Age of American presidential landslides over?
David Tenner
winning candidate doing at least ten percentage points better than the
runner-up in the popular vote--were once quite common in US presidential
elections. If we look at elections from 1952 through 1984, we see that 1952,
1956, 1964, 1972, and 1984 can be classified as landslides under my
definition--with 1980 falling just short, unless you round out percentages to
full numbers so it becomes 51 to 41; see
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1980.txt So either five or
six of these nine elections were landslides. If it is objected that I am
making things too easy for my thesis by starting in 1952, well, start in 1944
if you like. Five or six out of eleven is still a pretty good percetage.
And the six presidential elections preceding 1944 were all landslides, with
the possible exception of 1940, another borderline case.
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1940.txt
But there has not been a single true landslide since 1984. 1988, 1992, 1996,
and 2008 were all fairly decisive wins, but none was a landslide--1992 and
1996 would not have been such even if you assume that Perot took votes
equally from Bush and Clinton. (It has sometimes been argued that 1992 could
have been a *Bush* landslide if not for Perot but this is based on the
utterly unrealistic scenario that all Perot votes would have gone to Bush--
none to Clinton, none to other third parties, none staying home, etc.) 2000
and 2004 were of course close.
Has the country become so polarized that true landslides are no longer
possible? My guess is that even if things go well for Obama he will only do
a couple of points better in 2012 than he did in 2008, and that even if
things go poorly he is not likely to be defeated as decisively as, say,
Carter was in 1980.
--
David Tenner
dte...@ameritech.net
Greg Goss
>Has the country become so polarized that true landslides are no longer
>possible? My guess is that even if things go well for Obama he will only do
>a couple of points better in 2012 than he did in 2008, and that even if
>things go poorly he is not likely to be defeated as decisively as, say,
>Carter was in 1980.
The Republicans still seem to be digging their hole deeper. Depending
on whether they come to their senses in the mid-term elections next
year, they could well be setting themselves up for a disaster.
They seem to be deliberately targeting any of their "moderate"
candidates for replacement by suitably extremist replacements -- a
policy that I can't see having a good outcome for them.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
Sydney Webb
>
> People tend to forget that landslides--which I will define arbitrarily as the
> winning candidate doing at least ten percentage points better than the
> runner-up in the popular vote--were once quite common in US presidential
> elections. If we look at elections from 1952 through 1984, we see that 1952,
> 1956, 1964, 1972, and 1984 can be classified as landslides under my
> definition--with 1980 falling just short, unless you round out percentages to
> full numbers so it becomes 51 to 41;
[snip]
> Has the country become so polarized that true landslides are no longer
> possible?
Let's being by assuming the strong institutional biases in the US system
perpetuate the political duopoly.
Polarisation only prevents landslides if at least 45% of voters are
welded to each of the two parties. Otherwise you could have a bitter,
partisan presidential election but still have a landslide.
Are there other factors at play. In 1852 and 1956 you had an unusually
strong, popular candidate running. In 1964 and 1972 you had weak,
slightly scaring figures running. In 1984 it was a case of "one from
column A and one from column B".
I think David has a point. It's hard to imagine the GOP picking an
Eisenhower figure in the next decade or so - the primary system will
work against picking such an, um, unpartisan figure. [That said, in
2008 the REpublican primaries did select a moderate war hero.
Nevertheless, McCain was no Eisenhower.]
But could the primary system throw up a candidate of the calibre of a
Goldwater or a McGovern? It seems possible. Are there still enough
independent or 'swinging' voters in the USA to spurn such a candidature
_en masse_?
- Syd
David Tenner
news:4A475C6B...@hotmail.com :
> David Tenner wrote:
>>
>> People tend to forget that landslides--which I will define arbitrarily
>> as the winning candidate doing at least ten percentage points better
>> than the runner-up in the popular vote--were once quite common in US
>> presidential elections. If we look at elections from 1952 through
>> 1984, we see that 1952, 1956, 1964, 1972, and 1984 can be classified as
>> landslides under my definition--with 1980 falling just short, unless
>> you round out percentages to full numbers so it becomes 51 to 41;
>
> [snip]
>
>> Has the country become so polarized that true landslides are no longer
>> possible?
>
> Let's being by assuming the strong institutional biases in the US system
> perpetuate the political duopoly.
I blame the Australian ballot:
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/69b912a8ad772f6f
--
David Tenner
dte...@ameritech.net
eatfastnoodle
McCain might be a moderate, but he wasn't even allowed to choose his
own running mate. Nobody in his right mind would think Palin was his
1st, or even 10th choice for running mate. McCain might win the
primary, but he was so enfeebled that he could not run as a moderate
and essentially surrendered his moderate credential. Another problem
working against the GOP is the sheer diversity of America these days.
You can talk about policy or even empty "moral" talks all you want, as
long as GOP still has the club of "old white racists" label sticked to
its head (I'll say GOP at this stage deserve that lable). No matter
what kind of politics a black, an Asian or a hispanic might have, it's
hard for them to support a party that's at least widely perceived to
consist of people who hate black, Asian and hispanic because of their
skin color. With that in mind, it really doesn't matter what kind of
policy GOP espouses.