Meditations on

Monday, February 22, 2016

Checking in on the presidential primaries

Other than my recent abstract notes on the difficulty of winning modern presidential elections and the glaring fact that neither party has settled on a candidate poised to build a winning coalition and then setting about governing the country, I haven't given as many specific notes recently looking to break down what's happening the two races.

After South Carolina and Nevada on Saturday, both races have come into sharper focus but there's still a lot of media and factional narratives obscuring the reality of what's happening. The popular narrative coming out of Saturday is that you have your likely candidates in Donald Trump for the GOP and Hillary Clinton for the DNC.

I'd like to look just a little bit deeper though:

The Democratic primary


This one is actually going down more or less exactly like I assumed it would. The middle class white voters who were feeling the Bern and looking to sweep the "Democratic Socialist" into office are starting to arrive at that awkward moment when they realize that the result of building the "coalition of the fringes" that elected Barack Obama to consecutive terms as president meant finding candidates that would be palatable to a diverse demographic of voters.

The key to Democrat victories in key states such as Ohio, Virginia, and Florida is turnout from black voters. Sanders went down in flames with this group in Nevada by a 76%-22% margin. This means that Sanders is probably also doomed to lose big in South Carolina and likely also lose his momentum and standing with other Democratic voters.

Sanders' "the system is rigged for the wealthy and powerful against everyday Americans" is one that should theoretically resonate with black voters like it resonates with people in most demographics, but the personality and identity issue is the problem. Black voters have years of trust built up with the Clintons and none with this Jewish socialist from an all-white state.

Since the media loves to frame things with narratives, the easy one to sell papers with over the next few weeks will be Hillary finally bringing things together and winning her inevitable victory due to her strength with minority voters. This was always the truth but it was obscured.

What's been more interesting is how poorly Hillary has done with white Democrats and you wonder how she'll do with moderate white voters in a general election if the GOP nominates someone with broad appeal. Black turnout in South Carolina (she may be winning their votes but are they flocking to the polls) and who her opponent will be should be the focus of the next few weeks.

Then there's the email scandal, frankly it won't necessarily be that beneficial for Clinton if Sanders fades away because that just means that the email scandal has the potential to dominate the Clinton-related headlines once again.

The Republican primary:


I'm going to throw some numbers out there that I think will illustrate what's actually happening in the GOP primary, numbers from back in 1996 when the GOP was trying to find a candidate to cut Bill Clinton's time as president down to just a single term.

Here were the results from the first six Republican primaries:


As a helpful glossary:

Pat Buchanan was/is a nationalist-style conservative and a pre-runner to today's Alt-Right. His major concerns have always been immigration and protecting America's future as a Anglo-American country with Anglo-American values. Sound familiar? He held 25-35% of the votes throughout the early stages which made him a force in a divided field until Bob Dole consolidated mainline Republicans.

Steve Forbes was a successful businessman and fiscal conservative who magically discovered that abortion was evil and that prayer should be allowed in schools just before he ran for president on the Republican ticket. Sound familiar? His appeal ranged wildly based on what state he was in until voters coalesced around Dole.

Alan Keyes was the Ben Carson of the 1996 GOP primary field. An intelligent, well-spoken black Christian with a deep concern for adhering to the constitution who it might have been hoped would help to draw some black voters into the Republican fold.

Lamar Alexander was/is a neo-con with an iffy record on social values issues much like today's Lindsey Graham, Phill Gramm was/is an establishment conservative in the mold of John McCain.

Bob Dole was the eventual winner of the primary, thought it's hard to clearly see his momentum on the chart above and his strength was in his ability to combine moderates with conservatives thanks to a mixed record of being somewhat firm on fiscal issues, more moderate on a few social issues, and a hawkish veteran and hero of WWII.

Here were the results in the general election when Dole squared off against the incumbent Bill Clinton:

There might have been a tie for Dole, or even a victory, against Clinton if not for the fact that the vote was split by populist independent candidate Ross Perot. Perot's thing was a less racially-based variety of Buchanan's message, he talked about protecting American jobs and interests rather than cratering to more globalist interests.

Here's what I'm getting at, Donald Trump is appealing to a faction of the Republican party that has always existed but hasn't always had candidates in the race. For over a decade the Republican party was able to keep these forces at bay with George W who initially had broad appeal to conservatives eager to take back the White House and then when running for re-election he was a war-time president of the sort that populists/nativists are not likely to rise against. John McCain had something similar going for him in that he was a war hero.

Mitt Romney may not have been an appealing option for nationalists but he was running against a liberal black man.

Now this faction has a candidate in the fold again and a very divided field. Trump and his fans would have everyone believe that, when they drop out, he'll get his share of the Jeb Bush/John Kasich/Ben Carson/Ted Cruz voters. What's more likely is that Trump is simply grabbing a share of the country that has always existed but always had a ceiling.

Observing his favorability numbers, which aren't great among Republican voters and are horrible with Democrats and Independents, it's easy to see why Trump would struggle to win more supporters as the GOP field winnows.

In fact, if Kasich and Jeb! had dropped out before South Carolina and all of their voters had rallied behind Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American Senator would have won the state by 40k votes.

Rubio is the classic Republican candidate of the modern era. His devout Catholicism and strong stances on social issues can keep evangelicals within the fold, he's able to articulate and sell an updated vision for the economy that isn't just "tax breaks for the bourgeoisie," and he's hawkish and pro-Israel at a time when tensions are high about radical Islamists and tensions in the Middle East.

The big questions are whether he can coalesce the anti-Trump voters before it's too late (probably) and what happens in a general election if Trump or some other anti-immigration populist runs as a 3rd party candidate? His support of the "gang of eight amnesty" bill really hurts him in this regard.

Ted Cruz was uniquely suited to uniting evangelicals with movement conservatives and anti-immigration forces but he has proven to be thwarted by the fact that the old Buchanan guard is firmly behind Trump and nearly implacably so.

Things really went wrong for Cruz when Marco Rubio slipped up before New Hamsphire, the establishment lane failed to consolidate, and Trump was allowed to rebuild his image as a winner with a major victory. Consecutive setbacks in the first two states likely would have weakened Trump and perhaps Cruz could have picked off some of his supporters but that hasn't worked out.

Another problem, truly the biggest issue for Cruz, is that he simply doesn't have the personality to sell himself as genuine and honest in the face of charges of machiavellian ambition and salesmanship. He comes across as a bit too forced. I suspect that a major reason for his intensely anti-establishment time as a GOP Senator has been to entrench himself as "the most trustworthy conservative" in anticipation of this being a potential flaw in an election. He needed a record and resume to do what he couldn't do through public appearances, sell himself as being a humble, honest type like George W Bush or John McCain.

It didn't work. Now the best Cruz can do is keep on trucking, try to score some victories against Trump across the South and in Texas that prevent the GOP frontrunner from pulling away from everyone with a big lead, and perhaps put himself in position to benefit if something crazy happens or if there's a brokered convention.

For Rubio the path is clear: consolidate the establishment lane and start to win some victories. If he can knock out Kasich in early March and win states like Massachusetts so that the Ohio governor drops out before Michigan and Ohio he should be in great shape. Then it's a matter of winning a war of attrition as a result of Cruz and Trump preventing each other from building a delegate lead, sweeping the winner takes all states like Florida, and then hoping that a prolonged battle makes it less likely that Trump runs as a 3rd party candidate.

Should be interesting, this thing is still far from over. In the meantime:

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