Economist Endorsements
Wow. The Economist has posted its recent US Presidential endorsements and they sure are . . . idiosyncratic. They went for Bill Clinton in 1992, Bob Dole (!) in 1996, George W. Bush in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004. If you can identify any actual human beings who exhibited this voting pattern, I’d be fascinated to talk to them.
Meanwhile, it’d be interesting to read retrospective endorsements. You have to figure that a magazine that wound up endorsing Kerry in 2004 has some significant regrets about the fact that Bush won in 2000. So what were they thinking? Did any great tragedy befall the nation on account of Bob Dole’s failure? Would four more years of George H.W. Bush really have been so horrible? My read on this list is that gauche as it seems, blind partisan voting seems to produce perfectly reasonable results compared to efforts at judicious balance.
51 Responses to “Economist Endorsements”
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October 29th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Interesting. But there is a definite pattern there. In each case The Economist endorsed the major party candidate who was not in the incumbent party. There probably are some actual humans who followed the same anti-incumbent pattern.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
What? It’s a perfectly logical pattern: Endorse the candidate of the party that doesn’t currently occupy the Oval Office. (And all this time I thought that politics was complicated…)
October 29th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Nonsensical as it is, it does show a consistent if simple-minded pattern: vote for the outs. They endorsed the challenger when there was an incumbent running, and went with the out party in the one election (2000) when there wasn’t one running.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Sigh. Dan and Brian posted while I was writing mine.
One Coke to you each.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Here’s a puzzle.
Who are the Democratic equivalents of McCain and Palin, and who are the Republican equivalents of Obama and Biden. If those equivalents were the candidates, which ticket would you vote for?
October 29th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Um.. that’s actually my voting pattern, come to think of it (seriously). What do you want to talk about Matt?
October 29th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Who are the Democratic equivalents of McCain and Palin
Byrd/Lee. (minus the experience issue on the latter)
October 29th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
The GOP equivalents of Obama/Biden are…Jindal and Lugar? I don’t know. On the flip side, umm, Murtha and ummmm….man who can be Palin? She’s just so crazy! And has no idea what she’s talking about. Even some of the more out-there Dems know what they’re talking about. I don’t know, who should be Palin?
October 29th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
> who should be Palin?
Maybe Cindy Sheehan.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Read the Kerry endorsement from 2004. The Economist didn’t pick Kerry because he was the “out” party — they acknowledged reservations about him but said Bush had fucked Iraq up so much that they felt obliged to choose Kerry. It was a thoughtful piece and not merely contrarian.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
There is no Republicn equivalent to Obama, that’s part of the whole appeal…
October 29th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Since 1992, they have always endorsed the team that got the fewest votes.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
So they’ll endorse Obama this time, I guess.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
That was mine, too. It was preceded by Reagan and Bush in ‘84 and ‘88. I’m a centrist-type who tended to vote Republican but went for Clinton on ‘92(attracted by generational change and the vote was made easier by the end of the cold war). Voted for Kerry in ‘04 and will vote Obama this year since the national republicans went completely off the deep end under Bush (I’m very sorry for the 2000 vote).
October 29th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
They liked Clinton for being free trade in ‘92, but voted against him for being a liar in ‘96. They voted for Bush for being a free trader in ‘00, but voted against him for being incompetent in ‘04.
It’s not that hard.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
But the real pattern is rather easy to understand. They vote for the conservative unless given a reason not to. GHWB gave them a reason not to, as did GWB. It’s not an anti-incumbent pattern, it’s a conservative pattern with a lot of “Oh we didn’t realize Bush sucks until we saw him govern” pattern.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I actually don’t think that such a voting pattern is completely illogical. For instance, one could have an ideology where the perfect economic policy is somwhere between that of Sweden and that of 1800’s-era U.S. If you feel that the Great Society pushed the country a little to the left of your ideal, you would vote Republican. It’s not illogical to then think that Reagan was pushing in a direction then too far to your right, so you vote for Clinton. I actually think that this is how independent moderates actually vote, where many are not interested in becoming a democratic soicalist European state nor an ultra-conservative country with no public institutions. The voters push elections toward a what they feel to be a reasonable medium after one party or the other manages to push the balance too far to one “extreme.”
