Yes, it’s actually simple mathematics. Political beliefs fall pretty much on a bell curve, centered about “the center” (d’ho-- maybe that’s why it called the center!). If you shift your politics a bit towards the center, you pick up a lot of votes. If you shift it towards the ends, you lose many more votes than you gain.
If you look at each party speperately, they have bell curves slightly off center (of the overall population). So, in the primaries you’re courting your own folks (Dems zig left, Pubs zig right), but in the general election your courting almost everyone (dozie doe, candidates, Dems zag right and Pubs zag left).
Clearly it’s true that most people are in the center. The problem is that I feel that lately the Democrats have alienated a lot of their support on the left, causing them to vote for a third party or stay home. Meanwhile, I feel they’re fighting with Republicans not just for centrist votes, but for Republican votes - at the expense of people who could be reliably Democrat. I think there’s a diminishing returns issue at work.
John is right. It’s been well-accepted for quite a long time that a chief executive (of any democracy) will be forced toward the center by simple political reality once he gets the power and the responsibility that go with it. It’s also well-accepted that a candidate has to run to the center of whatever electorate he’s facing. For US primaries, that means catering to one’s party’s activist base, the ones who vote, but not so strongly as to interfere with running to the overall national center in the general election. Primary voters tend to realize that when picking candidates for “electability”, too. “Big tent” and “compassionate conservatism” are representative spin words in that context.
But let’s give credit to anyone who learns US Politics 101.
You could be right. It’s a calculation they have to make: Can we keep the guys on the far left w/o losing the guys in the center. Clinton seemed to be able to do that pretty well. Is that what he call “triangulation”? But it’s obviously a very tricky game to play.
In abstract terms, it means making the federal government responsible for making everything come out right. In practical terms, it means giving Democratic core constituencies(blacks, gays, feminists, unions) anything they ask for.
Think of it as electing Robin Hood as Sheriff of Nottingham.
No, John, that’s not at all true. The American people do not cluster in the center of a political “bell curve.” They are distributed around the map in clusters of roughly equal size.
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has developed a typology (http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=98) which divides the American body politic into the following ten groups (they revise and refine the model every election cycle or two, but the model retains its basic outlines):
STAUNCH CONSERVATIVES: 10% of adult population, 12% of registered voters. 72% Republican; 24% independent, lean Republican. Pro-business, pro-military, pro-life, anti-gay and anti-social welfare with a strong faith in America. Anti-environmental. Self-defined patriot. Distrustful of government. Little concern for the poor. Unsupportive of the women’s movement. Predominately white (95%), male (65%) and older. Married (70%). Extremely satisfied financially (47% make at least $50,000). Almost two-thirds (63%) are white Protestant.
MODERATE REPUBLICANS: 11% of general population, 12% of registered voters. 76% Republican; 22% independent, lean Republican. Pro-business, pro-military, but also pro-government. Strong environmentalists. Highly religious. Self-defined patriots. Little compassion for poor. More satisfied than Staunch Conservatives with state of the union. White, relatively well educated and very satisfied financially. Largest percent of Catholics across all groups.
POPULIST REPUBLICANS: 9% of general population, 10% of registered voters. 72% Republican, 25% independent, lean Republican. Religious, xenophobic and pro-life. Negative attitudes toward gays and elected officials. Sympathetic toward the poor. Most think corporations have too much power and money. Tend to favor environmental protection. Almost two-thirds are dissatisfied with the state of the nation. Heavily female (60%) and less educated. Fully 42% are white evangelical Protestants.
NEW PROSPERITY INDEPENDENTS: 10% of general population, 11% of registered voters. 69% independent, 21% Republican, 5% Democrat. Pro-business, pro-environment and many are pro-choice. Sympathetic toward immigrants, but not as understanding toward black Americans and the poor. Somewhat critical of government. Tolerant on social issues. Well educated (38% have a college degree), affluent (almost one-fourth earn at least $75,000) and young (70% less than age 50). Slightly more men than women (55% to 45%, respectively). Less religious (only 13% go to church weekly).
DISAFFECTEDS: 9% of general population, 10% of registered voters. 73% independent, 8% Democrat, 6% Republican. Distrustful of government, politicians, and business corporations. Favor third major political party. Also, anti-immigrant and intolerant of homosexuality. Very unsatisfied financially. Less educated (only 8% have a college degree) and lower-income (73% make less than $50,000). More than one-quarter (28%) describe themselves as poor. Half are between the ages of 30-49. Second only to Partisan Poor in number of single moms. One-fifth (20%) work in manufacturing.
