This inspired a brief conversation about whether a moderate 3rd party (Republican) candidate would enter the race should Rick Perry win the nomination. Although the group has discussed on several occasions the opposite scenario (a 3rd party candidacy from a Tea Party Republican like Bachmann or Perry), this new and interesting possibility of a moderate challenge evoked some interesting comments. Despite Perry's current front runner status and momentum, it is not clear that voters in states such as NH, FL, and NV will support Perry over Romney because of Perry's general election electability issues. In fact, a recent CNN poll of Republican voters indicates that despite a large divide on issues like climate change and gay marriage between self-identified Tea Party Republicans and "regular" Republicans, a clear majority of both groups indicated that they plan on engaging in sophisticated voting by supporting a different candidate over their preferred candidate in order to give the party the best chance possible to capture the White House. That Tea Party Republicans indicate that they are willing to settle for less than ideological purity in order to "make Barack Obama a one-term president" is an interesting finding. However, Iowans do not traditionally put electability above ideology and the massive winnowing that usually occurs by the conclusion of the Iowa Caucuses could hinder the ability of later-state R voters to select an acceptable alternative to their first choice.
The meeting then moved on to a discussion about that evening’s upcoming debate in FL and the fact that Perry would need to perform better than he did at the Tea Party debate. Of course, the group anticipated that Perry would be under attack from all sides again, because he is the front-runner. A full discussion of the debate will be the centerpiece of this week’s upcoming meeting, so please feel free to join us as it produced some interesting discussion points.
Off agenda-the group discussed the enthusiasm gaps between Republican and Democratic voters in the 2008 and 2010 elections and whether or not Democratic voters will turn up in the rates they did in ’08 for this presidential election. This led me to raise an interesting question. Does the enthusiasm gap stem almost entirely from supporting the out-of-power party or does it have a policy basis? If the Dems don’t show up at the polls in ’12, and the Republicans do-this will provide some anecdotal evidence that out-of-power status is the key determinant of the enthusiasm gap. If however, the Ds turn out in droves again, and the Rs do as well, this would seem to indicate that there is a policy element to the gap. With the biggest issues in many decades on the table (Ryan’s proposed Medicare changes, Romney’s proposed social security changes, and Obama’s jobs bill which proposes ending the Bush Tax Cuts as well as other revenue-raising aspects, and the debacle in Wisconsin galvanizing unions and other collective-action supporters) it would seem that if rank-and-file voter enthusiasm has a policy element, it should manifest on both sides this election season.
So that’s what you missed at the meeting this week. We hope top see you this Thursday at 2:15pm in room 302 of Baldwin Hall. Bring a friend!
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