Talk:United States 2008 presidential election/Background

This talk subpage is for deciding which version of the "Background" section should be used in the article. The main disputes are whether or not to include "narrow" to describe Bush's 2004 election victory and whether to include "Bush won by more than 3,000,000 popular votes" and other details and trivia about his election win, and whether the latter is relevant to this article and section. The extensive previous discussion is located here.

This discussion ended on Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 21:44 UTC (five days after beginning). The agreed upon text has been implemented into the main article.

Version1

In 2004 President George W. Bush defeated Senator John Kerry to win reelection with the seventh-lowest electoral vote margin in history and the the smallest popular vote percentage margin for any successful incumbent.

After Republican pickups in the House and Senate in the 2004 elections, Republicans held their control of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.

Bush's approval ratings had been slowly declining from their high point of almost 90% after 9/11, and they were barely 50% after his reelection. Despite being reelected by over 3 million votes and an absolute majority (50.7%) of the popular vote, during his second term, Bush's approval rating dropped more quickly, with the Iraq war and the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 being most detrimental to the public's perception of his job performance.

Comments

• Good Accurately lists all relevant stats without characterization. 71.178.193.134 (talk) 21:44, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I think this version is objective, and gives the perspectives we have been discussing without bias. 75.218.142.230 (talk) 22:08, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Nah Too much arbitrary detail makes for a boring read and is completely unnecessary. It should be a summary (it the background, after all) not a recitation of facts and figures. --Loonymonkey (talk) 19:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• Nah Selectively cites two statistics to support an irrelevant characterization ("narrowly"). One might just as easily cite the fact that he won 60% of the states, to support a frivolous characterization of the Bush's victory was "overwhelming" or a "landslide". One could also cite the fact that there was an absolute majority (for the first time in nearly two decades) to add some sort of spin that characterizes the election as "decisive". The important point here is that the "narrowness' or "decisiveness" of the 2004 vote has little or nothing to do with the POINT of the lead paragraph, which begins the "Background' section by stating that his party retained control of both branches. That's it, period. Stop trying to add SPIN to it. BAM ("tripodics") (talk) 03:20, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Version2

In 2004 President George W. Bush narrowly defeated Senator John Kerry to win reelection.

After Republican pickups in the House and Senate in the 2004 elections, Republicans held their control of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.

Bush's approval ratings had been slowly declining from their high point of almost 90% after 9/11, and they were barely 50% after his reelection. During his second term, Bush's approval rating dropped more quickly, with the Iraq war and the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 being most detrimental to the public's perception of his job performance.

Comments

• Good Supports "narrowly" with detailed reference that offeres all relevant statistics to reader. 71.178.193.134 (talk) 21:44, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• Not good: Cites Wikipedia text as a source. Version 3 is essentially the same with reliable sources used instead. This version cannot be used as it goes against policy/guidelines. I will cross it out for now. Timmeh! 00:56, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Version 3

In 2004, President George W. Bush narrowly won reelection. After Republican pickups in the House and Senate in the 2004 elections, Republicans held their control of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.

Bush's approval ratings had been slowly declining from their high point of almost 90% after 9/11, and they were barely 50% after his reelection. Although Bush was reelected with a larger Electoral College margin than in 2000 and an absolute majority (50.7%) of the popular vote, during his second term, Bush's approval rating dropped more quickly, with the Iraq war and the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 being most detrimental to the public's perception of his job performance.

References

  1. ^ Benedetto, Richard; Page, Susan (2003-01-13). "Bush's job approval lowest since 9/11", USA TODAY. 
  2. ^ "Katrina Response Hurts Bush Most", Political Wire (2006-02-17). 
  3. ^ http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm
  4. ^ Benedetto, Richard; Page, Susan (2003-01-13). "Bush's job approval lowest since 9/11", USA TODAY. 
  5. ^ "Katrina Response Hurts Bush Most", Political Wire (2006-02-17). 
  6. ^ http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm

