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The Factor to Watch? Race
Where we stand as Obama wraps it up:
This post is partly in response to a comment posted on the string below. A writer suggests that the Lichtman keys are missing the intensity of the Democratic split this year. She says that intraparty wounds could, indeed, hurt Obama, even if divisions in an “out” party havn’t hurt a candidate in the past.
A response: Maybe.
But, in truth, in every election there seems to be something that has never been present before, something special that will upset the keys because of its intensity.
In the 1988, it was, among other things, “The Wimp Factor.” George H.W. Bush, having been a Uriah Heepish V.P. for so many years — having looked SO tiny compared to Reagan — was now the subject of newsweekly cover stories saying he was just too wimpy to be elected president.
But nature took its course: He started delivering Peggy Noonan’s manly lines (“Read My Lips: No Knew Taxes”), and the Republican convention featured film of him landing on an aircraft carrier as the youngest fighter pilot in WWII or something. And was that. A factor that has seemed dominant for a year disappeared in an instant. Poof.
In ‘92 it was Clinton being an adulterer and a Vietnam war protester in England and a draft dodger and having a feminist wife.
There’s always something. But so far nothing seems to have upset the keys.
Having said that, I have to also make a periodically-necessary disclaimer: The system will be wrong someday. Lichtman has never presented it as foolproof.
My own sense though is that the Democratic divisions are too close to ordinary to have any impact.
There’s nothing ideological here. I’m mean, there’s nothing about the direction of the country. By comparison, when Eisenhower beat Taft in 1952, the Republican conservatives — the base, even then — were bitterly disappointed.
Other, earlier elections saw multi-ballot conventions turning candidates who won in November: 1920, 1932.
The one factor that does give me pause (and Lichtman, too) this year is race.
We are talking, after all, about a predictive scheme that is based on historical precedents. And there is certainly no precedent for a black candidate.
You might noticed that the Lichtman keys make no mention of the demographic characteristics of the candidates. This does not mean that anybody is saying that such characteristics are irrelevant. It only means that if a given characteristic doesn’t keep a candidate from winning the nomination of a mainstream party, it is apparently not all that problematic.
This year certain characteristics would prevent an election in November: being a Muslim, certainly. Gay. Atheist. Mormon? But they would prevent a nomination first.
Being black does not seem to be in that category. However, one can’t help but notice that the Democratic nomination came down to TWO candidates of unprecedented demographic characteristics. So maybe the fact that one won isn’t so meaningful.
Not that I’m hedging. The prediction is in. I’m just making another prediction: If the prediction is wrong — which it won’t be — race will be the reason.
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Comments
By Tom Q
June 10, 2008 2:58 PM | Link to this
To your point that people are always claiming certain factors change the picture completely: I’ve heard it said we can’t compare elections prior to the open primary system, or elections post-TV. Yet the Keys have correctly predicted results from such contests, so why assume they’re wrong now? Since, however, I mentioned the race factor in the earlier thread, I will point out that Lichtman in his book did suggest the first black nominee would be such a special case as to render the system questionable. Lichtman was likely thinking of Jesse Jackson as test case, and Jackson would probably have been an especially controversial, problematic nominee. I think Obama is a more singular figure, less likely to polarize. (I’ve heard it said he’s like Elvis in reverse — Elvis having bridged the racial gap doing black rhythm and blues in a white man’s body; Obama, despite GOP efforts to other-ize him, conveys a quite standard middle-American upbringing that confounds the racial stereotype). Still…I’m glad this precedent-shattering nomination has come in an electoral environment that’s SO tilted toward the Democrats, where even a significant racial backlash will only likely narrow the margin rather than flip the outcome. To that end: after last week, I feel more confident about two of my Key calls, that of opponent charisma and short-term economy. The pundit swoon of last Tuesday night — when both Tom Brokaw and Mort Kondracke (hardly soul-mates) called Obama charismatic, and even the Fox team watched in envy — persuades me opponent charisma is another GOP lost key. And the economic events of last Friday — where on-air commentators were reduced to “Does it matter if we call it a recession when everyone THINKS it’s one?” — make me confident that Key 5 is also gone. This, in my view, lines up a sure 9 negative keys — mandate, incumbency, short and long term economy, policy change, foreign policy failure and lack of foreign policy success, incumbent and opponent charisma. The contest key is borderline/open to interpretation; third-party is likely positive, unless Bob Barr shocks us with unexpected strength in certain states. But…always a but…those nine negative Keys are, I’m fairly certain (though I don’t have the book handy), an exact match for the 1960 race that turned out a nail-biter. What a (superficially) similar race: a young charismatic Dem from an ethnic group of electoral dubiousness against the experienced if dour Republican. Should we expect a similarly tight outcome? I wonder. There are great differences. Despite the verdict of the Keys in ‘60, Ike remained, by personal virtue, extremely popular, where Bush sits in record-low territory. And even if the Keys match in fact, do they match in intensity? Lichtman’s reasons for foreign policy failure in ‘60 were rumblings from the Soviet Union and the U-2 scandal; can this measure up to the cataclysmic failure in Iraq? And, while statistics say the economy was moribund throughout Ike’s second term, and a minor recession hit during the campaign period, I’m not sure it compares to the fear and loathing out there today, as oil/food prices, foreclosures and job losses scare many of us every day. It seems to me the mood today is alot more like 1980 than 1960. But I’m of course open to alternative hypotheses.By Ohio Vet
July 1, 2008 2:14 PM | Link to this
I can see that if Obama does’t win the election, race will be a large part of the reason. Especially in Ohio, where the news media puts race as an issue. I never heard race more during the primaries until it came to Ohio. What makes it crazy is the fact that all Obama’s policies are what working class people and the elderly are looking for in a President. Someone who is going to give us a tax break for a change. But even in the Newspapers in Ohio I see where everything about Obama is negative and McCain seems to be getting praise. Even when McCain went to Canada to talk about how good NAFTA was for there country. Then came to Ohio and didn’t mention NAFTA at all. In Ohio we need to learn from our mistakes in 2000 and 2004 and elect the man who is trying to Unite all Americans. That’s the only way that we can deal with today’s issues. “UNITED”