ElectionDissection.com

Does President Obama Have A "Cushion" In 2012???

2012-01-26T13:02:00.000-05:00

As we get more and more polling data about how President Obama stacks up against his potential Republican rivals, it's important to remember that in many ways the national percentages are irrelevant. Presidential contests are really state by state races. The ultimate goal is to compile the 270 electoral votes necessary to win. Because of the vast differences across states and regions--something that this site aspires to capture--neither Obama or Romney/Gingrich will have the same level of support everywhere.

Thus, as we begin to look to November, it's useful to look back at recent elections, especially 2008, and see how the candidates varied across the states. This will give us the opportunity to see how likely it is that either candidate will be able to bring new states into their coalition.

Another way to state this is: how much ground must the Republican nominee make up based upon what happened in 2008? How much of a "cushion" does Obama have? Does he have any realistic opportunity to build upon his 2008 margin?

To help answer this, I decided to look at how many states were actually closely decided in 2008. These would be the main targets for both candidates, especially the Republican nominee who needs to improve dramatically on John McCain's 173 electoral votes. I produced the following table that lists each state based upon the winning candidate's margin of victory.

What we see is that, beyond the 7% national spread between Obama and McCain, the state by state results are even more impressive for the Presdident. If we use a spread of 5% as an arbitrary definition of a "close" outcome, we see (highlighted in yellow) that only six states were decided by such a margin in 2008. Of these, Barack Obama won 4 (NC, FL, IN, OH) while McCain won 2 (MO, MT). If we wanted to be a bit more generous in our definition of "close" to include states decided by 10% or less, we get an additional nine states, 4 won by Obama (VA, CO, IA, NH) and 5 won by McCain (GA, SD, AZ, ND, SC).

In the final column of the table, I've listed the number of electoral votes that will be awarded by these states in 2012. Here is where we can get a real sense of the magnitude of the task for the Republican nominee. If we assume that states in 2012 will vote roughly as they did four years ago, the GOP nominee must win every state they won in 2008, plus North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, AND Iowa in order to caputre the White House.

When we look at previous presidential elections, we see that there were many more "close" states than we saw in 2008. For example, in 2004 we saw twelve states decided by 5% or less and twenty one with a 10% or less margin:

In 2000 there was a similar bunching of states, also with twelve decided by 5% or less. Twenty two had a 10% or less margin:

When we look at the data on a state by state basis, the magnitude of each party's win over these past three cycles becomes magnified. This is especially true, it seems, for 2008. While Obama's 52.9% of the popular vote was the highest of any Democratic nominee since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, it is also true that he managed to win a lot of states by a large margin. One might miss this if they were concerned only with the national numbers.

Is There An Enthusiasm Gap Among Republicans???

2012-01-20T12:24:00.000-05:00

Things have been dark here for many months. Now that the campaign is heating up, I'm going to try getting some things up on a more regular basis. I've got a couple of posts in the works but let's start with a short little data exploration.

With two Republican votes already in the books and another taking place in South Carolina this weekend, one question that has gotten a bit of attention is whether Republican voters are enthusiastic about their choices, especially now that the field is winnowing. For any party hoping to win the presidency--or any other election for that matter--turning out your voters is of primary importance. The assumption going into 2012 for Republicans was that given the degree of opposition on the right to the Obama presidency, and coming on the tails of their success in the 2010 midterms, there would be tremendous energy and activism mobilized to propel whoever won the nomination into the White House.

While we've only had a few contests so far, there is reason to wonder whether this assumption is in fact true.

If we look at the results from New Hampshire, a total of 248,447 votes were cast in the Republican primary across all candidates, more than in any recent Granite State GOP primary. When compared to 2008, this year's vote was an increase of 3.6%.

To get a sense of whether this increase is significant or tells us anything about the state of the GOP electorate, though, we need some baseline of comparison. I decided to look at recent New Hampshire primaries in which one party was trying to take over the White House from the other--a scenario that would seem to be ripe for increased turnout and mobilization. When we look at these contests, 2012 doesn't stack up well.

For example, in 2008 the Democrats saw a 31% increase in turnout over 2004 (287,556 vs. 219,787 votes). Also on the Democratic side--and also a successful party flip of the White House--1992 saw the Democrats increase their turnout by an even more impressive 36% over 1988 (167,664 vs. 122,912 votes). Looking at Republicans, in 2000 the GOP turnout was 16% higher than it was in 1996 (238,206 vs. 205,856 votes).

Unlike in later contests where the eventual nominee becomes established and most candidates have dropped out, New Hampshire primaries have full fields and permissive voting procedures--it is an "open" primary. Thus, we would expect the voting there to be a relatively good barometer of the party's enthusiasm. If the turnout results in New Hampshire continue into the later contests, there's reason for GOP leaders--and the eventual nominee--to worry about the fall.

Once Upon a Time There Was Such a Thing as a Liberal Republican

2011-08-09T09:08:00.000-05:00

Apologies for the absence of posting over the past few months. Summers are always more busy than I think they'll be. Plus, the toxicity of the recent debt ceiling debate hasn't put me much in the mood for writing. Today, though, is a big day with the Wisconsin State Senate recalls so I'll try to get some posting up tonight as the results come in. Democrats need to capture three seats to gain the majority. The most likely gains, in my estimation and in order, would be Kapanke, Hopper, and Darling.

Before we get to that tonight, though, yesterday brought news of the passing of former Oregon governor and senator Mark Hatfield (see obits and rememberances here, here, and here). Hatfield, who retired from the Senate after 30 years of service in 1996, was someone who would, unfortunately, be completely unrecognizable in today's Congress. Today we find ourselves in an era when every Republican Senator ranks ideologically to the right of every Democratic Senator. Hatfield was interesting in that although he was a "liberal Republican," his positions didn't necessarily fall in line with what we've come to understand that label to mean. Yes, he was more socially liberal, but he was also staunchly pro-life. Heavily steeped in his Baptist upbringing, his pro-life stance though (counter to what we see today) extended to opposition to the death penalty--an issue he grappled with as Oregon's governor--and most importantly the use of the U.S. military. Serving in the Navy during WWII, Hatfield saw first hand the devastation of Hiroshima. Upon election to the Senate he became an outspoken critic of the war in Vietnam and throughout his career was a reliable vote against authorizing the use of force, including the Persian Gulf War.

Hatfield's tenure in Congress is also of note in that he embodied the old style independent committee chairman. He was the top Republican on the powerful Appropriations Committee, both during the Republican majorities of 1981-1987 and 1995-6. Staunchly protective of his prerogatives as chief appropriator, he famously defended his turf against an intra-party uprising brought about by his refusal to support a Balanced Budget Amendment. It was his vote that sent the measure down to defeat.

While it's easy to become overly nostalgic when thinking about politicians and Congresses long gone, there can be little doubt that our political system would be better off if there were more people like Senator Hatfield still around.

What Does the Death of a Reclusive 104 Year Old Copper Heiress Have to Do With U.S. Senate Elections???

2011-05-27T05:45:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while you come across a truly wild and fascinating story that seems to defy belief. Even better, sometimes these tales have embedded within them some obscure bit of political trivia. The death of 104 year old Huguette Clark, a long reclusive heir to a massive copper and timber fortune, is filled with the stuff of legend. As the coverage has discussed, Clark's assets were not only massive, but largely unused. Last photographed in 1930 (!!!) Clark had lived the last several decades of her life secluded in a variety of New York City hospitals, reportedly surrounded only by her doll collection. With no direct heirs and few, if any it seems, personal friends or confidants there is very little information about her that might shed light onto her strangely interesting life.

