Posts Tagged ‘
Democrats ’
Monday, January 3rd, 2011
Will Marshall
Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Will Marshall
Republicans are convinced they have a mandate to cut government down to size. That’s hard to do when you only control one House of Congress, and harder still when your fiscal plans are fraught with internal contradictions.
It’s not even clear, for instance, what Republicans really want to accomplish. Senator-elect Kelly Ayotte, delivering the GOP’s weekly address Jan. 1, said that “Job one is to stop wasteful Washington spending.” At the same time, she said that “Congress must get serious about meaningful debt reduction.”
So which is it—cut public spending or cut public deficits? That’s a distinction with a difference, especially to investors worried about the basic soundness of the U.S. economy. To them, deficits are simply the arithmetic result of government spending too much, taxing too little or both, as is clearly the case today. Last month, Republicans struck a deal with President Obama on a tax cut package that will add $950 billion to the nation’s debts. Key GOP House leaders have made it clear they will oppose any tax hikes to solve the budget crisis, which they pretend is purely a matter of overspending.
Ayotte seemed closer to the mark in saying Republicans come to Washington to “make government smaller, not bigger.” In practice, however, that ideological goal may not be compatible with what the public seems to want. Independent voters especially have focused on narrowing the enormous deficits that force America to get deeper and deeper in hock to Chinese and other foreign lenders.
And if Republicans are serious about taking taxes off the table, they’ll have to make even deeper cuts in public spending—including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—to close our yawning budget gaps. It will be interesting to see which GOP bravos are willing to walk that plank. Thus far, House Republicans are proposing only cosmetic cuts, like trimming the House budget by $25 million. It’s a good idea for the House to discipline its own spending, but in a $3 trillion budget, that’s chump change.
Meanwhile, the GOP is planning to vitiate budget caps imposed by the previous Congress. Under the caps, any new spending or tax cuts would have to be offset by equivalent spending cuts or tax hikes. Republicans would eliminate the later requirement, so that tax cuts too would trigger deeper spending cuts. This of course is a formula for a deepening fiscal crisis and intensifying polarization between the two parties. And House Republicans will take a run at repealing Obamacare, which would certainly reduce federal spending but actually increase future budget gaps. In any event, it’s not happening
Some of the more fervid Tea Party types are even threatening to vote against raising the debt ceiling in March if Democrats don’t agree to new spending cuts. If they are serious, this could mean America would default on its debts for the first time in history. It would be, as Obama’s chief economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, said yesterday, an act of political insanity, the equivalent of taking yourself hostage and threatening to shoot.
Finally, there’s the crucial question of timing. Incoming House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan reportedly is planning a package or rescissions aimed at cutting about 21 percent from 2011 spending Congress approved last year. The aim is to return domestic spending to its 2008 level, before Obama took office.
The risk is that withdrawing a significant chunk of fiscal stimulus could abort an economic recovery that at last seems to be getting traction. There’s no question that Americans want to restore fiscal discipline in Washington, but what they want even more is for the economy to grow and unemployment to start falling.
Goolsbee hinted that Obama’s next budget also will contain some spending cuts. But the GOP’s ideological zeal to cut government gives Obama an opportunity to offer a more pragmatic approach that puts jobs growth first, while taking balanced and gradual steps to put the federal government on a fiscally sustainable course.
Progressives do need to get serious about getting federal spending under control. But by framing the coming fiscal battles as a choice between a more robust economy and a smaller government, they can speak directly to Americans’ number one priority and thereby regain the political initiative.
Tags: 2011, Deficits and debt, Democrats, economic recovery, fiscal battle, Fiscal Responsibility, President Obama, progressives, republicans, U.S. House of Representatives, Will Marshall
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Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
Lee Drutman
Lee Drutman is a senior fellow and the managing editor for the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Lee Drutman
As Democrats shift from licking their wounds to figuring out how to win back the House in 2012, the obvious question is: what will it take? Or at least, what will it take besides the obvious triumvirate of a solidly recovering economy, a healthy dose of Republican overreach, and a bit of luck?
Over the next several weeks, I’m going to be taking a closer look at the 66 seats (net 63) that Democrats lost, asking some questions about the character of these lost districts with the goal of putting a finer point on what Democrats need to pay attention to in order to get those seats back. In this post, I’m going to focus on the role of manufacturing, race, and education.
But first a quick look at the map: Democrats lost seats all over the country: 23 in the South, 20 in the Midwest, 15 in the Northeast, and eight in the West.
Seats Democrats Lost, 2010
The bulk of post-election commentary has blamed the losses on the fact that the incumbent party almost always loses seats in a mid-term election and the fact that Democrats were being blamed for a bad economy.
But yet California, where unemployment is 12.4 percent, did not yield a single Republican pick-up (though California is famous for having very safe districts, so this may not be a fair test.). In Oregon, where unemployment is 10.5 percent, Democrats held the five (out of six) seats they maintain.
MANUFACTURING
One industry that has been hit particularly hard in the recession is manufacturing. Of course, the decline in manufacturing has been going on for a long time. In 1950, roughly three in ten U.S. employees worked in manufacturing. Today manufacturing jobs account for just 8.9 percent of U.S. nonfarm jobs. In the 2000s, manufacturing lost roughly one-third of its jobs, falling from 17.3 million people to 11.6 million people.
In most cases, these are jobs that are not coming back, leaving communities that depended on them demoralized and angry. How much of a factor was this in the 2010 elections?
Across the 66 Republican pick-up districts, manufacturing accounts for, on average, 11.9 percent of the jobs. That’s three full percentage points higher than the national average of 8.9 percent. In roughly three quarters (73 percent) of the districts Democrats lost, manufacturing accounted for more than the national average of 8.9 percent of the jobs.
Not surprisingly, this was most pronounced in the Midwest, where the 21 districts Republicans picked up averaged 14.4 percent of manufacturing jobs as a share of total non-farm employment. But it was also pronounced in the Northeast and the South. In both regions, manufacturing accounted for 11 percent of the jobs in the districts Democrats lost, two points above the national average. Only in the West did the districts the Democrats lost have less manufacturing than the national average, averaging only 6.9 percent of the economy. This was the region in which Democrats lost fewest seats – only nine.
| |
Manufacturing Jobs as Share of Total Jobs |
| Entire U.S. |
8.9% |
| ALL GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
11.9% |
| Midwest GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
14.4% |
| South GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
11.0% |
| Northeast GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
11.0% |
| West GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
6.9% |
To understand the potential importance of declining manufacturing as a key to the Democrats’ losses, consider Pennsylvania’s 11th District, which includes Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Democrat Paul Kanjorski had held the seat since 1985, but was ousted by Lou Barletta by a 55-to-45 percent margin. The district gave Obama 57 percent of its vote, and was one of only nine Republican pick-up districts that voted for Kerry. Manufacturing accounts for 16.9 percent of jobs in the district.
