Professors analyze election outcome
By Kyle Weidleman
Writer
President-elect Barack Obama’s clear victory late Tuesday night was due to a combination of events, including a changing Electoral College map, growing anti-Republican sentiment, unpopular incumbent president, well-run campaign, and opponent taking too many risks, according to University professors.
“It’s a much clearer victory than 2000 and even more than 2004 where you had a somewhat close outcome in Ohio,” said Chris Magee, associate professor of economics. “Here, [it was] not one state that decided the election.”
The Obama campaign elected to pursue a “50-state strategy,” putting states like North Carolina, Indiana and Georgia into play. These states may have otherwise been taken for granted by the Republican Party.
“I think the 50-state strategy obviously helped him,” said Robin Jacobson, assistant professor of political science. “I think that the map was changing already.”
As of Wednesday, North Carolina had not been decided, though Obama led Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the vote count. McCain won Georgia; Obama won Indiana.
The results from Indiana and North Carolina “validated [Obama’s] strategy of being able to compete in many different states,” Magee said.
Some states in the southwest and the “New South” were already shifting toward the Democrats, independently of the candidates and their campaigns. These states include Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida.
“We saw state legislatures turning Democratic in 2004, which indicated that they were turning less red,” Jacobson said.
President George W. Bush and the Republican brand were also a drag on the McCain campaign.
“The right track, wrong track numbers [were] basic generic questions pointing against a Republican victory,” said Scott Meinke, associate professor of political science.
With historically low ratings for Bush, scandals in the Alaskan Republican Party, and an economic crisis on Wall Street, McCain had an uphill battle from the start. Even with these factors in mind, the McCain campaign took a few too many big risks to win the White House.
“I think that McCain could potentially have won with a perfect campaign and mistakes from Obama,” Magee said.
The path to victory for McCain was well-defined: Win the states Bush won in 2004 while picking up battleground states such as New Hampshire and Pennsylvania that Kerry won by small margins.
“McCain was—at one point—a candidate who had a shot of making it a close race and maybe even winning,” Meinke said, comparing the candidate to the rest of the Republican field.
McCain’s best chance to win was to convince Americans Obama was not prepared to lead the United States into the tough times ahead.
The choice of Palin as his running mate and the decision to suspend his campaign during the credit crunch on Wall Street “raised questions among voters,” Meinke said.
Along with an Obama victory for the White House, Democrats have also picked up larger majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate. As of Wednesday, the Democrats have 254 of 435 seats (with eight undecided) in the House and 56 of 100 Senate seats (with four undecided).
“The election sent out a clear message about change,” Meinke said, “both on economic and foreign policy.”
There is hope the new Democratic majority will continue to reach across the aisle, even with a commanding majority in Washington.
“[There are] some suggestions that there will be more of a move toward more bipartisan cooperation,” Jacobson said. The bipartisanship on display during the financial bailout debate is “what we might expect Congress to do until things get turned around.”
It is still unclear how the Republican leaders will react to electoral losses in the House, Senate and White House, as well as state and local offices nationwide. Some conservatives are worried the Republican Party has become too regional and extreme in its conservative beliefs.
“There is a risk of the response to this election for the [Republican] party to kick hard to the right,” Meinke said, “[but then they] run the risk of becoming a regional party, of becoming a minority party for a very long time.”
