Optimism By Other Means
In this case, mine. I obviously can't scientifically extrapolate from a Washington State primary, but take a look at yesterday's primary results broken down by party (not reported is my overwhelming victory as precinct officer for Precinct 36-1806, and it is an interesting feeling to be surprised by your name on a ballot I assure you). In spite of it's progressive reputation, Washington as a whole is an evenly divided state politically, evenly split in the legislature, in the last presidential election (very tight) and by party registration, until now. But look at that primary, and you're seeing a massive Democratic shift in this state. The Republican statewide candidates are all in big trouble, all considered competitive not long ago. (Bear in mind that you should factor in Washington's first closed primary, and a big FU to the US Supreme Court for that.) Note for your own amusement that Seattle voters passed a school levy on themselves nearly 2-1.
I think it speaks to the energy and motivation of the Democratic base. The campaigns were nothing to sing about, nor for the most part hotly contested. The new closed primary should have had a catastrophic effect on turnout. It did not. It is a fair assumption that at least in Washington State (still a swing state), Democrats will turn out in droves.
posted by JAB at 9:46 AM
6 Comments:
Actually, that's part of the source of the optimism- they HAVE been dropping huge resources into this state, massive money into Nethercutt (Senate) and Rossi (Gov), and a million or so from the Chamber of Commerce in an incredibly dirty hit on Deborah Senn, a fightin' liberal, for attorney general that clearly backfired her into victory over her well known conservative democrat opponent Sidran. Bush ads play here non-stop. Shiny gold bullshit can be effective, but there is an upper limit that at least here appears to have been reached.
Just for fun, look at the results again, and work out a rough formula for the strong statistical causal relationship between seawater and liberalism; the mechanism is clearly lack of salt in interior regions, which interferes with brain areas responsible for curiosity, logic, and compassion. Sort of a political goiter.
It is easy to be an optomist in Seattle; however, much of the disproportionate
Democratic voting is located in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties. Washington is politically a state split in 2. West of the Cascades, it looks very much like solid, Democrate costal states. East of the Cascades, it looks very much like the mid-West, far more conservitave and Republican.
My point here is that attempting to judge the national pulse by what is found in Seattle or even Washington, is likely to bring a hard fall come election time. I am not pessimistic by any means, but having lived in a number of Red states, I have seen what pure, unadulterated Republican zeal looks like. Additionally, the Democrates have always gotten out the vote. That alone won't put us over the top.
54% of Washington STATEWIDE voters went for a Democractic ballot, 36% went for the Republican ballot. Where they were from is not unusual; of course Seattle is far more leftist compared to the east side. But these hugely lopsided statewide primary totals in a state historically evenly divided by party are extremely unusual. If there has been no sea change in what Washington's fundamental politics are, then the strong likelyhood is that Democrats are far more motivated for the general, and will vote in material strength. With a lack of sharply polarizing local events, there's no particular reason to believe that it's limited only to Washington.
Just out of curiosity, I will ask: what did the polls say before the election? Was the lopsidedness a surprise, or was it seen steaming up the viaduct? Again we'll have little basis to generalize to the rest of the country, but if the election and the polls differed by much it will be fun to speculate on why.
Published polling in this primary was fairly scattershot - Murray and Gregoire (Senate and Guv) were both significantly ahead in terms of the general, but both have good name recognition, Murray's incumbent and Gregoire's been AG for 8 years, and have lots of moderate supporters. One shock was the degree to which Gregoire beat Sims, on a challenge from her left. A factor would be how interesting the primary race was - the D side was not a squeaker in statewide races except for the AG contest, which had a lot of interest from the late Chamber of Commerce hit. But who crosses party lines over an AG race when there are governors and senators on the line? There were contested races on both sides, of fair to middling interest. Missing in this race were polarizing initiatives, or freakish neanderthals.
The big race is a very tight contest in the 8th Congressional District, Bellevue and environs, by all rights a seat the popular moderate GOP sheriff, who just nabbed the Green River killer, should win, but is competitive.
Local pundits were certainly surpised by the party breakdown, and were calling the closed primary drive a huge mistake for the GOP; state Ds also backed it, which irked me, but it might have been an excellent move politically, getting Washington voters to self-identify as Democrats.
Published polling in this primary was fairly scattershot - Murray and Gregoire (Senate and Guv) were both significantly ahead in terms of the general, but both have good name recognition, Murray's incumbent and Gregoire's been AG for 8 years, and have lots of moderate supporters. One shock was the degree to which Gregoire beat Sims, on a challenge from her left. A factor would be how interesting the primary race was - the D side was not a squeaker in statewide races except for the AG contest, which had a lot of interest from the late Chamber of Commerce hit. But who crosses party lines over an AG race when there are governors and senators on the line? There were contested races on both sides, of fair to middling interest. Missing in this race were polarizing initiatives, or freakish neanderthals.
The big race is a very tight contest in the 8th Congressional District, Bellevue and environs, by all rights a seat the popular moderate GOP sheriff, who just nabbed the Green River killer, should win, but is competitive.
Local pundits were certainly surpised by the party breakdown, and were calling the closed primary drive a huge mistake for the GOP; state Ds also backed it, which irked me, but it might have been an excellent move politically, getting Washington voters to self-identify as Democrats.
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