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The "Blue Wall" is what gives the Democratic nominee an electoral college advantage due to high Democratic turnout. However, Silver argues that it might be exaggerated since Republicans won it in 2000 and high turnout in the Obama elections had more to do with Obama's effect rather than a demographic shift. I'm not sure that I agree, but it's an interesting analysis.
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The Electoral College And The “Emerging Democratic Majority.” What about that “blue wall” — the supposed advantage that Democrats hold in the Electoral College?
Mostly, the “blue wall” was the effect of Obama’s success in 2008 and 2012, not the cause of it. If the economy had collapsed in the summer of 2012, Obama would probably have lost the election, and most of those blue states would have turned red.
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Another theory — the so-called “Emerging Democratic Majority” — holds that demographic trends favor the Democratic Party. We’ll have a lot more to say about this theory between now and next November, but it’s probably dubious too.4 As Sean Trende has pointed out, it relies on a selective reading of the evidence — emphasizing 2012, 2008 and 2006 but ignoring 2014, 2010, and 2004. Perhaps more important, predictions made on the premise of “emerging” majorities have a miserable track record: Republicans were bragging about their “permanent” majority in 2004, for instance, only to get their butts kicked in 2006 and 2008.
I feel that, if Ms. Clinton is the Democratic nominee, a lot of Democrats will stay home come election day, unless the Republican nominee is truly repugnant (i.e., more so than Ms. Clinton). If the Republicans nominate someone that is more centrist (say, Jeb Bush), they will sweep to victory.
Of course, it is early days. Perhaps Ms. Clinton can repair her reputation (and I am not just talking about the email problem; she has a lot of baggage to explain away). She will probably spend the next year defending herself against repeated attacks: some justified, some not.
Isn't there some Democrat, perhaps someone about to be released from prison, that can run for the Democratic nomination?
Although we may have to remind some people how much damage the last two Bushes did, I'm sure most American's did not forget.
Bush 43 I def agree with you there, Bush 41, not so much. Tho Obama has been POTUS for over 6 years now so; it's on the Dems to try to "sell" his replacement in 2016.
Although we may have to remind some people how much damage the last two Bushes did, I'm sure most American's did not forget.
I doubt that Hillary is dumb enough to run on "Bush's fault," which has already been overplayed to the point of becoming a punch line for late night comics. Plus W Bush has been out of the picture for 6 years now. A first time (18 yr old) voter in 2016 will have been 10 years old when W left office.
She's going to be running on 'first female president,' which is the one real path to victory she has. Forget the blue wall. Obama got 55% of the female vote, and if Hillary can get to just 60%, she is assured of victory. The most a GOP candidate can hope to get is around 55% of the male vote, which would mean a solid victory margin for Hillary.
I doubt that Hillary is dumb enough to run on "Bush's fault," which has already been overplayed to the point of becoming a punch line for late night comics. Plus W Bush has been out of the picture for 6 years now. A first time (18 yr old) voter in 2016 will have been 10 years old when W left office.
She's going to be running on 'first female president,' which is the one real path to victory she has. Forget the blue wall. Obama got 55% of the female vote, and if Hillary can get to just 60%, she is assured of victory. The most a GOP candidate can hope to get is around 55% of the male vote, which would mean a solid victory margin for Hillary.
Is "Bush's Fault" overplayed? That's the real question.
Maybe in your mind, and those who believe as you do it is, but the very same thing can be said about the continual opposition to everything president Obama has done, including who he is as a human being.
The calamitous effects of the Bush presidency, especially the only pre-emptive war American ever entered into as a nation, caused many lifelong damages to millions of Americans. Every time any of us see a young man or woman who's missing a limb we are reminded of the Bush Wars and the developments that arose from them.
Even when Bush dies, that's his legacy. It won't be forgotten until the generation that paid the price of his mistakes also passes away. And even then, those folk's children and grandchildren are not going to forget. Like the ripples a stone makes when thrown into still waters, "Bush's Fault" will remain, spreading out in ever widening circles for decades to come.
A first time voter in 2000 is gong to be voting too, and that voter may have voted for Bush back then. Around the time that voter decided to enlist as a good career move. Is he likely to have forgotten? I don't think so, even if he will vote Republican in 2016.
Personally, I think that it's a given that we will elect a female President at some time. I'm not at all sure that Hillary will run only with that inevitability as being her only qualification. She is smarter than that. If being a woman is the only qualification needed to win the Presidency in 2016, the field of hopefuls would already be full of female hopefuls right now. Hillary Clinton is not the only female politician with big ambitions.
You can take it to the bank that Hillary Clinton is not taking the Blue Wall for granted. You can also be sure that she won't repeat any of her mistakes from 2008 either.
You are probably right that 55% of the older white male voters won't vote for her, and you're probably right that she will get more female votes than Obama got. But Hillary won't need 60% of any voting bloc to win; all she will need is 47.5% of a couple of the blocs to do it. Anything higher than that is cupcakes for Hillary.
"Even when Bush dies, that's his legacy. It won't be forgotten until the generation that paid the price of his mistakes also passes away."
Agreed. Those of us who came of age during the Clinton-Bush transition will never forget the free-fall from the height of peace and prosperity into a ruinous abyss in less than a decade. Fair or not, the memory poisons any inkling I might have of marking an 'R' at the ballot box.
Last edited by drishmael; 04-12-2015 at 04:42 PM..
"Another theory — the so-called “Emerging Democratic Majority” — holds that demographic trends favor the Democratic Party. We’ll have a lot more to say about this theory between now and next November, but it’s probably dubious too."
No Nate, it's arithmetic -- something I had previously mistaken you as being proficient at. When the youngest segment of the population is the most Democratic-leaning, and the oldest cohort the most Republican, nature has a way of resolving the impasse.
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"As Sean Trende has pointed out, it relies on a selective reading of the evidence — emphasizing 2012, 2008 and 2006 but ignoring 2014, 2010, and 2004."
Sean Trende's analysis is clouded by wish-fulfillment; he's a second-rate strategist. Here's a less tendentious recounting of recent electoral history: a Democratic presidential wave (2008) is followed by a Republican midterm wave (2010) which is followed by a comfortable Democratic presidential victory (2012) which is followed by a smaller Republican midterm wave (2014). If this indicates a trend in the direction of the GOP, I don't see it.
It's an absurd analysis which requires no more thought past the period I put at the end of this sentence.
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Nate Silver is meaningless