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS: 9% of general population, 10% of registered voters. 56% Democrat; 41% independent, lean Democrat. Pro-choice and support civil rights, gay rights, and the environment. Critical of big business. Very low expression of religious faith. Most sympathetic of any group to the poor, African-Americans and immigrants. Highly supportive of the women’s movement. Most highly educated group (50% have a college degree). Least religious of all typology groups. One-third never married.
SOCIALLY CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATS: 13% of general population, 14% of registered voters. 70% Democrat; 27% independent, lean Democrat. Pro-U.S., yet disenchanted with the government. Intolerant on social issues. Positive attitude toward military. Think big business has too much power and money. Highly religious. Not affluent but satisfied financially. Slightly less educated, older group (27% are women over age 50). Labor union supporters. Higher than average number (62%) are married.
NEW DEMOCRATS: 9% of general population, 10% of registered voters. 75% Democrat; 21% independent, lean Democrat. Favorable view of government. Pro-business, yet think government regulation is necessary. Concerned about environmental issues and think government should take strong measures in this area. Accepting of gays. Somewhat less sympathetic toward the poor, black Americans and immigrants than Liberal Democrats. Many are reasonably well educated and fall into the middle-income bracket. Nearly six-in-ten (58%) are women and 21% are black. Numerous are self-described union supporters.
PARTISAN POOR: 9% of general population, 11% of registered voters. 85% Democrat; 12% independent, lean Democrat. Xenophobic and anti-big business. Disenchanted with government. Think the government should do even more to help the poor. Very religious. Support civil rights and the women’s movement. Have very low incomes (40% make under $20,000), and two-thirds (66%) are female. Nearly four-in-ten are African-American and 14% are Hispanic. Not very well educated. Pro-labor union. Largest group of single mothers.
BYSTANDERS: 11% of general population, 0% of registered voters. 54% independent, 25% Democrat, 10% Republican. These Americans choose not to participate in politics, or are not eligible to do so (noncitizens). Somewhat sympathetic toward poor. Uninterested in what goes on in politics. Rarely vote. Young (49% under 30), less educated and not very religious. Work in manufacturing, construction and restaurant/retail industries.
Now, which of the above types would be power based for the Green Party? None of the groups would be entirely Green. The Liberal Democrats probably provide the bulk of Green voters. The rest probably come from the Partisan Poor, the Disaffecteds, and the New Democrats – but small minorities of each group. That’s why the Greens are not a major party.
The “center-seeking” nature of American politics is a result of our first-past-the-post, single-member-district electoral system for Congress and state legislatures. This system is naturally bipolar. That is, in elections it grants victory to the two strongest parties and marginalizes the rest. Each party becomes a “big tent” of several very different factions in an uneasy alliance, because none of those factions sees any realistic hope of going it alone. E.g., the African-Americans mostly vote Democrat, because why would they vote Republican? The religious conservatives stick with the Republican Party because they have significant influence in it – even if they’re mostly working-class people and not entirely comfortable with the plutocrats who are actually running the party. The result is that each party has its outer flanks pretty much sewn up, most of the time (the Green insurgency in 2000 was an exception), and the only turf left for them to fight over is the center. That is – most seats in Congress are “safe seats” for one party or the other. There are a few “swing” districts, which could go either way, depending on how the few voters at the center of the spectrum within that district decide to vote on election day. Those few centrist voters in those few swing districts are the only Americans who have a real, effective vote in congressional elections; the rest of us might as well have stayed home, for all the difference we make. And that situation artificially inflates the importance of the political center.
The Green Party stands for shifting over to a proportional, or “full,” representation system. So do the Libertarians, the America Firsters, and several other minor parties – for obvious reasons. Moving to PR would be the only way those parties could get a foot in the door. Moving to PR would also cause our major two parties to break up, along their natural fault lines, into several medium-sized parties. Now that would really be interesting!
You can set up the categories to get any distribution you want. I don’t doubt the categories that you list, and in a different, porportional representative system they might actually matter. But the two-party system pretty much forces a simple linear left/right categorization of most issues.
If we’re talking about the next presidential election, the Bell Curve analysis works well. If you get your proportional voting system put in place some day, a more complex analysis would be necessary.
In my personal opinion, it’s probably time to give Nader a break (run him too often, and the Green Party runs the risk of becoming the Nader Party), and Kucinich is impractical, because he already has the Natural Law nomination, and most states ban cross-filing.
