Election 2004: The Death of Liberalism?

Noel Sheppard

Certainly, one of the key post mortems of Election 2004 is the failure of the exit polling, and the possibility of some bizarre cabal being involved. To be sure, this is clearly a matter that will be discussed extensively in the future. However, potentially much more important is the likelihood that 2004 will be considered as a realigning election.

According to Wikipedia, this is an election “…in which geographic bases of power for each of the two parties [are] significantly altered, resulting in a new political power structure and status quo. It is generally believed that a realigning election happens only after a shift in partisan preferences, though not necessarily policy preferences, among the general populace.” Some of the more notable elections of this kind occurred in 1800 (transfer of power from the Federalists to the Democratic-Republicans), 1824 (split of the Democratic-Republicans), 1860 (creation of the Republican Party), 1932 (creation of the “New Deal” Democrats), and, most recently, Ronald Reagan’s revival of the Republican Party in 1980.

Without question, this current election cycle produced some fascinating statistics that support the concept of it being a realignment. For instance, George W. Bush is the first presidential candidate to win a majority of the votes since 1988. Of course, he accomplished this by receiving the highest number of votes by any presidential candidate in American history. Additionally, Mr. Bush is now the first president since FDR to be reelected whilst increasing a majority position in both houses of Congress. This is also the first time that the Republicans have held a majority in the House for twelve consecutive years since such a period ending in 1933. Lastly, the fact that the Democratic minority leader of the Senate, Tom Daschle (D-SD), became the first leader of either party to lose a reelection bid in fifty years is an extremely ominous event.

Probably, the precursor to this realignment began in 1994 when the Republicans took over the Congress. Although this likely represented a seed change, it cannot be considered a true realignment on its own given the fact that President Clinton won his reelection bid. However, it is quite conceivable that what fostered the eventual realignment is the Democratic Party’s failure to recognize the significance of the mid-90’s Congressional shift, and to properly address it in subsequent elections.

To truly understand this, one likely has to consider the possibility that the Democratic Party has been ignoring American population and demographic shifts for more than two decades. As mentioned in my September 27th column [1], something that has been alluding most Democrats for almost a quarter of a century is the fact that the Baby Boomers are no longer in college. We’ve quite grown up, thank you very much, and, as a result, have mortgages and car payments and future tuitions to pay. As a result, what used to tickle our political fancies no longer does. Clearly, Ronald Reagan recognized this in 1980, hence the creation of the term, “Reagan Democrats” . Yet, for some reason, people like Terry McAuliffe haven’t caught on to this concept.

Potentially one of the other shifts that the Democrats seem to be ignoring in America is the importance of religion to much of the population. A truly stunning finding from the exit polls [2] done on Tuesday is that the most critical issue to voters was Moral Values (22%). Believe it or not, this was ahead of things like the Economy and Jobs (20%), Terrorism (19%), and Iraq (15%). Additionally, 80% of those who felt that Moral Values was the most important facet for a candidate voted for Bush, versus only 18% for Kerry. On this theme, people who are actively religious (attending church or temple regularly) preferred President Bush by a margin of roughly 60% to 40%, with 40% of the population falling into this category. Certainly, it is safe to say that this religious/moral values issue was likely quite minor thirty years ago, and something that might continue to be problematic for the Democrats unless properly reconciled.

Another huge issue for the Democrats illustrated by these exit polls is that Kerry only received 41% of the vote from the 71% of the population that is white. Obviously, it is a tremendous problem for a candidate when he or she can only garner 2/5 support from roughly 3/4 of the electorate. On top of this, Kerry did very poorly amongst the 73% of the population that earns over $30,000 per year. Now, he did extremely well with those who made less, but it is going to be quite a battle to win an election if, for the most part, only poor people are voting for you.

Certainly, what these exit numbers are demonstrating is that, in a lot of respects, the Democratic Party’s values are not coinciding with the ethos of the nation. And, as these morals and mores have likely been changing for several decades, it quite appears that the problem the Democrats have is that they have not been evolving along with the country. In fact, one could draw some conclusions from these polling numbers as well as this rather historic Republican landslide that foretells quite a negative picture of the future of the Democratic Party. Furthermore, it shouldn’t be seen as just coincidental that many of the records matched during this cycle were established during FDR’s reign, for the Democrats are still acting and treating the electorate as if it was 1934 instead of 2004.

Let’s examine this a bit further. As was previously discussed, 1932 was a realigning election inasmuch as the Democratic Party and our nation was transformed by FDR’s New Deal. And, to a large extent, the Democratic Party has been living and dying by these rather liberal precepts ever since. Contrarily, as the economy has largely outgrown the need for such aggressive government involvement - as has the population - it appears that the electorate every election cycle since Reagan won in 1980 has been less and less enthralled with these aging New Deal concepts. Certainly, this was the case in 1994 when the Republicans won back the Congress, and expanded this lead in 1996. Additionally, Mr. Bush’s victory in 2000 over an extremely liberal Vice President was another example, as was the Republicans taking back the Senate in 2002 with a corresponding expansion of their majority in the House.

Strangely, the Democrats’ response to these Conservative Congressional shifts and Al Gore’s loss has been to move their party even further to the Left. For example, when the Republicans won back the Congress in 1994, the Democrats answered by replacing the retiring Senate Majority Leader, George Mitchell, with the extraordinarily liberal Tom Daschle. Then, in 2002 after suffering a huge midterm defeat in a new Conservative wave, the Democrats appointed Nancy Pelosi, the perilously liberal Congresswoman from San Francisco, as House Minority Leader. Of course, the coup de gras was likely nominating the most liberal member of the Senate to run against President Bush two years later.

The net result of these rather pathetic choices by the current Democratic leadership is that as the country moves further and further to the right, they counter by placing more liberal individuals in key leadership positions whilst offering up candidates with an even greater leftist leaning. At the same time, they continue to posit New Deal alternatives for an economy that is expanding rather than deflating, and to an electorate that appears significantly more cognizant of this fact than the elected officials who are asking for their support. And, for all their registration and Get Out The Vote efforts in this cycle, the party affiliation split ended up being tied at 37%. To put that in perspective, this margin was 35% to 29% in favor of the Democrats in 2000. That’s a 27.5% increase in Republican participation in just four years.

The aftermath of all this political negligence is the Democrats now face something that they haven’t in a very, very long time – a second-term Republican President with solid majorities in both Chambers of Congress. Add to this an aging Supreme Court, and you have an extraordinarly powerful equation.

The bottom line here is that the last time an incumbent President had this kind of a victory, his party enjoyed many decades of control and success. In what could end up being an incredible twist of fate, one of the defining moments of the last executive to be in such a position was the creation of Social Security. Wouldn’t it be extraordinary if the very next president to accomplish such an election trifecta happened to finally restructure this entitlement program so that it might survive until the next President is similarly successful?

If the past is any harbinger of the future, the 2004 election might end up being just as significant as one almost two centuries previous with the only difference being that this time, it’s the New Deal Democrats being erased from the political landscape rather than the Federalists. As always, we will know in the fullness of time.

[1] http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=9982
[2] http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

Noel Sheppard is a business owner, economist, and writer residing in Northern California. Noel receives email at slep@danvillebc.com.