by Duane N. Burghard
© 2015
So I've been thinking about doing this sort of thing with my blog for some time now, and today is the day. Periodically I see or hear something on the news or on Facebook (or in this case, both) that really gets me going for a few moments, and I have to say something in response. It's not REALLY related to the sorts of things that I write about on my blog, but it needs to be said. To make it easier on my regular readers, I'm going to call these posts "Political Rant Of The Week" (which I will almost certainly eventually shorten to "PROW" ... because I was in the military and we're contractually obligated to abbreviate almost everything for the rest of our lives). It is my intent to make these posts "in addition to" my regular writing, but we'll see how that goes.
So what sent me over the edge this week? The 2016 Election. Now I know that many of you were hoping that we could avoid this topic until, oh say, NEXT YEAR, but obviously the media is having none of that so I'm conceding defeat and hopping in.
The first thing that sent me around the bend was an article about how one particular group of voters (in the case of the article in question, black voters) was likely to be the critical factor in the 2016 Presidential Election. This statement/assertion shows a depressing lack of understanding of how Presidents are elected, so, at the risk of boring the crap out of the rest of you, let me be clear about the ONLY thing, and by that I mean, quite literally THE ONLY THING that is important in a Presidential election.
270.
That's it. There's nothing else. The candidate that gets 270 electoral votes or more wins the Presidency. Period. There are no other measures, NOTHING else matters. Now, with that as "2016 Election Fact #1," let's move on to Fact #2: Pretty much no matter what happens between now and Election Day 2016, the outcome of the Presidential election in MOST of the United States is essentially a foregone conclusion (it's VERY unlikely (statistically) that the outcome isn't already known). To be clear, you could essentially run a used beer can as a Republican or Democrat as your candidate in most states and that beer can would defeat the nominee of the other party. And why? Because the politics of the majority of people in that state are such that they will NOT elect a candidate from the other party in 2016.
Those are the facts, and if you're going to dispute them then you should stop reading right now and go do something else because we already have a zero percent chance of having an intelligent conversation on this topic (because you're out there with climate deniers and people who think Adam and Eve were out riding dinosaurs 6K years ago).
As a result of these facts, we can conclude that, for all intents and purposes, the 2016 Election IS ALREADY OVER in the majority of the United States. It's "turn out the lights the party is over" done. The Democrats are NOT going to win in states like the Dakotas, Idaho, Oklahoma or Alabama, and the Republicans have ZERO chance of winning basically any state in New England or the west coast.
So the path to 270 is already well underway, and when you look at the cold, hard political realities, the fact is that the Democrats already have a significantly easier (though far from guaranteed) path to 270 than the Republicans do. And THAT, is where the facts end. Now, there's nothing wrong with political speculation and opinion (per se, although it's a little troubling that the industry around this field seems to be so heavily populated with idiots), but to me, speculation that doesn't start with the above facts and work outward from them is FAR more likely to quickly veer into the stupid or absurd ... so I'm going to work my way out from what we know and see where that leads us.
The Republicans, by most educated guesses, have NO path to 270 that doesn't include winning the state of Ohio. Now, obviously this is national politics we're talking about, and things do change, but these numbers don't change THAT much and, right now, there's not a single mathematician in the country that I'm aware of that has ANY (realistic) Electoral College map for the Republicans reaching 270 in 2016 that does NOT include the GOP taking the state of Ohio (it's obviously not impossible, just statistically very unlikely as there are far fewer realistic combinations of states). The majority of Republicans these days are many things (and I should quickly add that, for many of the early years of my life, I was one of them and, as a result, I'm particularly critical of the neo-conservative, religious right, theological oligarchs who have, in my opinion, destroyed the party). You could (and I occasionally do) argue that they are short sighted, sold out ideologues who are hell bent on nothing less than the end of our Republic as we know it and replacing it with some sort of twisted, disgusting theological oligarchy. HOWEVER, they ... which is to say their political strategists, are NOT stupid. They are VERY aware that they have basically NO chance of winning back the White House in 2016 without Ohio ... and they, like the rest of us who can look at polling data and add, have known this fact for some time. That's why the GOP convention in 2016 is going to be in Ohio, and that's why the party is (and we switch here from fact to my opinion again) carefully grooming Governor Kasich (a reasonably popular Ohio Republican with massive statewide name recognition) to be the Vice Presidential pick of virtually anyone who becomes the nominee (and, on the topic of the nominee, let me quickly quiet all the "harumphing" going on about Donald Trump ... I'm sorry to disappoint all the paid Trump fans and late night talk show hosts out there, but it isn't going to be Trump ... don't get me wrong, I love what Trump is doing to divide, polarize, disrupt and cost the Republicans money right now, but it can't and won't last).
