It’s The Turnout, Dummy!

Do you remember voting on November 4, 2008? I sure do. That was the day my name was on the ballot as a candidate for the Richmond City school board. It was my first (and probably last) time as a candidate and I intended to make the most of it. I got up early to get to the polls before they opened so I could vote early and then do some last minute electioneering. I live in Richmond’s precinct 402, which votes at the Forest Hill Presbyterian Church. Guess what? I did not get to vote early. When I arrived at the intersection of Forest Hill Avenue and W. 44th Street it was 5:45 AM. I saw a huge line of voters circling around the church parking lot and then proceeding west down Forest Hill Avenue. It looked like the whole neighborhood was out there waiting for the polls to open.

Do you remember voting on November 3, 2009? I do. That day I was covering the 402nd precinct for my friend Betsy Carr (now Delegate Betsy Carr). I got up early to get to the polls and introduce myself to the election workers as the precinct captain. When I arrived at the intersection of Forest Hill and 44th it was pretty quiet; just a few people in line. And it stayed that way for most of the day. The voting line never got outside the doors to the church.

So, what’s this about, beside the memories of a not-so-young man? Well, it’s about all those voters in line in 2008 who found things to do other than voting on Election Day 2009. Those voters won the election for Barack Obama (and lots of other Democrats) in 2008. Those non-voters won the election for Bob McDonnell (and lots of other Republicans) in 2009. And, they did so without leaving the comfort of their own homes.

We in the Commonwealth elect our governors and other state wide officials in the year after the national presidential election. Although this partially immunizes our statewide elections from national trends, it also results in a significant drop in voter turnout in these odd year elections. The smallest turnout drop—from 77.6% to 66.5%, a drop of 11.1%--was from 1988 to 1989. The largest drop—from 74.5% to 40.4%, a drop of 34.1%--was from 2008 to 2009. (Hey, weren’t these the very elections I was talking about above?)

So, from 2008 to 2009 voter turnout in Virginia dropped 34.1%, the largest one year decrease since at least 1976. Why is this significant? It wouldn’t be if the drop in turnout was evenly divided between the two major parties. If the drop in turnout had been 34.1% of those voting Republican and 34.1% of those voting Democratic, then Creigh Deeds, Jody Wagner and Steve Shannon would be the top elected officials of the Commonwealth. However, the drop in turnout was not even close to being even. (At this point, I need to move from turnout percentages to raw numbers. Since we don’t register by party in Virginia we cannot know the turnout percentage by party.)

In 2008, Democrats Obama and Biden drew 1,959,532 votes in the presidential election, the most ever cast for president and vice president in Virginia.* The second most votes ever cast for president and vice president in Virginia was 1,725,005 for Republicans McCain and Palin in the same 2008 election.

A year later, Republican Bob McDonnell received 1,163,651 votes for governor. This was about 560,000 votes less than cast for McCain and Palin the year before. Democrat Creigh Deeds received only 818,950 votes in 2009, a drop of over 1.1 million votes from those cast for Obama and Biden in 2008. (The votes received by Deeds were the lowest for any candidate for governor since the 1997 election.) In percentage terms, Mr. McDonnell received about 33% less votes than the top of the Republican ticket in 2008. Mr. Deeds, however, received about 58% less votes than the top of the Democratic ticket in 2008. Looking at it another way, Creigh Deeds’ drop in votes from those voting Democratic in 2008 was about 540,000 more than Bob McDonnell’s drop in votes from those voting Republican in 2008.

So, dear reader, where were these 540,000 voters (who voted for Obama and Biden in 2008) on November 3, 2009? First, as I pointed out after the 2008 election, it was the Obama campaign that won the election, not the Democratic Party. Dems Heading For A Big Fall? That means that the Obama campaign did not attract a large number of new people who would vote Democratic in the future. Second, the Democratic Party in Virginia was very complacent after the 2008 election. As I pointed out then, the talk was of how easy it was going to be to capture the House of Delegates and make Virginia a fully blue state. Nobody even considered that the Democrats might lose the governorship. Third, the hard fought Democratic primary campaign in the Spring of 2009 produced a lot of anger in the losers that was not dissipated before the election. Further, many of those who voted for Moran or McAuliffe in the primary were personally loyal to either of those two but not necessarily to the Democratic Party.

So what does this mean for the upcoming election? If you voted for President Obama in 2008 but you stayed home last year, you need to remember that you helped elect the current crew in Richmond. If you voted for President Obama in 2008 and you stay home this year, you will assure that the Democrats you elected to the House of Representatives will be one term wonders. You will also assure that President Obama will face a hostile Republican-controlled Congress for the next two years and will have almost no chance of getting any more of his agenda accomplished. It’s up to you because this election will be all about turnout.

My thanks to former Richmond Commonwealth Attorney David Hicks for enlightening me about these turnout issues.


*The most votes ever cast for any candidate in Virginia was 2,369,327 for Mark Warner for United States Senate, also in the 2008 election.

Chutzpah Squared

It has been many months since the maven has issued a chutzpah award. It is often difficult to find someone whose statements or positions are so outrageous and so full of gall that they merit the word chutzpah. But, the time has come for another award. Today the maven’s chutzpah award goes to (drum roll) Senator John McCain of Arizona.

