November 3rd, 2009 Election results

November 5, 10:16 PMLA History ExaminerCharles Nichols

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AP Photo/Harry Hamburg

When I was 12 years old I read “The Weapon Shops of Isher” by A. E. van Vogt.  Looking back, I vaguely recall the story but there was one line from the novel which hit me like a thunderbolt and has preoccupied my thoughts ever since – “People Always Have the Government they want.”

As a 12 year old, I intellectually understood what the author was saying but I did not accept it emotionally until I was 25 years of age.  As a scientist and engineer who has made a lifelong study of humans and history, I could quantify it but that would put most readers to sleep.

I would rephrase it somewhat.  It isn’t so much a question of “want” as it one of action versus the human herd instinct.  There is a minority of every population who actively work to effect change (for good or evil) and the rest of the human population just follows the herd.

Every now and then the human herd will change direction somewhat.  For the United States, 1968 seems to mark such an event.  This was the year, some of you may recall, the Democrat Party had a complete melt down in Chicago.  The Democrat Presidential Candidate was Hubert Humphrey an avowed anti-communist and member of the National Rifle Association (NRA).  Four years later, the Democrat Party would nominate George McGovern for President. An avowed socialist and gun-banner, he was defeated in a landslide.  McGovern won the nomination because of a small minority of young baby boomers had actively worked for his nomination.  He lost the General Election because the majority of voters’ political opinions were shaped by the Great Depression and World War II.

“Baby Boomers” is the generation of people born between the end of World War II and 1964 but they represent three distinct groups of voters.  Those born between the end of the war and 1954 are predominantly “liberal.” Those born between 1954 and 1958 are typically undecided voters and those born between 1958 and 1964 are predominantly “Reagan Republican Conservatives.”

This goes a long way in explaining the US Presidential Election results for the last forty years.  The college students who worked for McGovern in 1972 are now in their early sixties and their grandchildren, either by blood or philosophically, are the young activists of the Democrat Party. Their grandparents write the cheques so the grandchildren can concentrate on politics instead of going out and getting a real job.

If 21 of the 23 major national pollsters had been correct, President Obama would have won ten to twelve million more votes than he did in the 2008 Presidential Election.  The reason he didn’t is because the pollsters assumed that voters under age 30 and minorities would flock to the polls in large numbers in support of Obama, they didn’t.  The black voter turnout was high but 90% of black voters in the US always vote for the black candidate, especially if he is a liberal Democrat.  Alan Keyes is an exception but he is a black conservative who is politically more conservative than was Ronald Reagan.

Faced with the choice between Obama and “Madman” McCain, Republicans voters tended to sit out the 2008 Presidential Election.  Even so, Obama won with less than 53% of the popular vote which is oddly similar to the 1988 Presidential Election between “Papa Bush” and Michael Dukakis.  Bush the 1^st was a one term President.  If Tuesday’s election results are any indication, Obama will be one as well.

So it is not surprising that the Republicans took back Virginia in a landslide on Tuesday’s November 3^rd election.  What is surprising is that New Jersey elected a Republican for Governor and given New Jersey’s demographics, even a 5% margin of victory for a Republican in that state counts as a landslide.  Obama campaigned heavily in both states for the Democrats.

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, never one to let reality affect her judgment, declared election night to be a victory for Democrats.  I am reminded of Saddam Hussein’s press spokesman “Baghdad Bob” who stood proclaiming Hussein’s victory in front of the television reporters as a line of American tanks rolled into Baghdad in the background.  Pelosi’s “victories” were a liberal Democrat being elected to a liberal congressional seat in California and an NRA “A” rated Democrat being elected in a seat where the Republican candidate had dropped out of the running.  Even so, the Democrat was elected with just 49% of the vote.  Assuming he wants to get reelected, his election will be one “victory” that will come back to haunt Pelosi.

Not covered in the “mainstream” press is a political brush fire that seems to have ignited in the traditionally Republican states.  Suffice it to say for the moment that the “Red States” do not have the government they want; not even a little bit.

More on that in a future article.