It is human nature to overestimate the other party's disunity

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Partisans of all stripes tend to think the opposing side is on the verge of civil war.

In yesterday's Rasmussen poll on whether Hillary's moment at the convention hurts the Democratic party only about 23% of Dems said it did, but 42% of Indys said it did. (Numbers from memory, but close) The Republican figure (unpublished by roughly deducible) was even higher. The poll respondents' analysis seems to have been more about what the respondent hoped would happen.

Similarly, many Democrats over-state McCain's troubles with evangelicals and immigration nuts.

If you cannot imagine any reason for anyone voting for someone it's easier to visualize other people rejecting him for one reason or another.

But in practice Dems and Pugs tend to "come home" election cycle after election cycle. Both Dem disunity and Pug disunity are probably overstated in the press which does, after all, have to talk about something during the long news-less summers.

(Dems against Obama and pugs against McCain are "man bites dog" stories that will always get press. "Evangelical preacher says he will vote for McCain" and "Former Hillary supporter plans to vote for Obama" are not catchy news stories.)

[elocs]

1. If McCain picks Romney as his running mate, trouble with evangelicals will not be overestimated,

it will be real. They may certainly not vote for Obama, but a good many of them who would have ordinarily voted for the Republican candidate will not and McCain needs every one of those votes he can get.

[DFLforever]

2. A lot of Indy's don't like HRC. I think that's what's being

measured here. One of the chief arguments against her as Obama's Vp is Indys would desert in droves for McCain.

[Igel]

3. Not always.

Some believe they are against a dispicable, rag-tag force of morons or moral degenerates who have no chance of winning.

The weak believe themselves to be up against a well-oiled all-powerful machine that will steamroll, through manipulation and either fear or control (but still moral degenerates), all righteous attempts to restore things as they ought to be.

This sums up a lot of the difference between anti-black and anti-Jewish racism, and some shifts we've seen in attitudes towards affirmative action. The first is to justify your perceived superiority and the inevitability and justness of holding power, the second to justify away any perception of inferiority and the outrage of not holding power.

Both make the mistake of imputing only the harshest motives to the opposition, and believing that in their wisdom, they understand the opposition better than the opposition could ever understand themselves.

Politics and ethnic relations are both frequently tribal. What do you expect of primates?

[grantcart]

4. your logic is unassailable on general principle

however objective polling continues to show a huge lack of enthusiasm for McCain. Also it tends to overlook McCain's stances on immigration and campaign financing that are truely hated by the Republican rank and file.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. Cuts both ways.

(Polling also shows McCain getting a higher % of pugs than Obama gets Dems... higher party support but with lower enthusiasm on average.)

I don't mean to imply that the level of enthusiasm is the same on both sides. One side or the other is always more unified, more enthusiastic, etc., and this year Dems have an enthusiasm edge.

But the true levels are likely lower than opposite-partisans on both sides believe them to be.

[grantcart]

6. but there is also a different dynamic involved

the basic thrust of the Democratic Party has boiled down to a consensus from the Iraq war to global warming to gay rights and so on.

There is very little that really divides us and that is what made the debates so boring and so centered on personality issues.


The republicans however are now a patchwork of only slightly harmonious parts. You have the religious right, the traditional right, the economic right, and the establishment right. They share many of the same points of view but they also are primarily centered on a broad range of single issue groups. If the Republican party were to lose its brand as the exclusive home to 'pro life' groups it could well lose 20% of its total numbers as there are lots of religious folks who vote Republican because it is pro-life but don't like its stand on poverty and immigration issues - Hispanics who vote Republican are just one large part of that. Reagan was able to keep all of these disparate groups together but Bush has not and McCain has them held together with band aids.

Its not just that the Democrats are more unified it is that the basic tensions that pull the different parts of the Republican party have steadily grown and there is no Reagan to patch it together again.

After the debacle in 64 Goldwater gave the Republicans a unifying philosophy that Reagan eventually built on. Bush has torn that apart with his neocon bullshit and McCain does not have a unifying philosophy to build on. I agree with your statement elsewhere that Obama enters the GE with a very high probability of winning, but after that I see a prolonged civil war in the Republican Party to find a new leader and a unifying philosophy that puts together 4 very different constituencies that don't even like each other very much.