You may be wondering... there have been a lot of presidential elections in the US, do any of them closely resemble this one in terms of contributing factors and circumstances? Let's see...
- an incumbent president
- a middle east debacle
- a weak economy
- high gas prices
- a scared electorate
- no legitimate third party candidate
You've got to admit, that sounds similar to 1980 in some respects. The economy was worse then than it is now, mainly because inflation was higher, but unemployment was too. People are more scared now, thanks not only to 9/11 but to the constant harping by the current administration about terrorist threats and lack of any believable headway to curb same.
Unlike when the last two incumbent presidents (Bush 41 and Carter) were ousted, this really is a two person race. Nader and Badnarik together won't add up to Anderson's numbers from 1980, and certainly not to those of Ross Perot from 1992. So it differs strongly from the 1980 race in that respect.
My musings on the subject set my googling fingers a-walkin', and I ran across this article in the Washington Post from September of 2000 (actually, exactly one year to the day before the towers fell). This is the passage that intrigued me:
In 1960, the first Gallup poll conducted in September had Richard Nixon at 47 percent of the vote and John F. Kennedy at 46 percent - a dead heat. "The closeness of that race persisted throughout the fall, and in the end the two candidates were virtually tied in the popular vote, with Kennedy winning by less than 1 percent of the popular vote," Gallup reported.
Two decades later, Carter and Reagan were tied in the first September Gallup poll, 39 percent each. That race generally remained close in polling conducted in September and October, but as the election drew near, Reagan pulled away from Carter and went on to win by a 10-point margin, 51 percent to 41 percent, Gallup analysts wrote.
The 1980 election ended up being a referendum on Carter, who had bad economic numbers, was perceived as weak on foreign policy, and who managed to annoy his base by talking about reinstating the draft. Carter ran into a perfect storm of discontent - it's uncommon for an incumbent to lose in a landslide, but he managed.
Well, there's a lot of discontent this year, too, but Bush has not alienated his base like Carter did...
...in fact, Bush is using the tried and true Karl Rove strategy of
playing to his base. With his train wreck of a presidency, his multiprong approach of consolidating the fundies, driving a wedge with gay marriage and making his opponent out to be a wuss and a traitor are the only reasons he's been able to keep this thing close. This election isn't really like 1980. We're not seeing a gap develop at the polls.
Well, how about the 2000 election, setting aside the issue of incumbency? The polling figures in October were very similar to what they are now, with Bush leading by a few percent. We all know what happened. Is this another 2000?
We need to ask ourselves, how much more motivated are we democrats this year than we were in 2000? Well, from what we've all been reading, a lot more. But the republicans are getting after their base this year too, what matters is the net increase in democratic voters, which we won't know for sure until November 3.
As you've read myraid places by now, the incumbent never gets higher than his closing poll numbers, the challenger will get from 2-4% more, due to the break by undecideds. If we really are significantly out-GOTV'ing republicans, we can expect that number to be at the high end, say 4%. Run this across the state polls and we win all the Gore states, plus: New Hampshire, Florida, Ohio, and maybe Virginia and North Carolina. Significantly, we win Ohio if we even get a smaller bump.
If this plays out, even without Colorado and Nevada, this is a wide electoral margin, exactly what we need to avoid widespread judicial involvement and endless challenges that could threaten the process. If you haven't been convinced that GOTV will make or break this election for us before now, I hope this helped make the case. Take the poll.