Has the presidential race been analyzed to death yet? Probably. So I'll stop contributing to it. Except to say one last thing. The import of what Barack Obama achieved in this election cannot be overstated, as regards the Demographcs. Take a look at the exit polls (the NYT has a fun gizmo for you to play with on this,) and you find a few startling things:
Barack obama won men, beating McCain by one point: 49%-48%, but beating him nonetheless. That's something no Democrat except Bill Clinton has done in 20 years, and he did it only once, in 1996, when he got 52 percent of male votes. By contrast, John Kerry got just 44 percent of men. Al Gore got 42.
Obama got 43 percent of white votes, more than any Democrat since Clinton, who got just 39 percent in 1992 but tied Obama at 43 percent in 1996.
John McCain got just 4 percent of the black vote; not surprising, given Obama's historic run, but still less than half of George W. Bush's numbers in both his runs, and the only time a Republican has been in single digits since Ronald Reagan got 9 percent of the black vote in 1984.
McCain managed to get just 37 percent of Hispanics, to Obama's 62 percent. This despite pundits' rumblings that Latinos wouldn't support a Black candidate.
Obama dominated among young voters (18-29), winning 66%-32%. He also won voters 30-44 year olds 52%-46%, and tied McCain among those aged 45-59. McCain did win voters over 60, but not by much: 51%-47%.)
For all the scuttle about less educated voters shunning a black candidate, Obama swept all educational categories, and his biggest numbers, 65%, were among those who did not graduate high school.
And for all the GOP's dirty tricks in Florida, Obama got 78 percent of the Jewish vote, matching the trend of Democrats since Bill Clinton got 80 percent in 1992, and improving on John Kerry.
Obama got 54 percent of Catholics. You were saying, Chris Matthews? No, actually I love Chris Matthews, especially this year. Obama's worst showing was with Protestants (45%) and frequent churchgoers (43%) meaning that fewer evangelicals voted their pocketbooks. Unfortunately for the GOP, evangelicals are not a majority. And Obama did better among Protestants than any Democrat since Jimmy Carter -- five points better than Bill Clinton, 10 points better than card-carrying evangelical Jimm Carter in 1980, and 13-points better than Walter Mondale in 1984.
The GOP has lost the big cities. Obama got 70 percent there, continuing a 20 year trend that only reversed itself in 2004, on post-9/11 fears ginned up by Karl Rove's Bush campaign. Obama also won small cities and suburbs with more than 50 percent of the vote, and he did surprisingly well in small towns and rural America, picking up 45 percent of the votes apiece.
What does all of this mean? For one thing, it means that the Republican Party can no longer expect to win national elections on the basis of guns, god and gays, Reaganomics or appeals to racial animus and fear. They have to prove to wide swaths of America, including ethnic swaths, that they can govern well, and not screw up the country. And they have to demonstrate competence and empathy -- two things that have been in woefully short supply in the GOP in recent years. Democrats won the 2008 election the way FDR won in the 1930s: by asking America to look at the failed corporation that is the government, and hire a better CEO. As someone smart said online, evangelicals have 401Ks too.
Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, demographics, John McCain |