So why am I writing about this? Well, it turns out that Clark is a direct link to the politics of a bygone American era. I've always found the Gilded Age to be probably the most interesting period of our political history. While the post Civil War period is not known for its stellar presidents (although I do admire Grant), the times saw the massive growth of American industry and the rise of such titans as Rockefeller, Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and the like. The politics that developed around and in reaction to this transformation of America was raw, crass, and rough and tumble. The country was moving westward at a fast clip with a population boom to match. Industrialization, urbanization, and immigration fueled the birth of modern America...and a lot of people got rich. The consequences of this unbridled expansion led to a number of policies and movements that are still with us to this day--think Progressivism, the birth of the regulatory state, etc.

This is where Clark comes in. Her father, Willam A. Clark, was an industrial heavyweight on par with the greats of his time. Making his fortune in the copper mines and timber fields of the American west, Clark used his millions to try and build political influence and gain elective office. He bought newspapers and banking interests to further promote his interests. He was instrumental in the development of Montana and was also an early booster in Nevada. Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas, is named after him.

It was his blatant attempts to parlay his fortune into a Senate seat from Montana that brought him some degree of notoriety. Remember that until the passage of the 17th Amendment, senators were chosen by state legislatures, not direct election. The backroom dealings that could lead to such appointments invited all types of corrupt behavior. Clark's original campaign for the Senate was derailed in 1899 when it was revealed that he engaged in blatant bribery of the legislature. Nonetheless, he succeeded in capturing the seat two years later and served a single term from 1901 to 1907. With the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913, such decisions were finally put in the hands of voters. For those who fret about the corrupting role of money in our politics and elections, it's useful to remember just how much better the current system is than the one that preceded it.

It's not often that we get to establish a direct linkage with such distant eras of our society and politics. While Clark herself didn't directly allow for this, her death does send us back to the time of robber barons and their Gilded Age fortunes. As her father was quoted as saying, "I never bought a man who wasn't for sale."

Wisconsin State Supreme Court Election

2011-04-06T18:08:00.001-05:00

See my analysis over at the Washington Examiner.

April 4, 1968

2011-04-04T12:18:00.000-05:00

The Dramatic Diversification of America: Census 2010

2011-04-01T13:12:00.002-05:00

Up until this point I've been reporting on the release of Census data in a piecemeal way. In fact, it's actually quite overwhelming to try and keep up with each new batch of numbers. The directions that one could take their analysis is unending. Nonetheless, a new story by Ronald Brownstein over at National Journal does an excellent job of putting into context just what the Census is now telling us about America.

The take away...the pace of diversification in the U.S. over the past decade has been staggering. This will have consequences not just for how we view ourselves, but for our politics as well. Consider some of the following:

The minority share of the population increased in every state between 2000 and 2010
The percentage of non-Hispanic whites is 5.4% less than it was in 2000
Minorities now make up 46.5% of the under 18 population (up from 39.1% in 2000)
Four states are now majority minority--Hawaii, New Mexico, California, and Texas. In eight other states, minorities comprise between 40 and 50% of the population

This growth has been overwhelmingly driven by Hispanics. As Brownsein writes:

On the national level, Latinos now represent one in six Americans, or nearly 50.5 million in all. That's up from one in eight, about 35.3 million, in 2000. The Hispanic share of the population increased over the past decade in every state, with dramatic gains recorded not only in Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas but also in Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, and Rhode Island. Latinos accounted for a majority of the population growth in 18 states, at least 40 percent of the growth in seven more, and at least 30 percent in five others. In sum, Hispanics fueled about a third or more of the population growth in 30 states.

So what does this mean electorally??? The premise of this site from its beginning was that demography matters...a lot. While I never want to discount other factors that shape elections--candidate quality, campaign organization, rhetorical skill, underlying fundamentals like the state of the economy, money, etc.--the driving set of variables for me has always been those that describe who the voters are. Furthermore, we know that so much of our demographic profile is wrapped up in a historical and cultural narrative as well--look no further than our history with race in this country. Thus, if you tell me who the voters are and where they are I'm pretty confident that I can tell you what they're going to do.

Which gets us to the second part of Brownstein's article. Given what we know about how the minority vote has broken down over recent cycles, these numbers are very good news for the Democrats not only in the short term but especially long term. Republican success in 2010 was built upon 1) decreased turnout among minority and new voters and 2) overwhelming support from whites. In 2008, Barack Obama received 43% of the white vote yet won the largest share of the popular vote of any Democrat since LBJ. National Journal ran a series of scenarios based on a further erosion of white support for Obama in 2012 and found, nonetheless, little reason to bet against him. Consider:

Obama, for instance, won Florida last time with 42 percent of the white vote; under this scenario, if he maintains his minority support he could win the Sunshine State with just under 40 percent of the white vote. With equal minority support in Nevada, the president could win with only 35 percent of the white vote, down from the 45 percent he garnered in 2008. Likewise, under these conditions, Obama could take Virginia with just 33.5 percent of whites, well down from the 39 percent he captured last time. In New Jersey, his winning number amon whites would fall to just over 41 percent (compaerd with the 52 percent he won in 2008). In Pennsylvania, under these circumstances, 41% of white votes would be enough to put the state in Obama's column, down from the 48% he won in 2008.

All of this takes place even though minority turnout, especially among Hispanics, lags behind that of whites (African American turnout was up substantially in 2008). If, going forward, mobilization and turnout among Latinos were to approach that seen among African Americans, the situation for Republicans would get even more dire. If I were going into politics today as a young progressive and wanted to find a niche for myself that guaranteed I'd have meaningful work for the rest of my career, I'd focus on Latino mobilization and turnout.

This all assumes, of course, that minorities' allegiances stay firmly in the Democratic camp. For the party's sake, one would hope that Republicans would figure out a strategy to cope with these numbers. Watching the current crop of GOP presidential candidates as well as those on Capitol Hill, it's clear that they haven't figured this out yet. Pointing to Marco Rubio as a reason to believe you can win Hispanics is not a strategy. Party allegiances and loyalties are formed over time and require an understanding of why voters evaluate the parties the way they do. For Latino and African American voters, the Democrats have had this understanding--and a willingness to seek it--for much longer. These new numbers seem to suggest that they are in position to reap the benefits for years to come.

Remembering "The Day The New Deal Began"

2011-03-24T11:07:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow marks the 100th anniversary of an event which did much to shape the direction of American politics throughout the 20th century. On March 25, 1911, the fire at New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory claimed the lives of 146 individuals, mostly young women. Though an accident, the fire did much to jump start reforms related to workplace safety, child labor, and wages. One can view the list of the victims, plus short snippets about them, here.

Two years ago I did a post on probably the best history of the fire, David Von Drehle’s “Triangle.” In it, I noted how Von Drehle weaves together a number of strains of our political history around the event and shows how the fire served as a lens through which we can view such stories as those of women’s suffrage, the labor movement, urbanization, immigration, and the evolution of the modern Democratic Party.

