1. What Could Have Made the Election Closer?

Today’s Ezine topic is the second of three. Under discussion is how Democrats appealed to Independent voters in order to win the 2008 Presidential election.

By now you have read any number of post mortem’s on the election. Most of them focus on the impact of selecting Governor Palin and the financial meltdown. While accurate, these assessments take a short term view. If Republicans are truly looking for what they could have done differently to win in 2008, then they need to go back to at least 2005.

Five events and a trend caused moderate independent voters to wish for a “do-over” button for the November 2004 election. First was the March 2005 Terri Schiavo controversy. The willingness of the Republican Party to use its control over government to intervene in a private family matter was both eye opening and horrifying to those who valued freedom from government interference in their private lives. The controversy raised concerns over whether this country was drifting towards Theocracy and a significant portion of the electorate wanted nothing to do with that drift.

Second was the attempt to privatize Social Security. Americans smelled an attempt to do something to benefit Wall Street fat cats at their expense and rejected the proposal. In light of the recent financial collapse, that rejection can be seen as extremely wise.

Third was the Aug/Sep 2005 handling of Katrina. Regardless of which party is in power, Americans expect an event like Katrina to be handled with resolve and professionalism. The response to Katrina, rightly or wrongly, left many Americans with the perception of an incompetent Bush Administration staffed by Republicans. Having your party’s name associated with a term like incompetence is not beneficial at election time.

The trend of a deteriorating situation in Iraq was another worrisome aspect of the Bush Administration knawing at American Independent voters. The trend was causing the ranks of voters declaring themselves as Independents to swell and the approval ratings of the Bush Administration to go down. Much has been written of why Iraq deteriorated, but the bottom line is the reasons for the deterioration have everything to do with the poor strategic and policy decisions of the Bush Administration, not with the forces doing the fighting. Once again, Independent voters associated Republican with incompetence.

The pivotal fourth event was the trial and conviction of Scooter Libby in March 2007. This event demonstrated to Americans how badly they had been misled by the Bush Administration in general (and by the office of Vice President Cheney in particular) about the justification for the Iraq War. The Republican reaction to this event was to close ranks and push Cheney as far out of public view as possible. Much more should have been done.

Republicans could have saved themselves by overtly and publically taking action to replace Cheney. Readers of this column will want to refer to A Modern Day Version of the Little Boy Who Cried Wolf. That offering provides the detail on the response more likely to have moved Independent voters back into favoring Republicans.

As it was, closing ranks around Cheney solidified the view of Independents about Republicans. That view was of a party whose loyalty was strictly to partisanship rather than the welfare of the country as a whole. As such, that view also solidified the opposition of a significant portion of Independents towards Republicans. Indeed, that view probably caused more Independents than ever to be opposed to Republicans.

Event number five, the icing on the cake, was the summer 2007 failure to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Was the bill offered a poor bill with many flaws? Absolutely, but why wasn’t a better effort made to craft a better bill and get the better bill passed? Whatever the answers to those questions, Republican Immigration Policies contributed to 66% of Hispanics voting for Obama over McCain in the 2008 election. (See the following: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/07/barack-obama-south-west-hispanic) 

Why did Republicans behave with such recklessness and what do they need to do now?

That’s the topic for next week.

P.S. This history should be a cautionary tale to Democrats. Don’t be too full of yourselves in the aftermath of an election and move too quickly on an agenda the moderate center will not support. Your priority should be to demonstrate competence in governance. Demonstrated competence earns you the right to expand your agenda.

2. Updates on Real Spit

Sam Hunter, the host of Real Spit, had several developments of note this week. First, his show will start appearing on the local NBC affiliate in Omaha beginning in January 2009, rather than in September. Sam appeared on Tom Becka’s Radio show this past Wednesday, Nov 12, and did an outstanding job. I’ll have a posting from Sam on the Blog shortly with his personal reaction to the outcome of the election. Finally, we taped two new episodes Wednesday night and they should begin airing November 19 on Channel 109 in Omaha. Sam also has clips posted on YouTube. Search under Hunter7979.