Here’s my nomination for what Republicans should learn from this election: Support equality!
In Michigan, the Republican nominee for governor, Dick DeVos, and the Republican nominee for the Senate, Mike Bouchard, both opposed the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI). Presumably they were afraid of being called racist, or something.
Well, I’ll call them something: stupid. They both lost, 56% to 42%, and the Republicans lost control the state House for the first time in 8 years and almost lost the Senate (latest numbers here). Meanwhile, MCRI, with which Republicans were afraid to be affiliated, won with 58% of the vote. The Detroit News is still reporting a demographic breakdown of the vote based on exit polling indicating that MCRI was supported by 76% of Republicans and opposed by 75% of Democrats,while 68% of those who “lean Republican” supported it and 62% of those who “lean Democratic” opposed it. Independents were split, with 49% supporting and 48% opposing.
I’m not sure these exit poll numbers square very well with final, actual support of 58%, but to the degree they don’t I suspect a big part of the reason is that more Democrats voted for the proposal than were willing to admit to pollsters that they had strayed from the party line that insisted on retaining race preferences.
In other words, not only was the opposition to MCRI of DeVos, Bouchard, and the Michigan Republican Party — and, while I’m at it, of the national Republicans as well, from Bush on down — unprincipled, it was also dumb. As a commenter on my previous post aptly said, here,
Gee, you suppose the party might try taking the same side on the issues as it’s members some time? That might even give us some reason to vote for them….
You should also look at the national results on Eminent Domain. It won in almost all states where it was on the ballot.
Almost universally, inititiatves that were made to limit the goverment won excpet for minimum wage laws.
The real story is that 25% of Democrats voted “Yes” — and I’m proud to be among them. In my mind this just gives the lie to the arguments that those opposed to preferences are just “closet racists.”
Also, John, I think the vast discrepancy between pre-election polls and actual results on this issue would be worthy of a post.
Thanks for your relentless highlighting of this issue.
Now, that’s an interesting conclusion: Democrats voting for something proves that support for it doesn’t just come from closet racists…
Do you take it as a uncontraversial proposition that the Democratic party is free from closet racists?
Brett, I was simply trying to poke fun at those who imply that support of Prop 2 was driven by latent racism. Those same folks tend to view things as very “you’re either with us (usually equated with Democrats) or against us.”
Obviously I don’t believe that there are no closet racists who are Democrats. But I can say, with 100% certainty, that not all people who voted in favor of Prop 2 are closet racists; I know at least one who isn’t.
What is your evidence that Republicans would have done better if they had supported MCRI? This would certainly be true if people were MCRI single issue voters, but most aren’t. It is perfectly consistent with all the data you presented that Republicans would have lost, rather than gained, votes by supporting MCRI.
Republicans would have still lost, however, DeVos would likely have done better, and those Republicans that siezed the issue in tight races (there were several local races that were within hundreds of votes) could have squeezed enough out of it for the to survive the national wave and perhaps hold on to the state house.
There is no way anyone could prove this – since exit polls are notoriously unreliably in recent years – but the data and logic suggests it. Here’s why – once MCRI turned in 500,000 signatures, a “fait accompli” had occurred. DeVos and Bouchard couldn’t avoid its presence on the ballot – an argument could be made that the 20% higher than normal turnout was caused partially by Proposal 2 (I don’t believe that the case, since the turnout was not isolated to inner-cities or high-Dem areas, I believe it was that Michigan is in a single-state recession, that the Governor’s race was the most expensive ever, and the national Iraq/anti-Republican corruption tide were all in play for the perfect storm. This is born out in my analysis of very local races in highly conservative districts for my other clients. Republican %’s were down by 10% on average across the board (my state house client was up by point over 2004 though!! – – although I’ll note that we did not emphasize his pro-MCRI stance because we recognized the economy and jobs as #1). If a college student were particularly motivated, one could actually do a scientific study of all the pro-MCRI candidates (there was an online questionairre for all state house seats) and compare their outcomes to the anti-MCRI Republicans and see if it made an “insulation” difference (for incumbent Republicans, since no Republican challenger anywhere won).
Obviously, for MCRI to have an effect, since most voters are not “single-issue,” as you rightly say, someone would have had to “message it”. For example, Dick DeVos, in the last days of the race realizing his own desperation, could have played it out on TV (he’d have been condemned mightily, no doubt) if he had supported it. One never knows exactly what the “turning point” for an independent is – their votes are affected by a complex interplay of issues and ads, and like a scale that you can’t see the weights on, or landslide, you don’t know exactly how close to flipping any of them are.
My feel for the numbers is that MCRI support by the whole Party in the right areas could have been worth 2-4% (note, the margins of loss in the Gov race were 15 points, so it wouldn’t change the statewide office outcomes, but it would change local races and the state house was exceedingly close).
“What is your evidence that Republicans would have done better if they had supported MCRI?”
I’d assumed this was so obvious as to escape the need for explaination, but here goes: The MCRI was popular. It’s generally supposed that voters are made more likely to vote for a candidate by evidence that candidate agrees with them.