Your grannies are going to hurt you, Republicans

This is an example of an old voter. Thank you to CapitalGazette.com

Republicans face a problem in 2016 - this has been well documented thus far. The electorate is now full of brown people, which makes lacing a campaign with racial dog-whistles to hustle up old white people much trickier than before. Plausibly, the next person to sit atop the Democratic Party will also be a white folk (Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Martin O'Malley etc.) which means that whole Muslo-foreign-brown-person-birth-certificate-no-that's-not-a-real-birth-certificate argument will work even less successfully in 2016 than it did in 2012.

While those demographics are a-changin', so is one core Republican constituency: old people. The Baby Boomers started turning 65 last year, and there are bucketloads of them. There are going to be more people older than 65 in America than ever before, and they vote in numbers, in any weather, and they lean Republican. 56% of them voted for Mitt Romney; assuming Obama won the other 44%, that's a 12-point gap. In American politics that's a solid win.

"Yay,"I hear you cry, "that's great news for Republicans - our very own growing demographic!" No, according to some reports I looked at (and I am open to argument here as I am no anthropologist), the bloc of +65s, while growing, is not growing fast enough to counter-act the increase in groups favouring Democrats. However, it is a MASSIVE bloc within the Republican Party: ie. primaries that pick the presidential candidate (and others, of course). 

The coalition that makes up the Democratic voter coalition - brown people, young people, vagina-d people, gay people, poor people - by virtue of its existence kind of leans toward immigration rights, same-sex marriage (although this is hardly universally popular), liberalism, atheism and agnosticism*, a belief that there is a role for government in improving the country, and so on. 

As per the New York Times:
Beyond political parties, [young and old people] have different views on many of the biggest questions before the country. The young not only favor gay marriage and school funding more strongly; they are also notably less religious, more positive toward immigrants, less hostile to Social Security cuts and military cuts and more optimistic about the country’s future. They are both more open to change and more confident that life in the United States will remain good.

Old people tend to vote conservatively, particularly on immigration. Take, for example, this year's election result in the state of Arizona - Romney won 67% of the votes by people aged over 65. This is the state where immigration is the hottest political topic - the home of the "papers please" law which would have enabled police to request the papers of anyone who seemed to be there illegally (eg. because of brown skin or a funny accent). Romney openly backed Arizona's plethora of restrictive immigration laws this year and two-thirds of old people went along with him. To be clear, the presidential candidate for Republicans in 2008, John McCain, who has previously backed paths to immigration reform, finished the election then with 11 points less amongst this age group than Romney did - McCain is from Arizona!

Old people tend to make up a fat portion (50% to 70% over those older than 50, depending on which state you are in) of the vote in Republican primaries - and candidates with strong anti-immigration messages will therefore likely have a strong platform on which to stand. It is likely that the elderly will support such measures.

A quick count tells me 21 states have open primaries (anyone can vote) to elect party presidential candidates, plus California and Louisiana which have another kind of system, which means 27 states (plus some other territories) do not (which means only registered Republican Party members, and sometimes independents) can vote). In other words, old people, and their concerns, will be hugely influential in 27 closed state primaries. But this influence will not help them in the general elections.

If the elderly's influence on the Republican primary process continues to grow, the party runs a serious risk of selecting an unelectable presidential candidate. Again.

And the party will pay dearly for only waking up in 2012 to the changing country they wish to run. 

*EDIT: A friend of mine on Twitter, @shans, points out: "Perhaps just a matter of wording, but wouldn't say D. coalition "by nature of its existence" leans atheist/agnostic. Brown people and poor people are generally MORE religious than the gen pop. Not sure about women... And Pew which does most reliable research on religious trends says women more religious than men." She is quite right. In my clumsily worded paragraph above I used the phrase "atheism and agnosticism" in a list of characteristics of the Democratic voting coalition. I intended it to reference the young people who are part of this voting bloc, as well as the acceptability of secular legislation, but I referenced it awfully. 

News roundup 7 March

Spain may close its embassy in Syria and fly its ambassador home, according to foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo on Tuesday. Whether the Spanish government can afford the flights from Damascus to Madrid should be established by the finance ministry within the coming days, once it obtains permission from German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Two journalists at the British newspaper The Sun have apparently attempted suicide as the pressure of a wholly legal investigation into dodgy dealings at the paper increases. Luckily the investigation isn’t taking place dictated by The Sun’s ethical standards, or we’d already know what was in their garbage, how they looked with out a shirt on while on the beach, would see their name in capital letters on the page next to a naked woman with huge tits, would be declared guilty while an investigation was going on, would have “friends” declaring that they always were a bit dodgy, and would have an encampment of photographers outside their houses.  Sometimes the shoe doesn’t fit on the other foot.

