Professor
and Director Center for Politics,
University of Virginia
"Overtime: The Election 2000 Thriller"
October 15, 2003
I'm not going to dwell heavily on the 2000 election. I think we have
had more than enough of it over the years. Whoever you were for, and
I don't want to get into another argument over Bush/Gore. Overtime
did cover, in great detail, that election and the recount and the
title implies what we focused on: Overtime. That extraordinary five
and half week period after the election. Was it unprecedented? Of
course not. 1876 is a good example, 1800 when Thomas Jefferson was
elected. There have been other cases of essentially tied elections
or disputed elections at the presidential level and certainly at the
gubernatorial and senatorial level. Nonetheless, in modern times given
the pressures of modern politics there was nothing quite like that.
And for the country's sake, I hope we don't have another one, I hope
people are more decisive. They may or may not be, the individual voter
has no idea what other individual voters are doing. The point is simply
this: If I was to summarize the key piece of research and we went
down to Florida repeatedly and looked at all the hanging chads and
held up the cards and thank goodness they've mainly been preserved,
and these things will be studied forever.
Those of you for Bush will be happy, and those of you for Gore will
be happy. Bush indisputably won the legal count, that is, the counts
of votes that were properly and legally passed. I don't think there's
any real question about it. And a number of studies both by journalists
and academics have suggested that that is the case. Now noticed that
I have said legally and properly cast. If we are talking about human
beings who showed up a the polls, counting absentee voters as well,
human beings, then Al Gore had at least a 40 to 50,000 vote lead in
Florida. That is, at least 40-50,000 more people showed up in absentees
and in election day to vote for Al Gore. In other words, if they had
been better trained civicaly, then their votes would have, at least
many thousands of them, would have been counted and there would be
a different president of the United States today . Now, you may like
that fact or you may not like that fact, and the people sometimes
make the right choice and other times make a terrible choice. It depends
on your point of view and your ideology, but that's the fact, that
is the fact about the 2000 election. People can accept it or not accept
it, but I believe firmly that it's true, and the evidence is overwhelming.
It's overwhelming. Now, that's it for 2000.
Now lets talk, I love the maps that Americans create collectively.
You can tell so much from these electoral maps every four years. And
granted, they are very rough and the count is not precise as we certainly
learned in 2000 and other elections. And states are conglomerations
of massive numbers of people, so you can't say but so much without
good exit poll data and other things, which we didn't really have
in 2000 and 2002 either. Nonetheless, about once a generation, Americans
in making that choice, forge a map that will last a while. This map
is one that will last for awhile, there have been other maps like
that. Certainly the 1932 map lasted for awhile. There were some variations
every 4 years, it wasn't precisely the same map, but it was a map
that lasted. 1986, another good example of a map that lasted for many
cycles to come. Am I predicting that this map is the map you will
see in the election night 2004? I'm not that foolish, it's a year
away and lots of things can happen, but I'll tell you what. The order
of finish for the Republican and the Democrat will be approximately
the order of finish, approximately, in most cases, the order of finish
in the 50 states on election night 2000.
Now why is that? Economics has always been, and always will be, one
of the defining factors of politics and I will be talking about that
in a few moments. But, in modern times, social issues have become
the hot button s of politics that have drive n our politics for better
or ill, we're all tired of hearing of many of them and all the arguments
have been made, they've really been made, if people are listening
we're not going to learn a whole lot more about abortion, gun control
,and gay rights and go right down the list. they've been made. Nonetheless,
they drive people because there is energy there, there is enthusiasm,
positive and negative, there. And people vote on the kind of intense
emotions that these hot button issues make. So the blue states, the
Gore states, are what I call the tolerant states. Now don't get all
itchy and think that it's a bias term because I think that I balance
it well on the red side. I call them the tolerant states because on
those social issues they are in fact tolerant, more liberal, more
progressive -- I try to stay away from the terms liberal and progressive,
they have certain connotations unlike conservative which doesn't seem
to these days, but liberal and progressive have become negative tones
that turn off some voters. So they are tolerant states, and they are
tolerant on all those social issues. The red states, the Bush states,
and Virginia is a red state, is a traditional state. People frequently
come up to me and say, that's a biased term, you're trying to turn
the audience against the red state. No I'm not, I'm from the University
of Virginia. We do things twice here, and it’s a tradition.
