Embed from Getty Images

2014 midterm elections; “Dallas Buyer’s Club” opens at the box office; Dubya wins reelection; Vogue holds fashion show in NYC

 

⇒ What You Were Talking About This Week: Midterms

About one-third of Americans took to the polls on Tuesday for the midterm elections. “Riding a wave of discontent,” Republicans captured the majority in the Senate for the first time in six years and significantly increased their majority in the House. Americans now have a divided government.

The context around the results is worth noting. Preliminary research suggests this is among the lowest voter turnout in recent history. Those Americans who did turn out (and shame on you who didn’t vote!) skewed older and whiter—with voting among Millennials and minorities way down. The electoral map favored Republicans. Democrats were defending seats won in the wave that ushered Obama into office. Perhaps most importantly, nearly 80 percent of Americans don’t really trust the government.

We’re in a funk, and it’s unclear what it will take or whether there is a transformative figure who can inspire the public. In the meantime, future Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Obama made positive statements this week about compromise and a possible whiskey summit.

⇒ Last Year: “Dallas Buyers Club” opens at box office; McConaissance begins

“Dallas Buyers Club” is a movie based on the true story of a man diagnosed with AIDS and his struggle to receive treatment in Texas at a time when HIV and AIDS were under-researched and highly stigmatized. It’s also the movie that launched the McConaissance—the rise of actor Matthew McConaughey from rom-com staple to Oscar winner. The movie included gripping performances, notably from Jared Leto who would go on to win a Best Supporting Actor statue for his role as a transgender AIDS patient. “Dallas Buyers Club” received six Oscar nominations and ended the night with three wins: McConaughey as Best Actor, the aforementioned Best Supporting Actor, and Best Makeup (a considerable feat considering the budget for makeup was $250).

This was just the beginning of the McConaissance. Matthew McConaughey would go on to star in HBO’s gritty miniseries TV show “True Detective,” make a small but memorable appearance in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” and lead other A-listers in the intergalactic mega-movie “Interstellar.” Also, his birthday is November 4.

⇒ 10 Years Ago: George W. Bush wins reelection

Ten years ago, Americans participated in another election, though this time with the presidency at stake. Incumbent President George W. Bush—or “Dubya” as he was nicknamed—managed to fend off Democratic nominee John Kerry to win reelection.

It was a big victory during a complicated time with American boots on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, in addition to winning the presidency, Republicans expanded their majorities in the House and Senate.

The road to victory was an interesting one—with a campaign strategy that turned conventional political wisdom on its head. The core of the strategy was to target the base, which in this case was the Republican Party. Members of the Bush-Cheney campaign looked at the 2000 election results and realized that “persuadable” or swing voters over the last 20 years had gone from about 22 percent of the electorate to just six or seven percent. As Matthew Dowd of the Bush-Cheney reelect said in a PBS Frontline interview, “You obviously had to do fairly well among the 6 or 7 [percent], but you could lose the 6 or 7 percent and win the election, which was fairly revolutionary, because everybody up until that time had said, ‘Swing voters, swing voters, swing voters, swing voters, swing voters.’”

The chief architect of this strategy was Karl Rove (In his victory speech in 2004, Bush referred to Rove as “the architect.”). By targeting the conservative base on equal footing with swing voters, Republicans were able to drive high turnout. Mobilizing the religious right was a key part of this strategy and much has been reported on the role individual churches played in the broader strategy.

Ken Mehlman, who served as campaign manager of Bush-Cheney ’04 and later went on to be Chairman of the Republican National Committee, noted “Republicans were for the first time ever equal to Democrats in their participation level of the electorate.” All in all, it was a hugely successful strategy. So good, in fact, that during the 2012 presidential campaign between President Barack Obama and GOP Nominee Mitt Romney, some commentators suggested Obama might be drawing from the same playbook.

[Editor’s note: For more on Rove’s strategy, watch PBS Frontline: The Architect]

⇒ 100 Years Ago: Vogue holds fashion show in New York City           

Before there was New York Fashion Week, a group of “fashionable women” affiliated with the magazine Vogue arranged for a presentation by American designers at the Ritz Carlton in New York City.

The so-named “fashion fete” was more than a display of women in couture gowns. Edna Woolman Chase, editor-in-chief of Vogue and organizer of the event, organized the event as a benefit to raise money for the allied war effort. Because of the war, French couture gowns could not be imported to the U.S. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Chase reached out to American designers to make original creations and present them using models. While it may not be the first fashion show, this presentation showed the men and women in attendance that the United States had some real homegrown talent.

The methods by which the clothes were constructed may have originated in “that master fashion artist—Paris,” but many of the designs showed a uniquely American perspective on clothes and fashion. A New York Tribune article described the selection process for the show, noting that clothes were not admitted for having a “too strict adherence to styles of Parisian origin” and later adding, “[t]here was an attempt at moderation, and a desire to limit displays to what might be worn by the people who know what to wear and how to wear it.” It seems that even in November 1914, designers were laying the groundwork for what would become iconic American sportswear, expertly executed today by designers like Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors.

The Tribune article goes into great detail about the models—or “mannequins” as they are described—and the way they sashayed across the velvet-clad ballroom. “These clothes these 90 girls wore were indicators not necessarily of what is worn today, but of what will be the mode in one or two months, or perhaps not until spring.” To think that 100 years later American fashion would become a multibillion-dollar industry, launching The Sartorialist and a thousand copycats (not to mention fashion bloggers eager to be seen). And it all started with some good intentions and a great dress, of course.