Turnout and the primaries
I’m one of those people who takes voting very seriously, so much so that I think I’ve voted in every general election and midterm as well. The only ones I’ve ever skipped are the off-years with just the very local candidates who are mostly running unopposed, or who are shoe-ins. I also have voted regularly in primaries or caucuses, at least when I’ve lived in states where they’re held.
And all of this was true even before I became so political. My attitude has been that voting is a great and solemn privilege, one people have died to protect, and that if you don’t vote you don’t get to complain about the results.
And it was complaining that I mostly engaged in, because in my voting life only three presidents I’d voted for got elected. This is not necessarily a record of which I’m inordinately proud, but we’re talking about Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush’s second term. But that’s not to say that any of the members of this particular triumvirate were my first choices as their party’s nominee, or that I unequivocally supported them. I’ve never been all that happy with my choices by the time the general election rolls around, but I vote.
The times I’ve voted in primaries, or imagined what my vote would be in primaries, the choices were often a bit better, mostly because there were more people involved at the start. But a lot of the time they haven’t been so great.
This year is no different, except that the election seems more important and the choices seem a bit worse. But they’ve often (although not always) been fairly bad:
2008: McCain, Romney, Huckabee
2004: Bush was the incumbent
2000: Bush, McCain, Alan Keyes (originally running but early dropouts were the likes of Gary Bauer, Steve Forbes, Orrin Hatch, Lamar Alexander, Elizabeth Dole, John Kasich, and Dan Quayle).
1996: Bob Dole, Pat Buchanan, Steve Forbes
1992: incumbent George H.W. Bush was primaried by Pat Buchanan
1988: VP George H.W. Bush (one of the few VPs running in recent years), Bob Dole, Pat Robertson
1984: no challenge to incumbent Reagan
1980: Reagan, George H.W. Bush, John Anderson (an interesting primary in which Reagan was hugely popular and his nomination a foregone conclusion, based on his showing in 1976 when he primaried incumbent Gerald Ford and did well).
So in quite a few of those years the slates weren’t much better than today. I don’t know what the turnouts were back then, but this year turnout is down even from 2008, despite the extreme importance of this election.
The apathy of the voters in the Republican primaries has surprised me. There’s been an awful lot of shouting in the comments sections of blogs, but when it comes to actual voting, we haven’t gotten all that much.
I know, I know: people are dissatisfied with the slate. I am, too. But as I’ve tried to say here, that’s really no excuse for not voting.
The low turnout has the effect of skewing the election results more to the fringes and/or the extremes. In primaries if only the most fanatical and dedicated tend to come out, then the eventual nominee will reflect that. And though you may think it’s a good thing if that happens—if your favored candidate wins, for example—it can be a very bad thing for the general.
It’s my impression that this year a lot of voters are making choices out of petulance and/or pique. That’s not usually a process that leads to good decisions. Perhaps it’s inevitable right now, when three years of Obama combine with an uninspiring slate of candidates and lingering anger at McCain/2008 to make an electorate that is unusually dispirited and sullen.
But that’s no way to win elections. And winning this election remains very important to most on the right. Perhaps, once this seemingly-endless primary season is over, people will unite behind the eventual nominee. I have my doubts, after all the bitterness, but one can hope—because so far, the person who seems to have gained the most from this primary season has been President Obama.
Actually, I think it’s one of the hallmarks of a free country that you are free NOT to vote, and would encourage people not to give away their votes lightly. I have often deliberately not voted because none of the candidates or parties represented my views (not even close, and my opinions are not particularly extreme). It would smack of arrogance if politicians tried to force me to vote, as if their narrow range of interests within the political bubble represented my own, and as if they were somehow entitled to my vote. I think this ultimately depends on the health of a country’s political system – how well a representative democracy such as ours represents its people – and not voting can be a powerful way to make your point and shake things up if enough people also abstain. That said, it annoys me when (mostly liberals) go on about the country being “divided”, which is their code word for “there are some stubborn people who don’t agree with us”. That is the very thing that gives the voter a degree of choice!
Maybe the low turnout means the electorate is not paying much attention and we’ll start fresh after Labor Day….we can hope!
