Is there a "McGovern effect" influencing the Democratic primary?

[onenote]

Others may have discussed this and, if so, I apologize for the duplication.

First, let me again emphasize where I stand: I'm supporting Bernie in the primaries but will enthusiastically support whomever the Democratic nominee is in the general.

Second, if the polls are to be believed, there is a generational divide between Bernie supporters and HRC supporters, with Bernie doing better among the younger demographic and HRC doing better with the older demographic.

NOW, before people start losing their sh*t over the above statement, let me emphasize that HRC has plenty of younger supporters and Bernie has plenty of older supporters. Hell, I'm over 60, so I'm proof of that. But, again, if the polls are to be believed, there is a generational divide.

Third, from my first hand experience, talking with friends that I know share my political leanings and who are around the same age as I am, I get the sense that for many of them, there is a McGovern effect -- they remember all too painfully McGovern's one-sided loss to Nixon in 1972 when the repubs successfully painted a picture of McGovern as a radical left winger. Rather than consider that no two elections are necessarily alike and that the country today is, in various ways, not the country of 1972, they still can't get past the cautiousness that the 1972 election instilled in them and thus are reluctant to go all in for Bernie.

I should add that I totally get it. I would be lying if I didn't admit that the McGovern experience isn't far from my mind. I was 19 in 1972 and that election was my first presidential election.

So, without passing judgment, I'm curious whether others think that there is a McGovern effect influencing how many Democrats, particularly those in the older demographics, think about the 2016 elections and the Democratic primaries in particular.

[Bread and Circus]

1. You pose a good question and I don't know the answer but

...you have to also view their polling numbers in light of Hillary built in constituencies with women and blacks as well as Clinton nostalgia.

However I would assume there is some element of the McGovern effect as you point out.

[sufrommich]

2. I certainly think that has some influence. nt

[MohRokTah]

3. The McGovern debacle has affected every Democratic nomination process for 43 years.

There is nothing new about this.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. I voted for McGovern in '72 and would do so again. If Bernie is nominated I will vote for him.

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost. John Quincy Adams

[Capt. Obvious]

5. The McGovern Effect

....

We have what I think of as a McGovern ethic up here in New England, an attitude we took when he ran for president against Richard Nixon in 1972, which gave us a sense of moral superiority in failure. George McGovern lost 49 states to one, the one being Massachusetts, but this total failure — virtually an abdication of political will at a critical moment — is always thought of as a great victory up here. We like to fail. It may make us irrelevant, but we feel more special than grungy snow machine riders and hockey players with no front teeth and lipstick-wearers and people who have babies.

When I was working as a volunteer for Wesley Clark in his primary campaign up here in New Hampshire in 2004, his state director said with glowing heart, “It’s just like George McGovern again.” I knew we were finished.

I’m not so certain as the main stream of the press that Obama will win this; it is too much like McGovern times.

Douglas MacKinnon, the press secretary for Bob Dole, had some thoughts on this recently in the The New York Times.

“Why do Democrats sometimes lose when all indications are that they will coast to victory?” he asked. “One reason that has gained traction in certain quarters is that the people who control the Republican Party understand and respect their opponents. Republicans think Democrats are wrong, but Democrats think Republicans are stupid, and that’s why Democrats lose.”

Now it has pushed all the way back, as far as it can go — all the way back to Barney Frank, “Saturday Night Live” and the crew at Elaine’s, New York’s fashionable Upper East Side spot where the beautiful people of the 1970s would go to see and be seen. The extreme edge of esoteric liberal culture feels it is taking victory.

MacKinnon repeated a story of the movie critic Pauline Kael for The New Yorker, who in the face of Nixon crushing McGovern in the 1972 presidential election allegedly said, “How can he have won? Nobody I know voted for him.”

....

First return on the Google machine

Obama was heading towards another McGovern like result 7 years ago.

[onenote]

6. Thanks. Interesting piece.

[KingCharlemagne]

7. Nixon was a popular incumbent president in 1972. This year,

there is no incumbent running.

Are you implying people may fear that what happened to McGovern could happen to Sanders? Sanders is a much better campaigner than McGovern was and he will not have any '1000% support' moment. Polls have shown Sanders stomping both Bush and Trump.

[onenote]

9. I'm not trying to imply McGovern and Sanders are alike.

As my post indicates, I have picked up on a certain degree of cautiousness amongst some of my peers who went remember the 1972 election and, frankly, are cautious about public perceptions of Bernie based on how the public perception of McGovern was shaped back then.

Interestingly, I don't sense that the Mondale loss to Reagan, which was nearly equal in its lopsidedness, effected folks the same way.

[artislife]

20. And how many years ago was this.

I am sure Teddy Roosevelt worried that his campaign wasn't following Abe Lincoln's route to the white house...gee whiz, that is about the same span of years.

[merrily]

29. Not only a popular incumbent, but a war time popular incumbent. Americans have never

voted out a war time incumbent, popular or not, since the beginning of the Republic in 1789.