Or Wisconsin’s 7th District (northwest and Central Wisconsin), where Republicans picked up a seat formerly held by long-time incumbent David Obey, and a district both Obama and Kerry carried as well. Manufacturing accounts for 17 percent of the jobs in the district. Likewise with the 17st District of Illinois (northwest Illinois) – held by a Democrat since 1983, went for both Kerry and Obama, and 14.3 percent of its jobs come from manufacturing.
EDUCATION AND RACE
Democrats also have a problem with non-college educated whites. This has been a long-standing challenge for Democrats. Many of these voters feel frustrated and left behind by economic changes related to the loss of manufacturing jobs and global competition. They don’t see Democrats as helping them out. They wonder why they can’t seem to get ahead, and they want answers and somebody to blame.
Democrats have not enjoyed parity with Republicans among white voters in 20 years (since Bill Clinton), but 2010 was especially bad, with white voters breaking 62-to-38 for Republicans in the mid-term elections.
This shows up in the districts that Democrats lost. The U.S. population is 65.9 percent white. The average Republic pick-up district was 76.8 percent white. In the Northeast, the average Republican pick-up district was 86.5 percent white, and in the Midwest, the average Republican pick-up district was 81.5 percent white. Overall, 82 percent of the Republican pick-up districts have white populations greater than the national average.
| |
Pct. White |
| Entire U.S. |
65.9% |
| ALL GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
76.8% |
| Midwest GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
81.5% |
| South GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
68.8% |
| Northeast GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
86.5% |
| West GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
70.3% |
A decent number of these whites are blue-collar workers, we should note that those without bachelors’ degrees who have been hit much harder in this recession (unemployment among those with college degrees is only 5.1 percent). In the 2010 elections, Republicans won among both voters with only a high school diploma (54-46 percent) and those with some college (56-41 percent) after Democrats won both categories in 2008.
In the United States, 27.4 percent of adults have at least a bachelor’s degree. But the Republican pick-up districts are on average, less well-educated. Only 24.1 percent of adults have a bachelor’s degree. The gap was greater in the districts Dems lost in the South, where only 20.8 percent were college-educated, and the Midwest, where only 23 percent were college-educated. Overall, 71 percent of the Republican pick-up districts have fewer adults with bachelors’ degrees than the national average
| |
Pct. of Individuals With a Bachelor’s Degree |
| Entire U.S. |
27.4% |
| ALL GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
24.1% |
| Midwest GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
23.0% |
| South GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
20.8% |
| Northeast GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
29.2% |
| West GOP Pick-Up Districts (average) |
26.0% |
One of the most poorly educated districts is the 18th District of Ohio (Eastern Ohio), where only 12.5 percent of adults are college educated. It had been a solid Democratic seat for 46 years until Republican Bob Ney won it in 1994. Ney resigned in 2006 and shortly thereafter wound up in prison on conspiracy charges. Zachary Space won solidly in 2006 and 2008 with more than 60 percent of the votes, but dropped 20 points this time around. It is also a high manufacturing district (17.4 percent of jobs come from manufacturing), and very white (96.3 percent)
Another poorly educated district is the 1st (and only) District of South Dakota. Just 15.1 percent of South Dakotans have a bachelor’s degree. And despite one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country (Just 4.5 percent), they voted out three-term incumbent Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, who had won easily in the last two elections, garnering 68 and 69 percent of the vote. South Dakota is 88.7 percent white.
Obama’s problems among white, non college-educated voters are well-known, but these are both districts that Obama yet still went Democratic for the Congressional seat. That these voters have now lost faith in the ability of a Democrat to represent them in Congress, and in a rather remarkable way (both of these districts, for example, reduced their Democratic vote share by 20 percent in just two years) speaks volumes of the problems Democrats are having with non-college educated voters.
TAKEAWAYS
This analysis echoes others that point to the fact that Democrats are struggling among white working-class voters, many of whom had voted Democrat in the past, it adds a new way of parsing the data.
For all Democrats’ talk about helping working class folk, they have not done much for those who have lost blue collar jobs other than extend unemployment benefits. This does little to assure those upset by the pervasive sense of decline and who want somebody to blame for their increasing feelings of powerlessness.
As Steven Pearlstein wrote shortly after the election, “For the president and his party, regaining the confidence of the industrial Midwest is now a political imperative. For the U.S. economy, its no less an imperative to find a way to revive the Rust Belt.” Democrats have thus far only paid lip service to this with their “Make it in America” initiative, which appears to be mostly an apparently failed attempt at messaging as far as I can tell.
The problem for these districts is that the Democrats can’t rely solely on a generally improving economy to bring back manufacturing. These are places where there is a real sense of decline, and where voters are surely feeling incredibly frustrated that Democrats really haven’t done much to help them. If Obama and the Democrats want these beleaguered voters to give the Democrats another chance, they’re going to need to show them that they are serious about investing in America again.
Certainly, making inroads with the white working class voters is not the only way that Democrats can win back the House. There are other paths to 218. But without making at least a few inroads in key swing districts, the Democrats will have a lot less room for error in any other strategic approach.
Tags: bachelor’s degree, Bill Clinton, blue-collar, California, Congress, David Obey, Democrats, Education, GOP Pick-Up, high school diploma, House, Illinois, Lou Barletta, Manufacturing, Mid-Term Elections, Midwest, non-college educated whites, Northeast, Obama and Kerry, Ohio, Oregon, Paul Kanjorski, Pennsylvania, presidentiql elections, Race, recession, Republican Bob Ney, Republican pick-up, Rust Belt, South, South Dakota, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Steven Pearlstein, U.S. economy, unemployment, West, Wisconsin, Zachary Space
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Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
Lee Drutman
Lee Drutman is a senior fellow and the managing editor for the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Lee Drutman
Today, the latest Gallup poll finds that 66 percent of Americans support both extending tax cuts on all Americans for two years and an equal 66 percent support extending unemployment benefits for two years. This is very good news for Obama and a good sign this could be a turning point as he attempts to rebuild his popularity and the bargaining power that comes with it. It’s been a long time since two-thirds of voters approved of anything so high profile that Obama supported.
Moreover, as much as the liberal base may carp about the deal (as they should), the fact that Obama was able to broker a major compromise in and of itself should give him a bounce. As I wrote in a recent Politico op-ed, Americans, especially Democrats and those fickle independents, like leaders who are willing and able to compromise.
Another recent Gallup poll underscores this point. By a 47-27 percent margins, Americans say it is more important for political leaders to compromise to get things done than to stick to their beliefs, with Democrats and Independents much more inclined to prefer compromise. This Gallup poll also found that 36 percent of voters thought Obama was willing to compromise but Republicans were not, whereas 17 percent thought Republicans were the compromisers and Obama was the obstacle. (Another 25 percent thought both sides were willing, and 16 percent thought neither side was willing.)
The President is presumably most interested right now in rebuilding his popularity, which is hovering around 46 percent these days. Presumably the calculus in the Oval Office is (I think correctly) that the frustrated swing voters who will decide the 2012 elections want a leader who is pragmatic and is not going to hold up their tax cuts or their neighbor’s unemployment benefits for that ubiquitous epithet of a justification, “political purposes.”
