 "Photo: Emily Kinsolving; The Daily Texan")
Following last week’s historic election, pundits across the nation analyzed the American political scene in newspapers, magazines and on television.
Associate government professor Sean Theriault and government professor Daron Shaw discussed the impact of the presidential race Tuesday at a 2008 post-election panel co-hosted by the Department of Government and political science honor society Pi Sigma Alpha.
Theriault said President-elect Barack Obama’s win was the result of three factors working in his favor: a “wave election” aided by a demoralized Republican brand; outreach and networking; and a bruising primary battle with Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.
Theriault cited statistics proving Obama’s road to the White House was given a large boost by his improvement in almost every demographic group since 2004, including white males, a longtime stronghold of the Republican Party. These Democratic gains across the board were the result of the primary battle, which lasted until June, Theriault said.
He also said the Obama campaign was given the enormous opportunity to focus effort and allocate money in nearly every state against Clinton until the summer, while the Republican race was decided by early March.
“We have four states that had [their primaries] after [Sen.] John McCain had already sewed up the Republican nomination,” he said, referring to Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina. “Only the Democrats were on the ground. Only the Democrats were reaching out to voters. Only the Democrats were on TV.”
Shaw, who helped project election results as part of Fox News’ national decision team, said the population boom in Western states like Colorado, Nevada and Arizona are Democrats’ best chances at altering the political map.
“You see tremendous growth in areas like Clark County, Nevada, which is Las Vegas and in Denver, Arapahoe County,” he said. “A lot of Californians and other people move for life issues or for a second home ... and they bring with them California sensibilities.”
The conventional notion that Obama virtually solidified his win with the financial crisis in September is bogus, Shaw said.
“I think it was an election with a very, very poor economy, and I think voters were going to realize that over the course of the campaign,” Shaw said. “Did you have to have a collapse of the capitalist system? It probably didn’t help. [Obama] was [already] on his way of assuming command of this race.”
The biggest lesson from last Tuesday was that democracy worked, Theriault concluded, as he displayed recent pictures of President Bush meeting with Obama in the Oval Office.
“Turnout was high,” Theriault said. “And thankfully the American public spoke decisively enough that we don’t have to hear about conspiracy theories and [problematic] voting machines.”
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