2004 Election - Introduction

2004 Presidential Election
Introduction

Peter Berger: The past is malleable & flexible, changing as our recollection interprets & re-explains what has happened.

Thomas Carlyle: History, a distillation of rumour.

E.L. Doctorow: History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.

Edward Gibbon: I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, & that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.

John Lubbock: What we see depends mainly on what we look for.

George Santayana: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Mark Twain: A historian who would convey the truth must lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters; otherwise his reader would not be able to see it.

Paul Valery: History is the science of what never happens twice.

Kurt Vonnegut: History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.

George Mikos: We are our DNA; our DNA is life’s history. We can no more escape the confining, driving forces of history than we can escape our DNA.

George Mikos: Political victories & defeats are both fleeting. The same can’t be said for paradigm shifts.

Damn. Is history a guide, or isn't it? Oh, screw it. Time to frame the 2004 Presidential election historically.

Hard Leftists are desperate. Since WWII, they can tout only 2 liberal Presidents: Truman & LBJ.

Yes, FDR was a liberal. Sometimes it seems that FDR sired not only the father of the father of today’s liberals, but also today’s liberals themselves.

Truman was a liberal. His Fair Deal was the New Deal by another name. He desegregated the Armed Forces, banned racial discrimination in gov’t hiring, & established the Committee on Civil Rights. Although a strong proponent of gov’t reform, he advocated a strong fed’l gov’t: "Our job is to make every Government activity that now exists work efficiently ... It is not our function to say whether it should exist or not, but it is our function to see if we cannot make it work better." If your enemies define you (ie, you’re who they’re not), then the staunch, classic conservatives who strove to undo the New Deal & who battled Truman demarked Truman’s liberalism. Truman won this war: “There isn't any use endeavoring to put the operations of the Government back to twenty rears ago for it simply won't go."

Adlai Stevenson was an egg-headed liberal. He lost.

JFK was a moderate. Would any Hard Leftist consider JFK’s memorable accomplishments as templating core, contemporary Hard Leftist issues? Contrast JFK’s modest efforts vis-à-vis civil rights versus his immodest efforts vis-à-vis the Cold War. In any case, JFK was a fiscal conservative. We’ve had 3 tax-cutter Presidents: JFK, Reagan, & Bush II. It was JFK who said, "A rising tide lifts all boats." From his December 14^th, 1962 Address to the Economic Club of New York:

The final & best means of strengthening demand among consumers & business is to reduce the burden on private income & the deterrents to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system — & this administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal & corporate income taxes to be enacted & become effective in 1963.

I'm not talking about a "quickie" or a temporary tax cut, which would be more appropriate if a recession were imminent. Nor am I talking about giving the economy a mere shot in the arm, to ease some temporary complaint. I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last five years that our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal & business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, & risk-taking (Emphasis mine). In short, to increase demand & lift the economy, the federal government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives & opportunities for private expenditures.

LBJ was a liberal. He won. However, his landslide victory had little to do with him, & everything to do with the JFK legacy. Any Democrat would have won in 1964, including even John Kerry. LBJ’s Great Society was the New Deal & the Fair Deal by another name. It was every bit as far-reaching & impactive as the New Deal. What LBJ accomplished in 1965 matched what FDR accomplished in 1935.

Hubert Humphrey was a classic liberal. He lost.

George McGovern was the Grandfather of Hard Leftism. He lost.

Carter was a conservative-appearing Southern Governor. He won, but barely defeated a candidate who could never have won the Presidential nomination via the primary process. Reagan landslided Carter.

Walter Mondale was a classic liberal. He lost.

Michael Dukakis was a classic liberal. He lost.

Clinton was a conservative-appearing Southern Governor. He won for 2 reasons: (1) He duped voters into believing he was a conservative; & (2) Perot handed him the election. When Clinton outed himself & governed as a liberal his 1^st 2 years, the voters resoundingly rejected his liberalism & gave Republicans control of Congress in 1994 for the 1^st time in 40 years. After 1994, Clinton governed as a moderate conservative. The voters rewarded him for this/his wise choice in 1996

Gore campaigned as a centrist. He almost won.

So, LBJ was the last liberal elected President, a chasmous 40 years ago. Not a good record, Hard Leftists.

LBJ’s 1964 election victory was a resounding triumph for liberalism. The Educate The USA Web site describes the extent of that victory in its LBJ bio:

The decisions reached by the Republicans in their national convention helped Johnson achieve the kind of victory he desired. Breaking with their practices of the recent past, they nominated a presidential candidate who disagreed fundamentally with the basic domestic & foreign policies developed during the preceding generation. Sen. Barry Goldwater was highly critical of the large role that the federal government had come to play in social & economic affairs, including race relations, & of the emphasis in the nation's foreign policy upon merely containing Communist expansion. He advocated a bolder, more ambitious foreign policy. In addition, he raised doubts about the moral quality of American life & suggested that Johnson & his administration contributed to this moral decay. Johnson, in response, pictured Goldwater as a dangerous radical who intended to destroy beneficial programs created by both parties & threatened to lead the world into war.