(Following Neo’s example, I must confess I voted for both McGovern and Carter.)
“…if you don’t vote you don’t get to complain about the results.”
I think you do (get to complain) if the result is immaterial and your complaint is more about the nature of things than the process or candidates. If at some point one becomes reasonably suspicious, never mind convinced, the game is rigged, then not participating is a reasonable recourse and complaining is not only excusable but appropriate.
I am resident in perhaps the most seamlessly corrupt city/county/state extant in these United States (hint: its singular contribution to our present situation is the transparent Obama). It is rare the opportunity I’ve had to vote for anyone who could reasonably be said to have had a chance of winning against any of the mostly Democratic, mostly corrupt, mostly political machine hacks.
There is no reason to reckon I wouldn’t hope for and welcome Obama’s defeat, my longtime disillusion with the GOP and its candidates notwithstanding. I should like very much to see Obama denied another term but not because a Republican victory will stem or reverse the tide of Leftist, Progressive, Croney, authoritarian, statist government — it won’t; it will only accomplish in the longer run what the Democrats desire accomplished in the short.
My problem with Obama is not solely or even primarily the aforementioned litany and his shorter timetable but his disordered personality, which I find not just unsuitable but destructive to the country.
I don’t believe Obama much likes his own(?) country and probably harbors some animus for it. Neither does he much like Britain and has demonstrated the same animus for it. Nor does he much like white people and has said so, though in not so few words or unmissable meaning. His disdain for his own(?) Christianity is, however, unmissable. He can go on about the Sermon on the Mount without ever mentioning the sermonizer’s name — Jesus Christ. He would, speaking at Georgetown, have the Christian symbol covered lest, what? — someone think him a Christian? He has had nicer things to say, and has said them, about islam than it has ever crossed his mind to say about Christianity. No-one, having even just partially assimilated twenty years of the Rev. Wright’s diatribes, can be entirely unscathed and unbent by them. The Great Uniter has disunited, and the rank and disquiet of the disaffected grows. There’s more but this is sufficient for my point.
Obama’s defeat is a consummation devoutly to be wished for, prayed for it, or worked for it, but denying him a second term will have done nothing more than remove a man psychically unfit for high office (a worthy goal). There’s more here than just Obama that defines the country’s problem. What will still remain after he is gone, if he is gone, is some degree of Leftist, Progressive, Croney, authoritarian, statist government — headed, and nurtured, by a Republican, or worse yet, a ‘conservative’ Republican.
The lesser of two evils, may, at some point, become as insupportable as the greater. At some point a miniscule difference isn’t worth bothering about.
I’ve wondered before if we’d get more voters out if there were a “no confidence” or “toss ’em all out” option on the ballot specifically to give voice to that sentiment instead of mere abstinence.
I have serious doubts that the primary turnout is indicative of the eventual general election turnout. First the scorched earth campaign strategy has temporarily reduced turnout. Most of the time primary voters turn out to vote FOR someone not to oppose someone. Second I suspect that there is a very large group of ABO voters on the right and in the middle who don’t care very much who the Republican is but are very committed to showing up in November and vote against Obama.
One thing that may be depressing primary voter turnout is that fewer and fewer people are party members. In Colorado, 31.7% of voters are Democrats; 32.5% Republicans, and 35.0 Unaffiliated. 0.8% are registered with other parties (Libertarian, Green, Constitution, etc)
The low turnout may be a result of people realizing the futility of voting. Zealots and political junkies keep shouting that this is the Most Important Election Ever! Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it is too late.
The most important election ever was the previous one, and the people lost.
George Pal: I’m sorry, but I believe that’s a cop out. I’ve heard it many times before, but one can work to repair the system if you think it’s broken, and still vote for the lesser of the evils. I am a firm believer in voting for the lesser of the evils rather than trusting the Hegelian dialectic to fix things. It usually doesn’t. Nor do revolutions, ordinarily, with just a couple of exceptions (most of the better ones more in the nature of revolts than revolutions).
Change more often occurs by increments. The left certainly knows that. The right doesn’t, IMHO. The left has been patient in recent decades, and they’re reaped the rewards in the Gramscian march through the institutions. The right is no longer patient, and that’s a part of the problem.
“The right is no longer patient”
…tangentially, is it worth being patient when there are clear and present problems? Sure, you need to be committed to the long run, but what if you need to fix things in short order?
Tesh: then you need to do both—the short haul and the long.
But not give up and hope that some backlash revolution will come and fix everything if you don’t vote and things get even worse as a result. I see that mentality all over the place (not that George Pal was advocating that, but many people have).
I fail to see how not voting fixes anything in the short run or the long.
One could say the right lost *because* it was patient. Accepting the leftish frame and always choosing the lesser evil means never making a solid stand. Republicans are the party of perpetual retreat.
There is at least one alternative to trusting the Hegelian dialectic to produce a “third way” resolution. Why not re-adopt the Constitution of Madison and Jefferson? Go back to the first way. Shed the artifice of right v. left and recognize most of life is not under the purview of the FedGov.
foxmarks: you’re not describing patience, you’re describing abandonment of the goals.
What I’m seeing now is many people who have given up because the way is hard, and they are abandoning the idea of incremental change and hoping for something cataclysmic and catastrophic instead.
The problem with your constitutionalism (or whatever we want to call it) is getting people to agree with you, and actually electing candidates (including legislators) who would implement it, and appoint judges who would as well. How does one do that? One way is through education, but the left has pretty much taken over the educational system. So, you must work for gradual change, just as I said, and in the meantime vote for the most conservative candidate you think can be elected (that’s Buckley’s rule, by the way, and it’s that “you think can be elected” part that’s the catch).
neo: It never feels like one is abandoning goals. In the moment, the lesser evil is always a wise compromise.
We have run the experiment, and too much democracy leads toward tyranny just as the Founders’ warned. Incremental change ratchets in one direction. When the Federal deficit reaches $1.5T, cataclysm is assured.
The best we can hope for is a velvet revolution (or revolt). And that option is never on the ballot, because nobody runs to quietly eliminate their own office.
The apathy of the voters in the Republican primaries has surprised me.
I wouldn’t call it apathy. Disgust is probably more like it.
foxmarks: I disagree.
Not voting for the lesser of two evils allows the greater evil to get into power. Voting for the lesser while working for more transformative change is possible; the two are hardly mutually exclusive. But allowing the greater evil to get into power through inaction has a much greater chance of making it far more difficult to change things for the better, depending on how tyrannical that greater evil decides to become.
To allow the greater evil to get into power in hopes of triggering a revolution over which you will ultimately have no control whatsoever (including whether it will be “velvet” or not) is a very bad idea, IMHO. It doesn’t usually go well at all.
rickl: you know, I’m really getting tired of all this “disgust.” I have said from the beginning that I don’t like this field, but I refuse to succumb to apathy or disgust. My rather lengthy list of Republican primary candidates from other years was designed to help people see that there is nothing all that especially disgusting about this years’ candidates compared to many other years. And if you’ve disgusted with almost all the choices in almost all the years, then vote for the one that’s least disgusting and work to encourage better candidates to enter the fray, as well as to to educate the electorate about conservative principles.
Neo-neocon:
It does sound like a cop out and under any scenario but the present one I’d agree it is. But there is something monumentally amiss in the country and the West in general.
It was the Left’s patience, and the center’s insensitivity to increments that has got us where we are. Broke is only broke but $13 trillion of debt looking at $25 trillion in the near future is ominous. Whoever would attempt to fix what ails us will not have the luxury of time and small increments. Look only as far as Greece to see what happens when time and money run out and the banks call in what you owe them and the government insists you pay.
The next honest politician will be the one who says Medicaid, Medicare, SS, must all be drastically cut along with many other program because we haven’t any money and thereby have no choice. I would definitely vote for him but he will not win his own primary.
foxmarks & neo : The apathy in the primaries hasn’t surprised me at all. Especially among Tea Party supporters. It’s due to the candidates and the ineffectualness of Republicans to articulate and fight for their case. It’s hard to understate how disappointing this slate of candidates is.
What does surprise me is how many people think that you can send some nuanced reasoned message by not voting. How are the candidates and parties supposed to know that you are any different than the apolitical or disinterested uninformed electorate that just stays home?
