What we learned from ’08 election
1. Nothing is inevitable. Hillary Clinton was without question the front runner for the Democratic nomination. She held a commanding lead in the polls until January, and had name recognition matched only by Jesus and Shakespeare. Everyone was predicting an easy victory for her.
Then came the self proclaimed “skinny kid from Chicago with a funny name” and Senator Clinton never had a chance. Barack Obama overtook Hillary Clinton in the polls, although it was a photo finish.
John McCain had a quite similar story. Following his very controversial (dare I say maverick?) Senate proposal to grant amnesty to illegal aliens, his campaign poll numbers shrunk to low single digits. Many polls had McCain trailing five or more of his Republican opponents. However, after putting all his eggs in the basket known as New Hampshire, he pulled off a large victory there, and was on pace to win the Republican nomination. For both the Republicans and the Democrats, no candidate is ever “inevitable.”
2. Predictions are worthless. If you’re looking for a gambling game where you’ll probably lose money, look no further than betting on a Presidential election. This entire election I tried to predict who would win, right from the get-go. Early on, I believed it would be Obama with about 280-290 electoral votes.
Then, McCain picked Palin and pulled ahead in the polls for a week or two. I then made a ridiculous prediction that I actually put in one of my previous articles. I said that the way I perceive Obama’s very liberal ideology, I couldn’t imagine America voting for him for President. Boy was I wrong. Fortunately, I had no money at stake.
3. Always choose the candidate you are most excited about. This has to do with the Presidential Primaries. When people vote in the primaries, often times loyal party voters will choose the candidate that they think has the best chance of beating the opposition party’s candidate. This is called “electability.”
In the Democratic Primary, the common belief was that Hillary Clinton was more electable than Barack Obama. I too believed this, and as a conservative I was hoping Barack Obama would get the nomination, simply because I thought he had a greater chance of losing in the general election. The Democratic voters didn’t vote for who they thought was more electable; they voted for the candidate they could get excited about.
The Republicans on the other hand picked their candidate based on electability. John McCain is very moderate and the most likely Republican to sway independents (even former Democratic Vice-Presidential candidates). Here, you have one party that chose the candidate that is more electable, and another party that chose the candidate they actually liked more. Common sense would have you believe that the more electable candidate won.
Common Sense would also be wrong.
The reason why Obama won is simple. Democrats were excited about Obama and were willing to stand in line for hours to vote, while Republicans were pretty lukewarm about McCain and didn’t turn out in as large of numbers.
The lesson is always vote for the candidate that you like the most. The one you’d be willing to stand in a long line through the cold and the rain just to cast one vote out of 110 million.
Perhaps there are life lessons we can take from this. Nothing in life is ever inevitable… anything can happen. Don’t gamble on things, you’ll probably lose! And do (or vote) whatever makes you happy or excited; don’t necessarily do what you think is most popular among others (like voting for a more electable candidate).
Ok, maybe I’m stretching this a little bit. But you get the idea.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Nov 21 2008. Filed under Opinion.
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