On the other side of the race, unlike the Republicans, the Democrats CAN win the Presidency without winning Ohio, it's just harder (there are a higher number of possible combinations for the Democrats to reach 270 without Ohio than there are for the Republicans). Like the Republicans, the Democrats are also many things (and you'll hear me use words like disappointing and frustrating a lot here), but they (and by "they" I again mean their high level, intelligent political strategists) are also NOT stupid. They have been staring at the same political maps that their Republican counterparts have been staring at for a long time too, and they know that Ohio is going to be an incredibly expensive and close slugfest, and one which, particularly given its importance to the GOP, they could definitely lose. Since losing Ohio is a legitimate possibility, without conceding that race in any way, it makes a great deal of sense for them to be working hard on a backup plan.
And this is where Jim Webb comes in.
Webb's entrance into the race (and some of the things he's said to separate himself from the left wing of the party) have already caused many in the party to cast aspersions at him. Many are calling him names, saying he's a "DINO," calling for him to drop out, etc. This reaction is, to me, beyond stupid and shows again that many Democrats also lack the kind of pragmatism that is NEEDED in any successful Democratic Republic. For the record, I think that, like Gov Kasich, Senator Webb's entry into the Presidential race is largely symbolic. It's about generating name recognition and putting him in a position to be the Vice Presidential nominee (in fact, I would argue that Webb is already the de facto VP pick for whoever the Democratic nominee is). Why? Because Webb is a popular southern Democrat who can likely deliver Virginia (which is REALLY important if the Democrats lose Ohio) and places North Carolina squarely back in play (in case any of the only 5 people left on Earth who don't know how to use Google are reading this article, Obama barely won NC in 2008 and Romney barely won it in 2012). So left leaning Democrats can call Webb names as much as they like, but when they do, they should be prepared to add "Vice President" to the list.
Webb is particularly important to the Democrats if Secretary Clinton is the nominee as he can pick up at least some support with middle aged, Democratic leaning southern white males (a group that is something of an endangered species at this point, but they're out there and they are "high likelihood" voters, and in a very close state like North Carolina, if enough of them vote for the Democrats, that could change the outcome) ... and this brings us back to the original article about constituencies. As I hope I've demonstrated, the question of whether or not black voters or women voters or "insert demographic group here" voters come out for one candidate or another IN GENERAL is largely irrelevant. For example, if every black voter in Massachusetts stayed home, Clinton (or, again, a used beer can running as a Democrat in that state) would almost certainly still win MA. This is not, of course, to say that black voters are irrelevant. In fact, black voters in Ohio (if they turn out and vote in significant numbers) could VERY easily all but guarantee a Presidential victory for the Democrats. My point is that this election isn't about ANY demographic group overall, it's about a BUNCH of those groups IN (and ONLY in) key battleground states. So the REAL question is whether or not enough historically lower turnout voters (whether that's black voters, women, hispanics, whatever) come out in the very few key battleground states and vote.
So what have we learned today. Well first off, we've learned that, if you live in Ohio, you should either be preparing to move out of the state or at least be canceling your cable subscription and removing your mailbox now ... because you are about to be at "Ground Zero" for the biggest, most expensive and most intrusive political war of our lifetimes. So stock up on dry goods, get those "No Soliciting" signs plastered all over your property, get a Netflix account and know that the rest of us (with no offense) are just happy it's you and not us.
The second thing we've learned is that people (in this case, Democrats on my left) who get all riled up about ideological purity fill me with a mixture of amusement and depression. I am amused because their ignorance (willful or otherwise) of the pragmatic realities of our political processes, especially when combined with the fact that this is a democratic REPUBLIC, which means that EVERYTHING is about COMPROMISE and NOT about getting what you want, causes them to advocate things that will almost guarantee that they will lose more than their "side" would gain if they would simply pursue a more pragmatic solution. And I am depressed because, to be honest, I often find at least some of what they seek to accomplish as laudable and worthwhile, and it's depressing to watch them fail (for themselves and those they advocate for) because they allow their religious devotion to their ideology to interfere with the accomplishing of at least some of their goals ... and the fact that this makes them similar to the people they most despise is just an extra bit of ironic pain to throw on the top.
/End PoliticalRantOfTheWeek
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