This week the New York Times has been running a number of excellent stories about the fire and its legacy. All are well worth reading to get a sense of just how important an event this was to our history. Also, there are a few films that have been made recently worth checking out. PBS’s American Experience has their film on the fire available to view here. HBO also has a documentary that will begin airing this weekend. Both have websites with additional resources. Finally, the Center for American Progress will be hosting an event tomorrow with several commentators discussing the legacy of the fire.

On the day of the fire Frances Perkins, then the head of the New York Consumers League, was in her office just blocks away across Washington Park. A witness to the day’s horrific events, she became one of the most forceful activists pushing for the reforms that ultimately came out of city and state government. A loyal supporter of Franklin Roosevelt, she became Secretary of Labor during his first term and as such was the first woman named to a Cabinet position. Thus, she and FDR were in position to further their progressive reforms and embed them in federal policy. Reflecting on the fire many years later, she called March 25, 1911 “the day the New Deal began.”

With a lot of attention being paid to labor unions in recent weeks, it’s important to have a broad historical perspective about their development and role in our society and politics. Events like the Triangle Fire show us not only how the labor movement has contributed to the creation of many policies that we today take for granted; it also reminds us that for many Americans, like the women who died that day, they offered a voice, an entrance into political life, and a path out of poverty.

**For a list of events happening in commemoration of the anniversary, see here.

How Much Trouble are Democrats In If They're Losing the Most and Least White States???

2011-03-18T11:08:00.001-05:00

Here’s an interesting finding from Lee Drutman at the Progressive Policy Institute regarding the decline in Democratic identification across the country. Testing a number of potential variables, the one with the strongest, statistically significant correlation is the percentage of the state’s population that is white. Thus, the more white a state is, the greater the decline in Democratic affiliation among its voters.

Back during the 2008 electoral season, I wrote a fair bit about Thomas Schaller’s “Whistling Past Dixie” which counseled Democratic candidates to essentially write off the possibility of winning Deep South states. Despite the fact that these states have the highest concentration of African American voters—the most solid part of the Democratic coalition—they have become the hardest states for Democrats to win. The reason, according to Schaller, is that the long history of racial polarization and antagonism in these states have produced a reaction among white voters:

The central irony of southern politics is that the nation’s most Republican region is home to half of all African Americans, the Democratic party’s most loyal voters. Unfortunately, racial antagonisms exacerbate the Democrats’ electoral problems in the South, creating a white countermobilization—a “backlash” so to speak—that fuels Republican victories. In the 2000 and 2004 elections, many of George W. Bush’s biggest wins came in southern states with the highest share of African Americans, and some Democratic congressional candidates are capturing as little as 30 percent of the white vote in the south.

Schaller’s book was written before the 2008 election and much of the analysis I did of President Obama’s victory confirmed his underlying thesis. For example, in a statistic that never fails to amaze me, John Kerry received a higher share of the white vote in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi than Barack Obama did.

Drutman doesn’t attempt to offer an explanation as to white might be driving the current trend of declining Democratic affiliation. He’s simply pointing out the correlation. It may, in fact, be a normal correction from the abnormally high gains made by Democrats in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles. For example, some of these homogenous states such as New Hampshire and other parts of New England have been home to a traditional Yankee Republicanism. The current emphasis on economic and fiscal issues re-enforces that tradition.

Nonetheless, these numbers should be worrisome to Democrats going into 2012 and are worth watching as we move closer to the election.

Another Time the State Capitol Was Overtaken

2011-03-15T16:10:00.000-05:00

I’ve been writing a lot over at the Washington Examiner about the events in Wisconsin, trying to add a bit of context to what has transpired. To continue with the historical discussion, I thought I’d say a few words about another time when the state capitol in Madison was overtaken by protesters.

Late last year I came across a book that I had long hoped someone would write. "The Selma of the North" by Patrick D. Jones tells the story of the civil rights movement in Milwaukee. One of the shortcomings of a lot of the civil rights history (thankfully being rectified in recent years) is that it has focused almost all of its attention on the south. Whereas the movement in the south was directed largely on the issues of voting rights, public accommodations, and other basic constitutional protections, the focus in the north was on a wholly different set of problems. With voting rights not in dispute, the problems confronted in the north were in many ways more intractable and divisive—and in reality still with us to this day. The major conflicts were around school integration (with busing being an especially contentious component) and housing.

Jones centers his narrative around the figure of Fr. James Groppi. A charismatic priest in Milwaukee who was radicalized by his experiences in an inner city Milwaukee parish and by his participation in the protests in the south, Groppi was an immensely polarizing figure in 1960’s Milwaukee. He became a leader of Milwaukee’s NAACP Youth Core and helped channel the movement’s energies around issues of education and open housing in Milwaukee. A great on-line resource about Milwaukee’s civil rights protests can be found at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Library’s website.

To appreciate the complexity and intensity of the protests around housing, one needs to wrestle with the reality of how many northern cities evolved in the early and mid part of the 20th century. As the two Great Migrations saw the African American populations of cities like Milwaukee explode (it grew 700% between 1945 and 1970) the white populations of these cities resisted the need to accommodate the newcomers in anything other than the already existing, overcrowded urban core. For perhaps the best examination of this tension, check out Beryl Satter’s "Family Properties" that explores how Chicago wrestled with housing at the same time Groppi was agitating up the interstate in Milwaukee. To this day, Milwaukee and Chicago remain two of the most segregated cities in America.

In 1969, toward the end of his work in Milwaukee and as his militancy increased, Groppi turned his attention to the issue of welfare. In response to proposed cuts in the state budget (sound familiar???) aimed at poor women and children, Groppi led a march of welfare recipients from Milwaukee to Madison. There, they took over the chambers of the State Assembly for eleven hours before they were ejected and Groppi was arrested. While the protests gained the support of many in the anti-war community in Madison, its numbers where nowhere near what we’ve seen over the past month. Nonetheless, I was reminded of the Groppi marches when watching and reading the coverage of the current protests.

As a final note, it’s important to remember that the Civil Rights movement in the north, including the Milwaukee protests, drove a wedge between what was at that point two pillars of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition—African Americans and white, urban ethnics (many of whom belonged to unions). George Wallace, for example, received 31% of the vote in Milwaukee during his quixotic quest for the Democratic nomination in 1964. He famously kick started his Wisconsin campaign at Serb Hall, the hub of the white urban ethic community on Milwaukee’s South Side. As I wrote a few weeks back in discussing the plight of “Reagan Democrats,” the issue of race was one that led many of these voters to gravitate to the Republicans. While union voters have been coming back to the Democrats—and may now be in the midst of a sprint back to the left— what remains to be seen is whether a strong bond can be forged between these two oftentimes estranged voting blocs.

A Couple of Quick Notes of Demographic Interest

2011-03-09T12:27:00.000-05:00

Two quick things of note based on recently released Census data:

Out of California, more evidence of the surge in the Latino population. Now, more than half of the children in Califronia are Latinos. Among all age groups, Latinos are now virtually on par with whites. They represent 38% and 40% of the population respectively.

The political implications of this are obvious. As the story notes, California was one state that withstood the gains made by Republicans across all other parts of the country. While redistricting plays a part of this as well--California has perhaps the most gerrymandered congressional districts in the country--the importance of the Latino vote to Democrats will only grow. While Latino turnout still lags considerably behind that of other groups, the sheer surge in the population is good news for Democrats, not just in California, moving forward.