Foxmark makes a good point though about the percieved futility of voting. I think our country, not just McCain, lost in 2008. Obama has done a tremendous amount of damage in a very short time and set the wheels in motion for much more to come. And the Republicans don’t seem to offer a lot of hope for fixing anything.
Neo makes an excellent point about needing to be in this for the long haul and the importance of education. A lot of people are starting to wake up to the success the left has had in taking over education, the media, and academia.
I think things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. And maybe for generations.
That said, what has amazed me the most so far in this election process is how many otherwise intelligent sounding people think the road to recovery entails letting Obama destroy it. We are somehow going to magically arise from the ashes. It is delusional to think it will be easier to repair things if Obama is given another term.
Neo : I appreciate your optimism and the many cogent arguments you make for staying involved and making the best of less than inspiring choices.
I’ve always thought that people that said there was no difference between the two parties, or that all politicians are crooks, were either crazy or misinformed.
Lately I’ve been wondering if they were more right than I thought. All because of the Republicans reaction to their new Tea Party members. We had the most historic election for the House in decades. Did they welcome them and their mandate? No. They were told to get in line and vote like Boehner told them. And very few stood their ground.
Not many people are going to fight to go to Washington,D.C. to work on losing their power and influence.
These guys have a sweet gig going and they know it. And like you said, while regular citizens were quietly going about their lives the Left has put the finishing touches on their long march.
It’s probably true that Obama’s election was the result of some perfect storm but, it still happened.
As depressing as all that is, yes we need to vote and seek better candidates and talk to others that don’t follow politics.
I AGREE, MANY PEOPLE ARE VOTING OUT OF ANGER.
THE LOW TURNOUT ALSO SHOWS MANY PEOPLE AREN’T VOTING IN THE GP PRIMARIES BECAUSE OF ABO.
All I want for Xmas 2012 is Obama packing up to return to Chicago or Hawaii or Indonesia or Kenya or one of Newt’s moon colonies. That is not a matter of the lesser evil, it is a matter of the greater good.
“”Change more often occurs by increments. The left certainly knows that. The right doesn’t, IMHO. “”
Neo
That’s probably because people of the right aren’t mentally ill to the point of obsession with planning and ordering people’s personal lives years in advance. This is a sickness on the part of modern liberals that will one day be rightfully recognised and identified for the likely horrors it will produce. Just as suredly as we recognise something snapped in a large portion of the 1930’s German citizenry that yielded what we call the holocaust.
Even though I live in a state (Texas) that is safe for Republicans and my vote won’t matter much, I’m gonna vote and let my voice be heard.
I’m also gonna increase my influence by commenting on blogs and Twitter. All of us conservatives here should do that.
This year, I think we need someone badly who understands economics and can address our financial problems. That’s why I still support Romney. I also think that he will be more conservative than people seem to expect when he doesn’t have to deal with MA voters.
Furthermore, I’m, gonna contribute to and work for Republican candidates for Senate seats. We desperately need to control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress.
neo: The last 100+ years of US politics argues against the hypothesis that government can be made smaller and/or less intrusive via small increments.
I choose to remain active and engaged even as I see smoke on the horizon. Actually, I am more engaged in party politics today than I ever imagined I would be. But I do not fault those who look at the same terrain and decide they would rather spend time with their families than wait in line to cast a ballot that contradicts their values and cannot improve their lives.
An intentional non-vote is a valid political statement. There are many ways to influence the shape of society. Voting is a rare and trivial expression compared to daily/weekly fighting the Gramscian hogs at school, in church or in community service. Those who publicly express their values only on election day lack the integrity to judge others’ choices, and are probably more of the problem than the solution.
Ballots are too often used as opiates.
If Obama is given another term, things will get worse, probably much worse. So every conservative has a duty to vote in the next election. Just blocking the appointment of more liberal Supreme Court justices makes that an imperative.
However, if Obama is defeated, whether by Romney, Gingrich or Santorum, what will they be able to accomplish? Little to no meaningful legislation will pass because the democrats in the Senate will block it.
The problems facing this nation, most especially in the economic sphere, require a strong mandate from the American public to successfully address them.