By playing the role of compromiser, he’s: a) playing to his political strength, since voters are much more likely to see Obama as the leader in brokering compromise than his Republican counterparts; and b) playing to the voters most likely to vote Democratic in November 2012, since Democrats and Independents genuinely prefer compromise to sticking to strong positions.
Meanwhile, the lefties have every right to complain and they should. To the extent that Obama can have a few public fights with his liberal base, this will probably help him to regain some popularity among swing independent voters, and with it, the political capital that will allow him to start future negotiations with Republicans in a stronger position. Which should ultimately lead to more progressive outcomes.
Tags: 2012 presidential election, Approval Numbers, compromise, Democrats, extending tax cuts, Gallup poll, independents, liberal base, November 2012, Obama, Oval Office, Politico, republicans, swing voters, unemployment benefits
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Saturday, December 4th, 2010
Will Marshall
Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Will Marshall
President Obama’s deficit commission fell short today of the 14 votes necessary to submit its debt reduction plan to Congress for a vote. Don’t believe for a moment, however, that the commission has failed. On the contrary, co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson have forged a bipartisan majority for a plan that creates the basic template for any credible effort to restore fiscal responsibility in Washington.
In pushing back against special interests and partisan polarizers, the commission has done this country a tremendous service. Whatever happens next, its members have been responsive to the solid majority of Americans who say they want to the two parties to work together to solve the nation’s toughest problems.
As the bipartisan duo of Bill Galston and David Frum noted in today’s Washington Post, a post-election Pew poll found that 55 percent of the public wants Republican leaders in Washington to work with President Obama “even if it means disappointing some groups of Republican supporters,” and even more want Obama to do the same. Independents, whose defection from Obama’s winning 2008 coalition largely accounted for the GOP’s midterm sweep, likewise express a strong preference for compromise.
To a surprising degree, that problem-solving spirit seems to have infected the deficit commission, which has been deliberating since February. Republicans don’t come any more conservative than Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, but even he is now drawing fire from anti-tax absolutists for daring to support the commission blueprint. GOP Senators Mike Crapo of Idaho and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire also endorsed the plan, while several Members from both parties in the more partisan House oppose the plan.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois broke ranks with liberals to back the plan, while centrist Sen. Max Baucus of Montana raised eyebrows in opposing it. Sounding a parochial note, Baucus criticized the commission’s sensible plan to raise gas taxes by 15 percent, saying it would “paint a big red target on rural America.”
Mostly, however, reactions to the commission’s plan have divided along predictable lines, with support concentrated in the political center and opposition hardening as you move toward either end of the spectrum. Arch-conservatives decry its emphasis on cutting tax expenditures (though we’re proud that the commission adopts a long-standing PPI proposal for a “cut-and-invest” commission to go after these loopholes and subsidies), a trillion dollar drain on federal revenues. Nor are they mollified by its significant cuts in income and corporate tax rates, or its 3-to1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases.
The left, meanwhile, is in full cry over the commission’s allegedly draconian cuts in Social Security benefits. In fact, the proposal boosts the minimum Social Security benefit for low earners, makes the benefit formula more progressive, and very gradually increases the retirement age to 69 (normal) and 64 (early) by 2075. Only today’s toddlers will be affected, and their average life expectancy probably will exceed 80 years by then. The lefty blogosphere and cable shows nonetheless have worked themselves into a hyperbolic lather about President’s Obama mean ole “catfood commission.”
This is ludicrous. The commission’s plan doesn’t actually solve America’s fiscal crisis, it merely slows spending growth to sustainable levels, and stabilizes the national debt at 60 percent of GDP by 2013. That ratio doesn’t return to 40 percent – where it was before the financial crisis hit – for 25 years. In truth the plan does not impose a pitiless austerity on America. Nor would it jeopardize economic recovery, since its changes won’t kick in until unemployment starts falling to normal levels.
Liberals are on firmer ground in arguing that the plan sets unrealistically severe limits on federal spending. It aims to get federal spending down (and revenues up) to 21 percent of GDP by 2035. Whether that is enough to meet the needs of a much grayer America, where over 20 percent of the population will be over 65, is open to doubt.
But the commission’s plan doesn’t have to be perfect. It only has to be plausible, and it more than meets that test. Although it won’t be guaranteed a vote in this Congress, there’s nothing to prevent its supporters from introducing it into the next Congress. Given the countless hours of negotiations that have shaped it, the extent to which it has absorbed the best ideas from previous fiscal reform blueprints, and its rare, bipartisan backing, the proposal could become the point of departure for next year’s debate.
That will be especially true if President Obama embraces the plan, or something very close to it. He has largely stood aloof from the commission’s deliberations, but he urgently needs to regain the political initiative after the midterm debacle. House Republicans no doubt will devise an alternative, likely drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan, a commission member who opposes its plan, that emphasizes spending cuts almost exclusively. It may also include a push to repeal Obamacare. In any case, the GOP approach won’t get much Democratic support, especially now that the ranks of moderate Democrats have been drastically thinned.
In short, President Obama has an opportunity to seize the pragmatic center in the coming debate about putting America on a fiscally sustainable course. And he can thank his Commission for dealing him a very strong hand.
Tags: anti-tax absolutists, Arch-conservatives, Bill Galston, bipartisan majority, compromise, cut and invest, David Frum, debt and deficit, Debt Commission, Democrats, Dick Durbin, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, federal revenues, fiscal crisis, Fiscal Responsibility, GOP, Idaho, Illinois, Judd Gregg, Max Baucus, Mike Crapo, minimum Social Security benefit, Montana, New Hampshire, Obamacare, Oklahoma, partisan polarizers, Paul Ryan, Pew, pragmatic center., retirement age, Social Security benefits, special interests, spending cuts, Tom Coburn, Washington Post
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
A rash of party-switching by former Democratic state legislatures in the South has drawn attention to the parlous condition of the Donkey Party in that region following a terrible midterm election. Jonathan Martin of Politico captured the zeitgeist with a much-discussed piece entitled, “Democratic South Finally Falls,” a testament not only to Republican gains in the region but to the advent of such endlessly predicted but long-delayed developments as the GOP conquest of the Alabama state legislature.
How bad was election night 2010 for southern Democrats? Well, there were a total of 14 Senate and gubernatorial races in the eleven states of the Old Confederacy, and Republicans won all of them except for the Arkansas governor’s race. Exactly one-third of the 66 House pickups for the GOP occurred in the same eleven states (along with one-third of the three Democratic pickups). Republicans gained control of four state legislative chambers (the House and Senate in both Alabama and North Carolina), then picked up control of the Louisiana House due to a party switch. Today Democrats control the Arkansas and Mississippi House and Senate; the Senate in Louisiana and Virginia; and nothing else. And the Mississippi, Louisiana, and Virginia bastions will be at risk in 2011.
Were there regional bright spots for Democrats? Sure, in individual races. But it’s hard to call, say, North Carolina a bright spot because endangered House Democrats Larry Kissel and Mike McIntyre survived, since the state legislature was lost for the first time since Reconstruction. Similarly, two of three targeted House Democrats in Georgia won, but Republicans swept all the statewide races for the first time ever, and are approaching a veto-proof supermajority in both state legislative chambers.