The second story worth mentioning deals with a topic I've written about here before--namely the Great Migration. Census data from Chicago shows, interestingly, that the African American population in the city actually declined between 2000 and 2010. What seems to be happening is a larger pattern of the "Great Migration in Reverse." Discussed in this earlier study by Brookings Institution demographer William Frey, recent years have seen large numbers of African Americans migrate from northern industrial cities like Chicago to southern metropolises like Atlanta, Charlotte, and Houston. The proportion of the African American population now living in the south is the highest it's been since 1960.

Unions and the Democratic Vote

2011-03-03T13:09:00.001-05:00

First off, some housekeeping. The posting here has been extremely light as of late. The reason for this is that I've recently joined the ranks at the Washington Examiner's Opinion Zone blog. Thus, much of what has been running through my head has been appearing over there. I'm going to work hard to keep posting over here as well.

The big story of the past few weeks has been the debate about the role of unions, specificially public sector unions, in our political system. As numerous states, most notably Wisconsin, try to fix budget deficits, public sector unions have been called upon to increase their contributions to health care, pension, and other benefit packages. While Wisconsin unions have agreed to these concessions, legislation that would take away their collective bargaining rights have set off a firestorm, resulting in large scale protests and a crippled state government.

In the commentary surrounding this, the role of unions more broadly in our politics has gotten quite a bit of attention. I've written about this here and here. To summarize, unions have been a key component of the Democratic Party's electoral coalition even as their membership has been declining and has been becoming more public than private sector oriented. To get a sense of this, I thought I'd run an experiment whereby I rank states according to their level of unionization and see if there is a rough correlation with their statewide vote in presidential contests. Thanks to the good folks over at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one can get this data quite easily.

I've put together the following chart which looks at the past five presidential elections. For each year I've ranked the 50 states plus DC according to the percentage of the population that belongs to a union--represented in the second column for each year. I've then color coded the state for how it voted.

One thing to note is that while there is some variation as to the relative rankings of the states as to their level of unionization, by and large the state orderings remain constant. High unionization states include New York, Hawaii, Michigan, Alaska, Washington, and California while low unionization states include the states of the deep south. As you can clearly see, highly unionized states have tended to vote Democratic (and vice versa for low unionization states). This obviously isn't a huge surprise but it is nice to be able to view the data this way. Consider that in 2008, Barack Obama won 23 of the 27 most unionized states in the country. He also, interestingly, won 2 of the 4 least unionized.

As I was creating this chart, the Clinton elections of 1992 and 1996 jumped out as having seemingly less of a correlation between state unionization and the vote. Clearly there was some regional appeal taking place with his wins in Georgia, Louisiana, and Arkansas (wins that no subsequent Democratic nominee has been able to replicate). However, at the top of the scale, Clinton did just as well as Obama. Thus, equating national or statewide electoral outcomes simply with union presence is a mistake. There are a variety of other variables at play--a point made the other day by Nate Silver in an excellent post on the subject. Especially when we have elections that verge on entering "landslide" territory, isolating one variable and assigning causality is likely to steer us in the wrong direction.

Nonetheless, it shouldn't surprise us that the proposals unleashed over the past weeks by Republican governors across the midwest--where presidential elections are ultimately decided--have set off the reaction they have. Unions clearly see these bills not just as part of a debate about fiscal policy, but as a more fundamental attack on their role in society and politics.

Sargent Shriver R.I.P.

2011-01-19T13:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday brought the sad news of the passing of R. Sargent Shriver (more remembrances here and here). Best known for his work in the creation and leading of the Peace Corps, his direction of LBJ's War on Poverty, and for his tireless work for Special Olympics, Shriver also played a crucial role in several elections, both as a candidate and a confidante. I'm going to devote a couple posts to Shriver, someone who I was vervy fortunate to meet while in college and who was inspirational to me in a lot of ways.

The first electoral episode that I want to explore relates to Shriver's role in the 1960 Kennedy campaign. As brother in law to then candidate Kennedy, Shriver played an active role in many aspects of the campaign--delegate courting, position development, and especially working the important Illinois operation given Shriver's close ties to Chicago as head of the Merchandise Mart and positions on numerous boards and community organizations. Most importantly, Shriver was the head of the campaign's Civil Rights section. One thing that I think a lot of people take for granted is up until this point the African American vote was not as monolithically Democratic as it is today, nor was it as important to candidates' electoral college math. Prior to FDR's ability to pull black voters into the New Deal Coalition, African Americans--dating back to Lincoln and Reconstruction--had strong GOP sympathies. Furthermore, prior to the Great Migrations around World War I and II, the blacks (with few if any voting rights) tended to be heavily concentrated in the already solid Democratic deep south. Thus, by the time of the 1960 election, Democratic candidates were becoming increasingly aware of the importance of the growing northern black vote, especially in close elections. The peril of courting this vote however, was that it endangered upsetting southern whites whose votes were also crucial to victory.

Here is where Shriver played a crucial role in Kennedy's election. In Theodore White's magisterial "The Making of the President 1960," he recounts Kennedy's deft decision, orchestrated by Shriver, to swing large numbers of black voters to the Kennedy ticket, thus helping ensure his narrow victory. I'll quote at length:

The most interesting and precise of the decisions of this period, however, was one made by the candidate himself--particularly as it contrasted with the simultaneous Nixon decision on the same problem. This concerned the Martin Luther King affair--an episode that tangled conscience with the most delicate balancing of the Northern Negro--Southern white vote.

Martin Luther King is one of the genuine heroes of the tumultuous Negro struglle for authentic equality in American life; a luminous man, he speaks responsibly for the best there is in his community. On Wednesday, October 19th--at about the same time of the day that John Kennedy and Richard Nixon were addressing the American Legion in Miami on the national defense--Martin Luther King was arrested with fifty-two other Negroes in Rich's Department Store in Atlanta for refusing to leave a table in its Magnolia Room restaurant. On the following Monday, all other "sit-ins" arrested in this episode were released; King alone was held in jail and, worse, sentenced on a technicality to four months' hard labor and thereupon whisked away secretly to the State Penitentiary. This was no ordinary arrest--no Negro in America has more deservedly earned greater warmth and adoration from his fellow Negroes, North or South, than Martin Luther King; but no Negro menaces the traditional prerogatives of Southern whites more importantly. It was not beyond possibility that he would never emerge alive from Reidsville State Prison, deep in "cracker" country, where he had been taken; nor did anyone believe more in the prospect of his lynching than his wife, then six months pregnant...The American Negro community girded; so did Southern whites; during the previous few weeks, even before the arrest, no less than three Southern governors had informed Kennedy headquarters directly that if he intruded in Southern affairs to support or endorse Martin Luther King, then the South could be given up as lost to the Democratic ticket. Now Kennedy must choose. This was a crisis.

The crisis was instantly recognized by all concerned with the Kennedy campaign. On the night of Tuesday, October 25th, the suggestion for meeting it was born to one of those remarkably competent young men that the Kennedy organization had brought into politics to direct the Civil Rights Section of their campaign, a Notre Dame law professor named Harris Wofford. Wofford's idea was as simple as it was human--that the candidate telephone directly to Mrs. King in Georgia to express his concern. Desperately Wofford tried to reach his own chief, Sargent Shriver, head of the Civil Rights Section of the Kennedy campaign, so that Shriver might break through to the candidate while barnstorming somewhere in the Middle West. Early Wednesday morning, Wofford was able to locate Shriver, the gentlest and warmest of the Kennedy clan (he had married Eunice Kennedy, the candidate's favorite sister) in Chicago--and Shriver enthusiastically agreed. Moving fast, Shriver reached the candidate at O'Hare Inn at Chicago's International Airport as the latter was preparing to leave for a day of barnstorming in Michigan.