Johnson hoped for a victory of landslide proportions. He wanted, among other things, to produce a convincing demonstration of his right to rule, & he worked hard to obtain it… Johnson emerged with more than 60% of the popular vote. He received the electoral votes of all the states except Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, & Goldwater's home state of Arizona.

The Democratic Party in general won a smashing victory, & Johnson faced a very favorable situation when the lawmakers returned to Washington in January 1965. In the Senate, Democrats held 68 of the 100 seats. The party added 37 representatives to its delegation in the House, bringing the total to 295 of the 435 congressmen. Behind these figures lay an even more significant story: the weakening of the conservative bloc & the strengthening of the liberal contingent in the House. In 1964, Congress had been closely divided on the more controversial & liberal measures in Johnson's legislative program; now a clear majority was ready to vote for them (Emphasis mine).

LBJ had 2/3s majorities in both chambers of Congress: 68-32 in the Senate, & 295-140 in the House. My Lord, he had more power than Lola! Enacting the Great Society legislation (and even JFK’s tax cuts) proved trivial. Liberals in 1965 might have surveyed the scene & concluded that conservatism was dead -- & unresurrectable -- & that decades later they still be fine-tuning their successful New Deal; aka, Fair Deal; aka, Great Society.

Today, conservatives own the Presidency & both chambers of Congress. Since LBJ, no liberal Democrat has been elected President (Nixon was a liberal; GW’s expansion of the power, size, & scope of the fed’l gov’t dwarfs anything Clinton did & define him as a near-liberal in domestic affairs, but Nixon & GW don’t count since they’re Republicans). Liberalism is the dreaded “L” word. Kerry deserves some kind of Olympic medal for the speed with which he’s running away from his lifetime record of near-Hard-left liberalism.

What happened? Why are liberals unelectable as President? A partial answer to this intriguing question can be found in the history of Congress since FDR.

The table below (plus the 2 associated graphs) details the Democrat vs Republican Party division in both chambers of Congress since Hoover. You can peruse the raw stats for the Senate by Clicking here, & for the House by Clicking here. In addition to the raw stats, two calculated numbers are given:

1) The split between the numbers of Democrats vs Republicans. A positive number indicates a Democratic majority, & a negative number a Republican one.

2) The gain or loss between biennial elections in the number of seats. A positive number indicates a Democratic gain, & a negative number a Republican one.

Here’s the gauntlet: If you can’t supply some cogent causes for these 13 seismic & tectonic shifts, then you can’t claim to be astute & perspicacious regarding the 2004 election. You can’t. If you don’t understand the history of politics since just before FDR, then you understand nothing.

What jumps out from the data?

1) The graphs are tending Republican.

2) The New Deal, Fair Deal, & Great Society are all moribund. By historical standards, the 5-Congress-control-run the Republicans own in the House of Representatives is unprecedented.

3) While LBJ was the last liberal Democrat elected President, it took longer to deny liberals control of Congress, but deny them we have.

What? Is the country becoming more conservative? Is liberalism dead? Happily, the answers to questions #2 & #3 are both “Yes” (Note: The 1^st question is rhetorical, asshole).

The latest Harris Poll dated February 27, 2004 regarding self-identified party affiliation nails this trend:

Washington may be highly polarized by party but this year’s presidential & Congressional elections are likely to be won by the candidates who win the support of independent & moderate voters. The battle will be won or lost at the center.

Unlike some of the other polls, The Harris Poll finds that the Democrats still retain a small lead over the Republicans in party identification, although it has declined in every decade since the 1970s. Based on over 6,000 interviews conducted by telephone last year, one-third (33%) of all adults "consider themselves" to be Democrats, 28% self-identify as Republicans & 24% as Independents.

However, the average Democratic lead in party identification has fallen from an average of 21 percentage points in the 1970s, eleven percentage points in the 1980s, & seven points in the 1990s to only five points, so far, in the 2000s (Emphasis mine). There is no mistaking the huge change in party affiliation that has taken place over the last 30 years.

Some other polls report that the Democrats & the Republicans are now virtually equal (Ditto). We believe the small differences between their numbers & ours reflect the use of slightly different questions; the trends are very similar.

The Harris poll can’t be dismissed. Their yearly numbers for party affiliation may be off by a percentage point or 3, but the trend they’ve noted is unmistakable.

We’ve tried our best to stop you, Dems, but you keep aborting prospective future Democrats. I guess you’re right: Evolution is a reality, & does work. In this case, however, genes being what they are (ie, children of Democrats have a genetic tendency to become liberals), abortion just might be the chief reason Democratic Party affiliation is falling.

The (PDF file) 2004 Battleground Poll conducted September 7-10, 2003 has this result:

D3. When thinking about politics & government, do you consider yourself to be?

