First past the post looks at the 2008 election

The new edition of first past the post, tutor2u’s digital magazine, has just been posted on the website.

There a number of excellent articles in it on a host of topical areas: the UK police force, multiculturalism, the US Supreme Court, the impact of Boris Johnson as London Mayor, a comparative analysis of the representativeness of the UK and US legislatures, the effect of the economic downturn on UK political parties, and look at the ‘what ifs’ of the US election.

I have also written one looking at the outcome of the 2008 presidential election. This topic will inevitably crop up on the American papers of whatever syllabus you are following in the upcoming months.

In it I conclude by saying:

‘A psephologist once said that elections are easier to describe than interpret, and polling data for 2008 is still in its infancy. But it could be argued that Obama rode a Democratic wave, and that Clinton would have stood as good a chance of obtaining victory had she been selected as the Democratic nominee. The figures for the increase in Democratic alignment since 2004, the backdrop of poor economic performance, and the almost unprecedented unpopularity of the incumbent President meant that any Republican was likely to struggle.

Polling figures for theoretical match-ups between either Clinton or Obama versus McCain as far back as May were reflected in the final result. There were ups and downs in the campaign for Obama and McCain, and opinion polls reflected these, but ultimately the underlying dynamics prevailed.’

It would be interesting to hear what people think about this assessment.