[lbo-talk] Tea Party: less than meets the eye

[Alan Rudy]

On the one hand, its been three days so most of us are speculating.
On the other hand, the material Marv's pointed to represents some empirical
evidence w/r/t youth as does the desperate efforts Dems made to bring out
their usual blocs - seein' as how it was pretty clear they weren't gonna
come out.  Like Marv, I'd be surprised if - like the reduced participation
of youth who lean Dem who voted for the excitement of Obama - there was also
reduced participation from historically oppressed minorities.
It is surely possible that some voters, perhaps swing independents and some
union members most specifically, sought to punish the party in power but it
strikes me a weird that anyone excited or hopeful about Obama would see
anything in Reps, much less TPers... but then again I'm not a member of
these groups.
I can say, anecdotally, that reading the comments pages on HuffPo, MoveOn,
the NYT and beyond - as well as exchanging notes with mainstream Dems I grew
up with and went to college and grad school with - mainstream Dems are not
pumped about Obama.

On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:


> Alan: "Obama's campaign energized a base and drew the
> middle/swing/independent
> voters in 2008.  His Presidency has disappointed the base, middle, swing
> and
> independents who voted for him and has passively fostered bipartisan"
>
> [WS:] Do you have any empirical evidence of this, as opposed to the
> alternative hypothesis: that voters wanted to "punish" the party in power
> by
> voting for a challenger?  The latter only assumes that if things are going
> south, the electorate will vote against the party in power - which is
> "received wisdom" in policy analysis - the former requires an additional
> assumptions about political preferences of the electorate, which requires
> empirical proof.  Can you cite any?
>
> Wojtek
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 10:37 PM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I don't think any of my arguments necessitate an untapped reservoir of
> > potentially left-leaning voters.
> > If I was unclear, just about everything I've written is rooted in only
> > thinking abotut who votes, who votes for D, for R, for a TP or not at
> all,
> > and when... with only slight variations in the content of the population
> of
> > voters.
> > Obama's campaign energized a base and drew the middle/swing/independent
> > voters in 2008.  His Presidency has disappointed the base, middle, swing
> > and
> > independents who voted for him and has passively fostered bipartisan
> > obstructionism, dissembling Repug pundits and media, and libertarian
> and/or
> > racist Tea Partiers.  This energizes the opposition and depresses
> > proponents
> > indpendent of what the 50-60% of eligible non-voters think.
> > Who cares if Obama's done a lot of press conferences, the press
> conferences
> > are uninteresting, they don't have a clear message and he doesn't come
> off
> > as a man on a mission in them.
> >
> > On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > On Nov 5, 2010, at 10:16 PM, Somebody Somebody wrote:
> > >
> > > > Shane: How stupid can you get? The Dumbos were trashed be their 2008
> > > voters by *not voting*.
> > > >
> > > > Somebody: Both you and Alan seem to subscribe to the view that
> there's
> > a
> > > vast reserve army of nonvoters silently waiting to be mobilized by a
> true
> > > left-wing leader. I wish that this were true, but I prefer to stick to
> > the
> > > empirical data rather than to what's ideologically comfortable.
> > >
> > > This year's voters were whiter, righter, and older than the last crop,
> > > there's no doubt about that. I agree about the untapped reservoir's
> > > essential nonexistence though.
> > >
> > > Doug
> > > ___________________________________
> > > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > *********************************************************
> > Alan P. Rudy
> > Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
> > Central Michigan University
> > 124 Anspach Hall
> > Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
> > 517-881-6319
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

-- 
*********************************************************
Alan P. Rudy
Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
Central Michigan University
124 Anspach Hall
Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
517-881-6319