http://www.steynonline.com/7441/the-math-and-the-mapWith South Carolina's Republican primary and Nevada's Democrat caucus behind us, the potential match-ups for November are fast shrinking. On the GOP side, there's a frontrunner, two weakish second-place guys, and a fourth candidate who'll hang in at least until Ohio. The exit-polling suggests Donald Trump is drawing his voters from across all demographic groups and ideological inclinations. If Ben Carson were to pull out, most of his support would go to Trump. If John Kasich were to pull out, most of his support would go to Rubio, but some to Trump. If Rubio were to pull out, more would go to Trump than to Ted Cruz. If Cruz were to pull out, most would go to Trump. That's the problem for those demanding the race consolidate into Trump vs one all-powerful non-Trump.
The post-Iowa effusions over Cruz and Rubio seem a long way away - and Cruz has just asked Rick Tyler, one of too many too-clever-by-half chaps in his campaign, to resign over a false Rubio story. A lot of Cruz fans criticized this Iowa column of mine, but Carson and perhaps now Rubio have taken a permanent dislike to the guy, which won't assist anti-Trump consolidation moving forward. And Cruz himself, in firing Tyler, seems to have recognized belatedly the danger of getting stuck with a reputation for slipperiness.
Republicans supposedly want to win this time round, and the thinking was that they had a strong bench - all those governors, Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal... Down to four unTrumps, the bench doesn't look quite so strong. The underlying problem for the American right is that the Republican Party - and thus by extension American conservatism which faute de mieux uses the GOP as its principal operating entity - is a very weak brand. At the presidential level, that is. It varies locally from state to state, and it can still win mid-term elections, when turnout is even lower than it is in presidential elections.
On that last point, America's mid-terms are the only general elections for a national legislature in any developed nation in which fewer than half the eligible voters turn out. in 2014 two-thirds of the electorate didn't show up, the lowest participation since 1942 - when a big chunk of electors had the entirely reasonable excuse that they were up to their necks in muck and bullets on the other side of the globe. But even US presidential elections have the lowest participation rate almost anywhere in the democratic world:
Swedish general election (2014) 85.8 per cent;
New Zealand general election (2014) 73.2 per cent;
French presidential election (2012) 71.2 per cent;
Irish general election (2011) 63.8 per cent;
US presidential election (2012) 53.6 per cent.
None of the above, by the way, are "compulsory voting" nations such as Australia, where I presently am. All the conventional wisdom about American elections is predicated on 50 per cent of the electorate not showing up. As I wrote after Obama trounced Romney in November 2012:
I'm always struck, if one chances to be with a GOP insider when a new poll rolls off the wire, that their first reaction is to query whether it's of "likely" voters or merely "registered" voters. As the consultant class knows, registered voters skew more Democrat than likely voters, and polls of "all adults" skew more Democrat still. Hence the preoccupation with turnout models. In other words, if America had compulsory voting as Australia does, the Republicans would lose every time. In Oz, there's no turnout model, because everyone turns out. The turnout-model obsession is an implicit acknowledgment of an awkward truth – that, outside the voting booth, the default setting of American society is ever more liberal and statist.
We can speculate on why half the country doesn't show up but until they do that's all it is: speculation. However, as the 2008 turnout (58.2 per cent) demonstrated, the Dems only have to get very few of this missing 50 per cent to put in an appearance and the GOP gets absolutely clobbered. To do that that you need a candidate whose appeal is beyond the purely political, such as Obama. Hillary, fortunately for the Republicans, is not that person. The New Hampshire youth turnout suggests Bernie could be. But Hillary, again fortunately, is willing to use her party's corrupt and malodorous processes to deny Bernie victory.
As it is, in the past 30 years only two Republicans have won the presidential election and they're both called George Bush - although the second one lost the popular vote and required the assistance of the courts to win the electoral vote. Nevertheless, that map at top right shows Bush the First's victory in 1988. Look at it and marvel at his sweep across the fruited plain. In the south-west he won California. In the north-east he won four New England states. He won the home state of a young community organizer called Barack Obama.
This time round another Bush was running. Indeed, he was the favorite, until Donald Trump took him out with a single adjective ("low-energy"). But, even had he won the nomination, not even Jeb ever thought he'd be competitive in California or Illinois or two-thirds of New England. That turf has been long abandoned.
It was twelve years after Bush the First before another Republican victory - from Bush the Second. This wasn't like his dad's win. The 2000 election was the o
