There’s a good discussion to be had about the tensions between populism and parliamentary politics. If there is a side lesson to taken from the ups and downs of the Republican party, it’s probably buried in here somewhere. As Mike from PoliticalBetting notes, the famous victory of Mitt Romney in Florida (one of the big ‘swing’ states) came at a drop in turn out:
In Iowa the number of self-identifying Republicans was down by 11%, in New Hampshire 15% the reduction was 15% while in Florida overnight it was 16%.
Only Newt Gingrich managed to pull them out in South Carolina… Lack of agency (expectations of which have grown exponentially on either side of Congress since the onset of the net)… Or maybe they just don’t think any of the candidates on offer have what it would take to knock Obama out of the Whitehouse?
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
