PLANK NOVEMBER 7, 2012
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The “Obama coalition” is real—though it is more narrow than once was thought. Young adults, minorities, women (especially unmarried women), and voters from lower-income households turned out in large numbers. Defying expectations (including mine), the young adult share of the electorate expanded slightly over its showing in 2008.Meanwhile, the president’s share of the white vote was down from 43 to 39 percent. He was supported by 56 percent of moderates, down from 60 percent, and by 45 percent of Independents, down from 52 percent. And while the president’s share of the vote from households making $50 thousand or less held steady at 60 percent, his support among middle income households ($50 to 100 thousand) fell from 49 to 46 percent, and among households making more than $100 thousand, from 49 to 44 percent.
America's demographic shift grinds on inexorably. The white share of the electorate fell from 74 percent in 2008 to 72 percent in 2012. This was at the low end of expectations, but in line with the assumption that guided the Obama campaign. Meanwhile, Latinos maintained, or perhaps even expanded from 9 to 10 percent, their share of the electorate. They supported Obama by an overwhelming 71 to 27 percent. If the national Republican Party does not reconsider its stance on immigration policy, it risks the fate of the California Republican Party after Pete Wilson’s governorship—permanent minority status.
Social issues advantage the left, not right. Americans are perfectly willing to be represented by conservatives, but they draw the line at attitudes they consider far outside the mainstream. Romney may well have lost the general election the day he decided to go to Rick Perry’s right on immigration policy. And there’s no way that Republicans should have lost the Senate races in Missouri and Indiana, but their candidates found a way—by wrecking their campaigns on the shoals of abortion politics.
Moreover, the mainstream is shifting. Referenda last night broke the streak of 33 consecutive defeats for same-sex marriage in statewide votes. Obama’s support for marriage equality appears to have cost him little, even among the working class voters who were disposed to support him on economic grounds.
Transactional politics works. Ohio workers in automobile-related companies were grateful to the president. So were Latinos (for the executive order protecting younger immigrants), gays and lesbians (for the president and vice-president’s support for same-sex marriage), and younger women (for reproductive health services and pay equity). In the fall of 2011, the Obama campaign decided that running for reelection on the basis of general achievements—the stimulus, the Affordable Care Act, financial reform, etc.—would not suffice to re-mobilize a dispirited Democratic base, and they decided to mount a much more targeted effort. While we’ll never know for sure, the results seem to vindicate their approach.
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Mea culpa. I did not believe that Obama could be reelected on this basis. I did not believe that a campaign that seemed likely to reduce his share of whites, middle class voters, moderates, and independents—and did so—could obtain a majority. I was wrong.
I remain to be convinced, however, that Obama’s tactics provided the strongest foundation for the policies he seeks to enact. Divided government can yield only two results—compromise or gridlock. The tone and temper of this campaign have not advanced the prospects of agreement across party lines. So gridlock continues to loom—unless the Republicans have been chastened by defeat, as the president hopes. But Speaker Boehner sounds anything but chastened, House Republicans are homogeneously conservative, and it will be much harder for Obama to divide House Republicans than it was for Ronald Reagan to snatch away moderate and conservative House Democrats thirty years ago.
So it's still an open question whether Obama can transform his new electoral majority into a governing majority, as Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s. Obama's campaign was undoubtedly a brilliant tactical success against considerable odds and historians may judge that there was no alternative. But transforming it into a strategic success will be much harder.
14 comments
"Divided government can yield only two results—compromise or gridlock." Good point. The Republicans have clearly indicated the only compromise they'll accept is total capitulation. In McConnell's case, that means Obama out of office. Not too many policies Obama can propose that would include that. In Boehner's case, even a "compromise" that included 10 to 1 spending cuts to tax increases "Boehner couldn't get through his caucus". Sounds to me like the Republicans will not accept anything that even looks like a compromise, so gridlock is the order of the day, no matter what Obama does. Fair enough. Obama can get the Bush Tax-Cuts to expire without Republican action. The Senate can change their rules to reduce the impact of the filibuster without Republican action. If the Republicans really want to, they can force the Financial Cliff -- but hopefully Obama won't allow them to blame him for it.