The candidate's reaction to Wofford's suggestion of participation was impulsive, direct and immediate. From his room at the Inn, without consulting anyone, he placed a long distance telephone call to Mrs. Martin Luther King, assured her of his interest and concern for her suffering and, if necessary, his intervention.

Mrs. King, elated yet still upset, informed a few of her closest friends. Through channels of Negro leadership, the word swiftly spread from Atlanta, and thus to the press, that Kennedy had intervened to protect the imprisoned Negro leader. And Bobby Kennedy, informed in the course of the day of the command decision, proceeded even further and the next morning telephoned a plea for King's release from New York to the Georgian judge who had set the sentence; on Thursday King was released from Reidsville prison on bail, pending appeal--safe and sound.

The entire episode received only casual notice from the generality of American citizens in the heat of the last three weeks of the Presidential campaign. But in the Negro community the Kennedy intervention rang like a carillon. The father of Martin Luther King, a Baptist minister himself, who had come out for Nixon a few weeks earlier on religious grounds, now switched. "Because this man," said the Reverend Mr. King, Senior, "was willing to wipe the tears from my daughter-in-law's eyes, I've got a suitcase of votes, and I'm going to take them to Mr. Kennedy and dump them in his lap." Across the country scores of Negro leaders, deeply Protestant but even more deeply impressed by Kennedy's action, followed suit. And where command decision had been made, the Kennedy decision could follow through. Under Wofford's direction a million pamphlets describing the episode were printed across the country, half a million in Chicago alone, whence they were shipped by Greyhound bus. On the Sunday before election, these pamphlets were distributed outside Negro churches across the country. One cannot identify in the narrowness of American voting of 1960 any one particular episode or decision as being more important than any other in the final tallies: yet when one reflects that Illinois was carried by only 9,000 votes and that 250,000 Negroes are estimated to have voted for Kennedy; that Michigan was carried by 67,000 votes and that an estimated 250,000 Negroes voted for Kennedy; that South Carolina was carried by 10,000 votes and that an estimated 40,000 Negroes there voted for Kennedy, the candidate's instictive decision must be ranked among the most crucial of the last few weeks.

Next time...Shriver is tapped, belatedly, as George McGovern's running mate in 1972.

The Census Speaks

2010-12-21T13:55:00.000-05:00

Well, now we know which states are going to win and lose (and by how much) in the upcoming apportionment and redistricting of House seats. With the numbers released today, speculation is already beginning on how these numbers will play out both locally and nationally. The following map gives a picture of how 12 seats will shift across the country:

Texas comes out, clearly, as the big winner with a gain of 4 House seats (followed by Florida with a pickup of 2) while New York and Ohio emerge as the big losers with a contraction of 2 seats each.

For most, these results aren't surprising. The population shifts from the industrial north and midwest to the southwest and southeast have been going on for decades--and have been affecting our politics for decades as well. Nonetheless, the quick analysis that many commentators are providing suggests a boon to Republicans. For example, of the 8 states gaining seats, 5 voted for John McCain in 2008 while of the 10 states losing seats, 8 voted for President Obama. Further boosting Republicans is the fact that Republicans will control the redistricting process in most of these states--both gaining and losing seats--putting them in position to further pad their House majority.

A big wildcard in thus, however, is the fact that much of this growth, especially in Texas and Florida, was due to the growth of the Latino population. In Texas alone, Latinos accounted for 70% of the state's population growth. Latinos now make up 37% of the Texas population (although only 25% of the electorate). The fundamental question, for both parties, going forward is how they will appeal to this growing Latino vote. Should Democrats succeed in further cementing their support in this community, they can mitigate some of the consequences of these broader population shifts to traditionally red states.

New Census Data, Mapping, and the Coming Redistricting

2010-12-15T10:39:00.000-05:00

In the last day or so we've started to see the release of a trove of new Census data. What we're getting now are results from the American Community Survey which tracks demographic changes over the 2005 to 2009 period. The New York Times has an incredible interactive tool that allows you to pull up maps based on zip code and census tract--allowing you to search by race, income, and a few other variables.

When one maps by race, the prevalence of segregation inevitably, and necessarily, comes up. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported on some of the work done at the Brookings Institution with this new data. Interestingly, what the data shows is that residential segregation has actually been on the decline, with differing degrees of white/black and white/Hispanic segregation. Despite a general positive trend toward desegregation, many metropolitan areas remain highly segregated. Not surprisingly these areas tend to be concentrated in northern, rust belt states. I've talked about this phenomenon a lot on this site so I can't say I was too shocked by the findings. Milwaukee, as it has in many similar studies, sits at the top of the list. Today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covers this story from the local perspective (If you want to get really depressed, read the comments section after the story).

Beyond the correlations between race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and voting behavior, this data is important in that it begins to set the context in which the next round of reapportionment and redistricting will take place. As constituencies get created for local, state, and national offices, politicians oftentimes use deliberate strategies to encompass certain populations within district lines. At the congressional level, the 1965 Voting Rights Act mandates that race be taken into account in certain circumstances. Thus, pay attention to how this type of information is used as each state begins this oftentimes highly contentious process in the next few years. The largest and most comprehensive national portrait, of course, will be provided by the 2010 Census. The first batch of that data will be released next week so I'll probably have more to say then.

Returning to Slave Maps

2010-12-10T15:34:00.002-05:00

Today's NYT--as part of its series remembering the 150th anniversary of the onset of the Civil War--has a short piece on this map, used before on this site.

Be sure to follow the links that zoom in on the map and provide further explanation of the numbers and how their variance from state to state and county to county affected how secession was viewed across the south.

Stephen Solarz--Redistricting, Congressional Reform, and Foreign Policy Activism

2010-11-30T13:36:00.000-05:00

Yesterday saw the passing of former New York Democratic Congressman Stephen Solarz. As his obituary notes, there is much to mention upon his death and much that is of interest to us here. For example, Solarz came to Congress as a member of the famed "Class of '74." In the aftermath of Watergate, Democrats scored huge gains in the 1974 midterms, picking up 48 House and 4 Senate seats. As we continue to digest this year's midterms, it's always useful to go back and look at other elections that saw huge turnover. With every wave comes a crop of new members seeking to make their mark--usually sooner rather than later.

This "Class of '74" was important institutionally as well. As I always discuss in my class on the US Congress, the early '70's were a period of dramatic transition for the Congress. With large numbers of ambitious new members--like Solarz--the era of the "Old Bulls" came to an end. Strict seniority rules for choosing committee chairmanships were abolished, the subcommittee structure was expanded, and the number of party leadership positions grew. Thus, power in Congress became much more decentralized, all to the advantage of this new crop of members. This decentralization happened in tandem with attempts by Congress, systemically, to realign the balance of power between itself and the President.

Solarz was extremely aggressive in using his new seat, within this changing congressional context, to assert himself in the making of American foreign policy. For each of the past 12 years I've taught a course on the role of Congress in American foreign policy. The underlying theme for the course is that Congress--its members, structures, etc.--is for numerous reasons temperamentally uncomfortable as an active participant in foreign policy, despite its constitutional prerogatives. Most members have little incentive, preparation, or expertise for this work. Solarz was very much the exception to this from the onset of his career. By the time he left Congress he was one of a small handful of members, especially in the House, who were not only involved in foreign policy but could point to tangible results of their work.

