[Straw Man]

no one was more wrong that Newton in predicting the outcome of this election

so why should we give a shit what he says now?

[MCWAY]

bump

[Straw Man]

there's that stench of desperation and denial that we've come to expect from Republicans

[whork]

An intellectual and honest repub party has nothing to fear...

Here lies the problem.

The repub party is anti -science and anti- truth

Bump

[MCWAY]

there's that stench of desperation and denial that we've come to expect from Republicans

Denial of what?

That Dems were doing the same lamenting, self-inspection, fault-finding, etc. then that Republicans are doing now?

Talks of secession, the country being "lost".....virtually word-for-word what we hear now from conservatives we heard then from liberals.

[Straw Man]

Denial of what?

That Dems were doing the same lamenting, self-inspection, fault-finding, etc. then that Republicans are doing now?

Talks of secession, the country being "lost".....virtually word-for-word what we hear now from conservatives we heard then from liberals.

keep telling yourself what you need to protect your fragile mental and emotional state

[MCWAY]

keep telling yourself what you need to protect your fragile mental and emotional state

Neither my emotional nor my mental state is fragile.

What I see, looking back, is historical perspective. Yet, you seem to be foolish enough to think that what the Republicans are enduring now is somehow unique.

[Straw Man]

Neither my emotional nor my mental state is fragile.

What I see, looking back, is historical perspective. Yet, you seem to be foolish enough to think that what the Republicans are enduring now is somehow unique.

ok, it's actually a good thing that you believe that even though your posts tell a different story

[MCWAY]

ok, it's actually a good thing that you believe that even though your posts tell a different story

My posts don't tell a different story whatsoever.

My posts here have stated that I've heard this story before. It was 8 years ago, only the GOP was on the winning side of it. I would have said you were nuts, if you had told me that we'd have someone like Obama in the White House, just four years after Bush got a second term.

Again, just as we heard folks in some red states (i.e. Texas), yapping about secession now, we heard that from some blue states (particularly in the Northeast) back then.

[whork]

Neither my emotional nor my mental state is fragile.

What I see, looking back, is historical perspective. Yet, you seem to be foolish enough to think that what the Republicans are enduring now is somehow unique.

Either you are fragile and needs to be lied since you put your faith in conservative media(landslide anyone?)
or
You are stupid

What is it?

[Straw Man]

My posts don't tell a different story whatsoever.

My posts here have stated that I've heard this story before. It was 8 years ago, only the GOP was on the winning side of it. I would have said you were nuts, if you had told me that we'd have someone like Obama in the White House, just four years after Bush got a second term.

Again, just as we heard folks in some red states (i.e. Texas), yapping about secession now, we heard that from some blue states (particularly in the Northeast) back then.

people in Texas yap about secession all the time

I suggest you continue to live in the comfortable memories of 2004 and if that doesn't work go back the try going back to 1984

[MCWAY]

Either you are fragile and needs to be lied since you put your faith in conservative media(landslide anyone?)
or
You are stupid

What is it?

It's neither. At no time did I indicate or predict that this election would be a landslide. I figured, if Romney won, he'd get just over 270.

people in Texas yap about secession all the time

I suggest you continue to live in the comfortable memories of 2004 and if that doesn't work go back the try going back to 1984

People in the northeast yap about secession all the time, too.

When Obama and his policies continue to flop and unemployment remains high, you'll be the one wishing it were 2004.

You remember, when gas was under $2 a gallon, unemployment was under 5%, things that you'll hardly see under an Obama presidency.