Deja Vu

Just about exactly two years ago I held forth on why the Democrats were successful in THAT election. In a three part piece I laid out a hypothesis on how the American voting public is segmented. I identified 7 groups of voters:

A. Republicans
B. Republican Leaning Independents
C. Right of Center Independents
D. Independents
E. Left of Center Independents
F. Democrat Leaning Independents
G. Democrats

I then explained how I think those 7 groups act in various election conditions:

"A & G stick with their party through thick and thin and each group constitutes about 35% of all voters. These two segments also tend to vote in fairly high and consistent numbers. They are true believers and take ever opportunity to vote their beliefs.

Segments B & F don't consider themselves as members of either party but effectively they function as such. They also tend to be regular voters but tend to vote in higher number when their side seems to be on the upswing. They only vote for the other side in extreme cases such as McGovern or Goldwater. I assign them each roughly 5% of the voting public.

Segments C & E are much different animals. Their natural tendencies are toward the Right or Left but they are not wedded to partisan ideals to enough of an extent that it outweighs other considerations. Issues such as a war going badly, corruption, or incompetence can cause these two segments to swing over and vote for the "other" party.Segments C & E tend to vote much heavier when their side is doing well. They get discouraged easily and just throw in the towel and don't bother voting. Dukakis largely lost the E's. Bush 41 lost the C's in 1992. Kerry lost the E's. Gore and Bush probably came out about even. Perot got a bunch of both of them in 1992, not nearly as many in 1996. These two segments each represent about 5% of all voters.

Our last segment is D and these are the true independents. Accounting for about 10% of the voting population they generally have no use for either party. They are largely upper middle class and above in income and education. They are not interested in "family values" as such. Economics, social justice, the environment, and libertarian principles tend to drive various sub-groups of this segment.This segment is highly volatile and swings heavily from one election cycle to the next. They vote sporadically depending on how bummed out they are by things in general. Various sub-groups of this Segment loved Ross Perot and/or Ralph Nader. The last president they really got behind was Reagan although Clinton did fairly well with them. "Doing well" with independents entails not just winning their favor but actually energizing them enough to come out and vote."

Obviously in 2008 again the two edge groups A&G voted for their party. as we move toward the middle (of my grouping not necessarily the political spectrum) the B-C & E-F groups also went their normal way. Thus even in a terrible year for Republicans, John McCain and Sarah Palin got 46% of the vote.

Where I suspect McCain lost the election was in the very middle, the D group. Barack Obama excited this segment like no candidate has. Ever. The good news for Republicans is that if (when?) Barack Obama makes a few stumbles this will be the first group to desert him. The bad news for Republicans is that Barack Obama just won a 4 year term as President of the United States.