Anyway, the traditional. They have traditional social positions on
those issues. Good, bad or indifferent, that's for you to decide.
But I'll tell you one thing, and obviously some of these states should
be hatched. Florida, and new Mexico, and Iowa, and Wisconsin, and
Oregon, and new Hampshire. They were extremely close, so it's not
precise but I'll tell you another way that this map is not representative
of American politics and is not precise. The states represent trees
and rocks and acres, they don’t represent the one commodity
that matters in politics: votes. What would happen if we took this
map, the geographic map, and turned it into the political map of America
as we've done in the center of politics. Well here it is, flip back
to the other map. Look at the little Northeastern Blue corner, the
Gore corner, except for New Hampshire which was very , very close,
basically Gore corner. Now look at the green section, it's really
an enormous part of America since so many votes are concentrated in
the North East, and the South regions of the Rocky Mountain states,
and there's California. You have a few large Midwestern state. What
I always point out to people are the 22 small boxes that you can barely
see on that map. You know, the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Idaho that loom
so large on the geographic map, you can barely see them in the political
map. Well, what does that mean? Why is it important? It's important
because of the electoral college. Because they gain, those small states,
the 22 small boxes, gain enormously from the electoral college. They
get the 2 bonus votes from the senate representation, an d many of
them don't even really deserve one member of the house from population,
but they get it because the constitution says that every state must
have one member in the house of Representatives. You add all that
together and it's a bulge of 30 plus electoral votes, most, not all,
not all, most of the small states are conservative , generally helps
Republicans, but mainly it helps the small states. How many states
does it take to stop an amendment, say to abolish the electoral college,
just thirteen. And believe me, at least 13 of the 22 states are always
going to figure out that its in their best interest to have an electoral
college. So, if abolishing the electoral college is your mission in
life, get a new cause, you are wasting your time.
There are three great predictors of the presidential elections throughout
all of modern American history , and really further back then that.
State of the economy, what about the state of the economy? Is it unemployment,
no it's not about unemployment unless its enormously high and we are
not at that level. We're at about 6.1%, somewhere around there. Even
when you add the families in of the unemployed, you're talking about
12-13% of the population, well that means that 87% of the population
is not directly effected by unemployment. Is there a concern that
they might lose their job in the future, sure, so lets bump that up
to 25%. You sill have 75% unconcerned about unemployment. oh, please,
I know that this is a University community and we are all concerned
about our fellow man and woman, I understand that, but lets get real.
That's now how people vote. What do they vote on? Something much more
self-centered. Whether they have more money or less money than they
had a year ago, or four years ago. The change in per capita or family
income. That's the real driving force on the economy. Do people feel
richer, or do they feel poor? Did they have that wealth effect, which
includes the stock market, or not? That's the key component, and that's
much more of a question mark for 2004. It's unsure what that's going
to be. If I had to guess based on current indicators, I would guess
that the wealth effect would not hurt George Bush, it may even help
him. May, I cannot predict the economy, but given current conditions
and the way things seem to be turning.
War and Peace, here's a great study on human nature. Popular wars
help an incumbent enormously so long as they occur six months from
election day. Ask George Bush the senior about the Persian Gulf War.
Much too early, should have timed it better. Should have asked Saddam
to invade Kuwait sometime in 1992, that might have worked, but those
are the popular wars. Unpopular wars will kill you, as Korea did to
Truman, and as Vietnam did to Johnson. Well, what about peace? Surely
people are grateful for a state of peace when it exists. Nope, it
has almost no effect at all. people take it as somehow the natural
state, if anything more, unfortunately, as the natural state for human
beings. So, we'll see war on terror ongoing, Osama, or Osamabeenforgotten
as they now say, and he'll be remembered again in time for the election.
