1952 Primary v. 2008 Primary

The 2008 election is the first election since 1952 that neither the sitting President nor sitting Vice President is in the general election for the Presidency.
Looking back to the 1952 election, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower against Democrat Adlai Stevenson, it was a landslide victory with the Republican Party carrying 39 states and 442 of the electoral votes. This might lead to the question of how 1952 relates back to today’s election that seems like it will be a close one.
The answer is in the Republican nomination compared to the nomination process of the Democrat’s this primary season. Just like 2008, with the primaries being a battle the whole way for the Democrats, with the possibility of it carrying all of the way to the convention, the Republicans in 1952 battled it out all of the way to the convention in Chicago.
The true battle was between Robert A. Taft and Eisenhower. This was Taft’s 3rd election run and he knew full well that this was his last shot and so his supporters knew also that they would have to fight tooth and nail for their last chance at the presidency. Of course, with any such battle in politics there were accusations of cheating across the board. Eisenhower’s camp was accusing Taft of stealing votes from Texas and Georgia by refusing to send delegates who supported Eisenhower to the convention and sending Taft supporters in their place. After this, the Eisenhower camp proposed and got passed the “Fair-play” mandate that stated the pro Taft delegates from Texas and Georgia must be thrown out of the convention and replaced with pro Eisenhower delegates. This took so many delegates away from Taft that he no longer stood a chance.
To give and example of just how bad the blow was Taft’s Presidential dreams here are the numbers of delegates from before and the Fair-play proposition and after. Before Fair-play, the vote was Eisenhower 595 to Taft’s 500. After the proposition, the vote became Eisenhower, 845 delegates, Taft, 280.
Hopefully the Democratic primary will not end with the same kind of controversy, as did the Republican convention of 1952. For right now, we will just have to wait and see. However, it seems very likely that this drawn out battle will have an impact on the Democrat’s battle against McCain in the general election, unlike the election of 1952, where the Republicans swept the election anyway.

Last Blog post: McCain vs Obama

My prediction for the remainder of the 2008 presidential campaign is that the race will be between John McCain (R) and Barack Obama (D). McCain has already received the required number of pledge delegates (The candidate must receive 1,119 out of the 2,380 delegates), so he has been able to begin campaigning for the presidency. The neck- and-neck Democratic competition between Clinton and Obama has reached a point in which Obama’s pledge delegates have an adequate lead over Clinton’s. The Democratic nominee needs 2,025 pledged delegates. In 1984, about 850 super-delegates (considered a “safety valve”) were added. These are leaders in the National Democratic Party and who have a vote at the National Convention. Most people agree that the super-delegates should honor the candidate that their district voted for.

Although Clinton is holding on at this point, analysis of the numbers indicate that she will not get the nomination. There are opinions on both sides of this issue, whether she should withdraw or continue through the remaining six primaries. My personal opinion is that her continued attacks on Obama will hurt him as the nominee in the general election. Some Clinton supporters, such as Lanny Davi, believe she is justified to remain in the race, since it so close and she has a large base of support. Other critics question her motives on why she would risk a Democratic win for personal gain. At this point, most Democrats see the need for the party to come together strongly and create a united campaign against McCain and the Republicans. They need to focus the campaign on the Democratic Party benefits over the Republican platform, instead of highlighting the division in the Democratic Party.

If the race comes down to Obama vs. McCain, I predict it will be close. McCain will have the support of the conservatives and most of the moderates. Obama’s reputation, that of being more liberal than Clinton, will gain him the support of the left, possibly some swing voters and the youth and minority vote. Some of Clinton supporters may switch their alliance to Obama but other more moderate Democrats may likely vote for McCain. John Edward’s supporters would go to Obama, although this is not a large block at this point. The greatest hope for an Obama win would be a large turnout among young voters and minority voters. Unfortunately, with the religious controversy surrounding Obama he will certainly lose the religious vote, which may have been unavoidable anyway.