Democrats had unusually strong gubernatorial candidates facing Republicans with problems in four southern states: South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. All these Democrats lost.
Now it’s important to understand that the demographic turnout patterns that made the midterms so hospitable to Republicans nationally were especially strong in parts of the South, where the pro-Republican trend among older white voters in 2008 was especially pronounced, and the predictable falloff in African-American voting after a historic cycle was especially damaging to Democrats. That means Democrats will likely rebound (relatively speaking) in 2012 in the South as elsewhere. Indeed, post-midterm PPP polls of Virginia and North Carolina, the two southern states carried by Obama in 2008, show the president in pretty good shape in both for 2012.
What really happened in 2010 of enduring significance is that the post-Civil Rights Act era of ticket-splitting in the South, which enabled Democrats to do much better in state and local election than at the presidential level, is finally drawing to a close, with one important qualifier: as Republicans become the natural governing party of the South, they will also be vulnerable to unhappiness with the status quo, which could produce Democratic victories, particularly in states with an irreducibly strong Democratic base. Generally, though, congressional districts with a long history of going GOP in presidential races and Democratic in House races, like South Carolina’s 5th district or Mississippi’s 4th, aren’t likely coming back to the Democratic column now that their long-time incumbents have lost. In addition, as the party-switching in state legislatures demonstrates, Democrats will no longer benefit from being perceived as the party of convenience for ambitious politicos with flexible ideological views.
The upside for southern Democrats is that the long-term demographic trends favoring them in the region—growing minority populations, continued in-migration of less conservative voters, and the increased importance of “knowledge jobs”—haven’t gone away. And without question, southern Democrats are continuing to converge with their national counterparts in ideology as conservative white rural voters complete their migration out of the Democratic coalition. Overall, southerners will still be more moderate than Democrats from areas with a strong labor movement or a tradition of cultural progressivism, but much of the argument that southern Blue Dogs are muddling the message or obstructing the legislation of the national party has become moot.
Tags: 2012 presidential election, African-American, Alabama, Arkansas, Blue Dogs, cultural progressivism, Democratic pickups, Democratic South Finally Falls, Democratic state legislatures, Democrats, demographic trends, Donkey Party, Florida, Georgia, GOP, GOP pickups, Jonathan Martin, Larry Kissel, Louisiana, Mid-Term Elections, Mike McIntyre., Mississippi, North Carolina, Obama, Old Confederacy, party-switching, Politico, post-Civil Rights Act, PPP polls, Reconstruction, South, state and local election, Texas, Virginia, zeitgeist
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Monday, November 22nd, 2010
Elbert Ventura
Elbert Ventura is the managing editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. He formerly served as the managing editor of the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Elbert Ventura
Brookings Institution congressional scholar Thomas Mann is hardly known as a partisan bomb-thrower. A frequent co-author of books and articles on Congress and American politics with the American Enterprise Institute’s Norm Ornstein, Mann is a model of sober and intelligent commentary, calling things as he sees them.
That reputation makes his recent comments on the state of our politics particularly noteworthy. In an interview with Time’s Jay Newton-Small, here’s what Mann had to say:
There is simply no basis for meaningful bipartisan leadership meetings today. Republicans are determined to defeat Obama in 2012; they have no interest in negotiating with him in order to provide him any sort of victory. This is a partisan war and the Republicans are playing to win. The only question is how long it will take Obama to accept this reality and act accordingly.
To hear, say, bloggers vent this way would be expected; to hear Mann, a scholar ensconced in the establishment, speak so plainly underscores the enormity of the problem. Our politics is broken and Mann, correctly, identifies Republican cynicism as its primary cause. Today’s GOP has become slave to the Rush Limbaughs, Glenn Becks, and Sarah Palins. Where are the Olympia Snowes, the Susan Collinses, the George Voinoviches? Why aren’t they banding together with the moderates and liberals on the other side of the aisle to demand a restoration of reasonable discourse? Are the imperatives of electoral politics so strong as to short-circuit any attempt at good-faith governance? (The question, perhaps, answers itself.)
In a follow-up exchange with Greg Sargent, Mann offered a more specific vision of what Obama should do:
With no expectations of passing important new legislation or of garnering anything from Republicans in Congress but political bait, he should pursue his substantive agenda where he can act on his own and use Congress as a place to submit a genuinely serious set of proposals to deal with the country’s more serious challenges (with no expectation that any will pass) and couple them with high visibility straight talk to the American people about the course he is proposing.
If the last two years are any indication, the next two will bring only further distress and disappointment for that vanishing few in Washington who still believe in that old dream of deliberative democracy. But gridlock need not be inaction, and Mann’s advice is spot-on. For the President to regain control of his presidency, he needs to engage in that thing he seems to have been averse to thus far: politics. Use the bully pulpit. Engage in a bit of gamesmanship. Promote his vision of the good society – and make explicit why the conservative vision is the wrong one for the country. Shifting the dynamic between a feral House and a technocratic White House is one of two prerequisites (the other being an improved economy) if we are to preserve any hope of advancing progressive priorities in the time that remains in his first term.
Tags: American Enterprise Institute’s Norm Ornstein, and Sarah Palin, bipartisan leadership, Brookings Institution, Democrats, gamesmanship, George Voinovich, Glenn Beck, GOP, Greg Sargent, Jay Newton-Small, liberals, modreates, Obama, Olympia Snowe, republicans, Rush Limbaugh, Susan Collins, Thomas Mann, Time
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Sunday, November 21st, 2010
Lee Drutman
Lee Drutman is a senior fellow and the managing editor for the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Lee Drutman
Book Review: The Disappearing Center, By Alan Abramowitz
That our politics are now deeply polarized is a well-known fact. But do the polarized politics in Washington reflect the deep divides in the country between red and blue voters (and their respective desires for increasingly opposite policies on both sides)? Or do these elite divisions exist in spite of an essentially purple, moderate America?
Alan Abramowitz, a professor of political science at Emory University, is on the side of Washington as mirror of a deeply fractured electorate rapidly losing its political middle. His new book, “The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy” is the story of how voters migrated to the extremes over the last five decades.
Essentially, four big, interlinked things happened. The first is that the parties “sorted” better. The second is that the number of safe districts and safe states increased. The third is that Americans as a whole became more educated. The fourth is that the engagement gap between strong partisans and political moderates widened.
In their 1960 plumage, Republicans and Democrats were both diverse species, loose-fitting labels that meant very different things depending on where you were from. Northern “liberal” Republicans and Southern “conservative” Democrats made up large minority factions, and both often found more common cause with their fellow “liberals” or “conservatives” across the aisle than their fellow partisans. In such an environment, bipartisanship was the norm, rather than the exception.