Comments

• I am proposing this version because version 1 does not describe the election as narrow but instead goes into excessive detail about the size of the win (all the 7th smallest stuff), and version 2 accurately describes the election as narrow but also uses Wikipedia as a source (see WP:RS), so My version is basically version 2 with reliable sources for "narrow" and a bit of rewording to compare Bush's second win to the first. Timmeh! 22:41, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
• I support this version as well, as it includes the "narrowly" adjectives with references, but does not delve too far into the issue. Let's leave that for the 2004 election article.--Danaman5 (talk) 22:48, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Although I object to the use of the term "substantially" in the second paragraph to describe Bush's increased electoral college total in the 2004 election. His margin in this metric only increased by about 5.5%. I think we can just say "larger" with no adjective here. That would be a neutral and accurate description.--Danaman5 (talk) 22:52, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I removed the adjective. You are right about it being inappropriate. Timmeh! 23:23, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• I do not like version 3 because it does not mention that the victory was by over 3,000,000 votes, which is WHY we have been having this discussion in the first place. Simply add that his victory was by over 3,000,000 popular votes and the thrid version is fine. otherwise, the first version is still better. CaptainChrisD (talk) 13:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

If there is consensus to add that information, it will certainly be added. I would prefer this version as it is currently written, for reasons covered by others on the main talk page. We will have to wait until other frequent editors of this article weigh in.--Danaman5 (talk) 21:26, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• Version #3, is fine with me. GoodDay (talk) 01:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
• I'm for Version 3. Honestly, if one state can tip the scales, it's a narrow victory. You can argue popular vote all you want, but you can win without the popular vote to begin with (in one election, I forget which, someone lost the popular vote by 4 or 5 points and won the election). So narrow victory is in terms of electoral votes, and Ohio or Florida would have swung the election either way just like in 2000, another narrow election. The only way an election would be close via popular vote is if the electoral vote was massive, but a few thousand votes in a few states would have tipped the scales (see: 1968 election). The thing is 2004 doesn't fall into that. Kerry only needed several thousand in Ohio or he needed even LESS votes in Iowa/New Mexico/Colorado. That's a very narrow victory for Bush. -- Frightwolf (talk) 02:58, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
• Version #3 is the better passage. As Frightwolf said, if one close state can change the outcome, the election is a "narrow" outcome, regardless of the actual electoral margin. And "narrow" accurately describes both the electoral margin (4th narrowest victory since the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804) and the popular vote margin (which, in percentage terms, is smaller than Tilden's margin of 3% over Hayes in 1876, when he LOST in the Electoral College). I see no good reason to mention his margin in popular votes, which isn't really all that notable given the size of the electorate. Spiderboy12 (talk) 05:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
• Again, version three would be acceptable IF it noted that the margin of victory was 3,000,000 votes. There is ZERO harm in including that information. The only reason NOT to include it is because some people seem to think it 'misleads' people into believing that the margin of victory was substantial, when they think it was not. Feel free to believe it was not, but by offering that objective fact, you are providing more information and context for the reader to decide for him/herself. Saying it was a 'narrow' victory is fine if you so wish...but it is NOT fine if you explicitly exclude factual and relevant information that would serve to allow a reader to come to a different conclusion on their own, just because you would disagree with that decision. CaptainChrisD (talk) 14:21, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Dude, 3,000,000 votes would have been notable in 1900 when, like, 12 million people voted. These elections nowadays are decided by 120-130 million people. 3,000,000 is nothing, and Kerry only needed a small fraction of those votes in order to win the election. Maybe if it was in another part of the article, sure, but this is just an outline. -- Frightwolf (talk) 19:58, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• I'm fine with this version, although I would drop the word "barely" on the approval ratings, let the percentages speak for themselves. I don't see any need to add the "3 million" figure as the percentage is far more informative (3 million out of how many? And what does that have to do with this article?) Like version 1 above, it's just too much detail for a brief background. --Loonymonkey (talk) 19:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, on the graph of Bush's approval ratings linked to in the references, I can't really make out an exact percentage rating after the election. If I could, I would add it myself.--Danaman5 (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• Of the three, this is the best. I agree with the Loonymonkey's criticisms, and I would also like to know how the second term approval rating is relevant. It is not immediately obvious how it matters in an election about an event predating the second term by two months, but if it is, it should be explained. -Rrius (talk) 21:56, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
• Comment: I would support this version, but for one thing. I think the refs used to support narrow shouldn't be others describing the election as narrow but sources but a source that has statistics showing that it is narrow. Such as this one from the University at Buffalo:

"Though not as close as the 2000 election in terms of the popular vote, the 2004 election was the ninth closest presidential election since the Civil War and the fourth closest in terms of electoral votes..."

