The Bell Curve's Center Line Has Shifted -- My Theory

[MineralMan]

Note on edit: This is basic calculus, which deals with the areas under a curve. It may be confusing to some.

Here's a generic bell curve. Let me use it to illustrate current political behavior and to create a theory that we can discuss. The left side of the center line is generally liberal or Democratic, and the right is conservative. Notice the center line. Clustered around that is the area of the curve that represents the bulk of the voting population. As we've seen for some time, voting is almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans over a long period of time. So...what changes to swing elections from one party to the other?

What changes is the position of the center line. When the line shifts to the right, the Democrats win. When it shifts to the left, Republicans win. Why? Because the curve represents voters. The more the area under the curve to the left or right of the center line indicates how the election results will turn out.

Remember Goldwater? He was very popular with the right wing of the Republican party. He got the nomination for the Presidency. That shifted the centerline to the right, and quite a ways to the right. He lost miserably, because more voters were to the left of that shifted center line and voted for the Democrat.

We're looking at a similar situation in 2010. The Tea Party candidates are serving in the role Barry Goldwater filled. They shift the center line of the bell curve to the right. What that means is that more people end up to the left of that center line. It happened in 2008, when Sarah Palin was the Vice Presidential candidate. She shifted the center line to the right, too. The result was the election of Barack Obama and an increased majority in both houses of Congress.

I believe that we are seeing the same process in effect in the congressional races in 2010, at least in those states where Tea Party candidates have won their primaries. The center line is shifted. The area under the left side of the curve is larger, and that means more votes for the Democratic candidate.

Is this theory of mine sound? We'll find out in November. What do you think?

[slackmaster]

1. I view political shifts more as an undamped, somewhat chaotic pendulum

Shifts to either the left or right invariably coincide with unintended negative trends, for which the side in power often receives more than a legitimate share of blame; which leads to a voter backlash toward the opposite direction.

[MineralMan]

2. I still think it's related to the relative political positions of

the major candidates. The more extreme they are, the farther the center line shifts. Now, that may represent those chaotic trends you mention, but the result of those trends is indicated by the candidates who win the primaries. If an extremely conservative or liberal candidate wins a primary or wins the nomination of the party, the center line shifts to the left or the right. That has the effect I mentioned.

The bulk of the voters are clustered under the curve near that centerline.

[slackmaster]

3. Yes, the bulk of voters are definitely near the center. The media give a distorted view.

The extremes tend to be the most vocal and most charismatic, so they get all of the attention.

Dedicated public servants who want to do the best job they can without serving one special interest or another are, well, kind of dull.

[MineralMan]

9. You may be right. Dull candidates aren't very newsworthy, it

seems.

[paulk]

4. what it really means is that the Democratic Party will continue

moving to the right to pick up those votes that were on the conservative side of the curve.

[MineralMan]

6. That's a logical conclusion, but I'm not sure it's accurate.

What I think is that a winning primary candidate who is too far on either side of the center line tends to shift that line, causing a shift of actual voters in their voting for that election. I don't really think it's the party that's shifted to the right or left. It's an effect, not a cause. At least, that's what I think.

[paulk]

12. I think the overall line actually gets shifted to the right...

The center moves to the right, in this case - as Democrats win by picking up voters in the center - voters who would ordinarily have voted Republican vote Democrat. This moves the party to the right, because the candidates who win understand that a good part of their constituency are to the right of them.

If the "party" is a reflection of it's constituency, then the party is moving to the right...

[MineralMan]

15. OK, I see your point. The question is: How do we shift the

electorate to the left? That seems to me to be the only way to move the country to the left. I'm not quite sure how that's going to happen. Education comes to mind, but that's a tough nut on this scale.

[paulk]

18. I don't know the answer to that.

Gore/Clinton started the DLC as a response to the defeats of the Mondale/Dukakis era, where it was seen that the party had moved too far to the left - it was also seen that the power of the traditional Democratic support groups was waning, and was not enough to fund the ever larger amounts of money needed to campaign. Corporate money was needed, and therefore courted.

When the Democratic Party went with the money it was the beginnings of where we are at now - where winning the election is more important than being right on the issues (from a liberal perspective) - this has allowed more and more extremism on the right - who are not afraid to stand up for what they believe in - no matter how misguided. We are countering them by moving toward the center, rather than moving toward the left - which, in the long run, moves the party in the wrong direction.

We need liberal policies, imo, to get us out of the mess we're in - and we need a leader who can articulate those policies and convince the electorate of their rightness. No easy task, considering the media is mostly controlled by the other side.


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[jaxx]

7. I think it means the center will move left to avoid the far right influence.

[MineralMan]

10. No. If the line moves to the right, there are more voters to the

left of the line, so the Democrat wins. The line is pulled by the candidates. Goldwater pulled the line to the right, and so he lost, big-time. Palin pulled it to the right, but not as much. She lost, but by a smaller margin. The curve doesn't change. Just the line. The voters maintain their general political viewpoint, but reject the extreme candidate.

You'll see this in operation in Delaware in November, I'm certain.

[jaxx]

5. I think you're right.

Normal people don't go for the far right wing stuff, the ultra religious, the purity stuff. People are not going to let the moralists dictate their lives.

K&R.....who would unrec a theory of interest?

[MineralMan]

8. I don't care about unrecs. I'm hoping for discussion on this.

That's why I posted it. Recs or unrecs are irrelevant. I just want to see if the idea makes sense, and discussion will help determine that.

[MineralMan]

11. By the way, I'm not advocating for anything in this OP.

It's just a description of a phenomenon and my thinking about why that phenomenon occurs over and over again in our elections. It's a theory about what happens and why, not an assessment of whether that's a good or bad thing.

[NoNothing]

13. Of course your theory is sound

It's been around a very long time. It's called the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_voter_theorem">median voter theorem.

However, its main weakness is that it only represents one axis (left/right), while actual voting decisions can be multi-dimensional, e.g. big government vs. small government, incumbent vs. challenger, taller vs. better hair. Real life voters consider weight these different factors differently and so the median voter on one axis may not be the median voter on another axis.

[MineralMan]

14. Thanks for that link. Damn! I thought I had something new in this.

That theorem, though, seems to depend on the position of the parties, rather than what I was suggesting. Still, it's essentially the same thing. Thanks for the heads up.

[NoNothing]

16. Sure, no problem

Public choice theory is a fascinating subject!

[Scurrilous]

17. K & R

:thumbsup: