To a certain extent, the southern trend toward ideological, rather than regional, voting patterns was masked by Clinton's victories in the 1990's. The size of Clinton's victories (5.5% and 8.5% nationally), combined with the lingering regional, rather than ideological, affiliation of some southern voters in 1992 and 1996 (an affiliation that is now all but gone), allowed him to win many southern states. Clinton won Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee and West Virginia twice. He also won both Florida and Georgia once, and came very close to victories in North Carolina and Virginia. However, even during the Clinton years, the south was turning away from Democrats, and I believe we would be foolish to think that we can reverse our fortunes down there simply by talking values, nominating a southerner, or some other such gimmick.
Another important realignment occurred in the 1990's, although it was largely obscured from public view by the lies of the Republican Noise Machine. For years Republicans have argued that Perot swung the election for Clinton in 1992, to the point where this is even the collective wisdom of many Democrats and liberals. This is, as I have argued in the past, completely false. However, I recently ran across a poll from late in the 1992 campaign which suggests that not only did Perot not throw the election to Clinton, but that he actually reduced the size of Clinton's victory:
Ross Perot's surge in the polls is drawing somewhat more support from Bill Clinton than from George Bush, and the third party candidate seems poised to make more gains that might further narrow Bill Clinton's nationwide margin.
A special Times Mirror re-interview survey of 1153 registered voters conducted Oct 20-22 found 44% supporting Clinton, 34% George Bush and 19% Ross Perot. The benchmark poll, which took place Oct. 8-11, had Clinton leading by a 48% to 35% margin over the President, with independent Ross Perot gaining the support of only 8% of the pre-debate sampling.
Over the ten-day period between surveys 79% of the electorate maintained their presidential preferences in the face of four televised debates. However, of the 21% who changed allegiances, the largest categories were Bush (4%) and Clinton supporters (6%) defecting to independent candidate Ross Perot. As shown in the table below, Perot was also the beneficiary of added support from voters who were initially undecided.
October 8-11 Bush Clinton Perot Undecided October 20-22 Bush 30 1 1 2 Clinton 1 41 1 2 Perot 4 6 6 3 Undecided * * * 2The panel-back similarly showed the percentage of voters naming Perot as their second choice rising from 33% to 44% currently. Analysis of the poll results reveals that people who say that Perot is their second choice, or say that there is some chance that they might vote for Perot are drawn more often from Clinton's base than from Bush's. The potential defection pattern approximates the pattern of losses to Perot incurred by Bush and Clinton over the past 10 days.
Might Vote Perot Perot 2nd Choice Current Bush 35 40 Clinton 57 60 Undecided 8 *
1996 Perot Voters Bush 64 Gore 27 Nader 7 Buchanan 1From Perot voters and potential Perot voters preferring Clinton over Bush by roughly a 60-40 margin in 1992, to Perot voters breaking for Bush by roughly a 64-27 margin in 2000, over the course of the 1990's we experienced a major realignment that few noticed or appreciated. This was a realignment among a group of voters I have previously termed non-ideological reformers. Because the conventional wisdom, supplied by the Republican Noise Machine, was that Perot handed Clinton victory in 1992, and thus Clinton was not a legitimate President, most people simply assumed that Perot voters naturally trended Republican. Like everything that comes out of the Republican Noise Machine, the conventional wisdom of the tendencies of Perot voters in 1992 was a lie. Perot drew more of his support form Clinton than Bush.
The twin realignments of conservative southern whites and non-ideological reformers smashed the once overwhelming, nearly super-majority Democratic New Deal coalition. Unfortunately, for us, to a very real extent, the reality of both realignments have been masked. On the one hand, many Democrats bent on "electability" still want to believe that southerners will vote for a southern Democrat, and thus we often refuse to accept the reality of the southern realignment. On the other hand, many people of all political persuasions have bought into the Republican lie that non-ideological reformers, known in the 1990's as Perot voters, are naturally Republicans, and without Perot in the mix they are simply "coming home." This masks another reality, that in 1992 (and probably 1996) the non-ideological reformers significantly preferred Clinton compared to his Republican opponent.
The reformer realignment has been successfully hidden by the Republican Noise Machine, which attempted to make this important shift it look natural rather than reversible. The reformers shifted to Republicans in 1994 allowing them to sweep Congress, and also went Republican in 2000, 2002 and 2004. Had Gore swung this group in 2000 to the same level Clinton had done in 1992, he would have won the election by 4-8 points nationally, taking at least New Hampshire, Florida, Missouri and Ohio. Both the southern and reformer realignments are real, and we would do a tremendous disservice to our own electoral prospects if we try to explain one away as natural and the other as reversible as long as we nominate a "good old boy," or something to that effect. If we want to be pragmatic in our choice of candidates, that is fine, but we need a better framework to from which we can identify "electable" candidates. Our 2004 "electability" model--be competitive in the south and have strong military cred--was horribly inaccurate and outdated. Let's hope that in 2008 the CW will be different.
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