Very conservative               17%
Somewhat conservative       42%
MODERATE                          4%
Somewhat liberal                25%
Very liberal                        10%
UNSURE/DK                         3%

Conservatives = 59%, liberals = 35%. The country’s statistical political center is slightly conservative.

The Battleground poll can’t be dismissed. Inside the Beltway types consider this poll credible since a Democratic & Republican pollster conduct it; ie, their biases meet & cancel each other out, kind of like a proton & anti-proton, or pasta & antipasto.

The aforecited Harris poll affirms this split:

Congress	Serving	Election	Senate					House
Number	Years	Year	Dem	Repub	Other	Split	Gain	Dem	Repub	Other	Split	Gain
72nd	1931-33	1930	47	48	1	-1		216	218	1	-2
73rd	1933-35	1932	59	36	1	23	24	313	117	5	196	198
74th	1935-37	1934	69	25	2	44	21	322	103	10	219	23
75th	1937-39	1936	76	16	4	60	16	334	88	13	246	27
76th	1939-41	1938	69	23	4	46	-14	262	169	4	93	-153
77th	1941-43	1940	66	28	2	38	-8	267	162	6	105	12
78th	1943-45	1942	57	38	1	19	-19	222	209	4	13	-92
79th	1945-47	1944	57	38	1	19	0	242	191	2	51	38
80th	1947-49	1946	45	51		-6	-25	188	246	1	-58	-109
81st	1949-51	1948	54	42		12	18	263	171	1	92	150
82nd	1951-53	1950	49	47		2	-10	235	199	1	36	-56
83rd	1953-55	1952	47	48	1	-1	-3	213	221	1	-8	-44
84th	1955-57	1954	48	47	1	1	2	232	203		29	37
85th	1957-59	1956	49	47		2	1	234	201		33	4
86th	1959-61	1958	65	35		30	28	283	153	1	130	97
87th	1961-63	1960	64	36		28	-2	263	174		89	-41
88th	1963-65	1962	66	34		32	4	259	176		83	-6
89th	1965-67	1964	68	32		36	4	295	140		155	72
90th	1967-69	1966	64	36		28	-8	247	187		60	-95
91st	1969-71	1968	57	43		14	-14	243	192		51	-9
92nd	1971-73	1970	54	44	2	10	-4	255	180		75	24
93rd	1973-75	1972	56	42	2	14	4	242	192	1	50	-25
94th	1975-77	1974	60	38	2	22	8	291	144		147	97
95th	1977-79	1976	61	38	1	23	1	292	143		149	2
96th	1979-81	1978	58	41	1	17	-6	277	150		127	-22
97th	1981-83	1980	46	53	1	-7	-24	242	192	1	50	-77
98th	1983-85	1982	46	54		-8	-1	269	166		103	53
99th	1985-87	1984	47	53		-6	2	253	182		71	-32
100th	1987-89	1986	55	45		10	16	258	177		81	10
101st	1989-91	1988	55	45		10	0	260	175		85	4
102nd	1991-93	1990	56	44		12	2	267	167		100	15
103rd	1993-95	1992	57	43		14	2	258	176	1	82	-18
104th	1995-97	1994	48	52		-4	-18	204	230	1	-26	-108
105th	1997-99	1996	45	55		-10	-6	206	228	1	-22	4
106th	1999-01	1998	45	55		-10	0	211	223	1	-12	10
107th	2001-03	2000	50	50		0	10	212	221	2	-9	3
108th	2003-05	2002	48	51	1	-3	-3	205	229	1	-24	-15

Congress	Serving	Election	Senate					House
Number	Years	Year	Dem	Repub	Other	Split	Gain	Dem	Repub	Other	Split	Gain
73rd	1933-35	1932	59	36	1	23	24	313	117	5	196	198
76th	1939-41	1938	69	23	4	46	-14	262	169	4	93	-153
81st	1949-51	1948	54	42		12	18	263	171	1	92	150
80th	1947-49	1946	45	51		-6	-25	188	246	1	-58	-109
104th	1995-97	1994	48	52		-4	-18	204	230	1	-26	-108
86th	1959-61	1958	65	35		30	28	283	153	1	130	97
94th	1975-77	1974	60	38	2	22	8	291	144		147	97
90th	1967-69	1966	64	36		28	-8	247	187		60	-95
78th	1943-45	1942	57	38	1	19	-19	222	209	4	13	-92
97th	1981-83	1980	46	53	1	-7	-24	242	192	1	50	-77
89th	1965-67	1964	68	32		36	4	295	140		155	72
82nd	1951-53	1950	49	47		2	-10	235	199	1	36	-56
98th	1983-85	1982	46	54		-8	-1	269	166		103	53

	Conservative	Moderate	Liberal
1970s	36	40	18
1980s	38	41	18
1990s	34	40	18
2000s	32	40	18