Then the tumultuous ‘60s shook the snow globe of American politics. The fight over civil rights broke the Democrats’ hold on the “Solid South,” turning Southern Democrats into Republicans. The Republican center of gravity gradually migrated deep below the Mason-Dixon line, taking on a much redder hue: much more socially conservative, more skeptical of government. Democrats, meanwhile, freed from the need to keep placate the conservative southerners, grew bluer: more socially liberal, and less skeptical of government.
Once upon a time, congressional districts were highly competitive, and a Democrat (or Republican) had to be sensitive to the concerns of voters in the competing party to maintain a seat. Even as late as the 95th Congress (1977-1978), only 24 percent of Democrats and 27 percent of Republicans were in “safe” districts; By the 108th Congress (2004-2005), 49 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans were in “safe” districts. The consequence: they were far more likely to be worried about fending off extreme challengers in their primaries than about winning the general election by moving to the center. Thus, more extreme politicians replaced more moderate ones.
In 1976, the eight most populous states were all battleground states in the presidential election, and the average winning margin among them was 3.1 percentage points. In 2004, only four of the eight most populous states were battlegrounds, and the average winning margin in the eight states was 9.3 percentage points. Thanks to both realignment and demographic change, Abramowitz writes, “Red states, counties, and congressional districts have been getting redder while blue states, counties, and congressional districts have been getting bluer.”
At the same time, the American public got a whole lot better educated. In 1956, 37 percent of Americans had only a grade school education, and just 19 percent had some college; in 2004, only three percent of Americans had just a grade school education, and 61 percent had at least some college.
This matters, Abramowitz argues, because “College-educated citizens are generally more interested in politics, more politically active, and better informed about candidates and issues than high school-educated citizens. This is especially true with regard to one important form of political engagement: ideological awareness.”
So: the parties got better sorted into distinct camps, districts became less competitive, and an increasingly educated electorate was better able to pick up on the differences and to respond accordingly, sorting themselves likewise into the appropriate categories. Abramowitz notes that especially among the better educated, there has been increased “partisan-ideological polarization” – that is, that high-information liberals are indeed reliably liberal across all issues, and high-information conservatives are reliably conservative across all issues.
All of this polarization has actually been good for political engagement generally. Abramowitz cites numerous measures of a public that now cares more about politics, follows it more closely, and talks about it more to their friends – partly because they are more educated, and partly because if the parties are highly polarized, the stakes of political victory are significantly greater (high stakes are a terrific motivator.)
But, at the same time, a certain slice of the electorate has been left behind: “The American public appears to be increasingly divided into two groups,” writes Abramowitz, “the politically engaged, who view politics in ideological terms, and the politically disengaged, who do not.”
For example, 56 percent of strong liberal or conservatives reported being politically engaged in 2004, as compared to 36 percent of those who “lean” liberal or conservative, and just 20 percent of those who say they are moderate, or of no ideology. In the 1950s, this gap did not exist.
To Abramowitz, the story of the disengaged moderates is mostly a story about less-educated, less-engaged citizens who don’t know or care enough about politics to pick a side. Were they to get wealthy and educated, like the partisans, they would presumably then know enough to pick one of the two distinct teams in American politics. But lacking the means or the will to pick a side, they call themselves moderate, feel disengaged and disenchanted by politics, and try to get on with the business of making a living.
On the descriptives, The Disappearing Center is a terrific compendium to what’s happened. The parties have pulled apart, and in particular strong partisans on both sides are further apart than ever before. There are fewer competitive states, fewer competitive districts, and politicians who dare to compromise are increasingly punished. Nor is this likely to change: “A coalition of moderates is no longer possible because the center is a shrunken remnant of what it was forty or fifty years ago,” concludes Abramowitz. The forecast is for more partisan rancor, far as the eye can see.
But the analysis lacks in a few areas. For one, Abramowitz doesn’t engage with the possibility that political moderates have become less engaged out of frustration with extremism; his preferred explanation is that they remain moderate only out of an ignorance of the stakes involved. More frustratingly, his analysis is based heavily on reported self-identifications, rather than actual issue positions, and the issues he choose to measure polarization tend to be particular hot-button issues, like abortion and the Iraq war. More thorough issue-based measuring of public opinion (see, for example, Morris Fiorina’s Disconnect, or Joseph Bafumi and Michael C. Herron’s research on leapfrog representation) has found a much more moderate public on the issues, a public that has been left behind by two increasingly extreme parties.
Tags: 108th Congress, 95th Congress, Alan Abramowitz, and American Democracy, bipartisanship, blue voters, College-educated citizens, congressional district, conservative, Democrats, Disconnect, elite divisions, Emory University, extremes, high school-educated citizens, ideological awareness, inority factions, Joseph Bafumi and Michael C. Herron, leapfrog representation, liberal, Mason-Dixon, moderate America, moderates, Morris Fiorina, partisan-ideological polarization, polarization, polarized politics, political engagement, political moderates, politically active, politically disengaged, red voters, republicans, safe districts, safe states, self-identifications, socially conservative, Solid South, strong partisans, The Disappearing Center, The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Washington
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Friday, November 12th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
The post-election interpretive wars have continued and even intensified, but with current and future events very much in everyone’s mind.
Voices of self-restraint among Republicans are very rare. Highly typical is this take from University of Virginia professor of politics James Ceaser:
Of all the recent mid-term elections, 2010 is the closest the nation has ever come to a national referendum on overall policy direction or “ideology.” Obama, who ran in 2008 by subordinating ideology to his vague themes of hope and change, has governed as one of the most ideological and partisan of presidents. Some of his supporters like to argue in one breath that he is a pragmatist and centrist only to insist in the next that he has inaugurated the most historic transformation of American politics since the New Deal. The two claims are incompatible. Going back to the major political contests of 2009, beginning with the Governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey and to the Senate race in Massachusetts, the electorate has been asked the same question about Obama’s agenda and has given the same response. The election of 2010 is the third or fourth reiteration of this judgment, only this time delivered more decisively. There is one label and one label only that can describe the result: the Great Repudiation.
Ceaser goes on to attack any Republicans who would urge a future course that eschews the sacking and burning of Obamaism in all its aspects.
So the triumphalist strain of conservative post-election interpretation is closely linked to a maximalist prescription for Republican behavior now. That helps explain why Republicans have been generally negative about the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction proposal that was released earlier this week, even though it was clearly tailored (with its heavy emphasis on spending reductions and its crafting of revenue-raising measures in the context of rate-reducing “tax reform”) to appeal to them.
One conservative reaction was especially revealing: that of James Capretta in National Review, which trashed the Bowles-Simpson report for failing to embrace the repeal of health care reform, and indeed, for building on some of the health care cost containment measures in that legislation. The short-term goal of repealing “ObamaCare,” it seems, is more important to conservatives than the long-term goal of reducing deficits and debt.
But Capretta’s reaction illustrates another problem that will bedevil any bipartisan effort on spending and taxes: the Republican rejection, which began during the Bush administration but became endemic during the health reform debate, of neutral “scorekeepers” like the Congressional Budget Office, which enraged conservatives by accepting some of the cost containment claims of “ObamaCare.”
