The myth of the "Swing Voter"

[Lobo_13]

Every time I see one candidate's supporters or another talk about how their guy will win because one issue or another is the most important, I gently laugh to myself. Because they are invariably talking about "Swing Voters".

Newsflash: "Swing Voter" is just a euphemism for moderate Republican.

That's why the chase for the swing voter has led the Democratic Party down the road to ruin. That's why the the Republican Party has been in ascendence. The Dems have taken up the strategy of trying to steal their voters, while the Republicans work their asses off to bring more and more base voters into their fold, so they can afford to lose half of their less committed folks. They've fallen into delusion that somehow that magical 10-15% of voters is all they need to win. But if they chase that 15% to the point that they've failed to bring out 20% of their base, they've lost. That's the real conundrum of the Democratic pary problem.

That's another reason why I'm a Dean Supporter. This campaign has consistently chased the voters that consider themselves Democrats, but don't vote. We've worked our asses off to raise visibility, to bring new people to meetups, to let people know that it's okay to vote again, and it's okay to be a Democrat again. Sure, we've got some help by the Shrub's monumental mismanagement, but the real source of our success is in the hard work of the ordinary Americans that sacrifice alot for this campaign. That's why the Bush campaign is going to try and hammer us, that's why the other candidates hammer us. And it's ultimately why we'll prevail. The swing voters will either vote for you or they won't, but the real battle is to bring out the voters in your own party. From what I've seen, Dean is the only one that can do it.

[rbnyc]

1. Personally,

I think you're right. That's why Dean is my second choice.

[arewethereyet]

2. I'd adjust that to be simply moderate

or even moderate dem

other that that it seems sensable except for focusing your hopes on making people who never vote, vote. they never vote for a reason.

[KaraokeKarlton]

3. Hey! I'm not a "myth" and I'm not a Republican either

I'm a registered Independent who is loyal to no party. I'd be a Democrat if the far left didn't scare the bejesus out of me. There are A LOT of unaffiliated voters who the Dems would have if they could just get the anti-gun faction to shut up about gun control, stop with the idiotic attack ads and focus on the basic issues that affect EVERY American. If the Democratic Party would just do that they would never lose. Dean offers this to voters and it's why he's attracting so many people to his campaign. And most of these people don't care whether Saddam got caught or not.

[arewethereyet]

5. Kind of like how Clinton and Carter did ? And Edwards would ?

yeah I buy that hook line and sinker

[Djinn]

13. different ball game

here as we have compulsory voting - although it's really compulsory turned up and have your name ticked off - no-one forces you to vote)

so the swinging voters are a big deal here but I doubt they're a non issue in USA.

Fair enough you need the dem sympathising non voters to come out in force but you also need the independant or slightly repub leaning ones out too

I can see why people would think Clark is a better bet for the swingers but I don't see the argument that Dean would be better at harnessing the lapsed democratic vote neccesarily just because he's a bit more left - when faced with ???? versus Bush surely even Ghengis Khan would be the "left" choice

[nolabels]

14. Unlike * , Ghengis Khan had at least one atribute in that he knew.........

how to Ride

http://www.bikexprt.com/witness/product/bushfalls.htm
PRESIDENT BUSH
FALLS OFF
A SEGWAY

© 2003, John S. Allen
Photo and caption from Reuters, fair use

[Lobo_13]

16. And that's exactly what I'm talking about.

The swing voters will vote the way they want to, no matter what. They'll vote on the strength of the message.

But if you turn yourself upside down and inside out to get those independents, and can't get the base up enough, you're toast.

And you are absolutely right about why 50 mil people choose not to vote. Example: two of the three people who work in my pod don't bother with politics. When I've engaged them (I have to be very soft-sell) the answer I got was "I don't pay attention to all the negative stuff." I handed one of them a pamphlet and she took it and said, "I would rather read something like this than see all that negative stuff on TV." These are the people we need to get into the process. And I think the Dean campaign has done that nicely.

[IronLionZion]

23. Yeah same here

I really am an Independent and don't like being labeled with any party. I like the Democratic values but am really concerned about the socialists in the party. I like some of the real conservative values but am strongly against the Right wingers and Bush.

But I do agree with rallying and expanding the base to include anyone, even socialists, but it must be done in a way that does not alienate the moderates.

Unite, unlike Bush.

[kentuck]

4. I'd say that if we have "moderate" Dems that would vote for Bush.....

over any of our candidates, I personally would rather lose than have thme in our Party. But, that said, I think it would make our Party stronger if we stopped trying to appease these sympathizers.

[bluestateguy]

6. Let me recommend some reading for you

A book called the "Myth of the Independent Voter" by Bruce Keith, Raymond Wolfinger, Candice Nelson and David Magelby; University of California Press, 1992.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/textbooks/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2WFZY0Z0WJ&isbn=0520077202&TXT=Y&itm=1

The book argues that self-identified "idependents" are mostly just partsians who won't admit it. There are very few truly independent voters out there.