October 29th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
This is exactly my voting pattern as well. I don’t know if I can defend it issue-by-issue, but for me, the story went something like this:
– First vote in 1988 election, for Dukakis, without much thought.
– Vote for Clinton in 1992, again without much deep thought.
Become dissatisfied with Clinton-triangulation, and spend a lot of time listening to Rush Limbaugh as a father-substitute.
– Vote Dole in 1996 as a “not-Clinton” vote.
– Vote Bush in 2000, hoping him to be a modest and moderate candidate like Bush 41.
– Vote Kerry in 2004 as a “not-Bush” vote, protesting against religious influence on policy and to reject overall incompetance.
– Planning on voting Obama in 2008, maybe 30% as a “not-McCain” vote, but mostly on hope for a person to believe in as president.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
It seems perfectly clear to me. The Economist likes Republicans in years that are multiples of 8, and Democrats in years that leave a remainder of 4 when divided by 8. Note that the last endorsement they made before Clinton in 1992 was Reagan in 1980.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Funny, I found an old 2006 copy of the Economist a few days ago, with a cover story on the Democrats’ chances of winning back power. Bottom line was “The Democrats don’t have a plan, but may not need one.”
Wrong on both counts. Somewhere unbeknownst the 50-state strategy was being put together, and Tom Daschle was talking to Barack Obama about a Presidential bid. And I think with a less ambitious strategy, the Democrats might not be riding as high as they are now.
The article barely mentioned Obama, scorned Howard Dean, and assumed Hilary was the coming woman (didn’t we all?). Basically said that the Democrats were not conservative enough to win over Americans (too many single issue groups), dissed the netroots (bunch of weirdos) but did spot that Republicanism was pretty clapped out.
All in all, a good piece of nostalgia.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Wait, never mind.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I have a feeling that Andrew Sullivan most likely voted for at least three of the four, or would have if he could vote (being a Brit and all). know he did the Bush 2000 Kerry 2004 votes at least.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Who are the Democratic equivalents of McCain and Palin, and who are the Republican equivalents of Obama and Biden. If those equivalents were the candidates, which ticket would you vote for?
Interesting. Off the top of my head, I’d say the Republican equivalent of Obama is Huckabee: young, charismatic and eloquent, compelling life story, makes bipartisan overtures despite not being really centrist, philosophically perfect for his party’s base but often disappointing on policy.
For the Republican equivalent of Biden… I don’t know, but Ted Stevens comes to mind just because his picture is on the blog now, and there are several similarities. Became a widower while in office, a son following him into politics, can be undiplomatic, mostly loyal to the party’s policies but breaks from them on one key issue (Biden on the bankruptcy bill, and Stevens was pro-choice, at least nominally)… but for some crazy reason, using Stevens seems to distort the exercise.
Until 2006, the Democratic McCain was Joe Lieberman. Not any more, obviously. Now, I guess I’d say it’s Jack Murtha. A respectable military record he milks for all it’s worth, outspoken positions on the current war, implicated but not actually convicted in corruption scandals, reliably supports his party on most issues but disagrees with them on some high-profile cases (McCain did until he was a candidate, at least).
And I think the Democratic Palin might be John Edwards. Flounders despite throwing red meat to the party’s base, intended for moderate and crossover appeal but doesn’t actually provide any, and their vocal supporters are insane.
So if those were the tickets – Murtha/Edwards vs. Huckabee/Stevens – I think I’d vote Democratic, but I wouldn’t bet any money on Murtha winning.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Also my voting pattern (save the Clinton ‘92 vote, as I was too young). This is a voting pattern based on thoughtful consideration. Though maybe I’m biased.
One of my fears is that the Democrats will interpret Obama’s victory (knock on wood) as a mandate, similar to the Republican’s interpretation of the ‘94 elections. I don’t think it is. I think it’s a repudiation of GWB’s disastrous administration and the far-right swing of the GOP.