Among Democrats, as noted in the last political memo, those deducing major lessons from the midterms agree that the Obama administration should change its strategy and its public message, but sharply diverge along the usual ideological lines about which direction Democrats should take. There is genuine alarm on the Left, on both substantive and political grounds, about the White House’s apparent decision to reach an accommodation with Republicans on an extension of the Bush tax cuts, and strong hostility to the Bowles-Simpson recommendations (for which the President is held accountable, even though he has not embraced the proposals). For the first time, there is talk, though not that serious yet, of a protest candidate running against the President in the 2012 primaries.
Centrist Democrats seem divided between those who favor a decisive “move to the center” and support the Bowles-Simpson proposals pretty much as drafted, and those with more modest suggestions for changes in Obama’s approach to the opposition and to the major issues.
Aside from impending debates on taxes, health care, and the budget, the 2012 election cycle is already getting underway. It is beginning to sink in for Democrats that there are structural aspects to the congressional landscape in 2012 that limit possibilities for a “rebound,” even if the economy improves and the expected change in turnout patterns occurs. Two-thirds (23) of the 33 senators facing re-election that year are Democrats (by contrast, half (19) of the 37 Senate races in 2010 involved Democrat-held seats). Large Republican gains in control of state legislative chambers means that the House landscape will be significantly tilted in the GOP’s election through redistricting; some estimates of the impact are as high as 25 seats.
The presidential landscape, however, is another matter entirely. The ultramontanist mood among conservatives right now is not conducive to any trimming of ideological sails in the pursuit of a White House victory in 2012. There is considerable talk of an Establishment conspiracy to block any nomination for Sarah Palin, which indicates how seriously Republicans take her prospects if she decides to run. Another antagonist of said Establishment, Mike Huckabee, is in excellent position to once again win the Iowa Caucuses if Palin does not take the plunge. Mitt Romney remains haunted by his Massachusetts health reform effort, a problem that will grow worse during the upcoming conservative drive to repeal “ObamaCare.” And time is not on the side of the various dark horse possibilities (Daniels, Pence, Barbour) who may be famous in Washington but not so much in Des Moines or Manchester.
All in all, the impact of the midterms may fade faster than anyone expected as the future needs of the two parties, and of the country, take hold.
Tags: 2010 midterm election, 2012 Campaign, 2012 presidential election, Barbour, bipartisan, Bowles-Simpson, Bush tax cuts, Campaigns and elections, centrist, Congressional Budget Office, Daniels, Deficits and debt, Democrats, Des Moines, Establishment conspiracy, Great Repudiation, health care reform, ideology, Iowa Caucuses, James Capretta, James Ceaser, left, Manchester, Massachusetts, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, national referendum, National Review, New Deal, New Jersey, Obama, Obamacare, Obamaism, Pence, pragmatist, Republican, Sarah Palin, scorekeepers, tax reform, ultramontanist, University of Virginia, Virginia, White House victory
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Thursday, November 11th, 2010
Lee Drutman
Lee Drutman is a senior fellow and the managing editor for the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Lee Drutman
The last three elections have been the most volatile three elections in a long time. One has to go back to 1942-1952 to find so much consistent turnover in the U.S. House – that was the last time when at least three consecutive elections resulted in pick-ups of 20 or more seats by one party or the other (then it was five consecutive elections). And no single party has picked up as many as the 65 seats the Republicans will probably gain (once all the dust settles on still disputed races) since the Democrats won 75 seats in 1948 – after losing 56 seats in the prior election.
This is a remarkable change from what had been the norm. For 20 years, between 1986 and 2006, there was only one election (1994) in which one party picked up more than 10 House seats from the prior election. Incumbents who ran for re-election were winning upwards of 98 percent of the time, a state of affairs that led many onlookers to worry about the fate of democratic accountability: Was something fundamentally broken when incumbency meant near certainty of re-election?
Over at The New Republic, David Fontana argues the new volatility is likely an improvement over the old incumbency safety net:
Whatever the explanation, the reduction in the number of safe House seats is probably good for American democracy: If the parties have to defend nearly all their seats every cycle, instead of concentrating on overstimulated swing districts, they will deliver more political information to voters across the entire country. Both major party candidates in many districts will have to run advertisements, host town hall meetings, and participate in debates. In addition, a Congress that changes hands more often is less likely to become complacent, staid, and corrupt—and it may be more open to experimenting with new programs and acting on new ideas.
Having just witnessed the last election, I’m not so sure a competitive election meant particularly high-quality debates and information, and it’s going to be hard to convince me that more advertising of the kind we were seeing would be a good thing.
Moreover, contra the “complacent, staid, and corrupt” thesis, I think there is something to be said for members of Congress who have been around a little while. It takes some time to understand how things work on Capitol Hill, to build relationships, and to learn some of the policy substance. I’ve never been a big fan of term limits because I think that what it essentially does is further empower permanent special interests, who welcome each class of fresh, green lawmakers with a lesson about “how things work around here.” Lacking their own independent expertise and often dependent on an equally inexperienced staff, the new lawmakers become even more dependent on lobbyists and special interests than their predecessors, who they spent all election blaming for being captive to special interests.
Moreover, if the new members have to worry about re-election from the day they get into office, that doesn’t leave much time for actual policymaking.
One reason for the increased volatility may be the fact that increasingly polarized parties are making it harder and harder for middle-of-the-road voters to get what they want, and so they keep switching back between Republicans who are too conservative and Democrats who are too liberal, each time trying to correct for their past choices. It’s a process that Dartmouth political scientists Joseph Bafumi and Michael C. Herron have labeled “leapfrog representation.”
I’m not sure what the solution is. Fewer safe seats has its obvious pluses for democratic accountability. But I’m not so sure it’s meant that the quality of representation is improving, nor that it is going to improve. Nor does it necessarily improve democratic accountability if the volatility is driven by some combination of middle-of-the-road voters never being happy with their elected officials (too liberal! No, too conservative! No, too liberal!) and a “throw-the-bums” out mentality if the economy is doing poorly.
But probably one reasonable conclusion is that electoral competition by itself is not a sufficient solution to our democratic deficit of hyper-polarized politics and substance-free, talking-past-each-other campaigning.
Photo credit: Shreyans Bhansali
Tags: accountability, American democracy, Campaigns and elections, Capitol Hill, centrists, competitive election, Congress, corrupt, Dartmouth, David Fontana, debates, democracy deficit, Democrats, elections, expertise, hyper-polarized politics, independents, Joseph Bafumi, lawmakers, leapfrog representation, lobbyists, Michael C. Herron, middle-of-the-road voters, polarization, policy substance, political information, re-election, republicans, special interests, swing districts, The New Republic, turnover, U.S. House, Volatility
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Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
In unfinished business from last Tuesday, there are still eight House races unresolved, after 11th district of Virginia Republican candidate Keith Fimian conceded to Rep. Gerry Connolly. While Reps. Ben Chandler of KY and Jerry McInerny of CA hold leads with scattered ballots still out and recounts possible, Republicans appear to lead in the other six races (involving Democratic incumbents Jim Costa of CA, Melissa Bean of IL, Tim Bishop and Dan Maffei of NY, and Bobby Etheridge of NC, and Solomon Ortiz of TX). If all current leads held, Republican gains would come in at 65, but my guess is that one or two of the Democrats now trailing will pull out a win.
