Something Interesting about recent American Elections:

[joemurphy]

Here's something to reflect on: increases in the percentage of the popular vote obtained in second-term presidential elections since 1900.

1916 Wilson +7.4%
1936 Roosevelt +3.4%
1956 Eisenhower +2.2%
1972 Nixon +17.3%
1984 Reagan +8.0%
1996 Clinton +6.3%
2004 Bush +3.1%

Bush's paltry 3.1% is historically a pretty subpar second-term boost; and his absolute percentage (51%) is not exactly a historical mandate either. But even more sobering, look at what happened to the winning party in each of these cases in the ***next*** election:

1920 Cox -15.1%
1940 Roosevelt -6.1%
1960 Nixon -7.8%
1976 Ford -12.7%
1988 Bush -5.4%
2000 Gore -0.9%
2008 ?? ??

In other words: though Americans maybe aren't quite as quick to do it as the French, we tend to punish political success. Win two terms, and your only hope in the next election is that the other side nominates a complete maroon.

Hopefully Democrats won't make that mistake in 2008.

[jasmeel]

1. Interesting. However, I don't know if I buy your Gore 2000 numbers

;)

[Awsi Dooger]

8. The Gore minus should actually be much higher

That's comparing percentages in a 3-way race in 1996 to a 2-way race in 2000. OK, so Nader stole a couple of critical percent. I'm anything but discounting that, especially where they were distributed. But the point remains; Perot plucked a much more substantial percentage than Nader. It's reasonable to project Clinton's national numbers several points higher in '96 if it had been a two-man race. Therefore, the -0.9 for Gore in 2000 would go up in equal proportion.

This is an interesting breakdown. I work in numbers but haven't seen it like this before. Thanks, joemurphy.

And it goes along with posts I've made here recently, that we persistently overstated Bush's vulnerabilty in 2004 and ignored the historical benefit of a doubt applied to incumbents if the party has been in power only one term. I mentioned that many times prior to the election last year. It's now 11 of 12 re-elections in that scenario since 1900, the only failure Carter in 1980. If Gore had rightly taken office in January 2001, he would have been in significant peril in 2004, much more flimsy than Bush. Gore would have completed our third straight term and the wolves would have been restless.

That's why it's difficult to compare election cycles and make definitive judgements on such short samples. They all fall into unique categories, like open races after two consecutive terms. That would be 1960, 1988 and 2000. Then you have races facing an incumbent whose party has only served one term. That would be 1956, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1996 and 2004. Obviously, I'm beginning post- WW II. And you have disqualifying aspects like Nixon's impeachment and Kennedy's assasination that further limit the viable samples.

[Awsi Dooger]

9. I was a bit harsh to Tricky Dick

Technically, of course, he resigned. Not impeached.

[SoFlaJet]

2. or that....

(quote)In other words: though Americans maybe aren't quite as quick to do it as the French, we tend to punish political success. Win two terms, and your only hope in the next election is that the other side nominates a complete maroon.


....the voting machines are rigged by a bought and paid-for political operatives,which unfortunately is the case happening now-in Florida at least and they're trying to keep it going in Ohio too...

[joemurphy]

3. I hear that a lot here...

And I'm for a paper trail. But is there really any hard evidence of massive Diebold manipulation in Ohio? I certainly haven't heard anyone really reputable in the Democratic party maintain that Kerry really won in Ohio -- despite all the problems there.

[SoFlaJet]

4. Jeez Joe

whadda ya need a signed confession?

[joemurphy]

5. Well, more than a lot of conspiracy theory, I guess.

I haven't followed the ins and outs of it as closely as others have, so I'm not qualified to comment, I suppose. But prior to Bush/Gore and Bush/Kerry everyone said it was going to be very close, razor thin margins either way...and it was. Florida stunk, of course, but I never heard Diebold was the problem there. It was the Supreme Court and butterfly ballots. In 2004, many people here assert Diebold did something with the computers to manipulate the voting...but as I've mentioned, I really haven't seen any proof. I would imagine that if Kerry really thought that happened he and others would want to do something about it. But no one is. So why opt for a conspiracy theory to explain Kerry's loss? Occam's razor says I should just conclude that the more obvious thing happened. We just lost by a hair. And there are lots of more credible reasons than Diebold to account for that loss.

[JAbuchan08]

6. I'm not sure that a narrow loss is really the simplest

explanation given the facts as we know them.

[SoFlaJet]

7. yes..

like purging democrats off the rolls like which happened to me in 2000 here in PB County-that was no conspiracy theory-it happened-to ME-----bastards