But, no such consensus exists, nor will it as long as liberal policies remain viable, in too much of the public’s mind. The brutal truth is that far too many Americans still think Obama and the dems are offering viable solutions.
And as long as enough people do, the democrats in the Senate have the political cover they need to block any legislation that would address our problems. While the liberal MSM propaganda machine will continue to obfuscate the issues in support of the democrats.
Sorry, but the only thing that is going to disabuse enough people from liberal panaceas is brutal reality.
If a republican should win, it is certain that the democrats and the MSM will blame the republicans for Obama’s deficits, claiming they are Bush’s by default, as Obama inherited the need to correct through further indebtedness…and many people will buy that lie.
So in the 2016 election, it will be back to 2008 with the democrats and MSM claiming that they weren’t given a chance under Obama. Facts and reason be damned.
Yes, if Obama is reelected it will be worse than if he hadn’t been but if the ‘patient’ survives, Obama and the democrats will get much of the blame and that will create a consensus for movement away from liberal policies.
Which is the only thing that is going to revive this country.
Geoffrey Britain : I’m not getting your post. At the beginning you seem to be making the case for voting for Obama but, by the end you seem to suggest it would be better for him to win.
Everyone claiming that the destruction of America is the cure for what ails her is using faulty logic.
The people that buy into the lies of Democrats and their propaganda media aren’t going to wake up just because things get even worse. HELLO. The Dems will just lie more loudly and more outrageously. And those few people that aren’t too stupid to finally figure things out will find that the train already left the station.
There is no way even the best Republican president in 2016 could overcome what he will face with out assuming dictatorial power. (assuming Obama gets more Supreme Court appoints and that over 50% of the public is dependent on the government)
There is a reason why he was so insistent on extending unemployment benefits from 26 to 99 weeks. He knows that the longer benefits incentivize unemployment and that the longer you are unemployed the more likely you are to remain so. This and government run healthcare and doing everything he can to thwart economic recovery is the key to creating a PERMANENT underclass in this country. Then throw in all the class warfare rhetoric to rile them up and make sure they know who to blame.
And you think these poor duped people are going to wake up when a Republican wants to tell him the gravy train has to stop?
“… but if the ‘patient’ survives,”
IMO that is one mighty big if. I firmly believe we have no more than a year to begin steering the ship away from the iceberg. All political discourse is starting to sound like Greek to me.
“An intentional non-vote is a valid political statement.”
When a tree falls in the forest it does make a sound even if no living creature possessing auditory organs is there to hear it. IMO an intentional non-vote is a tree falling in a vacuum and living creatures with auditory organs hear nothing beyond the silence of a vacuum. You might as well intentionally non-vote in a black hole.
neo-neocon Says:
“So, you must work for gradual change”
We have before, we just have to remember where we started (as the underdog and we got this far)… before starting over and compensating for our mistakes… one of the biggies; I think we have to encourage some of our kids / grandkids to go into education, government, and law… to save the country…
“At the beginning you seem to be making the case for voting for Obama but, by the end you seem to suggest it would be better for him to win.” KLSmith
Sorry for not being clearer. I thought my first paragraph clearly established that my view was just the opposite.
Under no circumstances would I vote for Obama. I’d rather cut my throat.
I don’t think it would be ‘better’ for him to win at all. I just pointed out what a winning republican will face upon election and what is needed to turn our ship of state away from the rocks ahead. Don’t shoot the messenger, though I’m open to having a reasoned rebuttal show me where I am in error.
“The people that buy into the lies of Democrats and their propaganda media aren’t going to wake up just because things get even worse. HELLO. The Dems will just lie more loudly and more outrageously. And those few people that aren’t too stupid to finally figure things out will find that the train already left the station.”
The people that currently buy into the lies of the democrats and MSM comprise a solid 30-40% of the American people. And that’s the folks in the middle; (independents, ‘moderate’ democrats & RINO’s). While perhaps another 25% of the American public are committed leftists.
If things get bad enough that “those few people that aren’t too stupid to finally figure things out will find that the train already left the station” it will be too few to prevent consensus.
“you think these poor duped people are going to wake up when a Republican wants to tell him the gravy train has to stop?”
