The Enlightened Despot

Marc Ambinder comments on the latest turnout data:

The doubters were right: according to the Current Population Survery, overall turnout levels stayed roughly the same, relative to population increases, but the composition of the American electorate changed enough to give the appearance of a Democratic landslide, and that, as GWU’s Michael McDonald puts it, ” disparities in turnout rates among various demographic categories decreased between 2004 and 2008.”  As Mark Blumenthal points out, turnout among black voters increased by nearly 5% — bringing them to within a percentage point — relative to size — of white turnout. Young voter turnout increased by 2.1%.

Ambinder is just dead wrong here - these numbers suggest that the doubters were wrong. Or, rather, that they were right about the gross turnout numbers, but wrong about everything else. The people the doubters were doubting were not, after all, predicting a huge turnout surge amongst old, white Republicans. This data supports the theory, which already seemed likely in the immediate aftermath of election day, that Obama and his campaign had in fact mobilized a huge number of new or unreliable voters, but that this had been offset in the raw numbers by despondent Republicans staying home. High turnout is generally thought of as a good thing for Democrats because the young, the black, and the poor are the voters most likely to take a pass - high turnout is good news for Democrats only insofar as it is an indicator that these demographics will make up a greater percentage of the overall pool of voters. Stay-at-home Republicans made turnout a less useful indicator, but that doesn’t change the fact that the doubters were dead wrong about the phenomenon people were actually interested in.

I don’t know what should be done about the car companies. Like everyone else on earth, I have some theories about what should be done, but I’m not sufficiently confident that they meet the Despot’s high standards of correctness to air them. The economics here are extremely complicated, and it’s not my strong suit. The politics of the situation, however, are pretty straightforward: the Republican Party is screwing itself over.

It’s more or less an axiom that when bad things happen to the economy, voters look for politicians to blame. Even when voters have other scapegoats in their sites - greedy people in suits, immigrants, an Asian country - there always has to be an elected bad guy who let them do whatever it is they did. As Matt Yglesias loves to point out, the economy is a very good predictor of the popular vote in presidential elections. And politicians on the wrong side of the economic picture generally don’t even challenge the underlying premise; they just argue about who deserves the credit or blame. In ‘96, the Republicans didn’t say: “Presidents don’t have some magical ability to control the business cycle”, they said “Reagan’s magic took a little time to kick in.”

So the timing of the current meltdown is tricky, politically. George Bush is still president. But voters - pace Ed Rendell - are not very bright. If things get much worse, and stay bad for a long time after Obama takes over, this could easily become his fault. Enter the recent falling out between Congressional Republicans and the White House, seemingly purpose built to ensure that the GOP gets the worst of it, come what may.

While the truth is perhaps a bit more complex, the CW is that Republicans in the Senate killed the auto bailout. John Q Voter is confused and skeptical about giving a lot of his money to the folks whose cars he wouldn’t be caught dead in. So this could work out politically, as long as Detroit doesn’t collapse too spectacularly. But now Bush and Paulson are planning to go ahead and bail them out anyway, with funding from TARP. This carries all the downside of a purpose-built bailout, with the added bonus of looking illegitimate and undemocratic.

If the TARP bailout goes through and the Big Three fail anyway, it will look like Bush exceeded his authority and screwed up again, which is bad for the Republicans. If the Big Three survive, and things merely stay as bad as they are, then the Republicans will have stood in the way of an important safety net (which Obama supports), which will be bad for the Republicans. And if the economy actually gets better - sure, I know, but anything is possible - then Obama will be riding a tide of recovery from the Bush Collapse, which will be very bad for the Republicans.

It’s looking ever more likely that President Obama is going to preside over some of the worst years of most Americans’ lives. The GOP is doing a damn good job of keeping him electable in 2012.