The Global, the Regional, and the Tribal in the 2008 Election

The Global, the Regional, and the Tribal in the 2008 Election

Dennis Florig

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

Elections, particularly presidential elections, have many layers of complexity. Several factors affect the outcome of elections: candidates, personalities, parties, ideologies, issues, interests, events, etc. Because presidential elections are complex processes there are many ways to analyze them. This paper will focus on different aspects of identity politics in the 2008 election. Questions of identity are always a central component of American elections, but even more so this year when the first African-American is leading a major party and only the second woman in history is on a major party ticket.

This paper will focus particularly on the main themes of the Obama and McCain campaigns, the global role of the U.S. projected by each campaign, and the responses to the campaigns by various sub-groups of the American people. Because of limitations of time and space not every issue is taken up. For example, the state of the U.S. economy and the candidates stances on economic issues, which certainly will be major factors in this campaign, are not directly dealt with. Because the election is an ongoing process, and because the paper must be delivered before that process is over, the research is by its very nature incomplete and fragmentary. It raises far more questions than it can answer.

Let me also inject a note of methodological caution at the outset. This paper will cite many polls. Polls are only useful if they are done right and interpreted correctly, as a snapshot, one picture of opinion at one point in time, with significant margins of error. But the polls are particularly difficult to interpret this year for two important reasons.

First, it has been long debated among experts whether polls overestimate popular support for African-American candidates. The hypothesis of many pollsters is that some whites are reluctant to appear racist and will report support for black candidates that they in fact will not vote for. This hypothesis was generated from large errors in reported support for black gubernatorial candidates Bradley in California and Wilder in Virginia in the 1980s and 90s, although some experts argue that recent polls on black candidates have proven much more accurate.[1] In addition, professional polls try to weed out results from respondents they estimate will not actually vote. However, turnout in the primaries this year was way above historic averages, leading many to predict this will be the highest turnout election in decades. This also makes the polls hard to interpret.

I. Identity and the Major Themes of the Campaign

Elections can be seen as a series of stories we tell ourselves about who we are as a people. Stories, of course, are not literally true. But they do tell us something about reality. In an election, competing candidates tell competing stories about who they are and what they will do, who Americans are as a people, what America is about as a nation, and where they want to lead the nation. They also try to characterize who their opponent is, what their opponent will do, and why their opponent is not right for America. The candidate whose stories are most compelling usually wins. Of course, different segments of the electorate respond differently to different messages.

Stories take place in a context. The particular historical moment defines a campaign, or more accurately, campaigns must spin compelling tales about the particular challenges the country faces in their time. Candidates’ stories must address and characterize the problems of the times. Both Obama and McCain need to tell convincing stories about the financial crisis the United States faces, the ongoing Terrorism Wars, the cost of gasoline and future energy supplies, and so on.

Elections decide who will govern, so campaigns address issues of governance. But electorates rarely want to be told the truth about who they are and what the nation faces, so politicians rarely tell the people the truth about the difficult choices in coming years. Yet by their words politicians do indicate something about their thinking about upcoming decisions. Especially in the way they criticize current politicians and each other they indicate the things they would prefer not to do.

The story Democrat Barack Obama would like this election to be about is “Change.” For much of the year the front page of his website ran the slogan “Change you can believe in.” Obama knows the country is dissatisfied with the condition it is in and that it blames the Bush administration and the Republican Party for much of the nation’s problems. The country is teetering on the brink of a major recession. The Terrorism Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven far more costly in lives and treasure than the American people were led to believe and the outcomes are as yet unclear. Obama’s most elemental message is “throw the bums out,” that the country needs new leadership. As the first African-American with a real chance to win a presidential election, Obama presents himself as a new phenomenon in American politics, a new voice for a new generation.

http://www.pollingreport.com/gallery.htm#Gsatisfied

The last thing John McCain wants on the voters’ minds on election day is George Bush, the Republican Party, or the past eight years. McCain wants the voters to be thinking about Barack Obama, especially if Obama has the experience to be commander-in-chief and to manage the American economy. The story John McCain wants the election to be about is “I am ready to lead and he is not.”

