Why aren't presidential races as national anymore?

[FerrisBueller86]

Is it just me, or were presidential campaigns more national before 2000? Didn't candidates go to the Grand Canyon, the Redwood Forest, and Yellowstone to talk about environmental issues? Didn't they go to Mount Rushmore to talk about how they would further the legacies of the presidents whose faces were carved onto the mountain? What about the Clinton-Gore train and bus tours across the country in 1992?

In 2000 and 2004, the general election candidates only went to the battleground states to campaign. Yes, I know what the polls were saying, but they are never written in stone. Plus, if you get a non-battleground state to shift significantly your way (even if it's not enough to carry the state), you scare your opponent and force him to use up time and resources to shore it up. Furthermore, you can help your party in down-ticket races as well as future presidential races.

Does anyone here remember other close presidential races? Did the candidates of 1976 and 1960 limit their campaigning to key battleground states, or did they campaign nationwide?

[Erc]

For one thing, the nation has become extremely geographically polarized.  Certain states are now extremes, whereas before there was much more homogeneity.

2004 Democratic "Landslide"  Kerry 55 Bush 45

 

380-188

(Kerry wins NC by 156 votes)

1988 Democratic Landslide:  Dukakis 55 Bush 45



422-116

1960:  Kennedy 55 Nixon 45 [ignoring Byrd & Faubus]


469-68

[minionofmidas]

...although you may be confusing cause and effect.

[Frodo]

liberals and conservatives (at least socially) are joining the parties that best match their ideological affiliations, as opposed to ethnic or economic affiliations.  people no longer vote Democratic because they are Catholic or Irish for instance, or because their mommies or daddies did.  other considerations take center-stage now.  this has been the trend since 1968.  hence, most liberals tend to live in urban areas and the coasts, and most conservatives live in the hinterland -and that's where presidential candidates tend to flock like buzzards, depending if they are Republicans (increasingly synonymous with being conservative), or Democrats (synonymous with liberal).   

[Gustaf]

Nixon pledged to campaign in every state in 1960 and did so - at considerable cost to himself and his campaign.

[TeePee4Prez]

people no longer vote Democratic because they are Catholic or Irish for instance, or because their mommies or daddies did. 

You can chop that vote into 20 diferent pieces.  You have me and then you have Patrick J. Toomey.  Some older folks are Populist, strong union guys, and very churchgoing.  Some younger folks are secular, educated, and professional libertarian.  I think the Irish and Catholics are a very chopped up voting bloc.

[Hitchabrut]

Influxes of liberals from cities to suburbs in other states.

[RJ]

Is it just me, or were presidential campaigns more national before 2000?

Two words: Electoral College

[Beet]

See the big realignment thread.

But also note that only 4-5 switched hands in the re-elections of many presidents, including Clinton, Reagan, Eisenhower, and FDR (excepting 1940). Only Nixon had his re-election with more than 5 states switching over from their original positions. So the 3 states switching over in 2000-2004 is small, but historically hardly way-out-there. The real test comes as which states emerge as battlegrounds by late spring 2008.

[dazzleman]

Prior to 2000, the last close election was 1976.

Many more states were competitive in 1976 than in 2000.  Western states that now turn in a heavy Republican vote went relatively narrowly for Gerald Ford.  Ford also did well in the northeast, and even the states lost like New York and Massachusetts were not by the huge margins that happen today.

Even in the 1980 landslide election, the vote in many southern states was razor-thin, and they were highly competitive and could have gone the other way, conceivably.

I think some people are shedding their old ethnic and regional prejudices and voting more in line with their philosophical opinions. 

Two generations ago, my family voted almost completely Democratic, though many of them became "Reagan Democrats" by the late 1970s and early 1980s.  Sometimes, their vote depended on the candidate's ethnic background.  I remember my great-aunt was gung ho for Ted Kennedy in 1980, and when he lost the nomination to Carter, she turned right around and voted for Ronald Reagan.  It makes no sense, until you consider that both were of Irish descent.  That was her reason for voting for them.

Many of these people, by the late 1970s, were really no longer Democrats in terms of their political philosophy.  Socially, they were more conservative than the typical Republican today, and economically many of them weren't too far behind.  Yet that generation never fully abandoned the Democrats, though they largely eventually stopped voting for them at the national level.  And I am talking here about urban/suburban northeasterns.  My mom was the first in her family to simply drop her allegiance to the Democratic party completely, and fully switch to the Republicans unambiguously.

Similar metamorphoses took place in the south, as southerns began to get over their aversion to the Republican party and became increasingly reluctant to vote for the Democrats, given their stands on many issues.

It seems to me that people who vote Democratic or Republican now do it more because they believe in the party's philosophy, rather than the old reasons of habit and ethnicity that used to predominate.  Blacks are the major exception to this rule, as far as I can tell.