The unresolved gubernatorial races are now down to just one, in Minnesota, where Republicans still bitter about the outcome of the 2008 Senate race seem determined to delay certification of Mark Dayton’s election as governor as long as they possibly can.
As the vote counting winds down, of course, the post-election interpretation battles are just now warming up. There are, of course, partisan differences, with Republicans tending to treat the results as a historic and perhaps semi-permanent repudiation of Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, liberalism, socialism, the New Deal, elitism, progressivism, or you-name-it.
Democrats are more divided, with some drawing big (and often varying) lessons from the defeat, and others stressing structural factors that made the results inevitable and/or lessened its predictive value for the future. The former, “big lessons” camp is itself divided between progressives who think Democrats lost because they discouraged the party base and compromised too much with Republicans and Blue Dogs (and/or failed to take the kind of radical steps that could have actually revived the economy), and centrists who think Democrats “overreached” by trying to implement an agenda that the economic emergency made undoable and unpopular.
The “structuralist” interpretation (which I happen to largely share) was succinctly summarized by Ruy Texeira and John Halpin of the Center for American Progress:
Why did the Democrats decisively lose this election? It’s not really a mystery. The 2010 midterms were shaped by three fundamental factors: the poor state of the economy, the abnormally conservative composition of the midterm electorate, and the large number of vulnerable seats in conservative-leaning areas.
Much of the argument over what happened and why will inevitably revolve around the big swing in self-identified independent voters between 2006-08 and 2010. Are these the same voters, or different subsets of voters (i.e., was this a pure “swing” in voting behavior, or at least partly an illusion of changes in self-identification and turnout patterns?)? Is the “swing” attributable to factors other than independent identity (e.g., age), or to a genuine change in ideology, or to a rejection of “Obamaism,” or to a continuing rejection of the status quo across administrations and party regimes, or to simple unhappiness about the economy? The answers to these questions have a large bearing on how each party should act in order to improve its performance in 2012.
One thing that is relatively clear is that the Republican “wave” broke pretty evenly across the electoral landscape, at least in House races; regions where Democrats did relatively well (e.g., the Pacific Coast) are just more favorable to Democrats. Here’s how Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight explained it:
Rather than a realigning election, then, 2010 served as more of an aligning election: congressional districts behaved less independently from one another, and incumbency status mattered less. Instead, they hewed tightly to national trends and the overall partisanship of each district. Most of the incumbent congressmen whose districts had been outliers before (mainly Democrats like Representative Gene Taylor, whose district gave just 31 percent of its vote to Barack Obama, but also a couple of Republicans like Representative Joseph Cao) were forced into early retirement.
In other words, there was a general, national shift in favor of Republicans that produced relatively predictable results. That’s true whether you believe the shift involved a sea change in the ideological views of the electorate or just typical midterm turnout patterns and a typical reaction to a bad economy. A similar shift towards Democrats in 2012 would produce similar Democratic House gains—with the exception of the advantages Republicans are now poised to achieve through redistricting.
So why do these post-election interpretive arguments matter? Well, to state the most obvious factor, if Republicans accept a structuralist interpretation, they are likely to be very cautious about advancing a radically conservative agenda, since the likely 2012 electorate is going to produce semi-automatic Democratic gains, which may also be augmented by any improvements in the national economy. If, to cite another example, Democrats accept a “big lessons to learn” interpretation, it would dictate a significant change in strategy for the Obama administration and congressional leaders; unfortunately, the progressive and centrist versions of this interpretation point in very different directions.
Photo credit: Leol 30
Tags: 2010 midterm election, 2012, agenda, aligning election, Ben Chandler, big lessons, big swing, Blue Dogs, Bobby Etheridge, CA, Center for American Progress, centrists, congressional districts, conservative composition, conservative-leaning areas, Dan Maffei, Democratic Party, Democrats, economic downturn, economic emergency, elitism, FiveThirtyEight, Gene Taylor, Gerry Connolly, Gubernatorial races, House races unresolved, IL, independent identity, independent voters, Jerry McInerny, Jim Costa, John Halpin, Joseph Cao, Keith Fimian, KY, liberalism, Mark Dayton, Melissa Bean, midterm lectorate, Minnesota, Nate Silver, NC, NY, Obamaism, partisan differences, partisanship, party base, post-election interpretation, progressives, Progressivism, radically conservative agenda, republicans, repudiation of Barack Obama, Ruy Texeira, socialism, Solomon Ortiz, Structural Reasons, structuralist interpretation, the New Deal, Tim Bishop, TX, typical midterm turnout patterns, Virginia, vulnerable seats
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Monday, November 8th, 2010
Lee Drutman
Lee Drutman is a senior fellow and the managing editor for the Progressive Policy Institute.
by Lee Drutman
Yesterday, the New York Times Week in Review section devoted a whole page to time series exit polls, all of which showed how Democrats lost ground in almost every single possible demographic cross-slice this election: women, whites, Protestants, Catholics, old people, even young people.
But one demographic slice was especially telling. It was the 41 percent of the population who said that their family’s financial situation was worse today than it was two years ago. They voted for Republicans by a 65-to-35 percent margin. What’s remarkable is that in 2008, this group of voters (then 42 percent of the total) broke 71-to-28 percent for Obama. And in 2004, it broke 79-to-20 percent for Kerry! But in 1996 and 2000, this category broke solidly for Bush! These are remarkable swings – what can explain them?
Likewise, the shifts have been the same for the smaller slice of the electorate saying their financial situation has gotten better. These folks broke 60-to-37 percent for McCain in 2008 (and 80-to-19 percent for Bush in 2004), only to break 60-to-40 percent for Democrats in 2008. Again: remarkable!
A number of possibilities seem implausible. One is that Democrats started doing much better financially with Barack Obama as President, and Republicans started doing much worse, leading a massive shift in the make-up of the “financial situation worse” category. This seems highly unlikely. A second possibility is that the demographic basis of this category is consistent, but just strongly, strongly anti-incumbent. This also seems highly unlikely, given what a large percentage of the electorate this makes up, and how much voting usually breaks down along partisan lines.
Rather, the most likely explanation, and one that is consistent with a good deal of political science research, is that voters’ perception of the how well they are doing depends largely on whether their party is in power. As one study notes: “a robust finding in the literature is that partisans evaluate the economy and its prospects more positively when the president is of their own party, and more negatively when the office is held by someone of the opposing party”
In many ways, this is remarkable. It is not particularly difficult to objectively compare one’s finances from two years ago to today. Yet, somehow having your party in power seems to change your evaluation.
In 2008, 24 percent of voters said their family financial situation was better today, 34 percent the same, and 42 percent worse; In 2010, just 14 percent of voters said their financial situation was better, 43 percent about the same, and 42 percent worse.
