One last look at the election numbers, and what we "missed"

I must confess that I have a fascination with numbers and statistics. I recall sitting in a college classroom listening to a visiting newspaper editor providing us the benefit of her experience. She seemed to be pleased in particular with me, because I was the only student who appeared to be eager to write down every word she was saying, while everyone else was dutifully giving her various degrees of attention. However, that was until she noticed that there was this student sitting next to me engaged in silent laughter at the incongruity of perception and reality. It took him awhile, but being a sports fan he finally figured it out: I was doodling the week-by-week statistics of an imaginary baseball player.

And since I like numbers, I thought I’d just take one last look at those that comprise the 2012 presidential election, which appear at last to be the final tally. The most obvious number is 6 million—the number of fewer votes cast in 2012 than in 2008. This also approximates the decrease in the number of votes cast for Barack Obama. But Mitt Romney actually received slightly fewer votes than John McCain, who in many ways was an even less attractive candidate who more than once reminded voters that he was old. McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, also waged a toxic campaign that turned off many voters who cringed at the cries of “terrorist” and “kill him.” But Romney running mate Paul Ryan didn’t “excite” voters like Palin did, and his net effect was probably a wash between hardline conservatives and those who didn’t trust his slash-and-burn approach to deficit reduction.

Looking at the state-by-state vote count, what is surprising is that for all the polls that showed Romney in a dead-heat with Obama, in the end this had more to do with voter indecision concerning Obama rather than actual belief that Romney was a fit alternative. The narrative in most states was that with “history” out of the way, there were fewer voters who felt they needed to be counted as one of those who said “I voted for Obama,” since they already did once; these excess were casual voters, and those came out to vote this time did so because they knew that a Romney administration would reverse an agenda that had barely taken root. Thus while the casual voter stayed home, it appears that those who came out for Romney were already predisposed against Obama under any circumstances and those who voted out of habit, and were not joined in any significant way by those who actually switched their vote.  Those who did not wish to vote for Obama this time simply stayed home rather than vote for Romney.

One interesting factoid is that while a few states saw a small increase in votes, the decrease of the vote count in California and New York was substantial, accounting for almost 60 percent of the total vote decrease nationally. Both of these states went heavily for Obama in 2008 and did so again in 2012; Obama’s victory margin in just these two states was nearly 4.2 million—almost 400,000 more votes that his plurality nationally. Outside New York and California, Obama and Romney each won 24 states, and the difference in the popular vote was negligible, with Obama generally winning handily in traditionally “blue” states, while Romney had equally easy wins in “red” states. 

Since the election, there has been some indication of what a Romney administration might do, via the “accidental” posting of his “transition” website, which was just as quickly taken down. Not surprisingly it was short on substantive “heft,” except that on one page  it made clear that a Romney administration’s number one priority was "On his first day in office, Mitt Romney will issue an executive order that paves the way for the federal government to issue Affordable Care Act waivers to all 50 states. He will then work with Congress to repeal the full legislation as quickly as possible." No mention of what to do with a health care system badly in need of reform. Beyond that, what I found interesting was that Romney thinks government should be run like a business, and anyone applying for a job in his administration should realize that they will be treated like an employee rather than someone responsible to give him good advice and be able to act autonomously within their sphere of responsibility. 

In fact, as in his term as governor of Massachusetts, Romney appears not take his own responsibilities very seriously—which of course is the same reason why everything ran amok during the Bush administration. Romney clearly had\s few political contacts or acquaintances—probably because they were beneath him, just as he chose not to know the names of any members of the state legislature. The website’s “application process” was “only for non-career presidential appointee positions”--meaning those willing to advance his government-as-a-business agenda. There was a button to “apply online.” If you are a U.S. senator or long-time political insider, don’t expect Mitt to contact you and ask you if you want to “serve” him; you have to degrade yourself by “applying” for a job, just like the people who clean your office at night. 

And some voters actually thought Romney cared about anyone outside his “class.” If the media had related how insular and bigoted the Mormon religion is, more voters might have realized just how so Romney is.