John McCain has been a highly visible member of the U.S. Senate for more than 20 years. He became well known on the national stage as a leading candidate for president in the Republican primaries of 2000, coming in second to George W. Bush. McCain has remained a prominent national figure since that race, at times sharply criticizing the Bush administration, but at other times offering key support. McCain is also a national hero, shot down in a bombing mission over Vietnam and held in captivity in a prison camp for more than five years. His career as a Navy pilot lends credence to his credentials to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Obama, on the other hand, only burst on the national scene in 2004, giving a fiery keynote speech at the Democratic national convention, and going on to win his first term as U.S. Senator later that year. The doubts about Obama’s readiness to be president are apparent in the polls. In June, 76% of registered voters responded that McCain “has the right experience to be president,” with only 23% disagreeing with that statement. However, only 48% thought Obama has the right experience, with a statistically equivalent 49% responding that he did not.[2]

Of course, perhaps the biggest story of the 2008 campaign is the complex saga of race relations in the U.S. The very fact that African-American Obama won the millions of white votes on his way to victory in the Democratic Party primaries leaves little doubt that the American people have come a long way from the bitter racial polarization of their past. Yet one can hardly ignore the role of race in any American political campaign.

Neither candidate wants to deal with race explicitly, but it provides a pervasive subtext to the campaign. Obama, in seeking to reassure whites that he is not simply the champion of a narrow segment of the populace, downplays his race. The official McCain campaign does not want to appear to be inflaming racial tensions or possibly induce a backlash by playing the race card directly. However, certain grassroots conservative organizations have been spreading rumors with obvious racial content such as Obama is a Muslim or that he is a black nationalist who refuses to salute the American flag, generating literally millions of emails to raise these doubts among white, Latino, and Asian-American voters. And there is little doubt that every attempt by Republican operatives to make the election about personalities or credentials rather than issues subtly alludes to white, Latino, and Asian sense of racial or ethnic difference.

This year the choice of vice presidential running mates has gotten more attention than usual. While it is true that in the end the vast majority of voters end up voting for the “top of the ticket,” the selection of the running mate is the single most important decision a candidate makes in the election year. It sends a message about who the candidate is and who he isn’t, and probably does more to shape voters’ perceptions of the candidate than anything else.

Historically, vice presidents have been chosen for geographical and ideological balance. In the Democratic Party, relatively liberal candidates from the North have usually chosen more moderate Southerners. For example, in 2004 liberal John Kerry from Massachusetts chose John Edwards from North Carolina. John Kennedy, a liberal from Massachusetts, firmly believed that he owed his election to his choice of moderate southerner Lyndon Johnson as his running mate in 1960. In 1980 conservative Republican Ronald Reagan chose his more moderate primary opponent George H. W. Bush. In recent years this geographical and ideological balancing has been less prominent. Southern moderate Bill Clinton chose another southern moderate, Al Gore. Western conservative George W. Bush chose another western conservative, Dick Cheney.

A different kind of balancing can be seen in this year’s selections. Obama has been criticized for his relative youth and lack of experience, especially in foreign policy, so he chose Joe Biden, a 30 year Senate veteran who is head of the key Foreign Relations Committee. Biden was chosen primarily to reassure voters uncertain about Obama’s readiness to lead, to send the message that while Obama will be working for change, he also will be able and willing to draw on experienced hands in the Democratic Party in running the country.

Similarly, John McCain has been characterized by the Democrats as the candidate of a tired, failed old party, out of touch with voters and clinging to power in Washington. With the choice of a fresh, young face, Sarah Palin, McCain tried to steal some of Obama’s thunder as an agent of change, sending the message that he, too, is ready to shake things up in Washington. McCain opens up a new avenue to some moderate women voters who have doubted the Republican Party’s commitment to gender equality. And the Palin nomination also serves the purpose of classical ideological balancing. McCain is not the candidate of the strongly conservative Republican right, but Palin is, helping McCain energize his base and get out the vote. McCain’s choice of Palin is reminiscent of Eisenhower’s choice of Nixon in 1952. In both cases an older, relatively moderate Republican with strong national security credentials chose a nationally unknown conservative popular with the ideologues of the party.

II. The Global

Elections usually turn on domestic issues and personalities, not foreign policy, and the 2008 U.S. election in not likely to be different. However, in the 21^st century no nation is isolated from the effects of global politics, and certainly the policies of the world’s greatest power are a significant factor in the 2008 election. Since the United States took on the position of hegemon of the global system 60 years ago, every presidential candidate has had to deal with how he would handle his constitutional responsibilities of commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces and leader of the “free” world.

There is one story that stands out among all stories that Americans have come to love to hear when it comes to U.S. foreign policy, like a child that has a favorite bedtime story that it wants to hear over and over again. No candidate for president in living history has won the presidency without telling his particular variation on this theme.

Americans want to be told about the greatness of their nation. They want to hear not only that the United States is the most powerful nation in the world, but also that the world looks to the United States for leadership because the U.S. is best model of democratic freedom and economic prosperity. Presidential candidates must appeal to America’s sense of historic mission to literally “save the world,” to the belief that the U.S. is the exceptional nation chosen by God or by history to be “the shining city on a hill” to bring light to a dark world.

