Why 2012 Will Be More Like 2008

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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January 26, 2011

Why 2012 Will Be More Like 2008

Alexander Burns has some of the highlights from Larry Sabato's Pendulum Swing.

Reassuring news for Democrats: "Young people went down from 18% of the electorate in 2008 to just 12% in 2010. Blacks from 13% to 9%. Hispanics: 11% to 8%. 2012 will not look like 2010. ... Analysts keep talking about the shift among Independents. It was less a shift than a different group of Independents showing up. Compared to 2008, this group of Independents was much older and whiter. ... 2010 was as Republican an electorate as ever shows up, in midterms or in presidential elections."

Reassuring news for Republicans: "With over 6,115 state legislative seats on the ballot, over 720 went to the GOP, counting post-election party switches. Compare this to 1994, another great GOP year when they picked up only 472, or Democrats' great Watergate year of 1974, when they netted 628."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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January 26, 2011