Scientists have a new explanation for how the Titanic may have sunk back nearly 100 years ago. Although we all know that the unsinkable vessel hit an iceberg and then sank, braniacs believe the moon was responsible for an increase in iceberg obstacles on that particular sea highway. Coincidentally, our sources inform us that the man in the moon will also be responsible for coughing up the R300-billion for Transnet infrastructure upgrades announced by President Jacob Zuma in February.

Three of the four American Republican presidential candidates competed to be the most forceful aggressor on Iran, and its suspected nuclear weapons facilities. To be clear, there is as much proof of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme as there was evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That’s zero. Zilch. Nil. Our sources within the Republican Party claim that Mitt Romney wants to attack Iran because its trees are a similar height to Israel’s and he wants to protect Prime Minister Beebee Netanyahu’s timber industry. Rick Santorum advises a pre-emptive strike before Iranians possibly become illegal immigrants, and Newt Gingrich would attack Iran until it began limping, then Syria until its economy got sick, and then something young and hot like South Sudan or East Timor.

The USA will take action against India at the World Trade Organization over a ban of poultry and egg imports which India claims are necessary to prevent avian flu. US trade representative Ron Kirk said, “The United States is the world's leader in agricultural safety and we are confident that the WTO will confirm that India's ban is unjustified.” Our sources tell us that the Indian government is already in touch with Oprah Winfrey. 

Stop worrying about Ohio

Mitt Romney, having been dragged through the washers over Michigan, is now being told he needs to win Ohio or else the world will end. Santorum is supposed to be the big dangerman because he is from neighbouring Pennsylvania and is all about the blue collar works in the “rust belt”.

Ohio seems important because it is a swing state in the general election. It is vitally important in the general because, as I have mentioned before, only about 12 states are contested in a general election. Some states tend to always vote one way or another. Republicans will not win Massachusetts or California. Democrats will not win Mississippi or Oklahoma. That’s just how it goes. Ohio is one of the states that changes its mind every so often, so you’ll see a huge effort in this state by both parties leading into November.

However, claiming Romney needs to win it in the primary to secure it in the general election is untrue. Although Ohio is an open primary (anyone can vote in it, as opposed to having to register with the party in some other states) it will be a small amount of Republicans who vote on the day. The amount of voters in a primary is always smaller than the number of voters in an election. Now, believe you me, the voters who vote Republican on primary day will almost certainly be voting Republican on election day, in spite of who wins the nomination. In other words, if Rick Santorum wins Ohio, but Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination, the probability of Ohio falling Democrat or Republican remains pretty much the same.

Let’s look at an example: In the 2008 Democrat primaries, Barack Obama lost the nomination race in five major swing states and still went on to win them in the general election. Michigan, Florida, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and ---> *OHIO*<--- all preferred Hillary Clinton over Obama. But all five states were carried by Democrats.

Also, it’s not as though Romney hasn’t beaten the rest in a major swing state before during this nomination process. He won Florida – remember the state that was so important in handing George Bush 43 the election in 2000? Florida will have 29 electoral votes in the 2012 election, ten more than Ohio. It is a VITAL state to win in a general, and by current media analysis it should factor into the same “need to win” as Ohio. Florida has voted for the winner of the general election in every vote since 1964, with the exception of 1992. Ohio has voted along with the winning party in every election since 1964. So outside one election result, Florida is as determinative as Ohio.

An aside from my point of view, Romney’s biggest danger on Super Tuesday is not Rick Santorum. It is Newt Gringrich who is polling very competitively in southern states: Georgia (Gingrich’s home state), Oklahoma and Tennessee all go a-voting on Tuesday 6 March, with those three boasting 177 delegates between them. Getting drilled in all of the southern states, which is quite plausible, would hurt Romney far more than dropping Ohio. 

Is Romney's result really that bad?

Image kindly pinched from HollywoodReporter.com

I watch a lot of sensationalist news. I figure that by watching Fox and MSNBC, I will average out the hysteria into a basic understanding of what is going on in the world. But sometimes the hysterics cannot be accurately blended into fact, and I feel like the great loser in this melee of somewhat-facts over the last week has been Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. 

