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Why did the democrats win in 2008?

It is so hard to sum up the presidential election of 2008. The reason for this is that is

very hard to capture the historical nature of the campaign and election, at a timewhen the United States seemed vulnerable on many fronts. The US faced a great

political tumult since 1992 that only experienced only once or twice in a century. Theend of Cold War, put an end to one of the major rivalries with its major enemy, the

Soviet Union. The change in american election since 1992 is not easy to miss. In

1992, a three-way presidential election, in which the third party runner was aconsiderable opponent. In 1994, the House of Representatives changed hands for

the first time in 40 years. In 1996, the the candidate who won presidency failed to

secure the 50% of the vote for the second straight election. The year 1998 was thefirst time that a whole nation watched the presidential affair from tabloids, which

caused a constitutional crisis and the President was impeached only for a secondtime in the nations history. The year 2000, brought another constitutional turmoil due

to the fact that it was the first presidential election in 100 years in which the winner ofthe Electoral College, did not win the popular vote and which ended with a supreme

court decision for the Florida vote count. The 2001 was the year that landmarkedAmerica's history with its worst terrorist attack. In 2004 Bush was reelected President

by the smallest margin of any other reelected President.The 2008 was called bymany Americans 'the election of their lifetimes'.( Todd, 2009 : 3-4). It is true that the

victory of the Democrats in 2008 highlighted the history of America for variousreasons. It was the first time that an African American was elected President and

never before any African American was nominated candidate either by theDemocrats or the Republicans. Also, 2008 a woman only for the second time run for

a party's presidential ticket.Sarah Palin was nominated for Vice-President and wasfollowed by Hilary Clinton's unsuccessful try to be the democratic candidate for the

2008 election.Another thing that marked the 2008 was the amount of spent forObama's campaign, which altered the campaigns for both candidates and would

influence the future funding of future elections.( Jones and Vassalo, 2009 : 135).

After a brief historic analysis of US elections and other important events thatinfluenced american elections, it is time to address the essay question by explaining

why the democrats won the 2008 election. The answer to this question is not asurprising one; the Democrats victory could be attributed to a combination of factors

and circumstances.

I think that Trende offers a very interesting point about the outcome of american

elections in general, stemming from Walter Dean Burnham. Burnham formalized thethe notion of critical elections in a theory of periodic cycles. This theory was very

critical for Judis' and Texeira's 'Emerging of Democratic Majority' book. According tothis theory, critical election reoccur every 32 to 36 years. According to Judis and

Texeira, ' the Republican majority that emerged in 1968 began to disintegrate in 1992and a new Democratic majority was set to begin in 2004, on a perfect 36-year cycle' (

Trende,2012 :67).Trende believes that Judis and Texeira were successful to identify

the ideology on which the emerging Democratic majority was based, describingDemocratic voters as 'centrists', 'who worry about budget deficits and are wary of


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large tax cuts. The want incremental , careful reforms that will increase health-care

coverage and perhaps eventually universalize it, but not a large new bureaucracythat will replace the entire private-health market' ( Trende, 2012 :67).

Despite the fact that the Democrats faced a wobbly majority in the 2000 and 2004

elections, it seems that the Democrats in 2008 had the right candidate at the righttime.To make it more clear : I believe that the theory of periodic cycle is a serious

one. Historic change and social development contributed inevitably to political shift.

We have been able to observe the major shift in american politics in the South,exiting the Democratic party or some strange coalitions of conservative Catholics

and Protestants. In the case of 2008 the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, had

three faces 'that made him potentially formidable in a Democratic primary'. ( Trende,2012 :75). Obama was African American and 'African Americans made up majorities

of votes in many Southern primaries'. ( Trende, 2012 :75).Also, Obama he had animportant asset among the liberal activists as a civil rights lawyer and thirdly, he was

a law Professor, made him look very appealing among the upper-class, who wasfond of good manners.( Trende, 2012 :75).

According to my opinion, the reason that the Democrats won the 2008 elections wasa combination of reasons. Bush's presidency was marked with massive deficits. The

expansion of federal education spending combined with tax cuts, war expenses andrecession was not hard to be heavily compared with Clinton's surpluses years. Bush

increased the national debt from $5.73 to 10.63 trillion.People regarded theRepublican party as the spending Party and looked for an alternative that would

bring a deficit reduction.The 'Great Recession' in 2007 paved the way to a

Democrats victory, as well, since the fourth greatest investment Bank of the UnitedStates, Lehman Brothers, filed from bankruptcy. (Trende, 2012 :73-74).Moreover, thewar in Iraq 'eroded the Republican advantage on national security'. ( Trende, 2012 :

74).

Michael Shin argues that we cannot be sure if any Democratic candidate could have

won the election, but we can be pretty much sure that McCain could not have won it.McCain did not manage to keep distance from Bush's unsuccessful administration

and it seems that his support for the war did not benefit him either. However, whatseems to have really catapulted McCains presidential candidature was the

deterioration of the US and global market.Six in ten voters believed that economywas America'S biggest problem. ( Jones and Vassalo, 2009 :143). Moreover, Shin

stresses that the economic crisis had three negative consequences for McCain.McCain gained a favorable bump in the polls, shortly after he announced Sarah

Palin's candidature as Vice- President ,but this advantage short-lived, because the

Lehman Brothers bankruptcy favored Obama. Also, the financial crisis helpedObama to argue that a vote to McCain would result to appraisal of 'failed policies'

and thirdly, ' McCain's decision to suspend his campaign and to forgo participation in

the first presidential debate to assist with the bailout plan that was already movingthrough Congress was met with surprise, skepticism, and criticism'. ( Jones and

Vassalo, 2009 :144).


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If we take Shin's argument seriously, we might conclude that it was not taken for

granted that Democrats would win the 2008 election, but it war rather hard forMcCain to win, both due to his profile and due to his attachment to Bush's

administration.McCain looked old-fashion, uninspired and had a hard time to

convince the youth, since it refuse to use the Internet to run its campaign. Thus, it is

rather interesting to see why the democrats and why Obama won the elections.

It seems that campaign workers and reporters have very different ideas about the

result of presidential elections of 2008 from the political scientists. Campaign workersand reporters assume that elections are won on things like' superb adverts, a

candidate's misstatements, differences in the amount of money raised, the strategy

of media buys, and especially the quality of the campaign staff'. (Peele, 2010: 39).Onthe other side of the fence, political scientists think that 'presidential campaigns are

mainly determined by larger political and economic forces' ( Peele, 2010 :39). Also, asub-field within political science is able to predict the result of presidential election in

late summer.However, some of the predictions have been wrong and the outcome ofthe 2008 did not seem certain, although the McCain campaign suffered serious

disadvantages. ( Peele, 2010 :40).

At this point, it is worthwhile mentioning the issue of race. For the first time in its

history the United States had an African American candidate.Of course it was hard tosee the real reaction of American voters to this racial factum, but the result of the

election proved that race had a positive impact for the Democrats. African Americansmake approximately a 13 percent of voters.In the 2008 election, the largest increase

in voters turnout was reported to states were African Americans have high

populations. Hispanic American supported Obama by a two.to.one vote over McCain.( Jones and Vassalo, 2009 :145). However, it important to mention that race was alsoimportant for another reason. It seems that the states that demonstrated the greatest

swing to Obama (North Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Utah, Vermont, New Mexicoand Nevada) have only a 2.1 percent of African American population. That means

that Obama increased his power among white voters.

Furthermore, apart from the race, what helped the democrats win, was the youth

turnout in the 2008 election, which showed an increase of 3.4 million over the 2004election. Young voters made the 18 percent of the voters in the 2008 election, who

seemed to have been heavily influenced by Obama's innovative use of informationand the use of internet. Finally, another reason that assisted to the Democrats

victory, was that Obama used for his campaign, money that he raised from privatefunds, while McCain accepted to use public money, which resulted to a rather

unequal race, with Obama having a lot more to spend on television and

advertisement time.

In conclusion, I could argue that there are many reasons that helped the Democratsto win. The economy remained 'primes inter pares' in terms of campaigning. The

financial collapse helped Obama in many ways.Race combined with his innovative if

not revolutionary approach in his campaign helped him win the race. His victory'marks a significant departure from every previous US presidential election' ( Jones


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and Vassalo, 2009 :136). The question that was introduced after the 2009 victory of

Obama was whether American became more polarized or not.Some considered thatthe outcome of the 2008 sharpened this cultural polarization, while others considered

that it brought the country together. ( Jones and Vassalo, 2009 :136).

Jones, E., Vassalo, S., 2008 Presidential Elections, 2009 Palgrave Macmillan LtdPeele, G., et al, Development in American Politics 6, 2010, Palgrave Macmillan

Todd, C., Gawiser, S., How Barack Obama won, 2009, Vintage Books

Trende, S., The Lost Majority: Why the future of Government is up for Grabs-and whowill take it, 2012, Palgrave Macmillan


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