Missing the point

Ed Kilgore at Democratic Strategist, who has been refreshingly readable in recent years, is back in the old DLC mode today with a silly argument attacking criticism of Obama's perceived move to the center. Basically Kilgore's case comes down to "Obama's not moving to the center, but if he is it's just because he's awesome, SHUT UP ARIANNA HUFFINGTON," and it's not really worth our time. (Especially his dreamy-eyed contention that Obama is a "remarkable man" who can operate outside existing political paradigms, which is startlingly credulous for a man of Kilgore's intellect and experience.) But there's one bit I do want to take issue with, because it's important -- it has to do with concepts of "swing voters." Kilgore writes:

Second of all, as the TDS Roundtable on swing and base voters earlier this year illustrated, there's plenty of disagreement about the definition and nature of "swing voters." They don't necessarily all reside in the ideological "center" of the electorate on every issue, and moreover, "base" voters don't necessarily have inconsistent or antagonistic points of view from "swing voters." The two things that are pretty hard to deny are that (1) undecided "very likely" voters are indeed a disproportionately important electoral prize because winning each of them produces two net votes, and (2) most successful campaigns in a competitive environment manage to energize the partisan base while expanding it into the ranks of independents and even the other party's base. Huffington's horror at swing-voter pandering, and her manifest contempt for swing voters themselves, probably reflects the fashionable but very dubious Lackoffian belief that swing voters are cognitively confused, perhaps even stupid or amoral people who can only be appealed to by an even more strongly expressed partisan "frame."

This is wrong on a very profound level, and it misunderstands both Lakoff and the entire political-strategy argument of the netroots (which Huffington is making a facile version of). If I can arrogantly presume to speak for Lakoffian progressives for a minute -- we don't think that swing voters are confused. We think they don't exist.

Longitudinal research has shown, consistently, that people who claim they are "independent" or "nonpartisan" or whatever overwhelmingly display identical voting patterns to partisan voters. They may not say they're affiliated, but they vote like they are. A few people are out there whose votes regularly switch from Democratic to Republican or vice versa depending on the election in front of them, but there are so few of them that they're politically and statistically insignificant; most are just partisans who won't admit it. What DOES actually define that self-identified nonpartisan group, meanwhile, is that they're predominantly lower-information voters who are much less engaged with the political process and turn out much less frequently. (Which makes sense: the more time you spend following politics, the more likely you are to take a side. It's not that they are "stupid and amoral," and frankly it's rather offensive that Kilgore put those words in Arianna Huffington's mouth. It's only that they're politically disengaged.)

Therefore, outcome-decisive changes over the course of an election, so often assumed by the best analysts to be the product of swing voters changing their minds, are more likely the product of these marginal voters deciding whether or not to vote. (Traditional polls, not being longitudinal, cannot measure this.) Hence a focus on turning out the "base"; there is nobody else to turn out! Of course that's a controversial thesis, and I imagine Kilgore and lots of other people disagree, but it sure makes more sense to me than the alternative (that elections are decided by a tiny cadre of cerebral David Brooksian independents who are somehow engaged in the political process yet fail to identify with a political group).

So even if we grant Kilgore the argument that Obama's not moving to the "center" per se in his pursuit of swing voters, it doesn't matter, because pursuing swing voters at ALL is a wild goose chase. The way to win those valuable marginal votes is to campaign confidently and persuasively, using -- here comes Lakoff -- a cognitive FRAME which can be easily adopted by voters who aren't particularly political in nature. Republicans have done very well since Reagan in establishing their frame (and winning over all kinds of marginal Democrats, both so-called independents and their "Reagan Democrat" cousins, in the process); Democrats are only starting to do so. (I'm beginning to think that Obama's "Change" thing is a good step in that direction, actually, which is for another post.)

From this perspective Obama's movements away from progressivism, then, actually do direct damage to both the Democratic voter coalition and to his own electoral prospects (which are closely tied), by cutting up the party's frame for no damn reason. Hence Arianna Huffington's outrage, and hence the netroots' frustration at those within the party who still (insanely) think nonpartisanship and "triangulation" is a route to victory. Kilgore's total failure to understand this, and to instead treat the argument like he's defending Obama from hordes of raging hippies, is a saddening reminder of how out-of-touch -- how ignorant -- DC-elite centrism is of the way politics works in real life. But what else is new?

