THE THEORY:
"We, too, shall encounter follies; but if great, they will be short, if long, they will be light; and the vigor of our country will get the better of them." —Thomas Jefferson
Why might the election of 2008 have been so critical ?
To fully comprehend it's importance, it is essential to have some familiarity with the theory of critical elections, originally pioneered and ultimately developed by the distinguished political scientist, V. O. Key. In his 1955 article "A Theory of Critical Elections", which was based upon his studies of the election returns going back 150 years, he found shifts in electoral patterns which routinely occurred in rather swift and dramatic sweeps. These patterns were so similar and so peculiar that at first they seemed difficult to believe.
The concepts of Political Re-alignment and Realigning Elections are terms that political scientists and political historians use to describe a dramatic shifts in partisan alignment within the voting population. The central theme of Key’s theory of Political Re-alignment is his identification of essentially three types of elections:
- Maintaining Elections: the most common and frequently occurring type of election, in which most of the voting population tends to vote according to their long established partisan loyalties;
- Deviating Elections: in which some short-term issue causes some segment of the voting population to temporarily cross partisan lines and vote for the candidate of the opposing party.
- Re-Alligning or Critical Elections: in which some deeper core issue results in a shift in partisan loyalties among a significant segment of the voting population, resulting in a new status quo and a long-lasting impact on the political power structure.
A listing of American presidential elections generally considered to have been "realigning" elections would include:
The 1800 Election of President Thomas Jefferson:This election completed the turnover of power from the Federalist Party, embodied in Alexander Hamilton, to Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party. Power shifted from the New England region to the Southern region of the United States and their agricultural interests.
The 1828 Election of President Andrew Jackson:This election re-defined the party system in the United States. The Democratic-Republicans split into two parties, later renamed as the Democratic Party and the Whig Party. The Democrats were led by Andrew Jackson of Tennessee and Martin Van Buren of New York. The Whigs emerged as the opposition to Andrew Jackson, led by Henry Clay of Kentucky.
The 1860 Election of President Abraham Lincoln: Since the Whigs had largely dissolved by the mid-1850s, this election marked the ascendence of the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln beat out three other contenders as the South split its electoral votes between the Democratic contenders, allowing Lincoln, who carried every Northern state, to triumph. Lincoln's election was the proximate cause of secession and his efforts to keep the nation united led to the American Civil War. This represented the reverse of 1800, as electoral power flowed to the growing and industrializing North. While it could be argued that statistically, the election of 1860 did not appear tremendously eventful, this may be explained away fairly easily, since no comparative statistical analysis could easily accommodate the Democratic Party's breakup into four factions that year.
The 1896 Election of President William McKinley: The status of this election has always been hotly disputed; some political scientists do not consider it a realigning election. Other political scientists and historians consider this the ultimate realignment and emphasize that the rules of the game had changed, the leaders were new, voting alignments had changed, and a whole new set of issues came to dominance as the old Civil-War-Era issues faded away. Funding from office holders was replaced by outside fund raising from business in 1896—a major shift in political history. Furthermore McKinley's tactics in beating William Jennings Bryan (as developed by Mark Hanna) marked a sea change in the evolution of the modern campaigning. McKinley raised a huge amount of money from business interests, outspending Bryan by 10 to 1. Bryan meanwhile invented the modern technique of campaigning heavily in closely contested states, the first candidate to do so. Bryan's message of populism and class conflict marked a new direction for the Democrats. McKinley's victory in 1896 and repeat in 1900 was a triumph for pluralism, as all sectors and groups shared in the new prosperity brought about by his policy of rapid industrial growth.
The 1932 Election of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Of all the realigning elections, this one musters the most agreement from political scientists and historians; it is the archetypal realigning election. FDR's admirers have argued that New Deal policies, developed in response to the crash of 1929 and the miseries of the Great Depression under Herbert Hoover, represented an entirely new phenomenon in American politics. While more critical historians see a great deal of continuity with Hoover's energetic but unsuccessful economic policies, there is no doubt that the Democrats vehemently attacked Hoover for the next 50 years, and in many ways, Roosevelt's legacy still defines the Democratic Party and the enduring coalition that he forged.
Although the accurate classification of a Re-aligning election can only be determined historically, a number of political scientists, including the founder of this organization, have speculated that the 2008 election will turnout to have been a Critical or Re-aligning Election.
What evidence do you see that would support this and what do you think the long term potential political implications might be ?
Coalition of independent voters for an informed citizenry seeks to coordinate the political power of non-bi-partisan aligned, third and minor party citizens into a non-polarized electoral swing vote.