[Silverhair]

21. If there were no swing voters, then then how do you account for

elections varying so widely. Bush v1.0 won handily in 88, and went down in flames in 92. A lot of people had to have changed their votes. Or look at 64 and 68, again many people changed. Swing voters exist, and in huge numbers. To deny that is to deny reality.

[Lobo_13]

34. Differed widely?

Bush lost by 4 points in the '92 election. That's hardly a landslide. Dukakis lost in 88 precisely because he couldn't bring out the base.

And if you'll remember, there was a little guy called Ross Perot who arguably siphoned equal portions of the the base, the swing voters, and brought a good deal of people in who hadn't voted before. Clinton's victory hinged on the under 30 demographic that historically doesn't vote. He brought young people out in droves to vote for him, people who never voted before. And that was a group that Bush was plain incapable of wooing.

[TexasPatriot]

7. there's a reasonable thread over on P/C on this

[Silverhair]

8. Swing voters are extremely well documented. There are

many millions of voters that vote split tickets, and sometimes Rep and sometimes Dem at the top of the ticket. They decide the elections. THAT IS A FACT. To claim that it isn't is to be in very deep denial. To claim that you can write off and alienate the swing voter and still win national elections is to be in grevious error.

[BiggJawn]

10. But what happens whrn you lose your BASE in the pursuit...

..of the oh-so-fickle "Swing Voter"? That's what he was saying tere. You spend so much time and effort ass-kissing that mythical 15% that you don't rouse the 20% of your BASE that you're TAKING FOR GRANTED and they stay home.

what pisses me off about "Swing Voters" is that SOMEBODY invariabley jumps into a thread with a "SHHH! Watch what you say! You're scaring people off from our party!" That gives me a mental image of a group of voters flitting around on Faerie wings going "Oh, WHO will kiss my rosy pink ass for my vote TODAY? Bush? Clark? Dean? No, Joe, you left hickeys last time..."

[arewethereyet]

11. As McGovern, Dukakis and Humphrey did ?

the you lose and lose big.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

44. Dukakis and Humphrey did not "mobilize the base"

Base voters were *not* enthusiastic about Dukakis (some of us wondered if his candidacy was a deliberate attempt to throw the election), and many base voters stayed home in 1968 because they were angry about Humphrey's support for the Vietnam War.

You need better examples.

[Silverhair]

27. Reality bites. And the swing voter is reality.

And yes, a lot of the stuff that is posted here does wind up being seen by the general public. A candidate is often judged by his followers. The Yippies in 72 hurt McGovern, at the same time that they gave him the nomination.

The extreme hatred that one see here is going to hurt us at election time.

[AP]

9. If you're on the right, the swing voter looks like a Democrat in suburbs

who isn't so racist, doesn't care all that much about Pro-lifers, and is willing to vote for a Republican when she thinks it's going to help her pocketbook more than voting for the Dem will.

[PassingFair]

12. Bravo, Lobo!

The people I have met at the Dean meet-ups, and more recently at Democratic community functions have all been people who were and are APPALLED by the * administrations handywork.

We are young, we are old, we are black, we are white, we are rich (ok, I'm not SURE about this...) we are poor. None of us consider ourselves "elite", that' s for sure.

We believe Dean to be the most electable, and we are prepared to WORK to this end.

Last week, I stood up at a county commissioner's meeting, walked to the podium and told the "preacher man" who preceeded me just what I thought of his intent to legislate his religion into law.

I've got two young kids, and a full-time McJob, but I'm giving everything else I've got to unseating the unspeakably amoral administration that's got us by the short hairs.

If another dem candidate gets the nod, I'll work for him/her, too.

[Blue_Chill]

15. Go ahead, ignore reality and pretend your base alone will win it

Swing voters are not moderate Republicans. They are moderates with no party affiliation. This is well documented and you can stick your fingers in your ears and chant "they don't exist they don't exist" all you want, it won't change anything.

The latest voter registration numbers are 34% Dem 33% Rep 33% Undeclared. Go ahead and ignore the large center chunk, you won't be the first, you won't be the last. You will however suffer the same reality slap.

[Lobo_13]

18. And what's your source for the registration numbers?

I'd love to see that link. Because the last time I looked, the breakdown of "likely voters" (voters who voted in the last election AND said they'd vote again), the numbers were 40-40-20. Some have even speculated that it might be closer to 45-45-10.

Again, the point is missed. Chasing those votes to the exclusion of the base is political hari-kari. Craft a strong message, appeal to the base, and the swing voters will show up. Or they won't. If you've energized your base, you don't have to worry so much about the swing voter. Bringing out 10% of those voters will likely absorb whatever losses you take from people who don't even agree with you anyway.