There were a lot of other factors as well. Please see my Reply 27 below.

[MineralMan]

8. Yes, of course it does, and rightly so.

1968 and 1972 were the very bottom-out years for Democrats. Unmitigated disasters. I voted for both Democrats in those years, knowing full well that it was hopeless. I even campaigned hard for them, despite knowing that neither had a chance.

Yes, there are plenty of people who remember and never want such a thing to happen again.

[jwirr]

10. IF there is a McGovern effect it is located more in TPTB in

the party than in the fears of the people. And if I am correct then it is also one of their weak points because as they manipulate party machinery to favor one candidate over the other the people get angrier. And unfortunately this manipulation will lower the people who come out to vote possibly resulting in a lose for our party.

[onenote]

11. The folks I know aren't part of "TPTB"

and we share political views and have for years. They're just gun shy because of 1972. As I said, I get exactly where they're coming from since it is something I felt and had to overcome in order to commit to supporting Bernie in the primaries.

[jwirr]

12. I worked for McGovern in 72. Most people are not really that

worried about the too liberal.

[onenote]

13. Good to know.

But my experience seems to be different, so I don't know if "most" people who lived through the McGovern experience don't have a nagging concern about it, whether or not it ultimately keeps them from supporting Bernie. There clearly is an split based on age and I think the McGovern effect has at least something to do with it.

[jwirr]

19. You could be right but I also think the polls are less trustworthy

this time because there are a lot of people who have been out of the system for a long time and are going to come back in just for Bernie. And they do not poll these people.

[merrily]

30. Democrats have been brainwashed into fearing liberals as part of the DLC-ization of the Party.

Last edited Fri Nov 13, 2015, 01:54 AM - Edit history (1)

It's not 1972 and Sanders wins in one to one match ups against Republicans, sometimes doing better than Hillary. Those polls are not reliable, but they're equally unreliable for both of them, if that's any consolation.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. McGovern v. Nixon is as relevant to the 2016 election as Al Smith v. Herbert Hoover was to '72.

There is an equal span of time between 1928 and 1972 as between 1972 and 2016.

Something to think about.

Most of the electorate doesn't remember McGovern. The people reaching voting age next year were born the year the Monica Lewinsky story broke.

[onenote]

15. I never once suggested that this was about "most of the electorate"

My point was that there is a generation of Democrats that DO remember McGovern and that for those Democrats, memories of the McGovern defeat seem, in my experience, to be having some influence on their view of the Democratic competition, and that this influence is part of the reason for the demographic divide in support for the two leading candidates.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. Could be.

I think it's quite as likely, though, that en aggregate boomers have drifted more towards the conservative side of the spectrum as they've aged, and this as much as anything would result in better poll numbers for the more conservative-leaning primary candidate. Statistics and polling seem to bear this out.

[Persondem]

17. Or it could be that older voters are just more politically "wise", '72 being a slice of that

learned experience. As such they realize that a candidate who is on the record multiple times as a tax and spend socialist (and a conscientious objector to boot) is just too vulnerable to the GOP hit machine. Younger voters do not have that experience, are more idealistic, and so may rely more on their heart than their brains.

Another point, the polls are not all that definitive on the older/younger, Clinton/Sanders divide. Seems like they are about even with the younger voters with the older voters giving Clinton her lead. I just checked one poll and indeed that was the case.

[Armstead]

18. The McGovern effect has screwed up the party since that election

The irrational fear of repeating it -- and an apparent inability or unwillingness to actually look at all of the reasons for it -- means that the same basic dynamic is played out every four years (and in smaller ways constantly and every two years).

[Chitown Kev]

21. Given what the GOP is now (as opposed to 1972)

I can see why none would want to take that chance (after all, in 1972, the Dems controlled Congress and were going to control it...very different dynamic and a bit scarier dynamic now).

[jfern]

22. The superdelegates were introduced to prevent another McGovern from losing 49 states

And in the first election since they were introduced, the superdelegates went strongly for Mondale, who lost 49 states.

Anyways, demographics will prevent any Democratic nominee from doing that bad in 2016. Dukakis would have won with 2012 demographics.

[Chitown Kev]

23. Not quite, I don't think

he'd have gotten awfully close though...

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the GOP's big problem is that they cannot compete in California since the passage of Prop 187...and that narrows the GOP map of possibilities A LOT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1988

[jfern]

24. Here's how they match up

Dukakis lost whites 40-59
Obama lost whites 39-59
Dukakis won blacks 86-12
Obama won blacks 93-6
Dukakis won hispanics 69-30
Obama won hispanics 71-27
No information on asians in 1988

So Dukakis does a hair better with whites (72% in 2012). He runs somewhat worse with minorities. But since Obama won in 2012 by 4 points, Dukakis can afford to be about 14 points closer with minorities. He is about that much closer with blacks, but hispanics are closer. Dukakis probably wins by 0.5-2 points.