And of course Saddam Hussein and what's happening in Iraq, and how
much money we're spending to build them a better electoral grid than
we have and all the other things that are becoming factors in our
politics. And the person who designed that 87 billion dollar package
should really be fired from the Bush perspective. It's the dumbest
package I've ever seen from a political perspective. Most of it's
fine, most of it is for the troops and no one is going to argue for
that. but to fit in billions of dollars for a better sewer system
then exists in New York city, and a better electorate grid than the
Northeast has? That was amazing, that was really amazing. You can
defend it on certain foreign policy grants, you can't defend it on
common sense grounds and that's how Americans vote, generally. So
war and peace, we will have to see.
Scandal, we don't have one. It has to be directly connected to the
president. You say, what about the Wilson scandal? Classic Washington
beltway scandal. The reporters are all fluttered and they are excited
about it, because they all know who did it, or they think they know,
and it directly affects their lives. Average Americans couldn't care
less. That's a non factor. The types of scandals that do work are
money scandals that go directly to the president, or personal scandals,
and they don't even work anymore, for the most part. Scandals have
declined as a predictor of presidential and other elections. There
have been 26 presidential elections over the past 100 years, exactly
half of them saw an incumbent party with a significant advantages
among these three predictors, the incumbent party won all 13 races.
8 of them were in landslides. These are wonderful, reliable predictors,
you can do this at home, political analysis. There were 9 elections
where the incumbent party had an overall negative perception among
those three predictors, the incumbent parties lost all nine. There
were obviously three where the factors were essentially tied, one
of them was 2000. And what did you get, a tie in election. what was
the other one, most recent one to 2000? 1960, what did you get, a
tie in election. It's amazing.
Now, what about the actual election. The democratic nominees as of
today, here's the list in order of who is most likely to least likely
to emerge as the nominee (Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, Wesley Clark,
John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Carol Mosely
Braun, Al Sharpton). Things change rapidly, but Howard Dean has gone
from nowhere, as is frequently the case in democratic presidential
nominating politics right, had a whole series of them. Republicans
are really hierarchical, they come from the managerial class, they
pick the person next in line. They almost always do. Bob Dole, wonderful
fella, no one who knows him dislikes him, at least in my experience.
Great sense of humor as people saw first 2-3 days after the election
in November 1996. Terrific guy, but he was 73 years old running for
his first term as president. This was insane, anyone could see that
it was insane. But, the Republicans felt that they owed him the nomination.
He was next in line, and they give it to the next person period. Whoever
is in line. The democrats look to see who is in line, and then they
figure out who they're going to vote for to upset the established
order, because that's what democrats do. You know the old "I
don't belong to no organized party, I'm a democrat," so they
like to look for someone else other than the front runner. Whether
it was John Kerry, I think he was at some time the front runner at
least judging by all the things we normally judge by.
So Dean has just
done remarkably well, he is collecting so much money now, not in
large chunks but in small chunks. It's like Ross Perot used to say,
remember this billionaire said to people, "you want to back
me, you send five dollars. I want you to have some skin in this
game." He was absolutely right, the only thing he was sane
about all year, he said send me five bucks, I want you to have skin
in the game. And, what Howard Dean is doing is remarkable. He is
getting hundreds of thousands of people to have skin in the game,
and they are going to show up, and they are going to vote in the
Iowa Caucuses.
New Hampshire is the one that's tricky, because they've made some
very strange choices. Pat Buchanan, and McCain. They've picked a
series of losers in modern time. So I don't know if New Hampshire
is reliable always that reliable in terms of predicting the winner.