So, you may ask, what has Senator McCain done to merit this highly prestigious award? Precious reader, John McCain has made himself the first presidential nominee in our nation’s history to run against the incumbent president of his own party. After trying to gain the Republican presidential nomination for at least ten years, when he finally achieved that prize John McCain suddenly became the Anti-Republican.

A Republican? Me? Oh no, I’m not a Republican. I’m a Maverick. I know the country is going down the tubes, but don’t blame me. I’m a Maverick, not a Republican. The economy sucks? Not my fault, I’m a Maverick, not a Republican. The world is facing a climate crisis worse than humans have ever known. But, that’s not my fault. I know that Bush and Cheney and the Republicans were fiddling while the earth’s temperature continued to rise. But that has nothing to do with me. I’m not a Republican, I’m a Maverick. While in control of the White House my party’s president added nearly five trillion dollars to the national debt. But I disagreed with that all along. I’m a Maverick.

Oh, I voted in agreement with President Bush 90% of the time. But, you gotta understand. After the way W whupped me in the 2000 race, I knew that to get the nomination next time I would have to appear to be even more Republican than Mr. Bush. But, when I voted to support President Bush, my fingers were crossed behind my back. I didn’t mean those votes. After all, I’m a Maverick, not a Republican.

But, you may ask, is McCain really the only candidate to run against his party’s incumbent president? What about John Adams in 1800? Didn’t he run against his own party? Sorry, reader, that was different. In 1800, it was Alexander Hamilton and his ultra-Federalists who campaigned against their party’s incumbent president, Adams. It wasn’t Adams running against his party. Well, what about Millard Filmore running in the 1856 election? Ex-president Filmore did run in the 1856 election, but not against the incumbent of his own party. In fact, the incumbent president, Franklin Pierce was not running for reelection. Okay, maven, what about Teddy Roosevelt in 1912? Now you’re getting close, reader. Teddy Roosevelt did seek to wrest the Republican nomination from his former protégé William Howard Taft. And when he couldn’t get the Republican nomination, TR did run for president as the nominee of the Progressive Party. But, he was not a Republican running against the incumbent president of his own party. No, John McCain is quite unique.

Even though he has been a Republican for his entire political career, this year John McCain has abandoned his own party. Even though he has been in the Senate for more than twenty years, John McCain wants us to believe that he never voted for anything that his party wanted; that he was always a Maverick. And for that Senator McCain deserves the maven’s chutzpah award. Congratulations, Senator.

Hail to McCain

John McCain took one giant step toward being the next tenant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday. And that step had nothing to do with the four primary wins that guaranteed him the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. No, Senator McCain got much closer to the White House because Barack Obama did not finish off Hillary Clinton in the Democratic contests. This means that the fratricidal (I include sisters as well as brothers in “fratricide”) war between senators Clinton and Obama will continue for at least another month. It also means that the eventual loser of the Democratic nomination fight will spend at least another month working daily to help Senator McCain win the November election.

In its wisdom, and in the expressed desire to make the process more democratic, the Democracy has rejected the winner-take-all primary in favor of proportional representation. This means that although Senator Clinton has won the primaries in almost all the big states so far, she has only captured a few more delegates than Senator Obama in those states. (For example, in the large state primaries that she won yesterday, Senator Clinton only earned fourteen more delegates than Senator Obama in Ohio and four more than Obama in Texas). Senator Obama, on the other hand, has won most of the small states by margins large enough to earn him most of their delegates. The proportional representation system means that although Hillary beat Barack in three of the primaries yesterday she only won twenty delegates more than he did and still trails him by about one hundred pledged delegates. (Including the unpledged “Super Delegates” that have indicated their preference shrinks Barack’s lead to about fifty).

If you have paid attention to the Democratic race since Senator Obama won all three of the middle Atlantic primaries a few weeks ago you surely noticed that the campaign has turned very negative. The Democrats have no such thing as the “Reagan Rule” (thou shalt not attack another Republican), and so both sides have been firing broadsides asserting that the other is not fit to be president. The era of good feeling, in which Barack and Hillary each went out of their way to publicly praise the other, is over. This is no longer a campaign of “We’re both good, but I’m better.” Now, it’s “Vote for the other guy and Western Civilization will crumble.” And, since negative campaigning seems to have been effective in Senator Clinton reversing Senator Obama’s momentum in the race, you can be sure that she will continue to use it in the future. I’m sure Senator Obama will respond in kind. All these negative ads will undoubtedly aid Senator McCain’s campaign in the fall against whoever wins for the Democrats.

Those who have participated in the Democratic Party nominating process this year are almost equally divided between supporters of Hillary and supporters of Barack. And because of the historic nature of the contest (first woman against first African American) there are many people who are extremely committed to the candidate of their choice. There are those in the Clinton camp who will support nobody for president other than Hillary. Likewise, there are people in the Obama camp who will only support Barack. Further, the direction that the campaign has taken is going to make many people very bitter should their candidate lose. (This will be especially so if the loss results from the votes of Super Delegates). Many Hillary supporters will not work to get Obama elected and many Barack supporters will not work to get Clinton elected. This fact will make it difficult for the winner of the nomination to unite the party behind her/him for the race in the fall.

So, it is not unreasonable for Senator McCain to start humming “Hail to the Chief.” The Democrats are engaged in another one of their self-destruct rituals, which will most likely cripple the nominee for the fall race. Unless Senator McCain chooses a running mate who will scare away moderate voters, he will be taking the presidential oath next January.