Thursday, November 6, 2014

David Lightman — Fear or loathing? Anger at Obama trumps fear of GOP

This election wasn’t about hope and change. Instead, the midterm elections were a battle between fear and loathing. 
Driven by anger, Republican voters were more eager to cast votes protesting President Barack Obama’s policies than were Democrats frightened about what a Republican Congress would do to civil rights, equal pay or minimum wage efforts and cherished social programs. 
Voters rebelled – or stayed home. The rebels showing up were Republicans. Those who stayed home were mostly Democrats.
McClatchy
Fear or loathing? Anger at Obama trumps fear of GOP
David Lightman | McClatchy Washington Bureau

Also

Ria Novosti
Republican Victory in US Midterm Elections Due to Voter Mobilization: Associate Professor
Elizabeth Wojt - Republicans won control over the US Senate in the midterm elections because of "critically important" voter mobilization, Vanderbilt University associate professor of political science Joshua D. Clinton, told RIA Novosti Friday.
"Given that very few voters are undecided, the largest impact of campaigns is in getting people to the polls," Clinton said.
 
"Mobilizing voters is critically important and this was much harder for the Democrats this time around because of the ambivalence that most had for the President. Republicans, on the other hand, were eager to vote against Democrats to express their displeasure with the direction of the country," Clinton added.

2 comments:

Matt Franko said...

Pretty tough to get motivated when "the boss" is out golfing every day....

Magpie said...

There's nothing new under the sun, my friends. Exactly the same thing happened to Kevin Rudd/Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott in Australia.

The people elected those losers hoping for real change. And what they got was more of the same. Then you find "pundits" wondering "how come", or, worse, pushing the tried, tested, and failed "let's turn further to the right" strategy: it just failed, but it will work this time, surely?

http://aussiemagpie.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/those-dumb-whingeing-conservative.html

Incidentally: so much for the idea that people are utterly unpredictable.