But, Iowa and some of the Caucus states tell you where the energy
and enthusiasm is for the potential nominees. And Dean is number
one. Gephardt , I put him there because of his labor backing and
they produce so many votes. You don't need as much money if you
have labor backing, you can get the votes out, its free labor to
produce labor votes. Wesley Clark is a phenomenon. Very popular
in places like Charlottesville, where democrats think down and think
"who can win, who can win the election," but there aren't
that many places where Democrats sit down and say "who can
win," that's not what a lot of democrats are concerned about.
So we'll see, I'm going to be surprised if he survives because he
has an awful lot of enemies. Some of them keep calling me, telling
me information that I really don't want to win, and it's all going
to come out, and he just has a lot of enemies. People don't like
him, a and, the presidency isn't an entry level job. Maybe it was
when Eisenhower was elected, but a lot of things have changed ,
lot of things have changed. I just don't think he can do it, but
we'll see. Stranger things have happened, I put him at number three.
He's leading the national polls, but the national polls don't matter.
It's the Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina polls. John Kerry,
the biggest disappointment of the campaign, can he come back? I
suppose, but it just hasn't clicked, yet, some people just click
late. Joe Lieberman, too conservative for the democratic electorate,
trying to switch to tax policy to make up his position on Iraq.
I don't think it's going to sell. John Edwards…. if you, uh,
Bill Clinton. Whatever you think of Bill Clinton, he has superb
political judgement and sense. He doesn't always follow through
personally on the good judgement, but he has excellent political
judgment, and he said a year ahead of the nominating battle, "Edwards
has got it all. He's got more going for him than I did." And
Clinton is right, Edwards had it all but what he's done with it
I don’t' know, but he's somewhere between 2-6% and I don't
see how he breaks out of that, I don't see how he does it. Maybe
finishing third in Iowa gives him a pass at New Hampshire, goes
down and wins the state of South Carolina. But, it's one thing to
win the state next to yours, it's another thing to win the majority
of the delegates. The energy and enthusiasm for Dean is not there
for Edwards. Kucinish, Mosley and Al Sharpton…come on.
The real question is who will emerge as the anti-Dean, to battle
Dean in the second half of the primaries? It will all be over in
two months because of the front loading. Gephardt hopes that it's
Gephardt by beating Dean in Iowa. Kerry hopes that he can beat Dean
in New Hampshire so that he can be the anti-Dean. Edwards hopes
that all the rest of them knock themselves out so that he can be
the anti-Dean. Clark hopes that people are going to say "hey,
Clark has the same anti-war position that Dean does, but Clark can
win," so he can become the anti-Dean. I don't know who's going
to become the anti-Dean, it's one of the great imponderables of
the campaign.
Looking at just a few other maps, as we look towards the actual
general election. I told you that the map we saw at the beginning
would essentially be the map we see in 2004. In order of percentages,
if there's a landslide there's going to be a sea of blue or red.
But, you look at the percentages to see the order. Which states
are most likely to switch? Well, the Gore states with the highest
likelihood to go to Bush are, number one, believe it or not, Minnesota.
This is not your father's Minnesota. It is not the Minnesota of
Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mandel. It's a very different Minnesota,
and it's more likely than even New Mexico, which Bush lost only
by 300 and some votes last time, to switch. New Mexico is second,
by the way, then Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon, maybe Pennsylvania. They're
really focusing on it. Bush has visited Pennsylvania more than he
has visited Florida, which should tell you how much he wants Pennsylvania,
which really is the keystone state, Democrats cannot win without
Pennsylvania. There is no way to add up the math. If Bush somehow
carried Pennsylvania that would be the end of the election. Washington
state? Maybe, I doubt it, it would be a landslide.