Finally, we should note that the end of his career, although no doubt affected by his role in the infamous House bank scandal, was more than anything brought about by the rough and tumble process of redistricting. With the boroughs of New York being an ethnic mosaic unlike any other in our country, gotham districts have often been carved to create distinct constituencies with a specific ethnic flavor. Consider this description of Solarz's 13th District, from the 1976 Almanac of American Politics:

The 13th congressional district of New York, in south central Brooklyn, might be called the Ocean Parkway district: it takes in terrain from both sides of that thoroughfare as it makes its way from Prospect Park to Coney Island. There is a large Italian American community in Bensonhurst, most of which was removed from the district by the 1974 redistricting; still the 13th, according at least to the census figures, is one of the most heavily Italian American districts in the nation. But most of the neighborhoods here, from Midwood in the north, through the streets lined with low rise apartments along the Parkway, to Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island in the south, are heavily Jewish. With Flatbush, most of which is in the 16th district, the 13th is the heart of Jewish Brooklyn. Though no reliable data exist, the 13th is probably the nation's most heavily Jewish district, and most likely the 13th and the 16th are the only Jewish majority districts in the nation. It is, of course, overwhelmingly Democratic by tradition.

By the 1990's, however, efforts were underway to use the redistricting process to increase minority representation. With states like New York losing House seats in reapportionment, districts were often combined and lines radically redrawn, upsetting the ethnic balance that was in place. Thus, Solarz was forced to run for re-nomination in 1992 in the newly drawn 12th district. CQ's Politics in America from the time describes the result:

One certainty of New York's redistricting for the 1990s was that a second Hispanic-majority district would be created. As a result of an ongoing influx that began just after World War II, Hispanic population had grown by 1990 to nearly a quarter of the city's total. Yet only the South Bronx House district had sent a Hispanic to Congress.

Drawing a new Hispanic majority district, however, was no easy matter. Unlike blacks, who often live in geographic concentrations, Hispanic immigrants settled in disparate low and middle income communities across the city's five boroughs. Mapmakers had to go block-by-block to build a district that could reasonably assure a Hispanic's election. The result was the 12th, one of the most unusually shaped House districts in the nation's history. It follows a widely meandering path through parts of three New York City boroughs: Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.

In the resulting six way Democratic primary Solarz was defeated by Nydia Velazquez, an activist in the New York Puerto Rican community. She holds the seat to this day, having risen to the chairmanship of the House Committee on Small Business. The district was quite radically redrawn again after the 2000 census and now includes more western and northern neighborhoods in Brooklyn. The heart of Solarz's 13th district is now divided between the neighboring 10th and 11th.

Lots of Losses Out Yonder

2010-11-05T10:26:00.000-05:00

During my election night posting, I mused about the end of the southern rural Democrat. It turns out that not only were the ranks of southern rural Democrats decimated, but that rural Democrats nationwide had a very, very bad night. This story by the Daily Yonder, a great site dedicated to rural politics and policy, dispels the notion that Tuesday's losses were distinctly southern in flavor. Looking at the 125 most rural districts in the country, we see how badly Democrats fared. Check out the map above to get a visual sense of what happened.

More Midterm Musings

2010-11-04T14:15:00.001-05:00

Some more quick hits as we start to get some real data:

The best predictor of whether a Democratic incumbent would lose? The underlying partisanship of their district. Seems obvious, right? In all the post mortems, John Sides at TheMonkeyCage reminds us that fundamentals matter. Swing districts are the most likely candidates to flip. Because swing districts are found across the country Tuesday's GOP gains, as I noted yesterday, were not concentrated in any one region.

On the turnout front, there are some indications that the Latino vote mattered quite a bit, especially out west. The Democrats can perhaps thank Latino voters for keeping their Senate majority. As the GOP wave swept westward, it lost momentum by the time it hit Colorado, Nevada, and California--three states with large Latino populations. Nate Silver picks up on this from a polling perspective, showing how the polling in the states with the largest Latino populations tended to be the most off in terms of predicting winners. A few weeks back I attended a forum at the Center for American Progress on the Latino vote. I was going to do a post on it, but the event turned out to be kind of a dud. Some interesting takeaways though was a discussion on the difference between primarily English or Spanish speaking Latinos. Estimates are that about 40% of the Latino population is primarily Spanish speaking and that these voters tend to be more strongly Democratic than English speaking Latinos.

On the redistricting front, two states approved provisions to eliminate the gerrymandering of districts and take the process out of the hands of state legislators. Moving in the direction of a state like Iowa, California and Florida will seek a redistricting process based solely on population numbers and geographical contiguity. California and Florida are two of the most gerrymandered states in the country.

I'm going to have more to say about Wisconsin as we move forward, but suffice it to say, the results were staggering when compared to 2008. Whereas President Obama outperformed his national average in the Badger State during the presidential race, Tuesday so a massive reversal of Wisconsin's recent voting trends. Going into Tuesday, Wisconsin had 2 Democratic Senators, a 5/3 advantage for Dems. in the House delegation, a Democratic governor, and Democratic majorities in both houses of the State Legislature. After Tuesday: Split Senate delegation, 5/3 Republican advantage in the House delegation, a Republican governor, and Republican majorities in both state houses. An absolute wipeout. This article in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel gives an excellent rundown of what happened at the top of the ballot, including an emphasis on turnout. While turnout was high overall and constant in the big Democratic counties of Milwaukee and Dane, it surged in the suburbs surrounding Milwaukee (Ozaukee, Waukesha, and Washington), propelling Ron Johnson and Scott Walker to victory. Not only that, but as the below maps show, their vote totals, down to the county level were virtually identical.

Starting To Dig Into The Results

2010-11-03T15:28:00.001-05:00

You already know what happened. Some first thoughts as we start to dig in.

Here's the list of House and Senate seats that changed hands, including defeated incumbents. What's striking is how broad the geography of these losses were for the Democrats. Republicans gained seats in 33 states across the country. This was not an election that was regionalized although some stretches of land were a killing field for the Democrats--namely Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Essentially if I were to drive from my house to visit my parents, I'd traverse the land that gave the Republicans their majority. I-70 stretches across this part of the country. This sets up the battleground for Obama's re-election. Expect him to spend a lot of time here over the next 2 years. Not surprisingly, the Rust Belt has hemorrhaged jobs over the last decade with many parts having higher than the national average in unemployment.

The second source of Democratic losses, including some from the above states, was among the Blue Dog Coalition which essentially saw its ranks cut in half. These conservative, often rural and southern, Democrats were no match for yesterday's wave. Despite the fact that many voted against health care reform, cap and trade, and other parts of the Democratic agenda, they lost in droves. The result of this is the creation of a smaller, yet more liberal, Democratic caucus. Progressives have always criticized Blue Dogs as being Democrat-lite and impediments to more liberal policy. Nonetheless, without them you don't have a majority.

