John B. Judis: You've Got Them All Wrong, Mr. President
[John B. Judis is a senior editor of The New Republic and a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.]
The White House thinks that Democrats got drubbed in the election because they lost the support of “independent” voters. Obama’s advisers, the Washington Post reported, “are deeply concerned about winning back political independents, who supported Obama two years ago by an eight-point margin but backed Republicans for the House this year by 19 points. To do so, they think he must forge partnerships with Republicans on key issues and make noticeable progress on his oft-repeated campaign pledge to change the ways of Washington.”
In the president’s interview with "60 Minutes," only part of which was broadcast, but which CBS later put on the Web in full, Obama blamed his party's loss on Republicans being “able to paint my governing philosophy as a classic, traditional, big government liberal. And that's not something that the American people want. I mean, you know, particularly independents in this country.” He promised to adopt “Main Street, common sense values about the size of government,” to do something about “debts and deficits,” and to end the “partisan bickering” in Washington by getting Republicans and Democrats “to work together to change things in Washington.”
In other words, the White House blamed Democrats' 2010 defeat on the loss of independents, and to win them back, it will try to slow the growth of government, encourage a bipartisan spirit in Washington, and reform the government process by eliminating things like earmarks....
From 1968 through 1994, many white working-class voters in the South and Midwest, alienated by Democratic support for civil rights, abortion rights, and gun control, became partisan Republicans. This group has been likely to vote Republican regardless of who is running or what the condition of the economy is. But for the last four decades, another segment of white working-class voters has gravitated between Republicans and Democrats. Some of these voters identify themselves as “independents,” but that could mean several things: They could be voting one year for a different party than they backed two or four years ago, or they may be splitting their vote. Or, in some cases, it may be because of an anti-government populism that includes skepticism about the two major parties. This description certainly fit many of Ross Perot’s supporters in 1992 and 1996....
Read entire article at The New Republic
The White House thinks that Democrats got drubbed in the election because they lost the support of “independent” voters. Obama’s advisers, the Washington Post reported, “are deeply concerned about winning back political independents, who supported Obama two years ago by an eight-point margin but backed Republicans for the House this year by 19 points. To do so, they think he must forge partnerships with Republicans on key issues and make noticeable progress on his oft-repeated campaign pledge to change the ways of Washington.”
In the president’s interview with "60 Minutes," only part of which was broadcast, but which CBS later put on the Web in full, Obama blamed his party's loss on Republicans being “able to paint my governing philosophy as a classic, traditional, big government liberal. And that's not something that the American people want. I mean, you know, particularly independents in this country.” He promised to adopt “Main Street, common sense values about the size of government,” to do something about “debts and deficits,” and to end the “partisan bickering” in Washington by getting Republicans and Democrats “to work together to change things in Washington.”
In other words, the White House blamed Democrats' 2010 defeat on the loss of independents, and to win them back, it will try to slow the growth of government, encourage a bipartisan spirit in Washington, and reform the government process by eliminating things like earmarks....
From 1968 through 1994, many white working-class voters in the South and Midwest, alienated by Democratic support for civil rights, abortion rights, and gun control, became partisan Republicans. This group has been likely to vote Republican regardless of who is running or what the condition of the economy is. But for the last four decades, another segment of white working-class voters has gravitated between Republicans and Democrats. Some of these voters identify themselves as “independents,” but that could mean several things: They could be voting one year for a different party than they backed two or four years ago, or they may be splitting their vote. Or, in some cases, it may be because of an anti-government populism that includes skepticism about the two major parties. This description certainly fit many of Ross Perot’s supporters in 1992 and 1996....