Link for 3/11

Link I found this week was titled Coleman and Franken Still Battle and is about the ongoing legal struggle to declare a winner to the Minnesota Senate. Going on since January now, both sides have been momentarily on top. When he was in the lead immediately after the election, Coleman said if he were Franken, he would "step back" for the good of Minnesota. I guess the only thing to do is sit back and see what the Courts decide.

In the 2008 presidential election, the key gaps revealed by CNN’s exit polls are the race and age votes. Obama was more successful at capturing the younger voters, and he was overwhelmingly more successful with minority candidates than the Democrats were in 2004.

Regarding the younger vote, Kerry won 54% of the vote for ages 18-29, compared to Obama’s 66%. Obama was also more successful with the 30-64 year old groups, beating Kerry by about 4-5%. The only age group the Republicans held a majority on was the elderly 65 and older group. For first time voters, Kerry won 53% in 2004, compared to Obama winning 69% in 2008. It was said that the parties used to do a lot more ground work personally contacting and interacting with citizens, so I wanted to see if this impacted Obama’s success. However, 26% of respondents in both 2004 and 2008 reported being personally contacted by the Kerry and Obama campaigns, so he didn’t seem to have gained too much ground in that aspect.

Regarding minorities, Obama was obviously much more successful at winning votes than McCain. Obama got about 95% of the black vote, close to 66% of the Latino vote, and 64% of other races. McCain did strongest with white male voters, and females were pretty much split between the candidates. This shows greater success from 2004, when Kerry won about 88% of the black vote and 55% of Latino and other races

As people became less concerned with terrorism and grew tired of the War in Iraq, Republicans lost the “security” vote they had gained in 2004. In the 2008 exit polls, 41% of respondents strongly disapproved of the War, and 87% of those were Obama supporters. Overall, I think Obama’s ability to overwhelmingly capture the minority vote, as well as his support from the young, allowed him to push past the Republicans when compared to 2004.

A side note I found rather interesting, yet expected, is an example of partisan identification in action. The poll question, “Who is qualified to be President if necessary”? Those who answered “Only Biden” were 91% Democrats, while those who chose “Only Palin” were 96% Republican. This also reveals slightly less bipartisan support for Palin.

3/4 Link

Found an interesting article called What the GOP Really Wants: Obama's Autograph about how Republican members of Congress were crossing the aisle to get the President's autograph after his recent speech. Some think it's proof of Obama's success at "reaching across the aisle" while others say the congressmen were getting the autographs as keepsakes and gifts, etc.

Congress

We have seen the strength and role of the party in the legislature increase recently, as the cleavages between the two major parties have widened, parties have become more homogenous and unified. This can be partly explained by the disappearance of the Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans, many of whom have switched parties or failed to be reelected. Moderates now vote far more in line with their parties, especially on major issues such as the stimulus bill.

As inter-party heterogeneity increases and the majority party becomes more similar, and as intra-party homogeneity increases and the parties become more different from one another, the majority leaders can pursue policies that are further from the center as they have stronger party backing in the House. The stronger the party in the legislature, the closer policy will be to their end of the interest spectrum.

With unified government under the Democrats, I think the role of the Republican (minority) party is to attempt to persuade peoples’ desires and feelings about current government so that they can attempt to win back seats from the Democrats and hopefully take a majority in Congress again. Of course the number one goal of the individuals in the party is to win reelection, so they need to continue to appeal to voters in core Republican areas to at least hold those seats.

By unifying as a party to represent and defend core Republican values, the minority party can show its force and possible power, so that if things don’t work out for the majority party, their policies aren’t effective quick enough etc., voters will know there are other choices than the current government and that there’s a possibility to go on a different course. The Republicans in Congress right now need to show up to work to show their unity and strength, to hopefully win a majority again. They have done this on the voting for the stimulus package because of the nature of the legislation; although there’s really no way to defeat the bill right now, and most probably don’t want to given the economic situation, the Republicans still showed their opposition, and some compromises were made between the parties over certain aspects of the bill.

This relates to the calls for bipartisanship that we often hear: it seems to make sense that in an ideal democracy, the interests of all citizens would attempt to be met. However, parties play an important role in the election of candidates, and those who often deviate from the party are called flip-floppers, etc. Bipartisan compromise is ideal as it potentially pleases more citizens, but the majority party is still going to have more power and is going to try and advance their own causes first.