How about former Congressman Dan Hamburg for President, and Maine State Representative John Eder for Vice-President? They have the advantage of the fact that they’ve both been elected to public office (in Eder’s case, as a Green).
I like not having proportional rep, in the long run it makes the parties adapt more to what people want, rather than people having to sort themselves into groups based on ideology.
Im not so sure of the ‘center’ thing, I think thats an illusion brought about by the false perception of the two parties being polar opposites; Id more call it ‘individualist’. I think most americans fall into that category more consitantly than either of the parties.
The Repubs in general tap into, indeed really only exist because of, their individualist approach to economics, while they abandon it when it comes to behavior; the Dems in general tap into the individualist approach when it comes to behavior, yet abandon it when it comes to economics. Both parties abandon individualism when it gets in the way of their pet ideoligies.
I think many if not most americans are just more consistant in the application of their principles of individualism than the two parties are, hence the illusion of a ‘center’. But a center would only exist if the two parties were diametrically opposed to one another, like poles of a magnet; they really arent. They both agree its perfectly Ok to inflict their morality on everyone else, and they agree that we should decide between the two as to which one we want inflicted. When we elect a repub pres and a dem congress, this throws pundits for loops, and they strain their poor brains trying to figure out what americans want, when its right in front of their faces.
Its not a matter of americans being in the center, its a matter of americans being consistant and the two parties’ core being inconsistant, so we are left with the necessity of having to play the two off of each other in order to gain any kind of consistancy. Hence our love of an admin dominated by one party and a congress dominated by another, which is far more the rule than the exception.
What you are criticizing is a policy statement I got from Kucinich’s campaign website. It is as specific as is appopriate for that forum. I suggest you look at the other Democratic candidates’ websites, and see if they offer better figures for any of their platform planks.
Posted by Voodoochile:
You are missing the point, Voodoochile. The American people are already sorted into multiple groups based on ideology, but they are not offered a broad enough range of political parties to really express the range of beliefs among the people.
But I don’t want this thread hijacked into a PR debate, we’ve had several GD threads about that already. I only brought it up to debunk John Mace’s assumption that the American electorate is “center-seeking” and even clusters in a centered bell curve.
Getting back on topic: Governor Quinn, could you tell us more about former Congressman Dan Hamburg? Why would he be a good Green nominee for president?
You didn’t dubunk the idea that the American electorate clusters around the center. You just showed that someone can devise a list of categories into which people are more or less equally distributed.
I don’t have a cite for this (will try to find one if I have time tomorrow), but do you honestly believe that if a random sample of people were asked to classify themselves thusly:
Extremely Liberal
Liberal
Moderately Liberal
Middle of the Road
Moderately Conservative
Conservative
Extremely Conservative
that you wouldn’t get a pretty good approximation of a Gaussian Distribution?
Hamburg served in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 1995, and, in 1998, was the Green Party candidate for Governor of California.
As for that all-important question of “Why Him?”: I have a personal belief that, if the Green Party wants to win more votes, that it should have someone with experience running for office running for President.
Well, of course you would – that’s just the psychological tendency of people when asked a question like that. Who wants to think of themselves as a crazy-wild extremist? Very few. Much more comforting to believe that, no matter what your views are, there are vast masses out there who think the same way only much more so.
But the Pew Center study didn’t ask people to place themselves somewhere on a conceptual spectrum; it asked them to answer specific questions on their opinions on particular issues, and then it used the answers to sort them into categories. Much more scientific, no? (Insofar as polysci and demographic studies can be classified as sciences.) The methodology is discussed in detail at http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=83.
Posted by Governor Quinn:
What about Peter Camejo, then? He ran for governor of California as a Green just this month. He should have slightly higher name recognition. And he ran for president as a Socialist in 1976. But I’m not sure he would be eligible for the presidency. His campaign website (http://www.votecamejo.org/meetpeter/) describes him as a “first-generation Venezuelan-American” – does that mean he was born in Venezuela, or just that his parents were?
I think the Green Party has a long way to go before they need to start even worrying about whether their candidate is consitutionally eligible to serve.
As for “grabbing the middle”- it’s a fine practice, and very often followed to success, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only way. If the U.S. had mandatory voting or regular 90+% turnout, it would probably be the only way to win. But that’s not the case- even in Presidential elections, there’s around 50-60% turnout.