Assuming they win, the Dems have a real chance to make a difference, and to remain in power for a while as the GOP continues to move deeper into nutwing territory. If they over-reach, however, there will be a large middle territory which a moderate GOP candidate could step into. And, then we’ll see another Economist endorsement of the challenging party. Whee!
Of course, maybe the Dems will luck out and Palin will become the GOP’s Ralph Nader.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I think this pattern is fairly consistent with their attitudes towards leaders in other countries too… I’ve only been reading the Economist for four or so years, but absent some really egregious issue on the part of the challenger they seem to usually go for the fresh new face. They tend to do it with a “but we’ll just have to see how they actually turn out” caveat, and then several months later there are inevitable articles about how that person disappointed them. Sarkozy springs to mind as another example of this, and possibly Bachelet, Saakashvili and Yushchenko.
Overall, they seem to be continuously disappointed by world leaders but approach each new election as “hope springs eternal.”
October 29th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Read the Kerry endorsement from 2004. The Economist didn’t pick Kerry because he was the “out” party — they acknowledged reservations about him but said Bush had fucked Iraq up so much that they felt obliged to choose Kerry.
That’s basically the point. Each time around, The Economist found a reason to throw the incumbent party out.
My read on this list is that gauche as it seems, blind partisan voting seems to produce perfectly reasonable results compared to efforts at judicious balance.
Does anyone have any idea what this was supposed to mean?
October 29th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
The Economist is perfectly stupid about American politics. Sort of a Fun House mirror view that nobody else quite sees. Idiosyncratic is the word I suppose.
October 29th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Who are the Democratic equivalents of McCain and Palin, and who are the Republican equivalents of Obama and Biden.
Interesting.
Democratic equivalents of McCain and Palin are, say, Harry Reid and Deval Patrick.
I like Chris O’s Republican equivalents of Obama and Biden – Bobby Jindal and Dick Lugar (or maybe Orrin Hatch).
October 29th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
libraryian beat me to it. Andrew Sullivan did indeed follow this same voting pattern:
1992: Clinton was the New Democrat who would bring the party to the right.
1996: Clinton is a liar.
2000: Supported McCain in the primaries. Initially pissed off at Bush over his South Carolina campaign, but later on became a fairly enthusiastic supporter. Oh yeah, and Gore is a liar.
2004: Broke with Bush over the anti-gay-marriage amendment. Unenthusiastic about either Bush or Kerry. Ended up voting for Kerry.
2008: Totally in the tank for Obama.
October 29th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I don’t think there is a “Democratic McCain.” McCain is really about being an old war hero. His electoral appeal is that A) he’s been a nationwide household name for a very long time and until ‘08 was well-liked by all of Reps/Dems/indies, and B) the Republicans are deeply unpopular, and his brand is the Republican who isn’t really a Republican. For A, I can’t think of a Democrat whom the Republicans genuinely like, unless we count Lieberman, whom only the Republicans like. And B doesn’t even make sense as a concept, since the Democrat this year doesn’t need to separate himself from an unpopular Democratic Party and President. Unless you wanna flip all of that too, at which point this is no longer a “thought experiment” but a monstrosity.
Jindal is where Obama was in ‘04, not ‘08. There isn’t a Republican Obama, either.
Maybe Biden is Orrin Hatch. Been there forever, blunt style of speaking, and although he’s firmly in his part’s embrace, can still sound very moderate sometimes. I can see why you’d say Lugar, but I think a key thing about Biden is his outspokenness and Lugar doesn’t have that.
Palin at first glance could be Deval Patrick or David Paterson — let’s take someone who just became governor, based solely on demographic analysis of what’ll get out our base and appeal to certain groups! But inexperienced or not (and Paterson at least was in the state legislature for a long time), neither Patrick nor Paterson would be making nearly as much a complete fool of themselves as Palin is. Maybe Gavin Newsom? I dunno.
October 29th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
McCain is really not about being an old war hero
although he’s firmly in his party’s embrace
October 29th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Jindal is where Obama was in ‘04, not ‘08.
