No joking. He's half-Mexican, very handsome, connected (the son of Jeb, who most people consider to be the more capable Bush brother, which is a shame) and is the grandson of a migrant worker. This is the sort of candidate the Democrats would die to have in 10 years. At the moment George P. Bush is training as an intelligence officer in the Naval Reserve and has stated that he wants to wait 10 years before entering politics. When he does things will get interesting.
Presidential Politics - A Highly Scientific Statistical Analysis
For those of you who haven't been watching (and lets be honest, who is really watching these debates anyway) the two main political parties have been conducting debates over the past couple months. For most people this is extremely early to be thinking about debates... except for Democrats, for whom time until 1/20/09 moves as slow as molasses in a squeeze bottle.
The main candidates, or more accurately, the only ones that are going to even matter a year from now, are as follows. On the Democratic side you have Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. On the GOP side you have Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and very soon, Fred Thompson. In the following paragraphs I'm going to share with you my pre-pre-pre-pre election analysis on the situation and how I think things are going to go for the various candidates. Keep in mind - Howard Dean was actually feasible for a while in '04 so anything could happen.
Generally speaking, Barack Obama has the support of what I call the "Volvo and Chardonnay" liberal elites, while in a fit of irony Hillary Clinton has the support of blacks and the Hollywood crowd... although Barack is whittling away at that. John Edwards is stuck, in all honesty, with taking votes away from the other two as a way of gaining ground and is still talking about his "two Americas" platform. Although its still a year and a half out, I don't see anyone knocking down the Clinton political machine. Take a guess where my vote won't be going!
On the GOP side, its a little more interesting because the hero to the conservative base hasn't even declared his candidacy yet. There are some rules within the GOP if you want to run for President - you must have the support of the conservatives and you must be against abortion. Without both you cannot get the nomination despite how strong you are on other issues. The conservatives have been waiting for somebody to get behind because frankly, Giuliani is too liberal on social issues and they are pissed at McCain for what they perceive as bad decision making and cooperating with "the enemy." This is why Fred Thompson is statistically tied with Giuliani despite not having declared yet. Fred Thompson is considered to be more reliably conservative, is well known because of his acting on Law and Order, has previous experience in the Senate, has consulted in the past and is a member of the influential Council on Foreign Relations. Another interesting twist - he used to be a lobbyist. In the end I believe that its a two-horse race between Thompson and Giuliani, and things aren't as clear cut on the GOP side so I wouldn't even begin to try to make a stab at who will win the nomination. I think it will depend heavily on whether or not Giuliani can placate enough conservatives and secure enough independant centrist types to make up the gap.
The Rating System
Putting it terribly simply, voters categorize candidates based on how close they align themselves with the candidates philospohy, how attractive a candidate is and where they stand on hot button issues. So, I went ahead and scaled things down a bit. After all, its still early.
The Infamous Gay-dar
Toleration of sexual preference is a litmus test. For the Dems, if you ain't lib then you are glib. For the GOP, stance on abortion really is the standard. Nevertheless, here is my analysis.
As you can see the Democrats are fabulous. John Edwards, in green, gets a little limp towards the end because he supports "civil unions" and not "marriage." What about the GOP?
Fred Thompson, in blue, is holding it down for the "reich" wing sexually, if you ask liberals. Both Giuliani and McCain are moderate and generally don't have a problem with gay people, but eventually diverge because Giuliani is considered to be somewhat fabulous.
The Sexy Factor
We are superficial - its part of the American mystique. How do the two parties stack up?
Hillary in silk make voters vomit, although considering how prolific Slick Willy is and was, I find it hard to believe that he would have married someone who didn't at least have a nice ass when she was younger. Still though, nothing can save Hillary from time, gravity and unfavorable stage lighting. As for Barack Obama and John Edwards - these are some attractive gentleman. Consider the perfect hair of John Edwards and tell me I'm wrong.
Fred Thompson, in blue, is in desperate need of political-strength Maxoderm. Giuliani and McCain are equally attractive, meaning that for politicians they look about what you would expect GOP front runners to look like. Both are also equally subject to caricature.
The Hot Button (El Botón Caliente)
Immigration is today's main hot button issue outside of the Iraq war. Immigration will be a focus point for the '08 election. Where do the candidates stand?
In Hillary Clinton's case even her ACCENT will change depending on who she is talking to, let alone her message. For those of you who don't get my clever reference, Hillary has been known to sound like a black Baptist when she is in Harlem, and a Dixie Chick when she is in the south. As for John Edwards and Barack Obama, they are fairly consistant in their belief that family ties (a common method for illegals is known as "anchor babies") should remain a consideration for illegal immigrants who wish to pursue a route to legality. No Democratic candidate is so far left wing on immigration as to state things like "there are no illegal immigrants, only immigrants" or "California used to be Mexico, thereby for some bizarre reason native Mexicans should be able to roam freely."
Fred Thompson supports your classic conservative viewpoint on immigration... at least that is what he is expected to support anyway! As for Giuliani (in green) he is a compassionate man and wants to help the illegals who are currently here but supports sharp, even draconian, measures to ensure that the flow of illegals stops. As for McCain - well, lets just say that in GOP circles nothing McCain does is right at the moment.