(Voters who say their family situation is about the same tend to be split much more evenly between the two parties: In 2008, they went 53-45 percent against the Republicans; In 2010 they actually voted 51-to-46 percent for Democrats)
So the declining economy has reduced the share of the electorate thinking their financial situation has gotten better from 24 percent to 14 percent, and this has hurt the Democrats. This may not be an entirely objective measure, but in a down economy, even partisan subjectivity is only so powerful. This has obviously hurt Obama and the Democrats.
But the larger issue here is that it’s very hard for partisan voters to assess the economy and even their own financial conditions objectively. There are real partisan filters at work here.
Which means that even if things are objectively getting better, there are still a large number of Republican voters who are going to think – in opposition to actual empirical evidence – that their own finances are getting worse, perhaps because they can’t conceive of an economy getting better with a Democratic president in charge. (Though partisan Democrats would be equally guilty in thinking their finances were getting better when they actually weren’t.)
This poses obvious challenges for Obama. If the economy does pick up (as most predict it will), improving objective conditions should help Obama’s approval rating and 2012 prospects to some degree. But even objective improvement will not be enough to convince many voters. Maybe more rhetorical attention to this will help (I don’t know the literature on this in great detail). But even that will probably have limited impact, since most voters hear only what they want to hear (confirmation bias).
A maddening challenge indeed. Good luck, President Obama.
Tags: 2010 midterm election, anti-incumbent, Barack Obama, Bush, Catholics, confirmation bias, declining economy, Democrats, demographic cross-slice, Exit Poll, family’s financial situation, Kerry, McCain, New York Times Week in Review, Obama, objective improvement, old people, partisan filters, partisan lines, partisan subjectivity, President Obama, Protestants, Republican, voters’ perception, whites, women, young people.
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Friday, November 5th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
So Election Day is over (except, of course, in Alaska, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Illinois, which have statewide races in some doubt, and in eight states with a total of nine unresolved House races).
You probably know the basics. Democrats held onto control of the Senate, their margin reduced from 59-41 to 53-47, and Republicans won the House, having gained at this point 60 seats, 21 more than they needed for a majority. Governorships flipped from 26D/24R to 29R/20D/1Chafeecrat. Republicans took over control of 19 state legislative chambers, just in time for redistricting.
Republicans won the national House popular vote by a 52-45 margin, roughly the same margin by which Barack Obama defeated John McCain in 2008. But it clearly was not the same electorate; exit polls reported that voters split evenly in their 2008 preferences. Many observers explain that by an “enthusiasm gap” between the two parties, but much of it is a matter of normal mid-term voting patterns, producing an older and whiter electorate that happens to favor Republicans at the present time.
House losses by Democrats were, to a remarkable extent, concentrated among districts that are either pro-Republican or highly marginal according to recent presidential elections. There were virtually no true upsets. A significant share of Tuesday’s casualties involved long-serving members from southern and border states who finally succumbed to ever-increasingly hostile territory (e.g., John Spratt of SC, Jim Marshall of GA, Gene Taylor of MS, Chet Edwards of TX, Ike Skelton of MO; two similar Members from TN retired). A much larger group, particularly from the Midwest and the mid-Atlantic states, were Class of 2006 and (especially) 2008 who got to Congress via close races and were extremely vulnerable to adverse trends in turnout and the overall political climate.
Trying to link these losses to any specific issues or controversies is probably futile, with the possible exception of climate change; support for legislation on this subject undoubtedly hurt Democrats in coal-producing states, most notably veteran VA Rep. Rick Boucher. But generally, the results reflected a general partisan shift, which in turn reflected a general (if predictable) change in turnout from a presidential to a mid-term profile.
The Senate results were not terribly surprising, either. What looked to some like a slight pro-Democratic trend in some of those races (notably PA and WI, where Democrats did better than expected, and in NV and CO, where Democrats won after Republicans led in late polls) were probably more the product of Republican bias in state-based polls, particularly those conducted by Rasmussen. The Alaska situation, obviously, is very unusual; Lisa Murkowski’s apparent lead guarantees a count of write-in votes, but though a loss for Joe Miller would be deeply embarrassing to Sarah Palin and to the Tea Party Movement, it would not change the partisan balance in the Senate.
The net-five-gain in governorships by Republicans disguises a much more complicated picture in which Republicans took control of eleven Democratic governorships (ME, PA, TN, OH, MI, WI, IA, KS, OK, NM,); Democrats took control of five Republican governorships (CT, VT, MN, CA and HI); and independent Linc Chafee won a formerly Republican governorship in RI. With all this churn, however, only two incumbent governors lost: Chet Culver of IA and Ted Strickland of OH.
The carnage created by Republican gains in state legislatures will take a while to sort out, but as Hotline noted:
The GOP holds the redistricting trifecta in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Utah, Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Ohio – plus, as noted earlier, Nebraska and North Carolina [where the Democratic governor cannot veto redistricting plans].
Florida voters did approve a constitutional amendment imposing fairly strict conditions on redistricting to prevent gerrymanders; the state was already operating under a heavily pro-GOP plan. California voters also approved an initiative placing congressional redistricting under a very independent commission composed partly of citizens chosen by lottery; this change could help Republicans or at least produce more competitive districts.
In other non-candidate ballot developments, California voters rejected two nationally significant initiatives, one (Prop 19) that would have legalized small-scale consumption and cultivation of marijuana, and another (Prop 23) that would have suspended the state’s unique carbon emissions control system. In news of equal importance to locals, voters did approve a constitutional amendment getting rid of the two-thirds vote requirement for passage of a budget in the California legislature, which has all but paralyzed California government for years. In Iowa, voters rejected “retention” of three state Supreme Court justices who supported the unanimous decision to legalize same-sex marriage. This was major goal of that state’s powerful social conservative faction.
We’ll get more into post-election interpretations, along with prescriptions for what both parties should do now, next week.
Tags: 2010 midterm election, Alabama, Alaska, Barack Obama, CA, carbon emissions control system, Chet Edwards, Climate change, CO, coal-producing states, Connecticut, CT, cultivation of marijuana, Democrats, Election Day is over, enthusiasm gap, Florida, GA, Gene Taylor, Georgia, GOP, governorships, het Culver, HI, House, IA, Ike Skelton, Illinois, independent, Indiana, Jim Marshall, Joe Miller, John McCain, John Spratt, Kansas, KS, legalize same-sex marriage, Linc Chafee, Lisa Murkowski, ME, MI, Michigan, mid-Atlantic states, mid-term voting patterns, Midwest, Minnesota, MN, MO;, MS, Nebraska North Carolina, nine unresolved House races, NM, NV, OH, Ohio, OK, Oklahoma, older electorate, PA, Pennsylvania, Prop 19, Prop 23, Rasmussen, republicans, Results, Rick Boucher, Sarah Palin, SC, Senate, social conservative faction, South Carolina, statewide races, Supreme Court, Tea Party Movement, Ted Strickland, Tennessee, Texas, TN, Tuesday’s casualties, TX, Utah, VA, voters split, VT, whiter electorate, WI, Wisconsin
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