Scratching The Itch?
Michael Barone, writing in the Opinion Journal, sees a rather obvious 16-year pattern in American politics. Looking at the elections of 1976, 1992 and now 2008, he wonders if there isn't a 16-year itch in the electorate. He admits the pattern idea does not hold if you go back further to 1960 and 1944, but there are some eerie similarities between 2008 and the previous two 16-year elections. Barone thinks he may have a handle on why this is happening.
Again the pattern: Voters make pretty much the same decisions time and again for 14 years. Then in the 16th year decide they are disgusted with the results.
Why 16 years? Political scientists like to come up with generalizations about voting behavior for all time. The problem is that we don't have the same electorate over time. Political scientists have developed rules for predicting presidential elections based on macroeconomic trends at a time when most voters remembered the trauma of the Great Depression. Most voters today don't and those rules no longer work.
One such rule predicted that Al Gore would get 56% of the vote in 2000, which was 8% off. Your barber or hairdresser could have come closer.
My thought is that, over a period of 16 years, there is enough turnover in the electorate to stimulate an itch that produces a willingness to take a chance on something new.
Over time, the median-age voter in American elections has been about 45 years old. This means that the median-age voter in 1976 was born around 1931–old enough to have experienced post-World War II prosperity and foreign policy success, and then to have been disgusted by Vietnam and Watergate.
The median-age voter in 1992 was born around 1947 (the same year as Dan Quayle and Hillary Clinton, one year after Messrs. Clinton and Bush, one year before Mr. Gore). These voters came of age in the culture wars of the 1960s. They experienced stagflation and gas lines of the 1970s, and the prosperity and foreign policy successes of the 1980s. Mr. Clinton persuaded these voters to take a chance on change by promising not to radically alter policy. They rebuked him when he tried to break that promise, then for 14 years remained closely divided along culture lines as if the '60s never ended.
The median-age voter in 2008 was born around 1963, so he or she missed out on the culture wars of the '60s, and on the economic disasters and foreign policy reverses of the 1970s. These voters have experienced low-inflation economic growth something like 95% of their adult lives–something true of no other generation in history. They are weary of the cultural polarization of our politics, relatively unconcerned about the downside risks of big government programs, and largely unaware of America's historic foreign policy successes. They are ready, it seems, to take a chance on an outside-the-system candidate.
Could it be that voters are actually, unintentionally following this pattern? It is at least plausible. There is much made by pundits and politicians about "change elections" - maybe those change elections have something to do with electoral turnover, so to speak. Stranger things have happened. In a way, Barone's idea is somewhat disturbing. If he's right, it means there is very little in the way of institutional memory in the electorate. Instead there is a selective memory that only remembers the positives and dismisses the negatives. That seems a bit bleak, doesn't it? Go read the whole thing. Barone, as he says, may be on to something.
By syn, Friday, 4 January , 2008 @ 8:25 am
It’s not the economy, it’s the Misery Index!
Life in America is so good that people have to make stuff up just to feel miserable.
My 18 yr old nephew just entering college is a huge Ron Paulite, he so indoctrinated (by a private high school no less)that he believes George W Bush has taken away the 2nd amendment; nothing I can say will change his outlook on world events.
I’m 46 and have been through much of what he is about to face, I feel sorry for him because he doesn’t know that it his war now whether he likes it or not, and that come 2010 he will feel the real economic pain of what Collectivism brings.
I guess people need to live it before they get it; I know I did.
By martian, Friday, 4 January , 2008 @ 9:03 am
I agree that it’s a plausible concept. It’s also a very scary concept because it means that not only does the electorate have very little institutional memory, it means that the public in general doesn’t learn from history. It also means that every sixteen years the electorate is led by the “bandwagon” effect rather than any grasp of the issues or problems facing the nation. If we take a look at the people elected in those years he highlights, 1976 and 1992, we see that the “change effect” he writes about resulted in the election of two of the worst presidents of the 20th century and, arguably, ever. The last thing we need right now, with the war on terrorism in full swing, is a Carter or Clinton clone in the White House! Or even worse, an Obama!
By feeblemind, Friday, 4 January , 2008 @ 9:08 am
Hmmm… Interesting theory. It would explain why voters are projecting their feelings, particularly onto Obama, and trying to make him into something he is not. Good comments by Syn and Martian too.
By TimF, Friday, 4 January , 2008 @ 1:40 pm
Since it appears that the economy is headed into the first real recession since 1981-2 (or even a Kondratiev ‘Winter’), it will be interesting to watch the effects on the <45 crowd who know NOTHING about hard times and think 5-10%/Yr housing appreciation is the natural order of the economic world. The powers-that-be will try to move heaven and earth to delay any economic fallout from the various collapsing bubbles past the election, but I don’t think they’ll succeed. Time to batten down the hatches…