Political science and what to do.
Matt sounds disappointed that Gelman et al. don't give politicians or activists much useful advice; indeed, they seem to argue that demography is electoral destiny. Andrew responds by offering some advice as to how candidates can benefit from marginal gains.
I'm sure Andrew's right, but let me go a step beyond the marginal advice. You might have to despair at his report if we had 100 percent of the voting-age population voting. We don't.
And historically, US politicians realizing that their votes depend on demographic factors have been willing to use that knowledge in grand, even desperate ways to re-shape the electorate in their favor. In the late nineteenth century, southern Democrats disfranchised African Americans. Politicians of both parties disfranchised immigrants and internal migrants. Republicans sought to admit the most Republican-voting western territories as states (hey, Dakota's so Republican, let's have two!).
You can remake the electorate by less grand means. Think of Republicans firing up socially conservative evangelicals, or Democrats bringing African Americans back into the electorate.
Andrew et al. are reporting the political landscape as they find it. That doesn't mean it can't be reshaped, either by candidates like Barack Obama or movement activists like Aaron.
Right. As Bertolt Brecht acidly observed in 1953 after the public's revolt against the Soviet-imposed dictatorship in East Germany was smashed down:
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
Ted Kennedy has done brilliant work over the decades to elect a new, more Democratic-voting people, from his 1965 immigration act to his 1990 invention of the Diversity Visa immigration system, to his sponsorship of the Kennedy-McCain amnesty act of 2006.
What Teddy's Republican allies like Senator McCain and President Bush were thinking, however, is much less clear.
McCain's recent angry outburst at Hispanic leaders seeking help on a yet another amnesty bill for not supporting him over Obama in 2008, despite McCain working much harder for amnesty than Obama, suggests that McCain really did drink Karl Rove's Kool-Aid about how the GOP really could win over Hispanic voters via amnesty. Apparently, McCain's only now woken up to how deluded that theory is.
April 23, 2009 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Considering that we've pretty much been living in a one party state for the past 30 years when it comes to ideology and message, seems to me there ought to be plenty of ways to leverage demographics if we but had a philosophy more compelling than post-partisanship. I mean if you want to persuade people, you might at least make the effort to have an argument.
April 23, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some possibilities for Dems then would be lowering the voting age (though 18 is already quite low) and letting convicted felons vote. I believe Republicans are more likely to vote than Democrats (though there are less of them) and bad weather in particular tends to result in Dems staying home. A general rise in voting could then help Dems. John Lott (who also pointed out the large leanings of ex-cons whether poor or like Michael Milken & Martha Stewart) has argued that secret ballots resulted in large drops in voting because it was harder to have Tammany-style bribery that way. Getting rid of secret ballots could then be one possibility. If you don't accept that theory, easier absentee voting would be another way to avoid the rainy-day effect. I've never even registered to vote myself, so I don't know how hard any of this is.
April 23, 2009 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another way improve the ratio for Democrats would be to impose felony convictions on presumptively rich college students who use cocaine at the same rates that blacks who use drugs are convicted. Only
fair, no?
April 25, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Rauchway, are you aware of Steve Sailer's racist views?
April 24, 2009 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink