'This is unusual behavior'

In "G.O.P. Governors Swing Right, Leaving Voters Behind," Nate Silver produces a riveting piece of what you might call a statistical pre-autopsy. He plots individual Republican governors' ideological positions with those of their states, and concludes that virtually all of them are electorally endangered.

[T]here is no correlation between the ideology of the governors and the ideology of the states.... This is unusual behavior. Politics 101 would suggest that you need to be at least somewhat responsive to voters in your state.... It suggests that the party has become uninterested in appealing to swing voters — and that the voters are starting to notice.

Retribution from the electorate is a strong possibility unless there is a change of course.

I would only add that logic suggests the same politician-electorate conflict exists in congressional swing districts currently held by Republicans, which poses the selfsame "redistribution from the electorate" -- assuming Democrats don't characteristically cut their own throats by messing with Medicare.

Comments

[steve duncan]

I'd go along with this but Republicans and some of the less educated swingsters can be persuaded despite evidence to the contrary to stay in the fold. All that's needed is to remind them the enemy (Democrats, people that read, gays, atheists, etc) are all a bunch of dope smoking pedophiles plotting to assist Muslims in overthrowing the government. You say that's an alarmist notion? Hmmm, the ratings for Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox News and Beck (pre-canning) say otherwise. Discomfort results from the realization a solid plurality, if not outright majority, of your fellow citizens are batshit insane.

Stephen: They're after us. They know we're still in here.
Peter: They're after the place. They don't know why, they just remember. Remember that they want to be in here.
Francine Parker: What the hell are they?
Peter: They're us, that's all, when there's no more room in hell.

[Anne Johnson]

Was watching Obama's town hall on MSNBC before they cut it short, and there was a man in the audience who to me looked like a republican/tea party voter asking the president what to do about the "hooligans in the house". They are not unlike the hooligan governors that were elected in their respective states who are now facing voter backlash and very low approval ratings. Don't know what will happen with the debt ceiling but pretty sure most of these tea party freshmen will be one-termers. I know the conventional wisdom is that if the unemployment rate is above 7.2% no president since Reagan has been reelected, but these are not ordinary times and I don't think the conventional wisdom necessarily applies here if a majority of the electorate is aware of who is representing them in the House.

[Susan Zoon]

I Live in Putnam County NY, 60- or so miles above NYC as the crow flies; a geographical location referred to in a New York Times article a couple of years ago as 'Upper Coplandia'. Why? because it's where the cops and fireman of NYC can afford to live and see a couple of trees while their at it... oh and it's pretty white- Irish and Italian Catholic for the most part.

These are the voters who vote Republican because they A.- Like swaggering assholes, B.- Love fetuses, and C.- think that blacks and hispanics are stealing everything that should come to them. That being said it never seems to occur to these Union stalwarts that their pensions and jobs are on the block. They always assumed that the swaggering assholes were talking about other people... teachers... and not them, when they started to drive the stake through the heart of labor.

I am here to tell you that is changing. Something is happening here and it is not just limited to Upper Coplandia. I had a neighbor, a freshly retired Fire Chief from Yonkers, tell me just the other day, that he cannot believe how the Republicans have deceived him and his union brothers. He said, he would never vote Republican again. I have heard similar conversions being affirmed in the check-out line of the local Shop-Rite and have it on good account that the same transformation is taking hold in New jersey and Pennsylvania.

Dare I hope that the rise of the Swaggering Asshole ends with the elevation of the likes of Chris Christie et al?

[Ansel M.]

Susan Z.--There certainly are far too many "swaggering assholes" out there, but, these days, when I read or hear the term, my first thought is Eric Cantor!
I hope you are correct that some "awakening" is occurring among the masses; I am also hearing and seeing some anecdotal bits and pieces that suggest the same thing.