71.178.193.134 (talk) 00:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Compromise? You can add whatever refs you like as long as they support "narrow" and cite reliable sources, while the three already there will be kept. Timmeh! 00:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know whether it's a compromise but if that's what it takes to get data rather than commentary to support characterizations. Demanding that the three refs you've chose stay is unnecessary. How about we keep the one where Rove characterizes it as narrow and the University statistics? 71.178.193.134 (talk) 00:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. Timmeh! 00:51, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The discussion ended today, as is shown in bold at the top of the page. It seems that consensus has been reached to adopt version 3 of the text. There is opposition by one editor because an irrelevant, misleading phrase was omitted from the text. However, it does appear that everyone else has come to an agreement on the issue. If anyone disagrees and thinks consensus has not been reached, please reply with your reasoning. I will now implement the agreed upon version into the article. Timmeh! 00:31, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Version 3a

In 2004, President George W. Bush narrowly won reelection. After Republican pickups in the House and Senate in the 2004 elections, Republicans held their control of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.

Bush's approval ratings had been slowly declining from their high point of almost 90% after 9/11, and they were barely 50% after his reelection.

Although Bush was reelected with a popular vote margin of victory of greater than three million votes, a larger Electoral College margin than in 2000, and an absolute majority (50.7%) of the popular vote, during his second term, Bush's approval rating dropped more quickly, with the Iraq war and the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 being most detrimental to the public's perception of his job performance.

References

  1. ^ Benedetto, Richard; Page, Susan (2003-01-13). "Bush's job approval lowest since 9/11", USA TODAY. 
  2. ^ "Katrina Response Hurts Bush Most", Political Wire (2006-02-17). 
  3. ^ http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm
  4. ^ Benedetto, Richard; Page, Susan (2003-01-13). "Bush's job approval lowest since 9/11", USA TODAY. 
  5. ^ "Katrina Response Hurts Bush Most", Political Wire (2006-02-17). 
  6. ^ http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm

• Version 3a is exactly the same as verion 3, but with the single addition of the vote margin. It removes no information from the above, and adds a balancing perspective by noting the size of the victory in absolute numbers. CaptainChrisD (talk) 14:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I oppose this version, because I see the addition of the popular vote margin not as a "balancing perspective", but as an obfuscation. It conceals the actual margin of victory by not rendering the margin as a percentage of votes cast. Additionally, as mentioned above, the popular vote in the 2004 election can't really be construed as a margin of victory, as Kerry could have won by gaining some thousands of votes in the right places.--Danaman5 (talk) 23:09, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

How can it obfuscate the 'actual' margin of victory when it IS the actual margin of victory? We can talk about 'could' all you like. The simple, objective fact is that Bush won with 50.7% of the popular vote, and a margin of victory of 3,000,000 votes. SO far all of the opposition to including this seems to be coming from people who appear to oppose Bush politically. Even though I support him politically, I still have no objection to including the assertion that his victory was 'narrow'. In the interest of presenting the facts fairly, I still forcefully believe that we either include BOTH pieces of information, or neither. CaptainChrisD (talk) 01:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

"The simple, objective fact is that Bush won with 50.7% of the popular vote, and a margin of victory of 3,000,000 votes. SO far all of the opposition to including this seems to be coming from people who appear to oppose Bush politically."

HAHAHA! You know what's funny about this? I was involved in keeping a winner-by-county map up on the election, and the opposition said it was used by right-wingers to show that McCain "won most of the country." You know what those who opposed the map said about people like me? They said, "I have a nagging suspicion that the underlying urge for inclusion is personal political biases, dressed up in whatever way sounds most altruistic." So first I'm a right-winger who secretly wanted to satiate my rabid right-winger fantasies, and now I'm a left-winger who wants to belittle Bush's narrow victory.

