Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post deconstructs five myths about the 2008 presidential election below. Please take some time out to check out the whole thing. It's good to see at least someone in the MSM attempting to take on the whole truth v. narrative issue, though, I'm not sure I agree with his deconstruction of all five of these.
The 2008 presidential election ended less than two weeks ago, but the mythmaking machine has already begun to churn. President-elect Barack Obama transformed the face of the electorate! The Republican Party will be a miserable minority in Congress for the next century! Cats and dogs are now living together! Below we explode the five biggest myths that have already sprung up around the election that was.
1. The Republican Party suffered a death blow.
There's no question that losing six Senate seats and 24 House seats (not to mention the White House) wasn't a step forward for the Grand Old Party. But there are two good reasons to believe that Republicans will be back on their feet sooner than many people expect...
2. A wave of black voters and young people was the key to Obama's victory.
Exit polling suggests that there was no statistically significant increase in voting among either group. Black voters made up 11 percent of the electorate in 2004 and 13 percent in 2008, while young voters comprised 17 percent of all voters in 2004 and 18 percent four years later.
The surge in young and African American voters is not entirely the stuff of myth, however. Although their percentages as a portion of the electorate didn't increase measurably, Obama did seven points better among black voters than Sen. John F. Kerry did in 2004 and scored a 13-point improvement over Kerry's total among young voters.
3. Now that they control the White House and Congress, Democrats will usher in a new progressive era.
Not likely. At first glance, the numbers do look encouraging for proponents of a new New Deal era in government: Obama claimed at least 364 electoral votes and more than 52.5 percent of the overall popular vote, while Democrats now control at least 57 seats in the Senate and 255 in the House.
But look more closely, and you see a heavy influx of moderate to conservative members in the incoming freshman Democratic class, particularly in the House.
4. A Republican candidate could have won the presidency this year.
Why not? Three words (and a middle initial): President George W. Bush.
5. McCain made a huge mistake in picking Sarah Palin.
Love her or loathe her, the data appear somewhere close to conclusive that Palin did little to help -- and, in fact, did some to hurt -- McCain's attempts to reach out to independents and Democrats. But just because Palin doesn't appear to have helped McCain move to the middle doesn't mean that picking her was the wrong move.
Remember where McCain found himself this past summer. He had won the Republican nomination, but the GOP base clearly felt little buy-in into his campaign. A slew of national polls reflected that energy gap, with Democrats revved up about the election and their candidate and Republicans somewhere between tepid and glum.
Enter Palin, who was embraced with a bear hug by the party's conservative base. All of a sudden, cultural conservatives were thrilled at the chance to put "one of their own" in the White House. In fact, of the 60 percent of voters who told exit pollsters that McCain's choice of Palin was a "factor" in their final decision, the Arizona senator won 56 percent to 43 percent.
For skittish conservatives looking for more evidence that McCain understood their needs and concerns, Palin did the trick. It's hard to imagine conservatives rallying to McCain -- even to the relatively limited extent that they did -- without Palin on the ticket. And without the base, McCain's loss could have been far worse.
Cillizza then offers us a challenge:
Which myths did we miss? Let the conversation begin!
chris [dot] cillizza [at] washingtonpost [dot] com
You know, given all of the good folks here, I think we could come up with a few for him, no? Let's see how many of us can send him up a few...
NOTE: A thanks to Hillbuzz for finding this article.
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Comments
You and your dastardly evidence
Don't you realize, Damon, that for Obamapower to work, we must all believe! As we previously discussed here, the power of a placebo is in faith. The myths MUST be kept alive.
An impressive though distressing article -- I'm curious to see how controversial it will seem.
Maybe someone who's been following Cilizza could comment on whether he perpetuated any of these myths himself.
This is very sad news that I had previously overlooked:
The MCM and Villagers have been pushing the idea that both '06
and '08 elections have brought in a majority of more conservative Dems. Even when the reps' campaigns were far from conservative.
It's how they push their ideas and try to control the outcomes.
Cillizza lost
what ever credibility he had with this obscene infatuation with Obama. He is just another blogger who happens to be paid well. No real reporting here...move on.
Personally, I think the whole newspaper is just fish wrap.
I Knew Cillizza was...
like most other MSNBC pundits, was part of the OFB
, but that makes his review of the recent past even more amazing, and that he was able to do it if only pretending to be objective says something.
Just a heads up, but one of my interest is finding anyone who attempts to review the recent political past (i.e. the 2008 election) to see how they report it. I particularly like it when they try to do so with some sense of objectivity.
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...