Day: November 6, 2015

Jonathan Chait: “A new paper by political scientist Corwin Smidt… documents the decline of swing voters, or (as many political scientists call them) ‘floating voters,’ which means voters who pull the lever for a different party than the one they supported in the previous election. From the 1950s through the 1980s, 10 to 15 percent of voters floated between the two parties in presidential elections. Recently that rate has fallen to about 5 percent.” “The sorting of American politics into semipermanent, warring camps unfolded over decades… But every effort to break the stalemate in the age of polarization has failed. Red-state Democrats and blue-state Republicans have tried to create separate, localized identities for their candidates that can allow them to compete in hostile terrain. It doesn’t work because elections at every level have increasingly grown nationalized. The divide between red and blue America is comprehensive.” The true swing voter is like a white elephant: rare. I only have one in my life. What the media considers "swing voters" are really just annoying Independents that do in fact have ideological preferences one way or the other, but can only be motivated to vote on rare occasions. Obama brought a lot of these voters out in 2008. Bernie Sanders is attempting to do the same thing now. George W. Bush brought a lot of these voters out on the right in 2004, and the selection of Sarah Palin brought a lot of these voters out to vote for McCain.

Last night during the special meeting of the Town Council, "Elsmere town officials are asking the Attorney General's Office for help in deciding whether a crime was committed by the mayor," WDEL reports. What I find fascinating is that what started out as a plan to explain away the firing of former New Castle County Chief Administrative Officer David Grimaldi has blown back and caused collateral damage on Tom Gordon and his allies, all because Grimaldi recorded his conversation with Berg. Gordon has to wonder what other conversations have been recorded.