No, Jindal is at least where Obama was in ‘06, when he began running for President. Remember that Jindal was elected to Congress in ‘04, the same year Obama was. And Jindal already has more accomplishments in his one year as governor than Obama has in 4 as Senator (not to mentioned that Jindal’s pre-’04 experience far exceeds Obama’s).
October 29th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Obama’s GOP equivalent? It depends which base of the conservative party we are talking about. For the more traditional, libertarian-esque moderate conservatives, there is no Obama equivalent.
The evangelical base…clearly their Obama equivalent is Sarah Palin. Or maybe Mike Huckabee.
I mean, would their ideal ticket not be “Huckabee/Palin 2012″?
Side note, if Huckabee/Palin won in 2012 I swear to god, I would move out of this country before inauguration day.
October 29th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I think those would have been the people Andrew Sullivan favored in those elections…
October 29th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Any conservative but an incumbent Bush. That’s your trend in six words.
October 29th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I was too young to vote in the early 90s, but when I turned 18 I decided to stick it to the man by voting for Dole (no, I wasn’t paying much attention). Then in 2000 I might have voted for Bush if I had voted, but I was out of the country and blew off the absentee ballot (and I still wasn’t paying attention). Then in 2004, after Bush had managed to focus my attention, I voted for Kerry and there’s no question that I’ll vote for Obama this time around.
I grew up in a conservative family, and Bush turned me into a liberal. That’s the basic story.
October 29th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
The Democratic equivalent of the McCain/Palin ticket is Jack Murtha and Cynthia McKinney.
Yeah, I know, McKinney is no longer a Democratic Congressperson, and you can’t imagine Murtha running on a ticket with her. This is because the Dems, and McKinney’s constituents, sometimes actually recognize Teh Crazy when they see it.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
The economist can be pretty tone-deaf about US politics.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Echoing what someone else said above, I’m pretty sure that Andrew Sullivan endorsed the exact same candidates that Economist did in ALL four of those years.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
*raises hand*
Actual person with that voting pattern:
Dole
Gore
Bush
Obama
October 30th, 2008 at 5:17 am
Its clear from the thread that this is not an illogical voting pattern for an individual at all, its a classic anti-incumbent pattern. The interesting question is whether there is any county in the US that has that voting pattern or comes close to it?
My guess is that there isn’t, though you will find counties that voted with the popular vote winner each time. Partisan patterns hardened during this period, and when they were looser during the Cold War what you tended to get was 40 state plus landslides for the incumbent president (1956, 1964, 1972, 1984), not a good environment for an anti-incumbent voting pattern to emerge.
The closest you would get was Maine, which managed to vote for Dewey in 1948, Nixon in 1960, Humphrey in 1968, and Ford in 1976, basically for the losing candidate every time there was a close election. Maybe also Washington/ Oregon, both sided with Nixon in 1960, Ford, and Dukakis and one of the two went for Dewey or Humphrey.
There were also Rust Belt counties which Dukakis carried but not Gore, maybe there were a few that Mondale carried but not Gore. New Jersey exhibits the opposite pattern, a pro-incumbent pattern, heavily pro-Reagan, then big swings to the Democats in 1996 and 2000, then a swing to Bush in 2004 though not quite enough for him to carry the state.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:54 am
The endorsements may look flip-floppy presented in this way, but as a regular reader of the Economist from the late 90’s, I saw how the endorsements made sense. In 2000, the Econ did indeed endorse Bush, but the endorsement was pretty balanced; you’d only have to change a couple of sentences in the endorsement to turn it into an endorsement for Gore. (Reread the NYT’s endorsement of Dukakis over Bush I and you see pretty much the same thing.) The Econ endorsed Bush II in 2000 as a center-right, divider, not uniter, moderate. When Bush manifestly failed to govern that way, and when he manifestly failed to govern competently, the Econ abandoned him (the incompetent) in favor of the “incoherent” Kerry. This year, the pattern of voting against the incumbent will probably hold in that it seems likely that they’ll endorse Obama, but in this case, endorsing Obama will be consistent with the endorsement of Kerry in 2004.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Although she’s no longer a Democrat, Cynthia McKinney is my vote for who would be Palin. I can’t really think of a Democratic McCain though…
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