Studying campaigns and elections from the past and present has given me great insight into campaign tactics and how candidates match the needs of the times. This class has also highlighted how the general public makes voting decisions. It is surprising to learn how little information the general public has on important political issues and positions of the candidates. An example of this was just recently shown on the Jon Stewart show (May 14, 2008), in which voters from West Virginia were interviewed. In the three examples, one woman commented that she could not vote for Obama because she had concerns about dealing with “the other race.” A second woman said she could not vote for a Muslim. The third was tired of “Husseins” and would not vote for “a Hussein.” Obviously, none of these things make sense, but some voters make opinions based on very little information, and then they bring these misconceptions to the polls. As a political science major, I think this course is critical to understand how campaigns and elections work (and often don’t work) in the United States.
David Kennedy
http://www.gopconventionreport.com/
www.uspolitics.about.com/od/2008elections

Elections with Recessions

With every election in history there are major issues to be discussed. Those issues involving war, foreign trade, and economy could be best known as the perfect equation to a recession. With every recession comes a heighten sense of need for change. The efforts of candidates since the first recession of 1797 all the way to the 2008 recession has brought great ideas to the table to bring the economy to stabilize. With 2008 elections going on right now we have a recession involving a barrel of oil being $110, the down turn of the stock market, household mortgages, and a war that has been going on longer than expected. The American people have seen this not just once but multitude of times. The 2008 recession has been discussed of being the top 3 recessions in the United States history. The other recession that has been closely related to the 2008 recession would be the early 1980’s. Where the recession had brought about oil prices that had sky rocketed, inflation caused by post war, unemployment reaching a little over 5%, and the banking crisis that had brought major issues to the table for elections of 1980. Now compared to then there really is not too many issues that are different expect for the time period that the issues were involved around. During the election of Ronald Regan and Jimmy Carter one was the biggest issues Reagan had brought into effect was to address emphasized economic recovery and putting all Americans back to work. He called for fewer government regulations and lower taxes. Now in the 2008 election John McCain has gone about talking about make this economy do a 360 by late 2009 by bring the recession to an end with tax cuts, improvement in unemployment and closing the gap to the end of the war. The recession right now in the United States is difficult to live through but will be changed in the near future with new ideas and polices on the table by whomever becomes the 44th president of the United State of America.

1968 and 2008

1968 and the current election of 2008 have many similarities which lead me to believe it is the most similar election. “Nixon, Humphrey and the Vietnam War”, as titled in our Presidential Campaigns text parallels the ongoing election. The Vietnam War in 1968 was “bitterly dividing the country”, war hawks ‘’supported Johnson’s administration efforts to prevent a North Vietnam takeover of South Vietnam” (Boller 320). The doves protested the war and staged sit-ins and demonstrations. Currently, the Iraq war is playing a significant issue in this election. The democratic nominees, Clinton and Obama are calling for an end to the war and to pull out troops. McCain, on the other hand is against pulling the troops out until the ‘job is done’.

Another similarity between ’68 and ’08 is Nixon and McCain. Nixon made a comeback after being defeated in 1960 by John F. Kennedy and once again in 1964 by Barry Goldwater. In order to gain attention, Nixon tried hard to regain political attention by making speeches, and reaching out to other Republican party officials for friendships (321). McCain ran for nomination in 2000 against Bush and subsequently lost. However since then he has gained momentum, like Nixon, and has shed his “loser’s image” (321).

Another issue that is similar is the ‘tough on crime’ approach that the Conservatives take. Giuliani made many get tough on crime stances during his short-lived campaign and McCain himself takes a tough on terror/crime stance as well. Nixon made use of the law and order issue, he promised to make streets safer and “restore order and respect for law in this country” (324).

In conclusion, the Vietnam and Iraq wars separated the country between doves and hawks and are important backgrounds to the elections.