Is the Democratic coalition really growing "younger, more affluent, more liberal..."?

(No Sunday Screening tonight; if you really need a fix, here is a satire of Greg Mankiw's economics, here is an emergency broadcast system tornado alert from North Carolina in 2004, and here are a dog and a monkey doing sit-ups. That ought to cover my bases, right?)

Ron Brownstein made the cover of Friday's National Journal with an analysis that argues the Democratic electorate is changing. It's a pretty good piece, and I imagine it'll make the usual rounds (Ross Douthat, often an early adopter, has already linked it with enthusiasm). Except there's a severe methodological problem with Brownstein's analysis that renders it basically moot. Here's the argument:

From New Hampshire to California, and from Arizona to Wisconsin, exit polls from this year's contests show the Democratic coalition evolving in clear and consistent ways since the 2004 primaries that nominated John Kerry. The party is growing younger, more affluent, more liberal, and more heavily tilted toward women, Latinos, and African-Americans.

In the 18 states for which exit polls are available from both 2004 and 2008, the share of the Democratic vote cast by young people has risen, often by substantial margins. Voters earning at least $100,000 annually have also increased their representation in every state for which comparisons are available -- again, usually by big margins. Women's share of the vote has grown in 17 of the 18 states (although generally by smaller increments). In 12 of the states, Latinos have cast a larger percentage of votes, as have the voters who consider themselves liberals. African-Americans have boosted their share in 11 of the 18 states... etc.

OK. Brownstein's analysis is based on comparing the electorates of 2004 and 2008; that's completely apples and oranges. 2004 was basically decided after Dean got stomped in Iowa, save John Edwards' late challenge in February -- whereas 2008 is still competitive, and was a pure toss-up until recently. The environments, particularly the turnout levels, are not even remotely similar!

Brownstein seems to think he's accounted for this problem by using relative shares of the vote (rather than absolute numbers). He writes:

The shifts in the Democratic coalition are particularly striking because they are occurring at the same time that party turnout has increased over 2004 in every state that has voted so far. These groups, in other words, are contributing a larger share of a growing pool. Latinos, for instance, increased their share of the Democratic vote in California from 16 percent in 2004 to 30 percent this year, even amid an overall surge in turnout. ... "The context for these shifts is not just a different distribution but a much larger pie, which makes it more impressive," says Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster unaffiliated in the race.

But this is predicated on the assumption that, in a generic scenario, increased turnout would affect all demographic groups equally. Think for a minute and you'll realize what a silly assumption that is. Some demographics are more likely than others to vote consistently, regardless of the political climate; plus low-information voters (who are more prevalent in particular demographic groups) are likely to turn out in sporadic patterns that have little to do with the political climate or anything else. (I have no idea, BTW, what Geoff Garin is talking about in that quote. It sounds like someone got confused during the interview.)

What are some such groups that don't increase turnout so reliably? Seniors are the most obvious example (they tend to vote with near-perfect regularity); also blue-collar and union workers (who are often turned out to vote by political machines); moderate/"independent" voters, who are usually low-information; and the bottom ends of the education & income scales, which are also heavily low-information. Funny, those are the exact groups that Brownstein claims are losing influence in the party!

Thus the "change in composition" Brownstein's talking about is more illusory than real -- I don't know about the increased share of minority votes, which doesn't track with this model (we can speculate that the identity politics prominent in this race might have to do with it), but the other changes he's pointing out are not functions of realignment. They're functions of turnout inconsistency. And all the implications Brownstein draws from them are consequently hollow.

So when, inevitably, you hear people repeating this canard--

In the Democrats' longtime upscale-downscale divide, these changes are tilting the party away from blue-collar and often gray-haired "beer track" voters toward younger and more affluent "wine track" voters

--remember that, no matter how intuitive it may seem, the evidence does not bear it out and the Democratic Party is not necessarily changing into anything at all.

(Amazingly, this is not the first time I've rapped Ron Brownstein for bad poll analysis -- here's me a year and a half ago accusing him of overvaluing rural voters in the VA and TN senate races, and I believe I was proved at least half right there. He's a gifted and insightful writer, but it seems he really shouldn't be handling polls...)