Flying Pink Unicorns

I read a piece about what the author felt were myths surrounding the 2008 presidential election.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/13/AR2008111303287_pf.html

I wrote the author of this piece an e-mail, in which I take issue with his claim that the impact of black voters on the election has been overstated. Here is that e-mail:

Mr. Cillizza: I enjoyed reading your piece, and mostly agree with it. I am an amateur left-leaning blogger (www.flyingpinkunicorns.blogspot.com), and I followed the election very closely.

I agree with your fundamental premises that:

(a) Bush was a huge drag on McCain and would have been a huge drag, and almost certainly a fatal one, on any Republican nominee; and

(b) that the election, though a solid repudiation of the GOP, was not the wipeout some have reported.

I do have a few points of criticism, however.

In 2004, Kerry received 48% of the vote. In 2008, Obama received 52.5% of the vote (as of this writing, votes are still being counted as you know). Thus Obama received approximately 4.5% more of the vote than Kerry did. Accounting for this 4.5% is a useful exercise.

1) You wrote that the widely reported wave of black voters and young people was not key to Obama's victory. This proves to be a highly debatable point at best.

As you point out, the percentage of the electorate which was black increased by two points in 2008 as against 2004.

Since 95% of black voters went for Obama, that constitutes an additional 1.9 percent of the vote for Obama. Thus, the increased share of the black vote, by itself, constitutes 42.2% of the reason for the additional 4.5% of the popular vote that Obama received. I'd certainly call that significant, hugely so. I realize that this is not perfectly valid, as surely many of these additional voters would have stayed home had Hillary been the democratic candidate for President, as opposed to voting for McCain. Looking at this another way, Kerry received 59 million and change votes, whereas Obama has received 66.7 million votes as of now, a difference of 7.7 million votes. Projecting the final electorate at 128 million votes, these additional voters, constituting 2% of 128 million, or 2.56 million votes, yielded Obama an additional 2.43 million votes, or 32% of the increase in votes Obama has received over Kerry.

You correctly point out that Obama did 7 points better than Kerry among black voters. That fact brought Obama an additional 8 tenths of 1 percent of the popular vote (.07 x .11, as I have already accounted for the increase from 88% to 95% in the additional 2%). Or in terms of raw vote totals, the 7 point improvement from Kerry to Obama in the black vote meant an additional 985,000 votes for Obama. Thus the increase from 11% to 13% of the electorate coupled with Obama outperforming Kerry among black voters resulted in a total of 2.7 points of additional vote for Obama, representing 60% of the increase in the popular vote from Kerry to Obama!! Or in terms of actual vote totals, Obama probably received 3.55 million more black votes than Kerry did, representing 46% of the 7.7 million additional votes that Obama won compared with Kerry.

Had black voters voted in the same proportion of the electorate and at the same 88% rate as they did for Kerry, McCain would have won Florida (narrowly, but he would have, I just worked it out), North Carolina (by more than 2 points) and Indiana (because Indiana was so close, any change would have tipped Indiana to McCain even though black voters were but 8% of the Indiana electorate), and Ohio and Virginia would have been much closer. In fact, by my back of the envelope calculations, Ohio would have been a nail biter, within 1 point for certain, and possibly within half of a point. Thus instead of winning 365 electoral votes, Obama would have won 312, and had to sweat Virginia and Ohio. Obama still would have won the election, but I think you underplayed the significance of the black vote.

2) Although the increase in the electorate from 11% to 13% sounds like far less than what one might have expected given the breathless media reports; (a) The categories of Latino, Asian and other also increased from a total of 12% to a total of 14%. So the increase in the percentage of the electorate which was black occurred with other minority groups increasing as well; a bigger portion of a growing and expanding pie. I realize this argument cuts both ways, as other groups increased as well. However, the number of Hispanic and Asian citizens of voting age is increasing as a percentage of the overall voting age population, significantly so, whereas (as I understand it) the same is not true of black citizens.

3) While the percentage of voters aged 18-29 only increased by one point, from 17% to 18%, this is in the context of an aging country. I do not have the pertinent demographic information at my fingertips. Suffice to say that your point that there was not a surge in young voters is not weakened by the exit polling data. However, it is abundantly clear from the anecdotal evidence that Obama benefited far more from young volunteers than did McCain. This clearly enhanced what I think everyone agrees was a superior ground game/GOTV (Get Out The Vote) effort. I can't sit here and say how many votes that added to Obama's column, but it would appear to have been fairly significant, particularly in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. I speak from experience when I tell you that Obama had an absolutely massive ground game in Pennsylvania, reaching multitudes of voters. Indeed, the exit polls for 2008 reflect that more voters reported being contacted by the Obama campaign, with 26% of exit polled voters reporting they were contacted by the Obama campaign and only 18% were contacted by the McCain campaign. 80% of voters contacted by only the Obama campaign (13%) voted for Obama, while 82% of voters contacted only by the McCain campaign (6%) voted for McCain. I would not attribute these votes directly to the ground game on a 1 for 1 basis, (if one did so the impact would be massive, potentially enough to swing the election) but surely there was a significant impact. Enthusiasm among young people had to be significant in the final vote totals. I look forward to an analysis by you, Jay Cost of Realclearpolitics, or someone far more able to analyze this point than I am.

4) As for whether a new progressive era has begun, only time will tell. You are surely right that many democrats are in somewhat marginal districts, where the national democratic brand is viewed with great suspicion, and will have to fight quite hard to maintain their seats. Being seen as Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid's toady will not help these democrats at all. However, the margins that the democrats will have suggest that they will have votes to lose, and I would not assume nearly the monolithic Republican voting bloc as we have seen in recent years on certain issues. Freed from the need to toe the line for their leadership, more than a few Republicans in blue states, and even some in red states may decide that we need a national health care system after all, etc. I think it is very likely that the GOP will play ball on a big stimulus package, aid to Detroit, winding down the Iraq war (to the extent that Congress is relevant here), an increased minimum wage, increased regulations, and some other areas. Whether this constitutes a "progressive era" is, I concede, a debatable point.