UW professors David Domke and Mark Smith came together to pick apart and examine the 2008 presidential election as part of the Provost Distinguished Lecture Program. The program, which began in 2006, holds biannual lectures about important national and global issues.

The event opened with remarks by Tim Egan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter from The New York Times.

“I think that long after we’ve forgotten about Joe the Plumber and lipstick on a pig, we are going to remember 2008,” Eden said. “One of the questions we will look at tonight is whether or not this was a transformative election. I think the answer to that will most likely be ‘perhaps.’”

Eden spoke at length about the state of the Republican Party in the aftermath of the election.

“If you believe ­— how I sometimes do — that demographics are destiny,” Egan said, “and you’re a Republican, you have to be second-guessing your party right now.”

Following Egan’s remarks were the evening’s main events: election analyses from professors Domke and Smith. Domke is a professor of communication, and Smith is an associate professor of political science. The two speakers had different theories as to what the main driving forces behind the election were, defending their positions at length throughout the evening.

Domke’s assertion is that religious forces have been, and in this year continued to be, a central driving force behind elections, and therefore how the candidates handled their religious reputations made or broke their efforts.

“I think that in this election, religious forces were secondary to concerns about the economy,” Domke said. “But even in this great economic moment, religious policies mattered.”

“After 1984, we’ve had more religious language than we’ve ever seen in the presidency,” he continued. “We’ve had more religious language in public policy than we’ve ever seen in the presidency. We’ve had more religious language in the whole of American politics than we’ve ever seen before.”

Smith had a more economic viewpoint. He proposed that this election was centered around economic forces and campaign decisions, and that in the end it was Obama that came out on top.

“Of all the variables that are involved in how an election plays out, the state of the economy is generally the strongest predictor of election outcomes,” Smith said.

He managed to boil down his claims about running campaigns to a simple and clear analogy.

“I think an analogy involving poker is appropriate in understanding the campaign,” Smith said. “In a card game, there’s the matter of the cards you’re dealt, and another matter of how those cards are played. The cards you’re given are completely out of your control, but how you play those cards is crucial.”

The next installment of the Provost Distinguished Lecture series has yet to be scheduled.

Reach reporter Anthony Michael Erickson at news@dailyuw.edu.