John McCain’s advantage in experience is most evident in foreign policy, which reinforces a general advantage Republicans have had on international issues for most of the past 40 years. This Republican advantage is built largely on their image as the party that is “tougher” in dealing with foreign adversaries. The Republicans appeal to the American self-image as savior of the world, the one nation that maintains peace on an anarchic planet. Like the lone sheriff in an old western movie or like Rambo in a more contemporary film, many Americans have bought the story that the U.S. can bring order and justice to the world with decisive use of military force. It is a simple message, one might argue an overly simplistic message, but it has worked time and again in American electoral politics.

This has proven to be the high ground in U.S. foreign policy debate for several generations. That the Republicans hold this ground puts the Democrats at a perennial disadvantage. Democrats have often tried a plausible alternative—that we can be just as tough, but we are more reasonable. However, that has proven to be a difficult message to sell to the American people. The Democrats could adopt the message that tough is counterproductive, that tough leads to foreign policy failures and isolation of the U.S. from its allies and friends around the world. However, this has proven to be even a more difficult message to sell.

The historical Republican advantage is compounded this year by the difference in background and experience of the candidates. Republican nominee John McCain has been a leading voice on U.S. foreign policy in the Senate for more than 20 years. Moreover, before he became a politician he was a career navy pilot, a national hero who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam after being shot down in a bombing mission.

The Democratic nominee Barack Obama, on the other hand, has been in the Senate only four years, and beyond his opposition to the war in Iraq, his foreign policy views are not well known. His prior career as a community organizer and a state legislator do not buttress his foreign policy credentials. His youthful experience living overseas in Indonesia and his father being Kenyan may provide him with a perspective on the wider world that few American presidential candidates have ever had. However, they have proven to be more liabilities than assets in the presidential campaign, as they have given some credence to smear campaigns that Obama is really a Muslim or not solidly “American” enough to be president.

Polls show that more Americans trust McCain than Obama to handle the military and issues of war and peace. 80% think that John McCain can handle well the president’s responsibilities of commander-in-chief, while only 55% feel the same about Obama.[3] In a more recent poll 77% thought McCain was likely to “be an effective commander-in-chief of the military,” with only 60% responding that Obama was likely to be effective in that role.[4] When asked who they would trust more to “make a decision whether or not to send U.S. troops into combat, 53% said McCain, while only 40% said Obama.[5]

However, the advantage on issues of national security is not entirely with the Republicans. The Iraq War has become hugely unpopular and become a liability for the Republican Party. Only 29% of Americans respond positively to the question “Do you think the results of the war with Iraq was worth the loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq or not?,” while 64% say it was not worth it.[6]

Moreover, Americans are aware of the declining respect for the U.S. around the world during the Bush years and put the blame squarely on the Bush administration.[7]

Pew Global Attitudes Project, “America's Image Slips, But Allies Share U.S. Concerns Over Iran, Hamas,” http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=252

http://people-press.org/report/429/america-loss-of-respect

"Do you think George W. Bush's foreign policies have made world leaders more likely to cooperate with the United States, less likely to cooperate, or haven't George W. Bush's foreign policies made much of a difference?"
						.
		More Likely	Less Likely	No Difference	Unsure
		%	%	%	%
	6/26-28/07	10	54	30	6

CBS News. June 26-28, 2007.

http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08.htm

Many Americans may well believe that Democrat Obama is be more in touch with what the world wants from an American president than Republicans Bush or McCain. However, that feeling will probably not prove as important in this election as the feeling that McCain will be “tougher” on foreign enemies. If true, this speaks volumes on America’s identity in a globalizing world.

III. The Regional

The United States has historically been characterized by sharp regional differences, starting out its days as a republic with the southern region with a slave economy and the northern region with a free one. From the early years there was also a profound divide between the relatively settled and urbanized East and the more open and rural West. These differences led to a bitter civil war in the 19^th century. While there has long been an on-going process of homogenization by national and global forces, regional differences are still apparent in U.S. voting patterns. As was demonstrated by the 2000 election, the president is not elected by popular vote, but by the votes of states in the Electoral College. Electoral College results reveal the continuing regional divisions in the U.S.

The standard classification of electoral regions is between Northeast, South, Midwest, and West, as shown on Map 1.

Electoral College results from 1980-2000 show the contemporary regional distribution of party strength at the presidential level. The Northeast is overwhelmingly Democratic, the South is overwhelmingly Republican, the Midwest leans Democratic, and the West is Republican except for the states on the Pacific coast.