Of course not, which is why a strong mandate and overwhelming consensus is needed.
My point is that such a consensus does not exist in 2012, but that after 4 more years of over-his-pay-grade Obama ‘leadership’… that one may exist in 2016.
My point is that we are slowly sinking into the morass of an all inclusive nanny state and that only great pain is going to awaken us from it. That in my view is demonstrated by the fact that so many still think Obama is doing a good job! Sadly, 20-35% of Americans are drinking the koolaid. And no, I don’t think they’re stupid, just brainwashed by incessant propaganda by the media, academia and other organs of the left.
Until the left’s whole rationale runs up against unyielding reality, no further progress will be made in exposing its intellectual bankruptcy.
Geoffrey Britain : Sorry, my bad. I forgot the “not” as in “not voting for Obama”. Makes a big difference.
Thanks for fine tuning your post. I think we are mostly in agreement except that you and Neo are probably more optimistic than me.
I am unfortunately of the opinion that, if Obama is re-elected, 2016 will be to late. In the sense of living in a country that more resembles Europe. No longer prizing and protecting individual liberty, extreme wealth redistribution and the disincentives it provides, and the alarming totalitarian tendencies.
The reasons I don’t think “…the left’s whole rationale runs up against reality…” is going to happen is twofold. One – what is happening in Europe now. Very few of them seem to want to face reality. And second, were the lessons of communism’s failures learned or even FDR & LBJ?
Obama has set the wheels in motion. That is why he spent 2yrs getting healthcare passed. Why he risked losing Congress and ignored the public. He knew that people like “free stuff” and they really don’t like having it taken away from them. I agree with Mark Steyn that nothing will more fundamentally change the relationship between the citizenry and their government.
I guess you probably know that it only took 5 yrs for Peron to “fundamentally trasform” Argentina.
I’m not that optimistic KL, that’s why I said, “if we survive”. And I suspect neo’s not unaware of how close to the cliff’s edge this country is, nor how easily we might fall off that cliff.
2016 may well be too late to avoid full nanny statehood but I’d point out that Europe provides proof that socialism is unsustainable. Their whole house of cards is going to collapse, they’re teetering on the edge of Thatcher’s aphorism; “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money to spend”
They and we, are going to learn a brutal lesson in living beyond our means by implementing socialism; “Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn. “ C.S. Lewis
“I guess you probably know that it only took 5 yrs for Peron to “fundamentally transform” Argentina.”
Studied Peron in college; Latin American history, the prof. claimed he was the “most successful dictator in history” and made a hell of a case for it 🙂
Of course, we’d all rather avoid becoming another Argentina but they survived and so will we.
I thought of one positive thing tonight. (assuming the world doesn’t end in the next 4 years) but I don’t see what would be termed a
“rising star” on the Democrat side after Obama.
Biden, heck no. The crop that ran last time. Well, Kucinich may run again, but he’ll do no better. Hillary, after 4 more years. I don’t think so.
Unknowns and has beens.
[sigh!] I’m beginning to think foxmarks is right – 2012 may be too late, let alone 2016. I’ve been pretty discouraged and disgusted at all the “shouting in the blog comments” – way, way too emotive and insult driven, really lacking in factual reasonings. This is one of the few places where intelligent rational discourse on the candidates can be found and I appreciate all Neo’s efforts to keep it on that level.
Seems like part of the problem is that folks keep looking for a political “savior” and keep finding humans instead. I agree with Neo, in that I don’t think its the line up of candidates that’s so different now. I think it’s the perception of the situation and the increased desperation of the voters.
I simply don’t understand why people choose to sit out an election (particularly a presidential election) or vote third party.
It’s a fact that the candidate of one of the two major parties will be elected.
Therefore, as Neo says, Not voting for the lesser of two evils allows the greater evil to get into (or in this case stay in) power.
It really is that simple, and this year the choices are particularly stark.
Parker: That’s why I usually write in “Daffy Duck” or “SpongeBob SquarePants”. I want my non-vote registered.
I keep looking for the small government guy. So I’m voting Paul in the primary and Libertarian in the general.
My other choices left or right are statists.