My appologies.
I read this at work. My job requires that I rip of my human skin and don that of a zombie so I may stagger through piles of data entry and mugs of tea.
I mean, how could the charts you put in not be tongue in cheek?
re: hillary and women: I, for one, hate her.
(e:jenks) - the reason you described is why Jeb isn't running - "bush fatigue syndrome" or BFS. In 10 years we'll see. To be honest I'm not even particularly sure what his politics are, except I'd be willing to bet that he isn't a traditional conservative. I don't even particularly believe GWB or even his father were conservatives.
(e:james) -
Generally speaking this was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek post and I was intentionally generalizing with the facts (at least this time!), but to answer:
Obama isn't the only candidate appealing to the religious left - all of them participated in a talk a week or so ago hosted by Jim Wallis (of 'God's Politics' fame - very good book) and ALL of them are learning how to speak the language of religion. After 2004 when 'moral values' was a major factor among voters, frankly a Democrat cannot afford not to if they expect to win in a general election. That coincided shortly thereafter with an interesting talk about religion and society that I heard on NPR, and it was interesting to hear lefty religious people talk about their views on the role of religion in society.
Hillary and Obama are splitting Hollywood straight down the middle, which I find fascinating (todays news is that Spielberg is with Clinton), but what is particularly interesting to me is Obama's problem with blacks. Obama's problem is that he isn't "black enough" for everyday African Americans. What types of black people like Obama? Oprah - relatively affluent, educated people that look and sound like he does. People like Al Sharpton are highly critical of Obama, and you'll see that translate into votes for Hillary. As for Hillary's cred with black people, its inexplicable to me except to say that as a Clinton and as a popular senator in New York she'll always have popular appeal with African Americans. I would even take it a step further than you did w/respect to blacks and gay people.
W/respect to gay issues - what I wrote was cheeky and was primarily set up to rip on the Republicans, something I usually don't do a ton of. What I'm hearing from Democrats thus far, which is something I should have put in originally, are the following: end the war ASAP, raise taxes on the rich, nationalize health care and introduce elements to reduce climate change, such as force the car industry to increase gas mileage as one example. Dems do not talk about gay issues much, as you said, except seemingly when the archconservatives try drastic measures like a Constitutional amendment. I think most Americans support the idea of legal unions - for the love of God its the right thing to do and I don't even see it as a political issue but a moral (and ultimately legal) one.
I really, really do not think Al Gore will run. I think it would be interesting because he'd truly screw everything up for Obama and Hillary and it would be a circus. However, I just don't think he has a shot at trumping Hillary. I fucking hate Hillary Clinton but I don't see anything stopping her. However, the same could be said when Dean looked like the obvious candidate.
Hillary and women - the Washington Post recently had an article stating that Hillary is beating Obama by 2 to 1 with women. I'm not surprised by this... most liberal women think the world of Hillary. According to the same article the split is also among economic and educational lines - for the lack of a better term, the low brows love Hillary and the high brows love Obama. However, in a general election I don't believe Hillary will carry a meaningful advantage with women, but we'll see.
To be honest I'm not entirely sure what to expect in 2008. Congressional approval is the lowest its been in 10 years and the reasons why vary depending on your political disposition... which is to say that the truth is somewhere in the middle. I think depending on the Republican candidate, the idea of having our first female President is a very real one. The majorities in the house and senate are not safe either, by any stretch. Its entirely plausible that we'll have the exact opposite of what we have now - a Republican congress (or at very least a split congress) and a Democratic president. The margins of majority are too slim and with the presidential race there are too many unknowns yet.
nice graphs joshy!
My two cents- not matter how FANfuckingtastic he is- I don't think this country will tolerate another George __ Bush, based on name alone.
well said
Hm... I don't agree with you on a few things. Here it is.
GLBT issues is not a litmus test for Dems. Kucinich is the only one who openly supports gay marriage. The other folks are positioning themselves to be supportive of civil unions and hate crime legislation but don't want to freak out the republicans like ballot initiatives did in 2004. When ranking issues most important to them Iraq and health care top the list. GLBT issues saunter on down around ten. Obama is appealing to the religious Dem crowd in a way that Edwards always tried but never could. Religious Blacks just don't dig gay marriage as a demographic.
McCain. He is a dinosaur past his time. I really liked him in 1999 but in 2007 the GOP doesn't care for him too much and Mitt Romney does better than him in most states.
Volvo Chardonnay Dems. :p
An article was out yesterday (in the times I think) showing that Clinton's lead could be atributed almost entirly to women voters. David Geffin famously stopped pouring his millions like he did for Bill and has sided with Obama. Hollywood loves Obama. They are split. Also split are blacks interestingly.
Additionally, tough Al Gore has not declaired he is running he performs better than Edwards in every state, beats Obama in many, and over all gets about 15% support, which is a very respectable number for a man who has not even formed an exploratory comity. He is the Dems answer to Thompson.
One thing is for sure, this is going to be a fun election season, all two years of it.
this post came closer than anything else to making me somewhat interested in politics. my eyes didn't even glaze over!