- AllanL5
November 7, 2012 at 2:11pm
I'll just add that Reagan had Tip O'Neill and the Democrats to work with. Obama has Boehner and the Tea-Party Republicans. The situations are very different.
- AllanL5
November 7, 2012 at 2:15pm
NY Times has the ASian vote going 74-25 for Obama which is even better than the Hispanic vote. As I recall this group used to vote slightly more Republican than the general public.
- stanmvp48
November 7, 2012 at 2:20pm
It's worth contemplating, when one imagines how Boehner approaches the lame-duck session now, and the new one in January, that the Republicans have lost big on what was surely their primary motivation for much of the last 4 years - denying Obama a second term, and achieving one-party rule in Washington. Yes, they can dig in their heals on taxes, and grandstand on health care reform, and generally muck up the works, but they can't do so as a tool to advance their own political interests with anything like the conviction they've had. It plainly and simply did not work. The only reason they've got the House is because they control state legislatures sufficiently in depth to gerrymander their way to a slim majority. I don't think the Republican leadership is dumb. I think they bet wrong, but I won't be surprised to see a realization that while their party may be strong locally in many areas, it is not strong nationally, and can't hope to be strong nationally unless they actually facilitate something worthwhile. Obama and Reid, if they're smart, will drive this point home by letting sequestration and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts hang on the Republican coat rack - Obama by pushing them relentlessly with reasonable compromise positions, and Reid by making clear that the fillibuster is history in the next Congress, in which the Senate absolutely will pass sensible taxing and spending legislation working with the President, even if the Republicans fail to come to the table now. I think, in other words, Obama now has his chance to govern progressively from the center, if he's politically savvy enough to grasp it.
- IowaBeauty
November 7, 2012 at 2:29pm
Oy. What we need from Galston are not his five take-aways, but the five things that will make him go-away. While he admits to having been wrong about the election tactics, he continues to say, in effect, I was wrong but I am still right. Does anyone really believe that different tactics by Obama would have allowed him to win the election while rendering the Republicans any less willing and likely to obstruct? That is RIDICULOUS especially in light of the history of Obama's attempts to compromise with them. What we need is a level of ferocity equal to theirs, not any more appeasement. As well, does Galston think Obama has such godlike powers that he can calibrate his election tactics in just the manner that will both win the election AND somehow ensure Republican cooperation, even if such a thing were possible in the abstract? The imperative was to win the election. Obama did not lie like Romney to do it. But he did run an excellent campaign. He was lucky to pull it out and we are lucky to have people as politically skilled as Axelrod, Plouffe, and, when he is moved, Obama himself. Make no mistake, had Galston run this campaign, Obama would have lost, been thumped actually, and there would be no occasion for anyone to talk about what happens next. Time to find a new line of work, Bill. You are a political failure and have no business writing about politics.
- roidubouloi
November 7, 2012 at 4:08pm
There's a thing over on Political Wire that ranks the pollsters in terms of accuracy. PPP number 1. Gallup and Rasmussen share 24 out of 28. Not to mention that Nate Silver, so despised by the wingnuts, had the electoral map exactly right. Are you listening, seattle? Ready to fess up like Bill Galston to being flat-out wrong?
- roidubouloi
November 7, 2012 at 4:11pm
The "tone and temper" of this campaign was pretty mild, actually. Romney ran a rather gentlemanly campaign compared to McCain's, W.'s second campaign, and both of Bush I's campaigns. And Obama, while certainly more nakedly political, was merely assertive and targeted rather than mean-spirited. There's an excellent chance of a grand bargain now, because the do-nothing bargain is a set of outcomes much worse for Republicans than for Democrats. If the economy tanks because the House GOP fails to compromise, then it won't be taken out on Obama (the lame duck) or the Senate (only 1/3 will be up for election), it'll be taken out on the House GOP--all of whom will face the voters in 2014.
