Tonight on The Last Word, Lawrence O’Donnell made the case that the reason that Obama won the election was that he was an outstanding candidate. Karen Finney and David Corn backed him up. I like all of these pundits, but they are wrong. Obama was certainly a very good candidate. But it’s the turnout, stupid.
The reason that Obama won is that far more Democrats came out to vote than Republicans. Obama won because the policies of the Democratic Party appeal to the poor and middle class. It’s simple demographics. The question is, how do we get these people to come out and vote in 2014?
All we have to remember is this: if there’s high turnout, we win. We don’t need great candidates, except in as far as they goose turnout.
Speaking of voting and demographics, I just read an article that gives me a little hope for the future. It shows that young voters, and young people in general, are very liberal.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/11/generation-d-americas-liberal-future.html
But I agree with you that if everyone voted that the Democrats would win most elections.
@Mack – Thanks. I’ve already read Chait’s column. In fact, I sent him a tweet yesterday complaining about him not posting anything. I really like him, even if I do strongly disagree with him at times. He’s always worth reading.
I was planning on writing something based on the article. I may still. We’ll see.
The biggest demographic problem for the Republicans is income inequality. You can only allow an economy to get so unequal in a democracy before one or the other is destroyed. I’m not so cynical yet that I think it will be democracy that dies. (Not that inequality will die, but it should be reduced eventually.)