The 2004 election fit the same trend, actually strengthening the pattern.

University of Michigan, Cartogram of 2004 Electoral College, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

A second map of the 2004 election represents more accurately the evenness of the split between the parties by apportioning the size of the state based on its population rather than its real territory.

University of Michigan, Cartogram of 2004 Electoral College, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

Interesting things are revealed when Electoral College maps are juxtaposed with a map of population density, which serves as a rough measure of urbanization.

Generally, the more urban the state, the more Democratic it is. There are several dimensions to this urban-Democratic connection. Urban areas contain higher concentrations of blacks and Latinos who are more likely to vote Democratic. There is also a self-selection process going on. People with conservative values generally prefer to live in rural areas, people with less traditional life styles generally prefer to live in urban areas.

The one exception to the tendency for more urbanized states to be more Democratic is found in the South. “Southernness” seems to be an independent regional variable that makes moderately urbanized southern states more Republican than otherwise would be expected. Southerners tend to be more politically and socially conservative, even accounting for factors like race, ethnicity, social class, and levels of urbanization.

IV. The Tribal

http://www.pollingreport.com/

As always, region will play a role in this campaign. However in 2008 race, ethnicity, gender and generation are more important than ever.

Elections define what the United States is as a nation. Yet there is an old saying in politics: “where you stand depends on where you sit.” Individual voters’ receptivity to different messages about American identity varies widely depending on their own individual identity and experience. Voters look to candidates to try to discover, “Is he like me, is he one of us,” however they might define “us.” If, as is often the case, there is no strong sense of common identity, voters want to know if the candidate “cares about people like me (like us)”? While race is certainly one aspect, it is clearly not the dominant factor. When asked if the candidates “understand the needs and problems of people like yourself,” 60% say Obama does, but only 44% say McCain does.[8] The Republican Party is perceived as so out of touch with the needs and problems of ordinary voters that in 2008 it is more of a liability to be the Republican candidate than to be an African-American candidate.

Race and Ethnicity

Still, since Obama is the first African-American candidate of a major party, race plays a critical role in this election. African-Americans have voted Democratic since the time of FDR and ever more overwhelmingly so since Democratic support for civil rights beginning in the 1960s. Nearly 90% Africa-American support has not been unusual for Democratic presidential candidates in recent years. According to CNN exit polls, Democratic candidate John Kerry got 88% of the black vote in 2004. The interesting question is whether having their candidate leading a major party ticket will lead to an unusually large turnout of African-American voters. Obama is unlikely to be elected without a historically high turnout of African-American voters.

The Latino vote is also historically Democratic, although by not as wide a margin. Typically Democrats get about 2/3 of the Latino vote, although in 2004 Bush got a Republican record 44%. Latinos tended to support Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries but polls show them supporting Obama at the roughly 2 to 1 margin that Democrats have historically scored in presidential races. The Obama candidacy raises an interesting question about Latino identity. Do most Latinos identify with Obama as a fellow person of color? Or do most Latinos, in a desire to assimilate with the dominant Anglo culture, feel more affinity with whites than with African-Americans?

However, perhaps the most interesting racial question in this election is what it means to be white in 21^st century America. Is race as central to American identity as it has been through much of American history? How do white voters view Obama? If he is to win, most of Obama’s votes must come from whites. Clearly the primaries showed there are millions of white voters who will support Obama. But is there a wide enough resistance to an African-American candidate among whites to swing the election? If only 4% of white, Latino, and Asian-American voters who would have voted Democratic consciously or unconsciously turn to the Republicans because of Obama’s race, in a close election that could turn a 51%-49% Obama victory into a 51%-49% McCain victory. Or, as is more likely the case, if 8% of those who would have voted Democrat are influenced by Obama’s race to not vote this year, it would have the same 2% swing effect. A recent poll suggests that much racial sentiment can be still be found in the 2008 electorate, and although the actual effect on the vote this year is uncertain this study estimated a 2.5% swing or more.[9]

Gender

By selecting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee, McCain has completely scrambled another central issue of identity in U.S. politics—gender. Historically women tend to be more Democratic than men, with Democrats usually scoring 10 or more points better with women than men. Even though Republicans have won five of the last seven presidential elections, in only one of those has the Republican won the majority of the women’s vote—Ronald Reagan in his reelection landslide way back in 1984.