[Chitown Kev]

25. One factor that you miss with Dukakis

was the LGBT vote...there are no definitive numbers on what the LGBT vote was in 1988 but the estimates that I've read (in Virtual Equality by Urvashi Vaid) were that Bush 41 may have won as much as 40% of the LGBT vote. Here's why.

An attempt by Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis to mend troubled relations with the gay community was met Saturday with occasional hisses and boos at a public meeting that turned into a critique of the candidate's gay rights positions.

Dukakis stuck tenaciously to his views during the tense half-hour session, finally defending the Massachusetts policy that gives homosexual couples less chance to become foster parents than heterosexuals by declaring: "There is no civil right to be a foster parent."

Many in the crowd at Los Angeles' Four Seasons Hotel then hissed with displeasure, and some responded with applause when a heckler called the presidential candidate a "bigot" and "anti-gay."

The audience also appeared dismayed by Dukakis' declaration that he would not issue an executive order banning discrimination on the basis of sexual preference if he were elected President. Dukakis contended that such discrimination already is barred by the Constitution.

http://articles.latimes.com/1988-05-15/news/mn-4425_1_gay-community

Obama gets from 70% to 77% of the LGBT vote in his 2 elections.

[jfern]

26. I guess I should have said the same racial demographics

Because once you start adding all the demographics, it becomes impossible to answer since they are correlated with each other.

Yes, there used to not be much difference between the parties on LGBT. Here's a 1977 poll in California showing that about the same amounts of the voters of both parties supported SSM.

http://www.prochoicecalifornia.org/media/news/20090805~2.shtml

[Chitown Kev]

28. This is an incredible statistic here

That's in contrast to Republicans, who today are actually "more opposed than they were 30 years ago" to same-sex marriage, the poll found. In 1977, GOP voters stood against it 65 to 30 percent; today, they are against it 68 to 23 percent.

[merrily]

27. I have made a number of posts on "the McGovern lost because he was liberal" meme.

This post collected most of them in one place.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/128046511

Of the collected posts, the one most closely-related to this thread was demwing's thread entitled "This ain't 1972," but you have to read the entire thread because the replies contained a lot of good info.

[Docreed2003]

31. Some historical perspective...

In 1972, the Democrats were deeply divided, especially between the anti-war crowd and the labor powers. When McGovern won the nomination, labor sided with Nixon, at least the powers that be in labor sided with Nixon. Although I'm concerned about similar struggles within the party today between the base and the power brokers, to compare this election to 1972 is really an apples to oranges comparison. Personally, I fear a 1968 type rift in the party...that type of comparison might be considered more apt. If we become that divided as a party, then I fear we welcome Nixon 2.0 in Sen Cruz. He's established himself as the antigovernment and evangelical candidate....he's waiting for the trump followers to fall into his lap!

[merrily]

35. Yes, Democrats for Nixon, analogous to Reagan Democrats

[theboss]

32. The math in presidential elections has gotten weird

For the most part, we could cancel the election in 44 states, pre-assign those electoral votes, and just let the candidates campaign in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Virginia.

Two things are in play - those states will vote for Democrats but probably not "radical Democrats." However, a few of them will - for reasons I don't fully understand - vote for radical Republicans. Santorum can get elected to statewide office in Pennsylvania while Bernie Sanders would have no chance. It's strange to me.

So, I think the memories of Democratic wipeouts in 1972, 1980, 1984, and 1988 plus the states that are actually in play make people cautious. The genius of the '08 Obama campaign was how he somehow made Hillary the "risky" pick.

Regardless, I admire the passion of the Sanders' supporters but this primary is most likely to not be very close. Sanders seems to have an outside shot to win in New Hampshire but she is just crushing him everywhere else. She's going to beat him 2:1 in Iowa, 3:1 in South Carolina, and 2:1 in Nevada and then what happens?

[Chitown Kev]

33. I think that the right Democrat

could take Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina...it could never be a radical Democrat though...and Missouri may be off the board in 2016.

[theboss]

34. Indiana seems like a longshot to me even though its voting history is similar to NC's

North Carolina just seems like a state that should be trending Democratic and never quite gets over the hump.

[WI_DEM]

36. '72 probably would have been somewhat closer had McGovern not screwed up the VP

choice. Of course Eagleton didn't tell McG's staff about his electric shocks, drunk driving arrests, etc...and since then vetting a VP has been much more critical.

[KingCharlemagne]

37. Im 100% sure Mcg or his staff asked Eagleton if there were

anything in his past that might disqualify him. Thanks Tom for being sure to mention THE ELECTRO SHOCK TREATMENTS . . . Not!

Mcg did himself no favors by saying he backed Eagleton 1000%. Er, better make that 999. . . . 998 . . . 997. You get the picture.

'72 reveals America in all its glory, where a fundamentally decent human being ran against a gangster and America chose the gangster. 1980 (and 2000) was a mere coda to that sorry symphony.