-Diana Davino

Let No-One Complain of Good Competition

Although this years election so far has been tough, hard fought and down to the nail for the Democrats, let no one utter a word of complaint, but release a breath of relief that Barry Goldwater is not in the election. The election of 1964, Lyndon Johnson against Barry Goldwater, should remind all Americans that a close race between quality candidates is better than a race that includes an extremist who makes a candidacy ending statement each time he opens his mouth. Yes, Hillary had a glitch with the bullets whizzing over head because she was tired, and Obama offended Pennsylvanians in reference to religion and guns, but nothing compares to Barry Goldwater. No other election has seen the use of 'quotemanship' like '64. Goldwater, famous for shooting from the lip, visited areas suffering from depression and attacked legislation which would benefit low employment, he visited St. Petersburg, known for it's aging population, and attacked social security,upon visiting farming towns he attacked farming support, and on Foreign Policy, said he wanted to remove the United States from the United Nations, use "low yield" nuclear weapons against the communists and "lob" one into the Mens room of the Russian Governmental Building. It was no surprise that Johnson took the election in an absolute landslide. So as these Democratic elections draw on, remember that it is only the quality of the candidates that allow it to do so and hopefully it is this close competition that will result in the strongest and most worthy President, not simply one who had less than adequate opposition.

1972 and 2008

The 1972 election was waged on the issue of the Vietnam War, and radicalism. The 2008 election is based on the Iraq War, economy, and social issues. There are many correlations to these two elections even though there is a thirty six year difference between the two. To start out, both elections had many candidates who all had an equal shot in the beginning but dropped out due to failure. Although some of the candidates in 08’ didn’t drop out for reasons such as vehicular manslaughter or for the sake of being shot such as some of the 72’ electorates, they all did burn out in the end. A major correlation in this election is the Iraq War to the Vietnam War. The democratic candidate McGovern was a radicalist who wanted to bring the troops home and was very anti-war. Now although Barrack or Hillary cannot put themselves that far at the end of the spectrum to try to bring in as many moderates, they are still against the war and campaign that they want to bring the troops home and end the Iraq war. McCain was obviously not president in the past election as Nixon was yet, Nixon took on a very easy campaign somewhat as McCain seems to be doing. Since the mudslinging and scandals have been many public on the news with the two democratic candidates, even though the Republican party has looked horrific under Bush, the democrats never cease to show failure and prove that they can always make the other candidate look better. Clinton was found lieing about her trip to Bosnia ad being in a “war zone,” and Barrack’s mentor has found to be anti-American and racist; thus making Senator McCain look very good right now. Although I don’t predict a blowout with McCain winning as Nixon did, I do see McCain splitting Hilary’s votes with Barrack gaining less support because of his race and Muslim roots just as Nixon split the democrats and “McGovernities” votes in 72’.

Justin O'Connor

'92 vs. '08

The elections of 1992 and 2008 have a lot in common with each other when it comes to several different subjects. The first of which is like in 1992, this election year is one in which the Republicans have been in office for a good while and just like in the election of ’92, the economy is once again in the crapper. As we all know when the economy bombs, so does Presidential approval ratings, even though the President doesn’t have much to do with the situation anyway. In 1992 President George H.W. Bush couldn’t say Operation Desert Storm enough to drown out the troubled economy and it seems as if the economy could lead to the Republican Party’s loss again this year.
Americans rank the economy as a more important issue than the “war” in Iraq by a significant margin (30% as stated in one of my previous posts). This is what caused a shift in support in 1992 from Republican to Democrats and may be the cause of the same type of shift in support today. It may be that with problems here at home people forget more about the war as a social issue and focus more on the failing markets here at home. With less focus on the war people feel less threatened, and the more threatened people feel the more conservative people will vote. Being distracted from those “threats” by the economy’s shortcomings could cause people to vote less conservative.
With this in mind it seems as if this year’s main issue during the general election will be the economy. As Bill Clinton said in 1992 “it’s the economy stupid...” could be used as a campaign slogan this year in 2008. It seems as if this year Americans are more concerned with the burst of the housing market bubble and the downfall of our financial markets than they are with the war dragging on in Iraq. Also, the signs of the economy are directly affecting more Americans than the social issues are affecting them. People continue to see the gas prices rise and the markets struggle and the candidates talk about the issue more and more. Like 1992, in 2008, if the war is out of sight, it’s out of mind.
Some other similarities between the elections include the large number of Democratic candidates that ran for the nomination. However, the process for this year’s nomination was much more drawn out than it was in 1992. It will be interesting to see how the general election will play out especially with the economy being such a big issue this year. Also, it will be interesting to see how the war will come into play later on as well.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/02/issue.poll/index.html