Amusing Statistic:
From Crossing Wall Street:
Total Democratic Presidential Votes Since 1932: 745,407,082
Total Republican Presidential Votes Since 1932: 745,297,123
Of course, this weighs recent elections, in which more votes were cast, more heavily than older elections. I haven't checked the data, though they link to a spreadsheet with the data, which you folks can easily check if you'd like. Thanks to Prof. Brad Smith for the pointer.
Some analysis.
Hat tip: The Corner.
- Alaska Jack
Total Republican Presidential Votes Since 1932: 745,297,123
Total Third-Party Presidential Votes Since 1932: 66,061,486
The overall third party vote is less than 10% of either major party - but 600 times the margin of victory.
Post-civil war, the Republicans were the abolitionist civil-rights party, but probably have a different cast today. In the sixties, southern Democrats had a segregationist bent, not so much today. Teddy Roosevelt was a conservationist, but the Republicans don't wear that mantle today.
You are wrong on the last point. Republicans are still conservationists (even environmentalists with a small "e"). What they are not are Environmentalists, the new religion of the left.
As others have noted though, the parties have changed ideologies over that time, so this says nothing in particular about policy.
How many Republicans of today would have supported the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act? Both were passed in the 70s with bipartisan support. Were post-war pre-Gingrich Republicans also a part of this new religion?
Um, "Drill, Baby, Drill!"?
If you look at the average take per election, though, you get a percentage of 48.600% for the Dems and 47.515% for the Reps. This disparity makes sense when you consider that, since 1932, five major party candidates have failed to get 40% of the vote. Four of them have been Republicans: Hoover in '32, Landon in '36, Goldwater in '64, and Bush in '92. The only Democrat to have that happen was McGovern in '72.
Of course, if you go back to 1920, the numbers do look much better for the Republicans, since Alfred Smith was the Democrat's high water mark in the 1920s, and he only managed 40.8% of the vote in '28.
I won't speak for Republicans or Democrats, but capital-"e"-Environmentalists!! -bang-bang are today's equivalent of segregationists: rigid adherents to an irrational belief-system which posits the power to control and adversely affect the lives and well-being of others for the sake of a purity myth. Drilling for oil is the most sacred of their taboos as its an obvious metaphor for the rape of Mother Gaia. Did they ever think that maybe Gaia likes it too?
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