"Analysts" of all types unanimously agreed that it was vital for Mitt Romney to win his home state of Michigan in Tuesday's primary. At face value this seems legitimate: one would expect candidates to take their own state, particularly one where their father was an incredibly popular governor. However, what threatened to sink Romney was not so much the fact the people don't like him. Romney penned a highly controversial piece in the New York Times called "Let Detroit go Bankrupt", which criticised what President Barack Obama planned to do (and ultimately did), which was bail out the auto industry, much of which is based in Detroit, Michigan.

Now, the auto industry is to Detroit what Table Mountain is to Cape Town - people get highly protective over it. Romney surely knew when he wrote that column for the New York Times that he was going to piss some people off. In fact, that's half the reason some people write columns. And such a divisive issue was bound to come up when he ran for president this time around. Of course Michiganders are going to have split opinion when it comes to the auto bailout; simple logic would dictate that some folks would be against it. In fact, it was nice to finally see Romney take a principled stand and stick with it.

What this means is that Romney was quite entitled to not win Michigan, in spite of his roots there, because he picked a side in a massively controversial battle. People were quite entitled to disagree with his view on the bail out. Surely the political system is better when people are voting over issues and records than the bloke that comes from a certain place and adores the height of the trees?

What also surprised me greatly was that not one media outlet I read, and I read many, discussed how Romney's opposition to the bailout may play in other states. Instead, we were treated to constant repetition of just how ghastly it would be if Mitt failed to win Michigan. Now, in many southern states, a portion of whom go to the polls on Super Tuesday (on 6 March) are far more concerned with fiscal conservatism. While arguing against the bailout may hurt in Michigan, it is unlikely to do so in Oklahoma, Tennessee or Georgia, all of whom will vote soon. And, let's be honest, if Romney starts winning in the south then this race will be over swiftly.

Something else the media climbed all over was Romney's speech to the Detroit Economics Club on Friday last week at the Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions American football team. Romney has been invited by the club to deliver a speech about his economic plan for the US, and naturally, attendance to an address by a  presidential nominee was higher than normal. The DEC (note, NOT Mit Romney) changed the venue to the Ford Field and set up a stage and chairs in a small portion of the field. There was never any intention to fill the stadium. But multiple media outlets reported how Mitt Romney failed to fill a stadium. One would think that the nominee would have invited more than 1,200-odd people in a 60,000-seater stadium if he was attempting to do something grand, right?

Image pinched from mlive.com.

Often, Romney doesn't help himself. He manages to walk around with both feet in his mouth a lot of the time, with increasing regularity. But he isn't helped by criticism that isn't, well, in-depth.

While much criticism is justified, it is surely worth looking at why Romney may have stuck with a point of view past the next primary. It is easy enough to point fingers and say you're criticising. It is something else entirely to actually be critical.

AFGHANISTAN IS NOT LIBYA

 (Image from the Huffington Post)

Rick Perry's screw up during the Republican presidential debate last week was bad. In case you forgot, Perry announced that he would do away with three government departments and then promptly forgot the third one (the department of energy).

As covered in Daily Maverick's First Thing:
"It’s three agencies of government when I get there that are gone – commerce, education and the um, what’s the third one there? Let’s see. Oh five – commerce, education and the um, um” It wasn’t five. It was three. Ron Paul suggested the environmental protection agency, which Perry agreed to, and then backtracked on it and fumbled around again. We discovered later that he meant the department of energy.

It was cringeworthy. We all laughed.

His mistake, though, is very different from Sunday's somewhat bizarre Herman Cain answer on Libya, while being interviewed by the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal. Start watching about 40 seconds in.

While Perry actually does know the name of the department of energy, Herman Cain's answer to this somewhat gentle question about a very recent high-profile issue was pathetic. Especially for someone who is looking to become commander-in-chief of the world's most powerful army showed a severe lack of understanding. In fact, Cain had no idea what he was talking about. Initially I was prepared to accept his reasoning that he would have tried to understand the opposition to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (whom he did not mention by name) more thoroughly until I realised he gave precisely the same answer relating to Afghanistan in an earlier Republican presidential debate.

In an answer to one question, Cain showed he didn't know what the US approach to Libya was, nor was he able to answer a foreign policy question differently to when he was last asked about US-involved conflict in an Arab nation. Quite simply, AFGHANISTAN IS NOT LIBYA.

This is different to people saying North Korea when they mean South Korea, which is a mere slip of the tongue, and far closer to people who think that Saddam Hussein flew planes into the World Trade Centre which is an unfounded claim.

While I still think Rick Perry would make a terrible candidate for president, his gaffe is nowhere near as significant as Herman Cain's.