Politics ala Matthew 01
First, I want to make a statement then I will explain it. If the Democratic Party wants to virtually assure themselves of holding the White House in 2012, the smartest thing they can do is fund and support the “Tea Party”.
Confused? Let me explain.
The politics of a Two Party Country, like the US currently, are easily measured by a classic Bell Curve (I’m going to try and insert one for reference). The far right and far left wings comprise a much smaller number of voters than the center, but they are much more firmly based in their beliefs; for example, a fiscally liberal Pro-Life Hawk would fall into either the 3rd or 4th segment depending on how you look at it. The closer to the center you get the more the political opinions of the voter can be swayed by circumstance and presentation. The further out the more radical the element, the far left representing true Socialism/Marxism and the far right representing true Fascism. I do note that I am using the term TRUE in those descriptions as Mussolini’s Italy and Communist Russia were not truly Socialist or Communist, they were using the name but not following the tenants any further than they needed to to maintain power.
The average voter in the US is going to fall into sections 3 and 4, basically centrist left and right. They are the ones whose ideals fall basically on one side or the other but have some beliefs that can fall on the opposite side. Sections 2 and 5 are the majority of the hard core Democrats or Republicans; most if not all of their political beliefs follow the “party line”. Any that do not will usually simply fall back a single segment rather than the other side of center. The Far Right and Far Left are the fringe elements, those who not only follow the “party line” but want to take it even further and potentially eradicate the opposing side rather than sway them.
Based on the Bell Curve, from the last Presidential Election John McCain would fall into the 4th Segment and Barack Obama would fall into the 3rd. Each party saw that “solidifying the base” would be needed to keep full support so they chose VP candidates who were further out to the edge. Biden is, from what I’ve seen of him, still in the 3rd Segment (though he may be in the 2nd as I don’t know his voting record fully) but as the right was less than pleased with McCain on some issues they chose from further out, as Palin is easily in the 5th segment. There are some who claim that she was partly chosen for her gender in hopes that she would draw in some of the disenfranchised women who had supported Hillary Clinton, but that has been denied by the McCain camp so I can’t speak to it’s truth.
So, with all that being said (and greatly summarized to prevent brain overload in reading this) why would it benefit the Democrats to support the “Tea Party”?
Simple, when you are looking at the voters you have a finite (though rarely fully tapped) resource to draw from. For the sake of this explanation I’m not going to get into actual numbers but rather use base percentages. To win the election no candidate needs to get so much as 50% of the popular votes, they simply need to get more than any other candidate on that State’s ballot to win the State and thus it’s electoral votes. Once they get that (with, I think, one exception) they get the whole kit and caboodle and it really doesn’t matter if they did it with 75% of the vote or 34%, they get it all. This has led to elections where the winning candidate lost the popular vote but won the Presidency anyway. Side note, this is why I believe the Electoral College system is broken and needs to be replaced, but that’s a different discussion.
So, of all the eligible voters (registered or not) in the US, the average since 1960 has been a voter turnout of 55.2%. Yep, that’s right, on average 30% of the US voted for any given President. This last election we hit a 40 year high by having a 56.8% turnout and the highest in the last 50 years has been 63.1% back in 1960. Think about that for a minute, we could have a President elected whom 70 some odd percent of the Nation didn’t want, but as the majority of them decided NOT to vote (most didn’t even register), they lost out.
Back to the Bell Curve. Making the assumption, which I am not saying is accurate, that 50% of the registered voters in the US fall on each side of the dividing line you have an equal (or roughly equal) number of voters who will favor either party. When selecting the Party Candidate during the Primaries the candidate will usually come from either of the 4 center segments (2 and 3 for the Dems, 4 and 5 for the Reps). The most successful candidate will often (but not always) come from the center two, but will lean to the hardcore of their party (at least during the election). The further out they go the less they will draw in the centrists of their party, who, if not motivated will likely not vote, or if the other candidate is closer to their opinions may switch sides and vote for the party they normally do not support. Those who have no outright party affiliation will also likely not be leaning to a more right or left wing candidate if a more moderate one is presented.
So, if you know that both candidates are similarly placed in relation to the center (Obama/McCain being more centric or Gore/Bush being further out), how do you increase your own candidates chance of winning? The current answer people have been tossing out recently is to slander your opponent, but that has some backlash that can cost you a closely contested election (Dole vs. Hagan in 2008). However, a much better tactic is to draw the base support from your opponent thus removing a goodly number of the Hard Core to Fringe voters and leaving the candidate to scrabble for the Centrists.
A good example of this was the damage that Ralph Nader’s presence on the ballot in Florida during the 2000 elections did to the Gore campaign. Bush was given the State of Florida (which gave him the electoral votes needed to win) by a paltry 537 votes. If you were to give the Left Fringe oriented votes that Nader got back to the Democratic ticket Gore would have added a whopping 97,000 votes, easily sweeping Bush. Even if you assume some of them would just not have voted if Nader had not run, all it would have taken was 600 of them to vote Democrat and the entire result would have changed. Even adding the 17,000 Right Fringe votes that Pat Buchanan got back to the Republicans, Gore still would have won by a large margin. Did Nader win a single electoral vote? No. In the end did he even take a notable number of votes nationwide? No, he had less than 3% in the end totals. But he quite probably cost Gore the election by even being on the ballot in Florida and that’s not counting the other irregularities that debacle included.
So, why would the “Tea Party” gaining support help the Democrats? Simple, if they put forth their own candidate (they are currently courting Palin amongst others) to run in 2012, then they will draw a significant number of Republicans away from their normal base ticket making it easier for the Democrats to defeat both candidates (GOP and TP). Yes, some centrists who currently vote Democrat, or did in the last election may be drawn off as well, but the Tea Party is primarily right wing based and would make a much more significant draw from that side than from the left.