What
about the reverse? What about the Bush states with the highest likelihood
to go Democratic? West Virginia is the runaway front runner as the
state most likely to switch from Bush to the democrats, and that's
for obvious reasons. It was amazing that Bush carried it, but that
tells you something about Gore. Far more than Tennessee did, West
Virginia. I mean, what democrat can lose West Virginia, for crying
out loud, it's so heavily democratic. But abortion, and the environment,
and this and that, there were so many reasons why, plus he totally
ignored it. Arkansas could easily switched. It was very close last
time. Not just Clark could carry it. You sit Bill Clinton on Arkansas
for two weeks, democrat can carry it. Louisiana, suppose the Democrat
puts John Burrows on the ticket, boom, Louisiana is democratic.
Arizona, new democratic governor very popular there. Nevada, they're
still upset about the nuclear repository there. So you put it all
together and look, this is based on a close race. I cant' tell you
whether it's going to be a close race a year ahead of the election.
But, essentially, Bush has one great advantage he didn't have in
2000, and it's not incumbency. Incumbency cuts both ways presidentially,
anymore. It's the census. He picked up, he was at 271 in 2000, just
one over the 270 needed. Well now he's at 278 with the same states.
So he picked up 7 votes by the census, transferring congressional
seats from the blue states in the northeast and Midwest, to the
southern and western states. Population change, so now, Bush could
lose West Virginia as long as he kept everything else he'd still
win with 273, instead of 271 in 2000. That's the real hidden advantage
in a close race for Bush. And it's all going to be so much fun to
watch.
We don't have
time to go through the senate seats. Flip to the next one, this
next one, I'll just ell ya, unless there's a democratic landslide,
literally a democratic landslide, the Republicans are going to hold
the senate and the house. they are probably going to pick up seats
in both, unless there is a democratic landslide. So, a close democratic
victory for president, or a republican victory of any size for president,
will keep both houses Republican with larger Republican majorities.
How much larger? Not very, a little bit. in the senate, Republicans
will gain anywhere from one to three seats. There's fifty-one, I
think they'll go to fifty-two, as high as fifty-five max. The democratic
seat, really, they've got a chance, good chance in Illinois, fair
chance in Oklahoma, fair chance in Alaska, tiny chance at Pennsylvania.
That's it, there are no other seats that democrats have a chance
at. Republicans, are going to pick up Georgia, it's over, are going
to pick up South Carolina, it's over, North Carolina is about 3/4
over. Florida, it depends on whether Graham runs for reelection
now that he dropped out of the presidential election. south Dakota,
real close. Dashcle is in a 50-50 race with John Hune who lost to
the other democratic senator, Tim Johnson, by just 500 votes in
2002, so it's going to be a real, real close rate.
The house, forget about Texas for a moment, let me show you something.
1992, and this was the map for 40 years, all those blue states had
a majority of democrats in the house of representatives, look at
how few red states there were with a majority of republicans in
the house of representatives. The other states were tied, and Vermont
was of course the people's republic with a socialist representing
them there, that's where Howard Dean is from.
Look at it today, look at the sea of red. Texas automatically turns
red in 2004. Even if the new mapped isn't approved, and if the new
mapped is approved Republicans pick up six or seven, eight seats.
Even without it they're going to pick up a couple and they're going
to take over the Texas delegation. So, I tell you, it's going to
take a strong democratic year, whether it's 2006, 2008, or 10 or
12, I don't know when it is but it will take a strong democratic
year to turn the house of representatives back to the democrats.
My favorite political philosophy, it's not Hobbes, it's not Locke,
they're too depressive, is Ed McMahon. Because Ed McMahon who in
addition, made the most for doing the least, the other being Vana
White, the letter turner, on wheel of fortune. He just sat on the
couch with Johnny Carson saying "you are correct sir,"
and made millions, and that's America. What a great country as I
say. But, in any event, remember he worked for Publisher's Clearing
house for awhile, and what is there slogan: "you can't win
if you don't enter." And that is the essence of politics as
we practice it in America. You cannot win if you don't enter, and
the tragedy is that a majority, a large majority of Americans, don't
enter. They don't have any connection to politics.
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