- polcereal
November 7, 2012 at 4:29pm
First comes gridlock (heck, it's been here ever since November 2010, or maybe since Scott Brown's election), then comes a fiscal cliff, then comes compromise. There will be just enough House Republicans to vote for an Obama-backed tax cut in Spring or Summer of 2013, to go with all the Democrats. Not necessarily because John Boehner lets them (though he probably will by silent assent), but because they will be peeing their pants about being blamed for a recession during the mid-terms by a re-energized Obama. And, since they won't be violating the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, they will spin it as a tax cut and take their chances with their mid-term electorate. Jonathan Chait said it first, I will keep saying it next.
- wildboy
November 7, 2012 at 5:08pm
- kpidcoc
November 7, 2012 at 10:09pm
The 'Obama coalition' is real—though it is more narrow than once was thought." More narrow than once was thought by whom? Who are these mysterious people who thought that a 52.87% share of the vote in 2008 marked a Democratic majority to last generations but now furrow their brows over the fact that despite winning reelection with a popular vote majority, Obama couldn't match his 2008 vote share in the face of the most economically brutal first term in 80 years, two wars ending in what looks more like defeat than victory and a slander-spewing opposition the likes of which American has not seen since the days of the bloody shirt? And how do you define "narrow" anyway? If anything short of a 60% supermajority is "narrow", then Obama's winning coalition is narrow--but then so is every one going back to Nixon, the last president to crack 60% of the popular vote. This point smacks of white male chauvinism. It's as if because Obama only pulled 36% of white male voters (me being one of them), his coalition lacks legitimacy in your mind. Why is that? Is it because you cannot conceive how blacks, Latinos, working-class women and arugula-munchers such as me (I actually prefer Jimmy Dean sausage and grits for breakfast when I can get them, but I do have Leonard Cohen on my iPod) cannot keep common cause over the long haul? Or is it because even within our Democratic ranks there are dinosaurs like Galston who cannot shake off nostalgia for the days when giants like Hubert, Fritz, Tip and Teddy strode the earth and the attendant feeling that Barrack and Hillary, Elizabeth and Mazie don't have quite the same heft?
- AaronW
November 8, 2012 at 7:50am
Oy gevalt. Obama's campaign tactics weren't what reduced his share of the votes in the groups you mentioned. It was the economy that did that. When you consider how bad the economy has been and the natural (albeit misguided) inclination to blame the president for current conditions, Obama's win is truly impressive. If looking at the economic indicators alone, without knowing anything about the campaign, you would have predicted a much sharper decline for Obama and that he would have lost overall. You can't attribute the relatively minor decline in Obama's share without understanding the context. here's the real question for Galston- why did Obama do so much better than he "should" have?
- miceelf
November 8, 2012 at 7:56am
"Divided government can yield only two results—compromise or gridlock." Not true, Willie G. If he so chooses, Obama can consign George W Bush's greatest--and most greatly harmful--domestic policy initiative to the dustbin of history and dramatically increase government revenues by returning us to Clinton-era tax rates. You might not like it--hell, I might not like it--but to me that looks like neither compromise nor gridlock. Repeal and replace...the Bush tax cuts. All without lifting a finger.
- AaronW
November 8, 2012 at 8:02am
The point does not smack of chauvinism, aaron, it smacks of stupidity. Galston has to acknowledge that his prognostications were wrong but is trying to reassert the same stupid points he has made before, now in the guise of, "Yes, he won, but had to win a narrow ugly victory, because he didn't listen to the advice of William Galston." Galston should try his hand at ballet reviews. What he knows about economics, fiscal policy, and politics, taken together, wouldn't fill a thimble.
- roidubouloi
November 8, 2012 at 10:24am
Make no mistake, had Galston run this campaign, Obama would have lost, been thumped actually, and there would be no occasion for anyone to talk about what happens next. Second. And third (or another second...you get my point).
- Thunderroad
November 8, 2012 at 4:46pm