Next rant: Tea Baggers
Confused? Let me explain.
The politics of a Two Party Country, like the US currently, are easily measured by a classic Bell Curve (I’m going to try and insert one for reference). The far right and far left wings comprise a much smaller number of voters than the center, but they are much more firmly based in their beliefs; for example, a fiscally liberal Pro-Life Hawk would fall into either the 3rd or 4th segment depending on how you look at it. The closer to the center you get the more the political opinions of the voter can be swayed by circumstance and presentation. The further out the more radical the element, the far left representing true Socialism/Marxism and the far right representing true Fascism. I do note that I am using the term TRUE in those descriptions as Mussolini’s Italy and Communist Russia were not truly Socialist or Communist, they were using the name but not following the tenants any further than they needed to to maintain power.
The average voter in the US is going to fall into sections 3 and 4, basically centrist left and right. They are the ones whose ideals fall basically on one side or the other but have some beliefs that can fall on the opposite side. Sections 2 and 5 are the majority of the hard core Democrats or Republicans; most if not all of their political beliefs follow the “party line”. Any that do not will usually simply fall back a single segment rather than the other side of center. The Far Right and Far Left are the fringe elements, those who not only follow the “party line” but want to take it even further and potentially eradicate the opposing side rather than sway them.
Based on the Bell Curve, from the last Presidential Election John McCain would fall into the 4th Segment and Barack Obama would fall into the 3rd. Each party saw that “solidifying the base” would be needed to keep full support so they chose VP candidates who were further out to the edge. Biden is, from what I’ve seen of him, still in the 3rd Segment (though he may be in the 2nd as I don’t know his voting record fully) but as the right was less than pleased with McCain on some issues they chose from further out, as Palin is easily in the 5th segment. There are some who claim that she was partly chosen for her gender in hopes that she would draw in some of the disenfranchised women who had supported Hillary Clinton, but that has been denied by the McCain camp so I can’t speak to it’s truth.
So, with all that being said (and greatly summarized to prevent brain overload in reading this) why would it benefit the Democrats to support the “Tea Party”?
Simple, when you are looking at the voters you have a finite (though rarely fully tapped) resource to draw from. For the sake of this explanation I’m not going to get into actual numbers but rather use base percentages. To win the election no candidate needs to get so much as 50% of the popular votes, they simply need to get more than any other candidate on that State’s ballot to win the State and thus it’s electoral votes. Once they get that (with, I think, one exception) they get the whole kit and caboodle and it really doesn’t matter if they did it with 75% of the vote or 34%, they get it all. This has led to elections where the winning candidate lost the popular vote but won the Presidency anyway. Side note, this is why I believe the Electoral College system is broken and needs to be replaced, but that’s a different discussion.
So, of all the eligible voters (registered or not) in the US, the average since 1960 has been a voter turnout of 55.2%. Yep, that’s right, on average 30% of the US voted for any given President. This last election we hit a 40 year high by having a 56.8% turnout and the highest in the last 50 years has been 63.1% back in 1960. Think about that for a minute, we could have a President elected whom 70 some odd percent of the Nation didn’t want, but as the majority of them decided NOT to vote (most didn’t even register), they lost out.
Back to the Bell Curve. Making the assumption, which I am not saying is accurate, that 50% of the registered voters in the US fall on each side of the dividing line you have an equal (or roughly equal) number of voters who will favor either party. When selecting the Party Candidate during the Primaries the candidate will usually come from either of the 4 center segments (2 and 3 for the Dems, 4 and 5 for the Reps). The most successful candidate will often (but not always) come from the center two, but will lean to the hardcore of their party (at least during the election). The further out they go the less they will draw in the centrists of their party, who, if not motivated will likely not vote, or if the other candidate is closer to their opinions may switch sides and vote for the party they normally do not support. Those who have no outright party affiliation will also likely not be leaning to a more right or left wing candidate if a more moderate one is presented.
So, if you know that both candidates are similarly placed in relation to the center (Obama/McCain being more centric or Gore/Bush being further out), how do you increase your own candidates chance of winning? The current answer people have been tossing out recently is to slander your opponent, but that has some backlash that can cost you a closely contested election (Dole vs. Hagan in 2008). However, a much better tactic is to draw the base support from your opponent thus removing a goodly number of the Hard Core to Fringe voters and leaving the candidate to scrabble for the Centrists.
A good example of this was the damage that Ralph Nader’s presence on the ballot in Florida during the 2000 elections did to the Gore campaign. Bush was given the State of Florida (which gave him the electoral votes needed to win) by a paltry 537 votes. If you were to give the Left Fringe oriented votes that Nader got back to the Democratic ticket Gore would have added a whopping 97,000 votes, easily sweeping Bush. Even if you assume some of them would just not have voted if Nader had not run, all it would have taken was 600 of them to vote Democrat and the entire result would have changed. Even adding the 17,000 Right Fringe votes that Pat Buchanan got back to the Republicans, Gore still would have won by a large margin. Did Nader win a single electoral vote? No. In the end did he even take a notable number of votes nationwide? No, he had less than 3% in the end totals. But he quite probably cost Gore the election by even being on the ballot in Florida and that’s not counting the other irregularities that debacle included.
So, why would the “Tea Party” gaining support help the Democrats? Simple, if they put forth their own candidate (they are currently courting Palin amongst others) to run in 2012, then they will draw a significant number of Republicans away from their normal base ticket making it easier for the Democrats to defeat both candidates (GOP and TP). Yes, some centrists who currently vote Democrat, or did in the last election may be drawn off as well, but the Tea Party is primarily right wing based and would make a much more significant draw from that side than from the left.
Next rant: Tea Baggers