Sorting in '06 & '08?

Ultimately, the 2006 and 2008 elections do strengthen Fiorina's argument for sorting. The fact that control of the House, Senate, and Presidency swung from the Republicans to the Democrats does not in itself signal that voters had never sorted themselves out based on ideology. Two simple facts support this idea. First, a large part of Fiorina's argument is that the vast majority of the electorate are not that different, so for the middle of the middle-of-the-road voters the ideological or party identification is less durable over time and events or circumstance can swing their vote from one election cycle to the next. Second, the voting differentials in any single election race that have swung control to the Democratic Party are not that vast to suggest massive amounts of missorted voters still exist. Furthermore, even where large margins do exist, there are the effects of new voters to consider. With respect to the recent presidential election, Obama's victory was larger than both of President Bush's in terms of popular vote margin, but also in terms of total votes cast. The fact that new voters are emerging in the electorate, and perhaps "sorting" themselves as Democrats or liberals does not indict Fiorina's argument any more than the idea that the moderate, independent voters are still flexible and unlikely to reliably and completely assign themselves to a single party over the long term.

The Module 14 notes reference Fiorina attributing the result of the 2004 Presidential Election to the female vote; it also mentions that it can be easy to diagnose such a result when there is a significant difference in a given voting bloc from one election cycle to the next. Nonetheless, in analyzing Fiorina's contention by comparing the 2004 and 2008 exit polls, it is striking that the gap changed just as significantly among men - Democrats lost among men 45% to 53% in '04, and won 49% to 48% in '08. Women voted 52% to 46% in favor of Democrats in '04, and that went up to 56% in '08. The tides behind this change clearly must be from the middle, and in any case the sorting of voters into the ideologically correct party is bound to be an ongoing process. Another interesting gap shift from '04 to '08, which I believe also supports a case for the ongoing sorting of the electorate, is the vote of the youngest voters, 18-29 year-olds. In 2004, this group went 55% to 44% for the Democrats; in '08, this numbers swelled to a full 66% in favor of the Democrats. This is not to say that it can be expected that the Democratic candidate will have ~66% of the 18-29 vote in every election, but those voters are more likely to have correctly sorted themselves as Democrats and voted accordingly, and as such can expected to reliably vote Democratic, all other things being equal. Overall, I think it becomes clear that while it may the sorting hypothesis cannot and does not purport to be a predictor of how large the margins between voting blocs or parties may be, it is still a significant element in explaining and defining elections for a new political era.

Build-a-Party & Group Projects Analysis

Build-a-Party

Overall I am pleased with the final proposal my group (Group 6) came up with. If the premise of a Republican Party collapse were a reality, I would suspect that something like our party would be its replacement. Apparently other groups felt the same way, as it looks like every single group chose to build a party to take over the wake of a Republican collapse, and every group contained some element of a more socially liberal and true economic conservatism. Given the recent election results this isn't particularly suprising - choosing the GOP to collapse was the obvious choice since the Democrats just won the presidency and held both houses of Congress.

The platforms of each group's party were oriented towards different main issues but, again, tended towards social liberalism and fiscal conservatism. With everyone working with the premise that the GOP had collapsed, electoral strategies were focused on what the redrawn political map would look like for this new party if it could not reliably count on support of the old Republican base in the South and Great Plains. I know that our group and a couple of others addressed specifically the potential impact of smaller splinter parties under this hypothetical scenario and I think that is an important note, particularly with respect to expectations of party viability. It is almost easier to conceive of a new party candidate competing for (if not winning) the presidency in order to promote legitimacy for the congressional party candidates.

Group Work

The group member with whom I co-authored these two assignments was pro-active in setting and showing up to meeting times, reliable in coming to the table with ideas, and willing to put in time to get the job done. I couldn't ask for more. Were there supposed to be 4 people in the group? Yeah. Oh well. Being unconvinced that more is necessarily merrier, I would just reiterate that the group interactions that did take place were informative and productive. We intially met during the first project thru campfire.org, and used that as our meeting place each time after that to discuss or combine ideas. It would have even been easy for group members who weren't there to catch up and get on the next time we met since we posted transcripts and planned meetings through the D2L group messageboard. I am not sure if I can make any overly positive or negative generalizations based on these group projects about political communication and organization over the internet. As an asset to a team or group organizing effort the internet is absolutely a positive, but the motivation to organize still has to exist for people to take full advantage of it. People who want to be tuned in are tuned in - those who don't...aren't.