While the choice of Palin almost certainly causes many undecided and wavering women voters to reassess their view of McCain, as a strong ideological conservative, she is not the most obvious choice to attract women voters. While many women are conservative, the pro-Democratic “gender gap” in American politics is based on the fact that overall women are somewhat more liberal than men on a wide range of issues. In the statistical aggregate, women are more likely to support candidates that support women’s reproductive rights, government aid to working families, and regulation of the private economy. While the choice of Palin should help McCain among women voters, it will interesting to see how much impact the simple fact of her gender will have compared to her positions on issues women care about.

However, while gender was a crucial consideration in choosing Palin, another factor was at least as important—seizing the “change” theme for McCain and thus helping distance McCain from George W. Bush and the last eight disastrous years for Republicans. As was noted in the very beginning of this paper, the American people believe the country is on the wrong track and have given up on George W. Bush. Obama seemed to have the winning theme—bring change to Washington by throwing the Republicans out.

Because of his age and his three decades of association with the Washington Republican establishment, McCain almost had to pick an outside of Washington figure like a governor. But by choosing Palin McCain made a bold, unexpected choice that reinforced his image as a “maverick,” as a man willing to shake up the status quo. His choice had significantly more impact on the campaign than if he had chosen a more staid, safe, established Republican governor. The nomination of Palin seems to achieve two contradictory objectives. Because she is a woman, she gets McCain a new opening to independent, centrist women voters. Yet because she is a strong ideological conservative, Republicans also energizes the religious right, which forms the base of support of the party and which has never before been enthusiastic about McCain.

The choice of Palin does have its risks. Palin has never been on the national stage; she has not proven that she can withstand the scrutiny of her mastery of foreign policy and national issues. Moreover, Democrats might ultimately be successful in making her ideological conservatism an indicator that the Republicans intend to continue pursuing the conservative policies of Bush. However, so far she has proven a significant asset to the ticket.

Generation

There is also a huge generation gap in this election. John McCain is 25 years older than Obama. McCain is not only ideologically but also socially conservative, whereas Obama is hip, a non-traditional candidate. Racial sentiment is stronger among older voters, but not as much of a factor among younger people. Obama’s best age group is 18-25 year olds, McCain’s best age group is 65 and older.

V. Conclusion: Turnout is the Key

If the election were held with only the people who voted in 2004, McCain’s prospects would be dramatically improved. The key to the Obama candidacy is the millions of new voters he registered and turned out in the Democratic primaries and the millions more he hopes to bring to the polls in November. Those who vote for the first time in 2008, either because they are young or because they are the disaffected who haven’t voted recently, are highly likely to vote for Obama. If Obama can deliver on his promise of change in the political system by mobilizing millions of new voters, he will get the chance to try to deliver on his policy promises. If he does not deliver the new voters to the polls, he is unlikely to get the chance to bring his brand of change to Washington.

References

http://www.pollingreport.com/

http://www.pollingreport.com/gallery.htm#Gsatisfied

http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08.htm, CBS News. June 26-28, 2007.

http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08.htm, CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. June 26-29, 2008

http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08.htm, Gallup Poll. Feb. 11-14, 2008.

Fournier, Ron and Trevor Thompson, “Poll: Racial Views Steer Some White Dems Away from Obama,” http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-obama-race, Associated Press-Yahoo News Poll.

Frankovic, Kathy, “Does Race Skew Polling,” http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/19/opinion/pollpositions/main4460584.shtml?source=RSS&attr=_4460584

Pew Global Attitudes Project, “America's Image Slips, But Allies Share U.S. Concerns Over Iran, Hamas,” http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=252

Pew Research Center for People and the Press, “More See America's Loss of Global Respect as Major Problem,” http://people-press.org/report/429/america-loss-of-respect

University of Michigan, Cartogram of 2004 Electoral College, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

[2] pollingreport.com, http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08.htm,CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. June 26-29, 2008

[3] pollingreport.com, http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08.htm,CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. June 26-29, 2008

[4] pollingreport.com, http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08.htm, CBS News Poll. Sept. 1-3, 2008.

[5] pollingreport.com, http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08.htm, USA Today/Gallup Poll. June 15-19, 2008.

[6] pollingreport.com, http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08.htm, CBS News Poll. March 15-17, 2008.

7 Pew Global Attitudes Project, “America's Image Slips, But Allies Share U.S. Concerns Over Iran, Hamas,” http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=252 and Pew Research Center for People and the Press, “More See America's Loss of Global Respect as Major Problem,” http://people-press.org/report/429/america-loss-of-respect

[8] pollingreport.com, http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08.htm, CBS News Poll. Sept. 1-3, 2008.

[9] Fournier, Ron and Trevor Thompson, “Poll: Racial Views Steer Some White Dems Away from Obama,” http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-obama-race, Associated Press-Yahoo News Poll.