[Silverhair]

31. A message that strongly energizes your base, will also...

energize the other base too. Hillary energizes most Democrats, and Republicans too. Same for Dean, and for that matter, for W. He energizes his base, and ours too. And since the bases are about the same in size, then the swing voters will decide the election, as they always do.

[sally343434]

17. It's not a myth at all

Unfortunately, there are about 20% of voters who have no real idea of "what it all means." They don't pay close attention to much of anything beyond washing the SUV, coddling the kids, and watching Survivor. These are the people euphamistically referred to as swing voters.

Their choices are whimsical, based mainly on television advertising. This applies to cars, toothpaste, and presidential candidates. These largely worthless sots will find themselves in the voting booth and, only then, will they make their decision. It will go something like this: "Let's see, I have a choice between A and B. Oh yeah, I remember hearing that A was Bin Laden's gay lover, or something like that. I guess I'll vote for B. Whatever! I'm late for the kid's soccer practice!"

This is why so much money is poured into television ads. The outcome always depends on these "swing" voters because everyone else already has their mind made up.

[Lobo_13]

22. And that 20% doesn't mean squat

if you lose 20% of your base, and the swing is evenly split.

The challenge is not to convince people who don't care to vote for you, it's to get people who DO care to vote for you.

Republicans win because they have an outstanding system of registering base voters. That's the real reason behind 2002. That's the real reason why Bush got as close as he did to winning. The Republicans couldn't care less about the swing vote because they've got their base whipped into a frenzy. They expect to get no more than half of the swing vote, because it ultimately ends up that way. The swing vote is almost always a push, so it ultimately doesn't mean much.

[kentuck]

26. And there's an assumption the 50% who do not vote...

wll never vote...or if they do vote, they might vote for the other side...

[Silverhair]

33. So how does that theory explain 64,72,80,84, & 92?

Landslide require much more than energizing your base. You simply can't do it on your base alone.

[Lobo_13]

35. Let's see

64 - freako rightie who scared his base over to the other side
72 - freako leftie who ran a terrible campaign and Nixon, who birthed the modern dirty tricks.
80 - An extraordinarily charismatic man who was able to take full advantage of bad circumstances to upturn a much better man. Reagan peeled base voters off of Carter.
84 - Weak campaign that couldn't energize the base. Mondale lost in an electoral landslide, but he did hang in there on the popular vote. Just couldn't swing a majority anywhere.
92 - Not a landslide, Bush lost by four points, and no candidate got a majority vote.

[dolstein]

19. How about the myth of the 48% Democratic base?

As long as we're dealing with myths, how about the myth that Howard Dean would start off with the 48% of American voters who supported Al Gore in 2000?

[Lobo_13]

24. I'd be more worried about

the myth that everyone who voted for Bush last time will do so again.

Bush has cocked it up so badly and run so far away from actual conservatism that moderate Republicans are supporting Dem candidates.

I'm more than happy to welcome anyone to the party, but they come on OUR terms.

[kentuck]

20. Something about the argument sounds so irrational...

Let's see, the swing voter might vote for Bush because Dean is for civil unions, no matter if he has lost his job and his Medicare has been vandalized. The swing voter will vote for Bush because Kerry is for some type of gun control, no matter if they have lost their health insurance and cannot afford their prescription drugs. The swing voter will vote for Bush because Clark doesn't have the "honor and integrity", no matter if their sons and daughters have lost their lives in a war fought because of lies and manipulations...

[goodhue]

25. agreed

pursuing the swing voter is a losing strategy

[Lobo_13]

29. It's not just pursuing the swing voter

It's about pursuing the swing voter to the exclusion of your base.

[Woodstock]

28. No, swing voter is not a "euphemism for moderate Republican"

I'm not sure where you are getting this information.

I know quite a few Libertarians and independents and Greens who would resent being called a "moderate Republican."

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

It's true we need to appeal to the base (and get the vote out.)

But there are a lot of swing voters who are in our camp. Analyze some of the polls on pollingreport.com, and you'll see we've got strength there.

[Lobo_13]

30. I capitulate

Moderate Republican was a poor choice of words.

It's more accurate to say that swing voters are generally moderates of either proclivity.

[Woodstock]

37. not sure if you know about this site

there's some interesting info about swing voters & the role they play to be gained from reading the book/perusing the site

http://www.emergingdemocraticmajority.com/

[kentuck]

32. But wouldn't most of the Greens and many "independents" vote...

..with our base? Isn't that why the Greens left the Democratic Party?

[Woodstock]

36. I don't quite understand your question

But I'll try to answer what I think you asked.

Energizing and motivating Democrats (our base) is the most important key to winning. I'm fully behind that statement.

