Why Obama won.

I have been getting frustrated by the collective musings of Americans who are under the impression that a historic seismic shift transpired on November 4th. Significance of a bi-racial man elected as president is most certainly a notable event, but so is the election of the most liberal left-wing candidate in history.

Although official numbers are still not released we can make some very reasonable assumptions of the turnout (source: wikipedia).

Barack Obama Democratic Illinois 66,117,432 52.6%
John McCain Republican Arizona 57,847,877 46.1%
Total: 123.4M

George W. Bush Republican Texas 62,040,610 50.74%
John F. Kerry Democratic Massachusetts 59,028,444 48.27%
Total: 121M

An increase of 2+ million voters between 2004 and 2008, not the kind of historic significance I was hoping to see. Furthermore what is striking is that Bush obtained almost 5 million more votes four years ago! This is an indication that Republicans sat home. There was probably some cross-over to the Democrat camp, but the increase in African-American and youth vote for Obama offset the angry disenfranchised Republicans.

This story discussing the turnout (Turnout Story) confirms that indeed the Republican turnout decreased and Democrat turnout increased.

Sociologically speaking, this should not be at all surprising. Look at the political and economic landscape.
  1. Bush has lowest approval ratings of any president
  2. America is in a housing and financial crisis
  3. War in Iraq is unpopular
  4. McCain is not a conservative and viewed by most as a liberal Republican.

This is a very difficult combination of obstacles to overcome. In essence no Republican should have won this, but the fact that Republicans sat at home this year is an indication that something went horribly wrong. Perhaps if a candidate inspired conservatives like Obama inspired liberals we would have had a different outcome.

What is historic in reality is the amount of disappointment, mistrust and abandonment of the Republican base more so than the victory of a young, hip black man. Obviously I cannot hide my disappointment with the results, but I also believe that the historic nature that so many people America are celebrating is grossly overblown.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 2009 credit boom is coming to an end.

Image
The credit expansion boom of 2009 will eventually go down as yet another period of credit expansion promoted by the Fed that will have lead to another predictable bust.   Today, it will be interesting to examine how the various levels of production are behaving under years and years of artificial interest rate suppression.  It will also be helpful to look at charts and graphs examining the business cycle theory and the impact of time preference as taught by Mises. For starters, those new to the concept - a very brief paraphrasing of the general idea. Under a healthy functioning market people's consumer patterns impact their savings.  More consumption equals less saving and less consumption more saving.  In order to progress the society must save such that it can make investments in machinery, equipment, technology, etc if it hopes to increase the capacity of production.   Sure ,you can harvest 10 coconuts a day, consume them by night and repeat the process.  You can also defe
Read more

What is wrong with this country?

I was browsing the latest IBD poll and it finally struck me. I had this idea brewing for the past few weeks now and this particular poll hit a nerve. What jumped out was the age group and who they are likely voting for. Obama / McCain 18-24: 74% 21% The rest of the age groups are more or less even with ages 65+ leaning more for McCain. Those folks should probably avoid leaning - hazardous to their health. Now, if you are a member of this group and are part of the 74% you are probably feeling good about yourself. If you are in the 21% then you are probably used to feeling desperate and angry that your peers ostracize you as if you were the next coming of the bubonic plague. But this number is very telling. Showing to us that a large group of freshly minted liberals, on average still in college, is in a very good position to influence these elections. Enthralled by the concept of "what they want the world to be" and their utopian ideals they hammer their message to anyone willi
Read more

401k Takeover Proposal. IRAs in danger?

Just read a piece that made my blood boil. The story is from Carolina Journal, but I will paste the first paragraph below. Even if you currently do not have a 401k, this is the most dangerous proposal I have ever heard. The only similar example I can think of, would be the gold seizure under FDR. If this proposal becomes legitimate, you MUST write to your local representative, congressman, senator, etc. This will be absolutely crippling to our economy as investors will stage a mass exodus out of the market. If you want a demonstration of this in action, look at Argentina. They just did something very similar. I will keep my eyes on the story and will add further information to demonstrate just how dangerous this is. November 04, 2008 RALEIGH — Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers’ personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration. Triggered by the
Read more