There’s No Liberal Majority

Here are some of my comments from other threads, in case anybody would find them helpful:

A lot of people voted for Obama on the basis of race, personality, Hurricane Sandy, or some other factor that didn’t involve agreement with moral liberalism. Whether liberalism is now a majority position depends on the issue involved. It varies from case to case and, sometimes, from year to year.

Democratic turnout this year was significantly higher than expected. Republican turnout was significantly lower than anticipated (including what was forecast in some polls, which means that the polling wasn’t as accurate as people often suggest). If the Democrats have a white candidate in 2016, while the Republicans have a Hispanic candidate, for example, that could reverse this year’s result. Or if the Republicans nominate a candidate who’s less vulnerable to class warfare efforts or who motivates the Republican base more, for instance, this year’s results could be reversed. There are many ways for the Republicans to win in 2016 without much of a change. Some changes should be made, such as reaching out more to groups like Hispanics and single women. We should also try to produce a better turnout effort, for example. But there hasn’t been any change in the electorate that’s so radical as to require a major change in the Republican party or to suggest that the Republicans are likely to lose in 2016. Some of the biggest surprises this year, such as disappointing Republican turnout and the willingness of so many independents and moderates to vote for Obama on such shallow grounds, can be reversed in 2016 without much difficulty.

The problem with a lot of voters isn’t that they’re so liberal. It’s that they’re so ignorant and easily swayed. They vote for a liberal in an election like this one, but similar motivations will move them to vote for a conservative the next time. Factors like the personality of a candidate, incumbency, or how well he handles a natural disaster (like Hurricane Sandy) don’t single out any one political party or liberalism or conservatism. Those factors can favor either party, depending on the circumstances surrounding a given election....

I haven’t been arguing that the Republicans should “stand pat”. Rather, I think that increased efforts to reach out to groups like Hispanics should be accompanied by efforts to motivate the base more, have a better turnout apparatus, nominate candidates without weaknesses like Romney’s, etc. And we should be careful in judging why people voted for Obama. In many cases, it wasn’t because they agree with Obama’s liberalism. Rather, they voted for him because of his race, because of incumbency, because of how good his handling of Hurricane Sandy seemed to be, etc. Just as there’s no conservative majority in this nation, there’s also no liberal majority. It’s disappointing that so many non-liberal voters are willing to accept something like Obama’s liberalism as long as its accompanied by something else (e.g., his race, his personality, his handling of a hurricane, his background that was less wealthy than Romney’s). But some of those same voters would also be willing to accept the conservatism of a Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal.