The casino got crushed by a bigger margin than anyone expected, even though the result was consistent with every poll taken in the final weeks. At the same time, the Governor’s race ended up much closer than expected, Elizabeth Roberts won by a bigger margin than projected, and Ralph Mollis won a race that many people thought his opponent would win. The GOTV for the casino was supposedly substantial, yet the casino race was the race that closed the least (as in not-at-all) relative to publicly-released polling. How do we explain all of this?
Obviously, part of the problem was that assumptions made by casino supporters about who would support them weren’t valid. One insightful observer of RI politics suggested to me that casino proponents drastically underestimated how much living through the 60s and 70s made a large segment of the electorate leery of officially sanctioning potentially addictive behavior.
But there’s another piece of this puzzle, beyond the failure of GOTV targeting. Voter turnout last night was at Presidential election year levels. The pro-casino targeting may not have had any association with support for Question 1, but it did probably mobilize a bunch of people to vote in a mid-term election who usually don’t. What were these politically disengaged voters likely to do with the non-casino part of their ballots? I’m willing to bet that because of the sour mood towards Republicans in the country and/or because casino supporters came from demographic groups not traditionally friendly to Republicans, many of them picked the straight-ticket Democratic option available to them.
Straight ticket D voters would skew the results of candidate races, without changing the results of the casino ballot. More straight ticket D voters than usual, though they had nothing against candidates in down-ticket races, probably cost Sue Stenhouse the Secretary of State’s race, cost Allan Fung the Cranston Mayoral race, and made races of many incumbent legislators thought to be safe much closer than expected.
I called the BOE for stats on how many straight ticket were cast, but they don’t keep the information. It would be interesting if Darrell West and Victor Profughi and other Rhode Island pollsters added a question about “are you planning to vote the straight ticket Democratic or Republican option” to their standard surveys. And if exit pollers tracked this information, I’ll bet they would have found many more straight-ticket voters than usual this year.
However big the effect was, there is an important lesson for the Rhode Island Republican party here. Unless RI Republicans can convince the legislature to remove the straight-ticket option from the ballot (HAHAHAHAHAHA), the stealth strategy — “let’s not tell people that we’re Republicans when we run in an election, because that way we’re more likely win over independents” — will never work. To be competitive on a regular basis, RI Republicans are going to have to convince more people to actually become (or at least to like) Republicans. They are going to have to create a pool of voters who pick the all-Republican option on their ballots, cancelling out the all-Democratic voters, and leaving the final decision to the voters who actually fill out their ballots candidate-by-candidate.
It won’t be easy, but the task is not as insurmountable as people might at first think. But it will never happen until Rhode Island Republicans make a decision to consistently stand for something that makes voters want to join their party for the long term and not for just an election day.
Hopefully, this will be my last Casino post for a while (but ya never know…) I was driving home from work and heard the Providence Phoenix’s Ian Donnis talking to Dan Yorke about the curious ProJo flip-flop on the casino. As Ian noted, Dan had covered the issue at length (and I had a few comments of my own).
In particular, Ian was remarking on ProJo’s explanation as to why it flipped, which was available only on-line, and briefly at that. He was kind enough to point listeners (and readers, here’s Ian’s piece–updated 11/10/08) to Anchor Rising and my post commenting on the ProJo’s non-explanation. For posterity, I’ve included the entire ProJo explanation in the extended entry.
From the Associated Press…
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, architect of an unpopular war in Iraq, intends to resign after six stormy years at the Pentagon, Republican officials said Wednesday.[Open full post]
Officials said Robert Gates, former head of the CIA, would replace Rumsfeld.
A few thoughts and observations made after a short night of sleep…
Other than margins of victory, tell me exactly how the political landscape in Rhode Island has changed since yesterday? We still have a Republican Governor and Democrats everywhere else.
The two big things I cared about�the Governor�s race and the Casino�went the way I wanted (and I�ll take what I can get). Carcieri won by a smaller margin than predicted and the Casino went down. Sure, I had hopes for Lt. Governor and Secretary of State, but the Democrat turnout was impressive and just too much to overcome.
But the schizophrenic RI electorate did what it always does, essentially voted straight Democrat ticket and passed almost every Bond issue.
So, tell me again, why is this new?
Anyway, I understand the whole �anti-Bush� wave theory flying around, but you can�t tell me that the pro-Casino folks aggressive GOTV effort in Rhode Island�s urban centers didn�t add to the margins of victory for so many Democrats and shrink the losing margin for Fogarty. Heck, I saw it in my local City Council races (Warwick, by the way, now has an all-Democrat City Council and a Republican Mayor�it really is a microcosm of the state). Most of these City Council races were in the 53-47 for the Democrat range. This is closer than normal�probably some Chafee coattails�but not enough to overcome the Democrat turnout.
GOP Chairwoman Patricia Morgan seems like a nice lady, but I don’t think she�s got much left in the tank.
Meanwhile, Steve Laffey was on Channel 12 and was talking about reforming the RIGOP. A few other pundits mentioned this and, as has been mentioned around here, it really has to be rebuilt from the ground up. You can�t start by running for House of Representatives, folks. Get some City Council seats and Mayor offices first. Hey Mayor Laffey, you volunteering to lead the effort?
Nationally, the American people have had their historically predictable 6th-year-of-a-Presidency temper tantrum and the Democrats took advantage with a message of �Vote for us, we�re not Republicans.� Now let�s see what they do with the power that they have coveted. It has seemed that they wanted power because they wanted power�now it�s time for some ideas, folks. That means deep-thinking, not soundbites.
I do think a lot of the independents did swing to the Dems in a desire to balance against the President and to punish the GOP.
I also think that the GOP did its level best to screw itself with its own party members. The GOP learned that a party based on�among other things–firm ideals of fiscal conservatism can�t pick power (via pork) over principle and expect to stay in good stead with its base. The GOP lost because it strayed from its core ideals.
The result of the turnover in Congress is gridlock in Washington, and my inner (paleo?) conservative couldn�t be happier. Maybe the President will get out his veto pen more often.
As a conservative, I also find it interesting that a lot of the red seats in the House turned blue because of the resurgence of the Blue-Dog Democrat. Former NFL Quarterback Heath Shuler is exhibit A. Apparently, liberal/progressive ideas still don�t win on the national scale, especially in Red America.
Finally, can members of the RI GOP propose a casino in, say, Warwick or Cranston, then lure in Harrah�s or Trump and get some help with the ground game in 2008?
How oppressive it will be depends on whether the Senate falls, as well. Regardless, and speaking with some restraint, the next two years (at least) promise to be difficult and perhaps dangerous.
Who can doubt, for instance, that the regime in Iran and terrorists across the globe feel as if they, themselves, have won a victory in their war against the United States? A nuclear Iran may or may not be a fait accompli, but it is certainly less likely that the country will now increase its openness to negotiations or that the United States will take the decisive steps necessary to stop it nonetheless. Similarly, expect a resurgence of violence in Iraq and perhaps, if the terrorists continue their characteristic fatally over-anxious strategizing, in the United States.
Meanwhile, Larry Kudlow makes me relieved that I currently work in two very different segments of the economy. The strength of the economy that we’ve enjoyed despite a major terrorist attack on our financial center, a war in progress, and environmental calamity may be about to wane.
On social and moral issues, from marriage to stem cells, I expect those on my side will have a lot of persuading and arguing to do. In a silver lining way, that will help us to focus our understanding of the world and to hone our vision for the future, hopefully laying the foundation for a return to prior trends in our direction. In a dark cloud way, I’m relieved that recent improvements of the Supreme Court cannot be undone and can only hope that the president is prepared to begin using his veto power.
I don’t think the media is correct that this election’s results are entirely attributable to, in soon-to-be-ex Senator Chafee’s words, “rage toward our president.” The Democrats, the media, and liberals generally have striven, out of their own black feelings, to make hatred out of broad disappointment. Republican partisans must heed Representative John Boehner’s analysis that the “American people strongly supported our ideas and agenda in 1994, and they still do.” Americans wanted change, yes, but the tragedy of our political system’s current makeup is that the only change available was in the wrong direction. Republicans tried to capitalize on that fact for their own gain, and that left them vulnerable.
But none of this is an expression of buyer’s remorse from a rebellious conservative. A trip around the dark side of the moon is what we need — a sort of (to mix metaphors) aggressive radiation therapy. I will pray strenuously, though, that my aforementioned restraint in prognostication is proven wise, and not unduly, well, conservative.
With all 11 precints reporting, incumbent Republican William McManus trails Democratic challenger Ronald Loparto by 36 votes, 2,747-2,711, in Rhode Island’s 46th General Assembly district.
UPDATE:
Mail ballots put McManus up by 11 votes, 2,811-2,800.
Alas, Jim Haldeman has been defeated by John Patrick Shanley in Rhode Island’s 35th General Assembly District, 58.5%-41.5%.
[Open full post]With 7 of 9 precints reporting, Republican Karen Salvatore is leading incumbent Democrat Donald Lally in Rhode Island’s 33rd General Assembly District, 2,644-2,601.
A surge in the last two precints puts Lally over the top, 52.6%-47.4%
With 6 of 9 precints reporting, Republican John Robitaille leads incumbent Democrat Amy Rice, 2,013-1,912 (51.3%-48.7%) in Rhode Island’s 72nd General Assembly district.
With 9 of 9 precints reporting, incumbent Democrat Amy Rice leads Republican John Robitaille, 3,108-3,062 in Rhode Island’s 72nd General Assembly district.
If Fogarty were to win, it might be time to reassess the wisdom of remaining in this state, because it would signal either:
- that Rhode Islanders have a sort of civic death wish (even if of the passive flavor characterized by ignorance and apathy),
- or that the state is so hopelessly corrupt that the democratic process is incapable of bringing change.
Of course, always inclined to leave room for optimism, I suppose such utter defeat could galvanize the right minds in the Rhode Island GOP and prove the next few years to be the darkness before the dawn.
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