At that level of turnout, it becomes possible to win election not through moderating one’s voice and grabbing at independents, but in keep a solid left/right course. If you can energize your own base and cause a much higher turnout of the faithful, your support among moderates may not matter. I’d point out that Al Gore didn’t start doing well in the general campaign until he began pushing a more liberal agenda. And I’d like to hear how Reagan moved towards the middle in the '80 or '84 elections.
I’m not saying that this means a Dean/Kucinich ticket has a snowball’s chance in hell- Bush has very strong support among conservatives, and even if the Democratic candidate gets Nader to shake his hand and smile (which, as far as I can tell, would cause Nader’s face to shatter into millions of jagged fragments), there’s little chance of turning out the left vote in numbers much higher than the right will vote this time 'round.
ElvisL1ves says:
Really? First I’ve ever heard of it. In fact, I’ve tended to see the exact opposite in American history- people coming into office having moderated their tone for the campaign and then reverting to old positions once elected. FDR was a vapid smile and a mouth full of platitudes until he was actually elected; then he started talking in detail about the radical agenda he wanted to move forward with. Eisenhower was likely a non-entity speaking in vague terms until elected and then filled his cabinet with serious hard-liners like Dulles. Kennedy campaigned as a moderate and fiscally responsible leader and didn’t begin making great social strides (civil rights, Peace Corps, NASA, etc.) until after his election. Wilson, FDR, and Johnson were all ‘peace’ candidates who later pushed the country into war.
Sure, Nixon moderated the hell out of his views, but that’s one guy out of twelve. Who else would you claim moved towards the center and how?
Clinton, ran as a leftist and governed as a mod-con (“tax and spend” my butt). Bush 2, ran as an isolationist and has been an internationalist (of a sort). Bush 1, ran as “I want to be the education president” and did nothing about it. Reagan, ran as a budget-balancer but tripled the national debt instead.
And those are just a few 20th-century US leaders. Add to them all the successful revolutionaries who found they had to leave things pretty much alone or else fail - any one who inspired the peasants with visions of redistributing land and found they had to backtrack.
Now, wait a second. Clinton never ran as a leftist in '92; he ran as far away from that label as possible, promoting his fiscal conservatism, support of NAFTA, and his unwillingness to bend to ‘special interests’ (the Sister Souljah matter). He governed as a moderate with a veer to the left, but Clinton was never a very big liberal.
Bush 2 may have moderated his isolationism, but how much is that outweighed by his unwavering conservatism on everything else, from ANWAR to social policy to Kyoto et. al.? Maybe he moderated on a few issues, but he turned into a hard-liner on nearly everything else.
And your reference to Bush 1 supports my whole argument. He moved to the center by promising to invest more in education- a standard Democratic plank- and then in governance did absolutely nothing.
And for Reagan- how is running up deficits “moderating one’s position”? If anything, he refused to retreat from his very conservative positions of cutting taxes while increasing defense spending.
Now, when you talk about revolutions, that’s something else. But in actual elections, the winning candidate usually portrays himself as moderate but then governs as whatever he was before he started moderating his views.
Everything’s relative, John. Clinton positioned himself as a sensible, not too leftish leftist, but a populist leftist nonetheless. Bush 2 may not be a good example to discuss, having actually lost to another candidate who positioned himself the same way, but he’s still been forced to confront the reality of the center after an unusually-wide and unrestrained excursion (see below). Bush 1’s claim to caring about education was hardly in the center for his time and party. Reagan, I should have been clearer about, yes - he ran and won as a radical budget-slasher, which was not a centrist position, but grew the government at about the same rate as his predecessors anyway as reality set in.
Re the way a president governs, you also have to look at party control vis-a-vis Congress. When they’re split, as has been the usual case over the last half-century or more, the results have been moderate. Single-party control, especially combined with the more-malignant strain of partisanism that sees the minority party as the enemy, reduces those constraints. Yet, even with that situation, Bush hasn’t gotten everything a “compassionate conservative” would like, has he?
I now a great deal about politics. I know that ideologues are fascists, even if they claim to despise fascism. I know that people who follow political dogmas like they were religion are likewise fascists, all of one mind with Pol Pot. I’ve seen it happen over and over, again and again.
Political ideologues do not care what damage they cause. They do not care how impractical nor how insane their ideologies are. They see the world through narrow little filters and categories that keep them from realizing that things to not fall into the pigeonholes they so love.
But anyone who has some systematic view of political matters and places a high priority on it is an ideologue, Dogface. William Buckley is an ideologue. George Will is an ideologue. Bill O’Reilly is an ideologue. Pat Buchanan is a great big ideologue. Rush Limbaugh . . . is merely a great big jackass.