When electorates turn angry

Chuck Todd Chief White House correspondent and political director • Profile

WASHINGTON - Just how angry is the electorate?

Perhaps angrier than any of us imagined. It's not just anger, however, that voters are expressing toward politicians.

It appears to be downright distrust with the government itself. Tuesday’s election results may not have seen any high profile upsets for political figures (I don’t consider the scandal-plagued Kentucky governor’s loss an upset) but rather, an avalanche of rejections for new government proposals.

Ask yourself, how is it that a conservative and religious electorate in Utah said no to state government leaders who wanted to start a private school voucher program, while more liberal, secular voters in New Jersey struck down a proposal to expand stem cell research?

Or how is it that a left-of-center, usually pro-government electorate in Oregon said no to a cigarette tax increase to pay for expanded health care?

All of this happened during Tuesday’s off-year elections.

In fact, across the board it appears when presented with a choice to give government the power to start or transform a program, voters said no.

Down to defeat
On the surface, voters in Utah are generally supportive of private or religious schooling, voters in New Jersey are open to more stem cell research, and voters in Oregon want expanded health care coverage. What the three initiatives have in common is that opponents of the measures played on voters' distrust of government getting more involved. The result? All three went down to defeat.

General distrust of government is not a new phenomenon; it has been the fuel for electoral upheaval for decades. But it's important to note that there may be evidence of a much angrier and anxious electorate than either party is preparing for in 2008.

At our most recent briefing, one of the NBC/Wall Street Journal pollsters said “this is the most angry and unstable of an electorate as I’ve seen in my career.” And that’s from republican pollster Bill McInturff, who was around for 1992 and 1994, the last two times an angry electorate wreaked havoc in an election year.

Previous NBC/WSJ polls (pdf files) June 17, 2009 April 28, 2009 March 3, 2009 Jan. 14, 2009 Dec. 10, 2008 Nov. 3, 2008 Oct. 21, 2008 Oct. 6, 2008 Sept. 24, 2008 Sept. 9, 2008 Aug. 20, 2008 July 23, 2008 June 11, 2008 April 30, 2008 March 12, 2008 Jan. 24, 2008 More polls

Remember it was 1992 when the strongest independent candidate in two generations -- Ross Perot -- got 19% of the vote, even after he proved less-than-stable on the question of readiness to be president. And 1994 was the year Democrats lost control of Congress for the first time in 50 years. Neither was an insignificant feat.

So if the 2008 electorate is shaping up as more volatile than either of those two years, we may be in for a wild ride of historical proportions. 

The presidential dilemma
The dilemma facing presidential hopefuls is how to respond to an electorate yearning for unconventional change.

Robert F. Bukaty / AP Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani campaigns in Dixville Notch, N.H., Friday, Nov. 2, 2007.

Republican voters, for now, seem to be more in the mood to flirt with unconventional thinking, which may explain the relative strength of Rudy Giuliani. But can Giuliani be both a change agent and conform to the GOP at the same time? Right now, he seems to favor the latter over the former. Of course, should he get the nomination, he may shift gears, but the Giuliani of today seems to be a candidate who is trying to prove his Republican bona-fides.

And yet Giuliani has the luxury of appearing to be the most unconventional of the lot simply because of his position on social issues. No other candidate, outside of Ron Paul, seems to be attempting to be more unconventional. If anything, all of the Republican candidates (including Giuliani) are moving away from advocating radical change; arguably siding a bit more with the status quo.

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