A narrow victory is a narrow victory; this version makes it appear as if three million votes is a lot. The popular vote percentage was close. 3 million votes would have been significant a century ago. Nowadays, it's not much at all. And for the record, Kerry only needed 59,301 votes in Ohio to win the election. That's pretty damn narrow. -- Frightwolf (talk) 02:33, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

You've made unwarranted assumptions about me as well. My userpage doesn't say a word about what I think about Bush or any other political topic, so you shouldn't assume that I am opposing for that reason.--Danaman5 (talk) 04:18, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I apologize if these assumptions are incorrect, but given the topic, and the strong opposition to such a trivial addition, it is difficult to assume otherwise. Why else could one oppose 'either both perspectives or neither'? There seems to be some strong attachment on the part of many here to retain the word 'narrow', but refuse to include facts that would suggest that it was NOT narrow. One editor on the main page suggested we simply get rid of ALL descriptors of the scope of the election victory. Get rid of 'narrow'...get rid of '50.7%.....get rid of 3,000,000 vote margin. Simply note Bush won reelection. and that the GOP retained control of the House and Senate. This is similar to what I initially suggested in either putting in BOTH sets of facts or neither set, to try to remain objective. But frankly the opposition to this does seem to be motivated by some desire sneak in some implicit conclusions about Bush's victory...this could be quashed simply by eliminating all descriptors, as the editor suggested. CaptainChrisD (talk) 14:10, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

First off, it's irrelevant what bias someone has -- it's just a way for an editor to try to denigrate the opinions of others by going for a bias approach. Considering you told us your bias, and considering how "forceful" you're saying you're being, by your logic, we should disregard your comments since you've taken it to this level over one word. Don't act as if everyone else is biased and you're the one open-minded individual here. You wonder why there's so much hesitation to include the popular vote, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm not sure why there's so much disagreement from just you over the word 'narrow.' I'm sorry if I sound frustrated, but it's annoying when you people on your politics articles go crazy over bias: I am simultaneously a leftist and a far-right member because you editors get bitter over your edits being disagreed upon (in this case, there's no dissent but yours over version 3).

Second, in regards to the assertion that this could be quashed by simply eliminating all descriptors... with all due respect and not to sound dismissive, but from what I see, just about everyone but you is OK with Version 3. It'd be more fair to simply quash this by keeping 'narrow' and ignoring superfluous information about the popular vote. In another setting, it wouldn't be a big deal, but in this introduction, there's really no point.

That said, his 3,000,000 votes is irrelevant -- he DID NOT win by 3,000,000 votes. He won by 2% in Ohio, or around 59,000 votes. In Ohio, Kerry only needed 1% of Bush's "3,000,000 vote margin" to win the election. That's a narrow victory, rendering the 3,000,000 votes irrelevant; Kerry DID NOT need 3,000,000 votes to win. And furthermore, 3,000,000 votes is tiny when you look at the actual percentage, making this version misleading to being with. You have yet to give a good reason why anyone should use irrelevant information about popular vote based on the aforementioned reasons. With all due respect, I believe you'd have to do better than a "forceful" disagreement to remove the word 'narrow' which is 100% accurate in describing the election. -- Frightwolf (talk) 02:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, it is NOT irrelevant what biases a person has, when that person is attempting to remove empirical, objective and sourced facts from an article. This is not about removing POV content...it is about removing a clear and provable FACT. The reaon WHy somebody wants to remove that fact must be examined...especially if it appears that the sole reason that the person wants to remove the fact is because it could lead somebody else to come to a conclusion that differs from their own. Wiki is NOT about indictrinating people to interpret evidence the way a given editor wants them to. And your notation about it being a narrow victory? That is purely a matter of interpretation. If we want to get beyond the empirical evidence and start to interpret the data to support the positions we wish, I can source articles that suggest that Bush would easily have won many MORE popular votes, but that since the outcome was predicted pretty clearly by most polls, that many Bush supporters in Bush states stayed home, since their candidate was already assured a win, while many more Kerry voters were driven out to the polls to help their losing candidate. But that doesn't belong in Wiki any more than does an excuslion of a fact that others don't like, because it goes against what they believe.

In the end, I have suggested the inclusion of an empirical, provable and relevant fact that would serve to enhance the understanding of the 'background' in question. So far, most of the arguments I see against it boil down to the assertion that the fact is irrelevant because it serves to undermine the assertion that the election was 'narrow'. But shouldn't we present relevant FACTS, and let the informed reader simply think for him/herself and make their OWN conclusions?  !!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by CaptainChrisD (talk • contribs) 14:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, first, the polls showed a very tight race, and it is widely accepted that in 2004, Bush got the Evangelicals to turn out in droves, and that caused national turnout to increase dramatically. So, no, many Bush supporters did not stay home, and I doubt you'd be able to find reliable sources saying that many Bush supporters stayed home. Second, you have still not provided any reason to keep the 3 million vote margin in the text. It is not relevant and just adds confusion by showing an absolute margin instead of the margin as a percent of the electorate. Saying that Bush won by "over 3 million popular votes" adds nothing to the point being made by the text. Repeating your same reasoning over and over again after several editors have tried to tell you why the 3 million vote margin phrase should not be added to the text will not get you anywhere. Also, this discussion was supposed to have ended on Saturday, and per consensus, version 3 was implemented into the text and will stay unless you can provide an argument for mentioning the 3 million vote margin, on the talk page in a new section, not here. This particular discussion is over. Timmeh! 22:14, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

