The direction of the Republican Party if McCain loses

[pbrower2a]

So far the GOP has become more hard-line and intransigent. It seems to act as if Dubya were a great President and that Obama was a fluke. That's a lot like the Left in 1981; as with the Left in 1981 that thought Ronald Reagan a joke (think of the fictional Emmett Brown in Back to the Future who responds to Marty McFly sometime in the 1950s (time travel in case you nver saw the movie) telling him that Ronald Reagan is President of the US in 1985:

"Who's Secretary of Defense -- John Wayne? Is Jack Benny the Treasury Secretary?"

(no exact quote). That's how the Left saw Reagan in the 1980s -- a buffoon incompetent at leading a nation, a sick joke. Liberals may not like the direction in which America went, but Reagan was effective.

The Right has the rap on Obama: that he is extreme, but "wet-behind-the-ears". So far he has shown much the same political skills as Ronald Reagan, if for different purposes. Are the purposes right? We will find out soon.

The more relevant analogue to 2008 may be 1932, when the economy had been melting down with conservative, pro-business Republicans in charge. If the meltdown is less severe, it is at least in an earlier stage. Will Obama's stimulus package start things on the right direction? Time will tell. But if Herbert Hoover had a worse economic meltdown, Dubya is associated with corruption and abuse of power as well as culpability in the worst financial panic in nearly 80 years. A combination of corruption and economic failure is more damaging to the reputation of a Party than is an economic failure alone.

In the 1930s the Republicans became less hard-line about the New Deal... too late. Will the Republicans do much the same in the 2010s? Who knows?   

[pbrower2a]

The GOP leadership must go rational to ever have a chance in winning any of the states that never voted for a GOP nominee for President since 1992:

244 electoral votes

those that either voted for the Republican nominee only once since 1992, or voted for Obama by a double-digit margin in 2008:

because these states are never going to vote for school prayer, creationism, or an abortion ban. Before 2010 reapportionment those combined for 269 electoral votes.

But those aren't enough to win outright after 2010 reapportionment of Congressional seats.  Obama has a good chance to pick up other any state shaded in yellow, which includes all of those outside of those shaded red. Those include Arizona and Missouri, both of which Clinton won at least once. Missouri was close, and Obama lost Arizona by a margin probably less than the 10% that a Favorite Son can usually win by:

With all of the states shown in either shade of red, and any one of the states shown in yellow, a Democrat is elected President. Such also happens if the Democrat (probably a Southern moderate populist) wins any one in yellow or green:

that a southern moderate Southern populist like Carter in 1976 or Clinton in 1992 or 1996 has a chance to win as a Democrat (and in which case has a chance to pick up a raft of states in the region, including some in yellow). Obama lost all of those states by double-digit margins and won't win them except in an electoral landslide. Northern liberals will vote for Southern Democratic populists, but Southern white Democrats are unlikely to vote for northern liberal Democrats except in electoral blowouts.  Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida no longer seem particularly Southern.

States in gray? No single one of them decides the election, although many possible combinations decide an election (for example, Montana and the Dakotas; Arkansas and West Virginia; Kentucky and one of the Congressional districts of Nebraska).  I assume that Louisiana is likely to lose a congressional seat. 

In no way does this model depict how likely any candidate is to win or lose any specific state in any previous or future election except as explicitly stated in the text. This model should not be applied to any election beyond 2020 because American political life is likely to change significantly by then, especially should Obama win a landslide election and the Republicans run a weak candidate in 2016. In 2016 nobody knows who the Democratic nominee for President will be, and that nominee could be a Southern populist.





 

[pbrower2a]

Very good, but Tennessee and Alabama are solidly republican. And you probably forgot Montata and the Dakotas who are trending more and more democrat.

Of course. The Dakotas have not voted for the Democratic nominee for President since 1964. Similar logic would have mandated that I neglect the chance that either Virginia or Indiana would go for Obama in 2008.  I consider both North Dakota and South Dakota possible pick-ups for Obama in 2012, and more likely than Tennessee or Alabama. But if I had to account for that I would also have to account for the fact that Wisconsin and Peensylvania all were close to going for Dubya in 2004, and  that would make the model messy:

The GOP leadership must go rational to ever have a chance in winning any of the states that never voted for a GOP nominee for President since 1992

 or missed doing so by 2% in 2004:

213 electoral votes

... At this point it becomes more complicated and less dramatic, and it would conceal the polarization of American political life that has existed since 2000, if not earlier.

Although it is conceivable that such a scenario would have arisen with a GOP incumbent  different from Dubya in 2004, or John McCain challenging a lackluster Gore administration in 2004, such is not what we had. Such a scenario might demonstrate a very different set of political dynamics, one in which the Bush-era GOP might not have existed and one that would not have created the political culture that exists to this day. A President less tied to special interests that comprise appreciably less than the majority of voters of so many states might not have created the political climate in which Obama had an easy victory.

America became polarized in its politics as it had never been since the Civil War. I consider that a clear statement of the ineptitude of Dubya as President and the callowness of those around him as leaders.

As it was, Obama had many reasonable ways in which to win, and few in which to lose, John McCain had to take gambles that he would not have otherwise taken, and a landslide for Obama was possible.

.......

I use the model to show how an elections might go in 2016.   Barring the unthinkable, Obama will run for re-election in 2012, and unless he fouls up badly, he will win by a wide margin. In 2016 he will NOT be running for re-election; someone else will be the Democratic nominee for President. The Democratic candidate may be from any part of the United States,  Democrats from the South tend to be less liberal than those from elsewhere in America, but northern liberals end up voting for a Jimmy Carter (if only once) or Bill Clinton (twice). For reasons not entirely clear, southerners are not so receptive to northern and western liberals, voting for them only in electoral landslides. They rejected Kerry decisively in 2004, Dukakis in 1996, and Humphrey in 1968.

My model suggests that a Southern Democrat is more likely to win Tennessee than Indiana in 2016, and that a northern or western liberal Democrat is more likely to win Indiana than win Tennessee in 2016.  I don't see the Republican Party having a strong candidate as the Presidential nominee in 2016.  Beyond that? I have no idea what sorts of political personalities will be out there, or even whether the Republican Party will have enough relevance to discuss.