One of Robert Henlein characters once said, “When I was in school they taught us to honor the Flag, vote the straight party line and believe in the law of the conservation of energy.” In reading a number of political books and biographies that deal with the first part of the century, the idea of a voting the “party ticket” is very prominent, much more so than in my experience in this day and age.
In 1972, Nixon had the advantage of an organized group, Democrats for Nixon, headed by John B. Connally. In 1980, John Anderson was able to attract both his native liberal Republicans (back when there were such things as liberal Republicans) as well as appeal to Democrats. Similarly, Ross Perot was able to attract a much higher percentage of voters from both parties during his quixotic 1992 run as an Independent than he managed with the newly formed Reform Party in 1996. The defection of Democrats to support Ralph Nader’s candidacy may well have cost the Al Gore the election (even though it simply pointed up what a lackluster campaign he ran).
What caused the decline of the idea of voter loyalty to the party? Or, was the idea of voting the straight party ticket over blown? It seems to permeate the biographical and historical books relating to politics I’ve been reading lately. I personally dislike the idea of having to vote for a cantidate simply because he’s of a certain party. As a registered Democrat, I’ve voted for Republicans and Independents and feel no personal loyalty to the Democratic candidate just because he’s a Democrat. Is this a widespread feeling, or am I even more of an iconoclast than I thought? And if it is widespread, why has there been this change in party politics?
note I’m specifically speaking of voters registered for one party crossing over to vote for a candidate of another, not voters who change their party affiliations. I’m also excluding the “Party Splits” of the Dixiecrats in response ot the Civil Rights initiatives of the from the Fifties on through the Seventies. Their appeal was limited to a single geographic region and a single ideological (racist) foundation.
In the U.S., we have to distinguish between national and state parties. Strictly, there are not and never have been national parties here; there are coalitions of similarly-named state parties that, every four years, meet briefly in convention and choose a standardbearer as their Presidential candidate. For historical reasons, the grouping of parties on the national level wasn’t always logical (what can one say of a political party to which both George Wallace and George McGovern claimed to adhere?)
Political “reforms” and the rise of modern media (particularly, though by no means exclusively, television) have greatly weakened internal party discipline. Up to about 1975 or so, a maverick was likely to be refused renomination by his party, and electoral support if, by some fluke, he was renominated. Now, of course, with primaries, limitations on the amount of support that a party can give to a politician’s opponent or of opposition to him directly, and his ability (if he has the funds or the support to coerce or seduce the media) to directly fool…err, speak to, these disciplines are almost wholly ineffective.
With the decay of discipline also comes the fall of the “platform”. At one time, the platform was actually meaningful in predicting how a certain politician would act, as one who flagrantly ignored it would be treated as a maverick, etc. Now, of course, it barely receives lip service during the campaign, and it forgotten five minutes after the secretary of the state (or other functionary) certifies a winner in the election. The adherence to a platform mean that straight-ticket voting was much more reasonable, as it was indicative of something besides the label that a politician chose to run under.
Ironically, whilst American politics continues to dissolve into an atomistic individualism which leaves the actual voter more and more alienated, the experience of other countries begins to point away from this.
I don’t think Democrat or Republican means anything lately.
Its just a party platoform the candidates use to get themselves to the White House.
Did everyone who voted know everything their candidate stood for?
No, youre not alone, people are just tired of having to choose between two folks they don’t care for.
None of the ABove would be a good option.
In the United States, you must put all this in the context of the two party system. In a Parliamentary system, starting a small party, getting an MP elected in a particular district of like minded people, and having a small amount of power is a possible thing to do. Not so here; if you are not a member of the Republican or Democratic party, you are pretty much out in the cold, exceptions like Jesse the Body and Perot notwithstanding.
That means that loyalty to the Democrats or Republicans is very much a pragmatic thing. You play there because it is one of the only two places to play. You work within the party mechanism with like minded people to get the overall party to move your way as best you can, so that the party as a whole swings your way or the other way. This means you can get blistering primary battles between “conservative” and “country club” Republicans, and “progressive” and “moderate” Democrats. In some areas of the country a rural Democrat is much more conservative than a city elected Republican.
So “party loyalty” is a pragmatic rather than an ideological thing, and professional politicans acknowledge this fact. Barry Goldwater lost the Presidential election because the conservative wing took over the Republican party and snubbed the moderates, and the moderates took their votes elsewhere. On the other hand, Dubya won (in part) because when the conservatives put him in the catbird seat, he went out of his way to charm the moderates, uniting the party behind him.
I think historically there was a great emphasis on voting a straight party line because of patronage. If a party was strong they had more patronage to dole out to its supporters. Often times in machine politics the amount of patronage given to a particular ward was directly related to the percentage of votes a party received. So ward bosses needed a lot of people willing to vote straight party lines.
The rise of the influence of television made the roles of the parties different and such tactics are now mostly confined to big cities.