You can say it is 'over' all you want, but that doesn't change anything. The last change (to remove 'narrow' and leave '3 million votes' BOTH out was not done by me. It appears to have been done by somebody else who ALSO thinks that we should include either BOTH or NEITHER of these elements. As noted in 'What Wikipedia is NOT', wikipedia is NOT a democracy. SO I am not the ONLY editor who believes this issue is not as clear as you wish it to be. So why not leave it as is...if you feel that nothing is added by noting the SIZE of the victory, then nothing is added by a PURELY SUBJECTIVE assertion that a victory by millions of votes is 'narrow'. CaptainChrisD (talk) 01:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

As mentioned before, Bush didn't win (in 2004) by 3+ millions as that's not how the US prez election is set up. A US Prez election is actually concurrent mini-elections. Therefore, let's adopt VERSION #3. GoodDay (talk) 23:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

First, you cannot revert and remove information backed up by several sources simply because and every time you make your opinion known on the talk page. By the way, that person was an IP who left the citations there and did not participate in this discussion. We do not know his/her intent because he/she has not said anything on the issue. So, you are the only editor who has vocally opposed version 3. Second, I don't know why you continue to repeat your idea that Bush won by millions of votes, and that even that somehow makes his victory not narrow. Bush did not win the election by millions of votes, he won by I believe about 50,000. He did win the popular vote by about 3 million out of 120 million. Anyway, you continue to assert that the victory was not narrow, even when there are plenty of sources and statistics that show otherwise, including the percentage margin (the non-misleading one) and the electoral vote margin. Once you are able to actually dispute the idea that the election was narrow with actual facts, please let me know. For now, consensus was reached on version 3, and it has been implemented appropriately. Nothing good can come of edit warring and reverting based on a talk page argument. Timmeh! 02:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Clarification

There is an issue here which seems to be the source of a lot of debate. The statistics alone are not misleading. The context here is the issue. Three million votes is the margin of victory and given the added context of the percentage margin it doesn't alone imply that the election was not narrow. The larger issue though is what is relavent to this article and more specifically to this section. The three million votes doesn't really support the claim of narrow nor does it contest it. Truly it doesn't say very much about the background for the 2008 election. It seems this section is attempting to provide the following "background" information:

• Bush won reelection, but the country was still divided
• Replublicans help control of the senate and the house
• Bush's approval ratings steadily declined

Two out of three of those are not disputed. Whether the victory is "narrow," or "close" may not be the issue. There are a number of ways to evaluate this, but as a number of presidential elections have shown, how many votes are needed to change the winner doesn't necessarily reflect the popular choice of the country.

I strongly suggest rewording the first paragraph to something like:

"In 2004, President George W. Bush won reelection with a closely devided electorate."

This seems to get to the issue at heart and seem to avoid most of the debate. Many sources are available including this one. 71.178.193.134 (talk) 03:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I strongly suggest beginning the "Background" section with a single paragraph that states the results of the 2004 election: Republicans retained control of both branches. Save the Bush-trashing for the paragraphs that follow; the subsequent decline has nothing to do with the 2004 election results! (By the way, I never voted for him, either, but that, too, is totally irrelevant!) My suggestion, therefore, is:

In 2004 President George W. Bush defeated Senator John Kerry to win reelection. After Republican pickups in the House and Senate in the 2004 elections, Republicans held their control of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.

That's it. PERIOD. Why is anything else necessary to set the stage for declining approval ratings, public dissatisfaction, etc., etc., etc. -- all of which led to electoral defeats for republicans in 2006. Yeah, they kept both branches in 2004, but then went downhill. That's the point, isn't it? Why try to add additional spin by selectively selecting statistics to support one or another characterization of the 2004 results? BAM ("tripodics") (talk) 03:50, 24 January 2009 (UTC)