But there's no sense in alienating swing voters if we don't have to. Greens, Independents, Libertarians, are all not Democrats for a reason. But that doesn't mean they won't vote with us this time. Bush is NOT popular among many of them, to the point that ABB is NOT just a Democratic phenomenon.

[kentuck]

38. Many Greens are "liberal"....

Liberals are the base of the Democratic Party. How did we manage to lose liberals?

[Woodstock]

39. My thoughts

I'd say they got sick of the Republican Lite baloney. When I listen to the DLC bash fellow Democrats, or watch Tom Daschle vote against choice, or watch Dems vote for the blank check for the Iraq invasion, I can understand why they left.

[kentuck]

40. But that was part of our base...

We can't afford to lose those while we're going after some netherland "swing" voters....

[Isome]

41. But weren't those things...

—the blank check for the Iraqi invasion, votes for the Patriot Act, etc.— done precisely because they didn't want to "alienate" the swing voters, because they didn't want the "moderates" to think they were too "radical"?

[3rdParty]

42. why worry?

Instead of worrying about the mysterious 'swing voter', why don't we just stick to our core principles and I guarantee that in the end we will win. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but we will be seen as 'for the people' and will succeed just when the time is right.

[LoneStarLiberal]

43. There's One Major Problem, Though

Actually, there's one major one and a few minor ones.

In another ten years' time this hypothesis will be correct. Political campaigns are going to come down to very partisan, very entrenched groups of polarized voters. The Republicans started down this road and have found it to be a successful one. Their continuing polarization will necessitate a response in polarization from Democrats.

In 2004, however, the swing voter isn't yet a museum piece. We still have a center in American politics, but it is true that it is shrinking.

One of the secrets to the success of the partisan entrenchment movement on the right side of the American political spectrum is that it's simply easier to get conservatives to herd together. Conservatism is a pack ideology at its core whereas liberalism is not; liberalism is fractured, quite territorial in a multifaceted manner, and is far more alert to and unsure of compromise than conservatism. In short, it's going to be a whole lot more difficult to replicate the Republican entrenchment on the left side of the political spectrum.

If nothing else think of this in terms of defensive campaign strategy. We need to get these swing voters now because if we don't Bush will be more than happy to take them in less than a year from now. While the Dean campaign message can rally first time voters to the cause, it can't rally those swing voters.

I respect the work the Dean campaign has done in recruiting more first time voters than any campaign in recent memory. I think that this is a case of entrenching too soon, though. In the 2004 cycle there is still a center and there are still moderate voters out there, the increasingly rare swing voters, who are looking for a candidate. Entrenching to their left is more than likely going to leave them in the hands of the Bush/Cheney campaign come November. We have a chance to not only appeal to these voters now but to entrench them in our camp when the coming division arrives sometime later this decade. To ignore them now in order to shore up what will always be a leaky and fracturous coalition of the left is to ignore electoral success in 2004 and possibly beyond.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

45. Incomplete posting (removed)

n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. How NOT to pursue swing voters

And that's the way Gore did it, by agreeing with Bush on a lot of issues and mumbling vague sound bites about "policies that benefit working families."

Given nothing of substance, the normally apathetic apolitical types who turn out for presidential elections had nothing to go on except their impressions of the two candidates' "likability."

Unfortunately, there were apparently too many swing voters who decided that they liked the dumb guy.

(Yes, I know Gore won the popular vote, but if he had actually run on concrete issues, dared to differ with Bush, and let his campaign expose the little twerp for the waste of protoplasm that he is, fewer voters would have gone Green.)

The Dem candidate needs to look at the actual needs of this country, find a way to meet at least some of them in an easily understood manner, refuse to let the Republicans frame the agenda, and go on the attack to point out where the Republicans are deficient.

If his assessment of the needs of the country is accurate and his solutions make sense, both the base and the swing voters will be motivated.

[Isome]

47. This is just terrible.

Democrats spend too much time worrying about swing voters and what the rethuglicans will think or say or what positions we take. You won't find Karl Rove mapping out strategies based on swing voters. Grover Norquist doesn't censor his own speech for fear of alientating swing voters. The Thief-n-Chief isn't even motivated to temper his snippy responses when he says he "doesn't care" what someone else thinks because he's the "pResident", and that he's not ashamed to practice cronyism. Where's the outrage from those much-lauded swing voters?

It should be apparent by now that swing voter is often synonymous with apathetic fencesitter who is easily swayed by spin and illogic.

All over the board there is more concern about who will win the nomination, but not what the actual issues are, and where they stand on them. There is an obsession with who looks acceptable to other people in the country, but not whose beliefs are beneficial to the country as a whole. Many are preoccupied with bad mouthing one candidate, without elevating their own based on their record of achievements or the innovative ideas they have to put the country back on the right track.

Swing voters, schming voters!!