Seniority wasn't insulation to defeat. Normally the most difficult campaign that a member of Congress will have will be his earliest ones. In the first few terms members are still learning the job, learning their district, and are thus susceptible to being knocked off. They haven't built up a record and reputation to deter serious challengers. Yesterday's losses were across the seniority spectrum. 26 of the incumbents knocked off were in either their first or second term--products of the 2006 and 2008 Democratic waves. At the same time, 3 committee chairmen (Oberstar, Spratt, and Skelton) were also knocked off as were 14 term Rich Boucher (VA), 13 term Paul Kanjorski (PA), and 10 term Gene Taylor (MS) and Chet Edwards (TX).

Aside from these numbers and trends, another subject that has been discussed in the commentary today relates to the upcoming re-districting process. With the census concluded, state legislatures will undertake the process of redrawing House district lines to correspond with population growth and shifts. Results in governor's and statehouse races will obviously affect how this process proceeds on a state by state basis. Something that I haven't heard discussed however, is how redistricting will have an immediate effect on the members elected for the first time last night.

All of the incoming freshmen members (with the exception of those from one district states) were elected from a constituency that is going to change over the next year. Rather than have time to learn the contours of their district and develop the representative skills to maintain their seat, they have to assume that the people who just elected them are not necessarily going to be there to vote for them in 2012--many of them will be pushed into neighboring districts while others from surrounding areas are added. This has to be unsettling to these members, especially those elected by small margins. Furthermore, a number of states where Republicans made gains--Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York--are slated to lose seats in the reapportionment process. Depending on how these states redistrict, GOP gains could be wiped out not by the 2012 elections but by the hand of mapmakers. This is a dynamic that I would pay a lot of attention to over the next year or so.

That's it for now. More to come.

Midterm Live Blogging

2010-11-02T19:24:00.033-05:00

Here we go. I'm doing my monitoring strictly on-line. I can't stand tv coverage so for my sanity's sake--and for you, my fair readers--we're going to do this without having to cut through the yammering of Chris Mathews and other "experts."

8:23: So far, things not looking good for Democrats in Virginia. Pereillo going down, which was expected. The bigger story is Rich Boucher down in coal country. Boucher had always been able to not only hold this corner of the state, but do so quite handily. Apparently that's over, which is a shame as I always found him to be a pretty serious, policy oriented member. Gerry Connolly also in trouble in northern VA. Along with Nye down in Hampton Roads area, Dems could lose 4.

8:34: Connecticut Senate called for Blumenthal. Republican hopes for the Senate take a hit. Not unexpected but R's are going to need to run the table.

8:37: Manchin win called in WV. That should pretty much end the R's Senate dream. Only question seems to be whether Reid will be around to lead or if Schumer/Durbin battle looms.

8:45: Wisconsin getting ready to close in 15 minutes. Polling shows bad night for Dems on the horizon. Keep an eye out for 7th. Obey open seat the most competitive. Feingold not in good shape for Senate seat.

8:49: Boyd down big in FL-2. Blue dogs are having their ranks decimated. New Congress is going to be much more partisan as the remaining moderates are purged.

8:52: Giannoulias looking good in IL w/12% in. As with all IL races it will be the magnitude of Chicago turnout that determines the outcome here. Does the machine still live???

8:55: Marcy Kaptur has a good night in what could be an ugly night for OH Dems. Electoral Politics Rule 1: Don't dress like a Nazi.

9:05: Networks calling it for a Republican House majority.

9:20: Indiana's "The Bloody 9th" flips again. Baron Hill out. One of the most competitive districts in the country cycle after cycle.

9:29: New Hampshire goes back to its Republican roots? Both House seats flip plus R's hold Senate. Yet...Dems hold Governorship.

9:31: Just in case anyone was unclear about First Amendment, Oklahoma has voted to ban Sharia law. Good God.

9:36: Dems. Kanjorski and Carney in big trouble in NE Pennsylvania.

9:41: Rahall holds on in WV. Wonder how much Manchin momentum helped him. Very ugly race as Lebanese American Rahall tarred with "Arab" tag. Glad this kind of crap wasn't rewarded, at least here.

9:44: Lincoln Davis seems done in TN. Another Blue Dog. How many rural southern Dems left??? Chet Edwards also out in TX.

For Dems out there, might I recommend Clynelish 14 y.o. Single Malt Scotch? Quite nice as I'm enjoying it now.

10:03: For the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans hold the North Carolina legislature. Gotta get my Eric Foner out to get the history.

10:11: Dems. Marshall and Bishop going down in Georgia. The south is becoming essentially Republican unless you've got a sizable black population in your district. Shuler hangs on in NC but he's very much the exception.

10:25: Wisconsin in for big changes. Looks like two House seats flip (7 and 8). Scott Walker elected Governor. Obama got 56% in WI, one of his most impressive performances for a swing state. WI unemployment not as bad as other Rust Belt states.

10:32: If anyone would have told you, 2 years ago, that West Virginia would be a bright spot for Democrats in the future, you'd have thought they were certifiable. 2010 is the bizarro 2008.

10:42: Russ Feingold defeated in Wisconsin. Never won by a lot but was reliable. Can't wait to see turnout data. Low turnout in Dane and Milwaukee??? The Progressive tradition in WI really took a hit tonight. With Feingold loss and Obey retirement, few remnants left.

10:48: South Texas has 4 Latino Dem. House members. After tonight only 2 may be left. Ortiz out, Rodriguez trailing badly.

10:54: Only about 10-15% in for most races, but things looking really weird in upstate NY. GOP renaissance where they previously only held 1 seat??? Numbers may not hold but interesting nonetheless, especially as GOP did well elsewhere in NE, especially NH.

11:07: How could so many PA Dem Incumbents lose but there still be a close Senate race? Normally, I don't think campaigns matter much compared to underlying fundamentals but Sestak seems to be proving that wrong.

11:12: $160 million isn't quite enough to win CA Gov's race. Moonbeam back.

11:18: Gene Taylor looks done in MS gulf district. Longtime Blue Dog. Well tanned, great hair, Catholic. Fixture at Capitol Hill haunts Tune Inn and Hawk n Dove. Better settle up on your tab.

11:25: Old Bulls and Dem Committee Chairs Spratt (SC) and Skelton (MO) go down. Two more rural Dems hit the canvas.

11:35: Wave doesn't seem to crest over Mississippi River in Iowa. 3 Dem. House incumbents holding on. Minnesota also holding solid for Dems, plus Gov. pickup. Wisconsin really looking like an outlier now in my mind.

11:39: Scott Brown doesn't improve Massachusetts GOP chances. House delegation stays 10-0 Dem. with win in Delahunt open seat. Deval Patrick re-elected Gov.

11:50: Grandpa voted, junior didn't. Exit polls show a huge shift in turnout based on age compared to 2008.

12:07: No longer the one. John Hall, former lead singer of Orleans, out in NY. Those early NY numbers coming to bear.

12:17: First African American GOP congressman elected since J.C. Watts. Tim Scott wins easily in SC. With Susanna Martinez elected as first ever Hispanic female Governor (NM), is this the most diverse GOP since Reconstruction???

12:28: Reid seems to have it well in hand in NV. Murray hanging on in WA. All things considered, Dems seemed to do better out west. Not sure what this means yet.

I'm going to sign off for tonight. There's a lot to digest and sort through. I may hold off tomorrow to allow me to put something together that isn't stream of consciousness. There will be enough commentary out there to hold you over.

What Will Happen Today

2010-11-02T10:47:00.000-05:00

In short, I have no idea.

All media accounts and polling suggest that the Democrats are going to get massacred today. That may well be. One of the things that I pride myself, and this blog on, is that I don't make predictions. No better way to look foolish that to make predictions about politics. Rather, I try to rely on the fundamentals. Given my training as a political scientist, there are certain fundamentals when it comes to congressional elections. Namely:

Midterms are bad for the incumbent President's party.
Incumbent members of Congress are overwhelmingly re-elected
Turnout is lower in midterms and favors the out-party, which tends to be more energized
Minority party gains tend to be concentrated in open seat contests

Three of those four suggest Republican gains. The wildcard is #2. All indications--although largely anecdotal to this point--are that this is a bad, bad year for incumbents. The comparison being most often made is to the 1994 Republican landslide. In that election, 35 Democratic House incumbents lost. If the Republicans repeat that performance--they need 39 House seats to gain the majority--they will have a big night, given that they are expected to win a slew of open seats in the south.

Beyond these, however, there is another "fundamental" that will probably play the greatest role tonight, although it won't get discussed nearly as much as it should: 10%. The unemployment rate. In all of the commentary on why Republicans will do well, few people--especially Republican flaks--will admit that in many ways their success will be due to factors completely beyond their control. Sophisticated campaign operations, money, targeted GOTV, etc. are in the end ancillary.

I'll be blogging throughout the night as results come in.

ElectionDissection.com Book Club: Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait In Letters Of An American Visionary

2010-10-15T19:48:00.002-05:00

Last week saw the release of a trove of letters spanning the career of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Moynihan had arguably one of the most interesting and broad careers of any modern politician. Assistant to four presidents (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford), ambassador (India and United Nations), and four term Senator, Moynihan's peripatetic life of politician/public intellectual is virtually inconceivable now. Though clearly a liberal (he called himself a Kennedy Liberal), Moynihan was known for--and often criticized by the left for--his contrarian-ness. Just as much a critic of liberalism as a champion of it, Moynihan's intellect, curiosity, and skepticism made him more of a thinker than a true legislator. Thus, while he did not produce a policy legacy akin to that of contemporaries like Ted Kennedy or Bob Dole, he added something distinctive to the Senate, something that I would argue is sorely lacking today.

Moynihan's greatest impact, probably, came in the realm of urban and social policy during the 1960s. Some of this work has contributed to how we look at electoral politics. Specifically, Moynihan, along with his longtime collaborator Nathan Glazer, were pioneers in the study of ethnicity. Their seminal work, "Beyond the Melting Pot", explores how different groups--the Irish, Italians, Jews, etc.--competed for and rose to power in New York. Not simply a study of voting and party formation, "Beyond the Melting Pot" is a larger sociology of these groups with a focus on how they assimilated (or have yet to assimilate) into the broader culture. It was Moynihan's attempt to explain the plight of the African American community at the time that is one of the most oft cited aspects of his work, even now several years after his passing. While serving in the Johnson Administration, he authored what has come to be known as the "Moynihan Report." "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action" was an attempt to frame how the government should proceed with social policy aimed at impoverished African Americans. Focusing on the historical factors that, he believed, led to a decline in the stability of black families, Moynihan's analysis can be read as a warning shot to liberal policymakers who believe that the right program can solve complicated, entrenched, and long standing problems. In the aftermath of the study's release, Moynihan was vilified by many on the left for, at best, "blaming the victim" or being a high brow racist. A reading of the report (which many of its critics failed to do) doesn't really bear these critiques out. What it shows, however, is how social science and politics oftentimes create a very explosive mixture. Given the social upheaval of the period and the hegemonic Great Society liberalism of the Johnson years, Moynihan's willingness to raise tough questions from inside the tent left him scarred for quite a long time, if not the remainder of his life.

Having been stung by the reaction to the Moynihan Report, especially from so many of his friends and colleagues on the left, Moynihan spent much of the late 60's and early 70's further engaged in critiques of liberal shibboleths. The fact that he did this from within Republican administrations makes his career all the more fascinating. How one reads this part of his career--was he trying to fight the good fight for liberalism within the enemy camp or was he increasingly a traitor to his roots?--depends, I suppose, on one's willingness to give Moynihan the benefit of the doubt. He would have perhaps said that he did not so much leave the Democratic Party as much as it left him. In the field of social policy, it is quite clear that the policies Nixon supported--i.e. a guaranteed income--not only had Moynihan's fingerprints on them but would be inconceivable in a Republican administration today.

After his ambassadorial stints, Moynihan sought the Democratic Senate nomination in New York in 1976. In a heavily contested primary, Moynihan won by about 7,000 votes over his top challenger, Representative Bella Abzug--she of the fiery personality and big hats. The race also featured former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and NYC Council President Paul O'Dwyer. As an aside, I should probably devote an entire post to Abzug at some point. She features prominently in another fascinating Democratic primary of the era, the 1977 NYC mayoral contest that also featured Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch. For a great primer on that race, check out Jonathan Mahler's "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning." Anyhow, in the general election Moynihan went on to defeat Republican incumbent James Buckley (brother of William F., himself a frequent debating foil of Moynihan). Once ensconced in the Senate, Moynihan was never seriously challenged for re-election. He won 65% and 67% in 1982 and 1988 respectively. In the Republican landslide of 1994 that saw his co-Empire State Democrat Mario Cuomo dispatched from the Governor's mansion, Moynihan won quite easily with 55%.

As I mentioned above, Moynihan's legislative record doesn't seem to square with his ambitions. This retrospective on his career, published on the eve of his retirement in 2000, explores some of the reasons. I like to think that some of his failures can be attributed to his training as a social scientist. As one myself, I know that we're often better at pointing out what's wrong with a proposition than what's right with it. Every graduate student gets quite proficient at deconstructing, critiquing, and picking apart someone else's work. Thus, someone like Moynihan could quite easily look at a state of affairs--say persistent urban poverty--and quickly ascertain what has gone wrong in the past, what will probably go wrong in the future, and conclude that attempting to change it is futile (especially if the proposed change is sweeping). To many, this would make Moynihan a "conservative." The fact that he spent much of his time in the liberal wilderness kibitzing with the likes of Irving Kristol and other "neo-conservatives" perhaps gives some credence to this. That aside, this temperament also makes legislating difficult. To successfully push policy through the Senate one needs to be willing to both suspend belief about the shortcomings of one's ideas (what won't work) and also find ways to get others on board. In short, you need to be an optimist, a salesman, and a trader. Thus, Moynihan seemed destined to be the "brain" or the Senate without exercising much of the "brawn."

Having said that, one shouldn't conclude that Moynihan was a failed or unsuccessful Senator. There is a tremendous value in having someone who can provide the institution and other senators with what we might call "context." While Moynihan may have struck people as pedantic and somewhat windy, one can't deny that he brought to the debate a tremendous amount of substance. There should be a place for people like this in politics. That Moynihan was able to be both professorial and a tremendous vote getter is quite remarkable. In reflecting on his career and now diving into his until now unpublished correspondence, I can't help but lament the fact that he seems like a relic of a bygone era. Despite the fact that he's been out of office only a decade, the current political environment seems to have regressed to a point that a Daniel Patrick Moynihan would be un-electable. Our politics is worse off for that. Can you imagine twitter.com/dpmoynihan???

For some more on Moynihan, check out these interviews:

CSPAN "Life and Career of Daniel Patrick Moynihan" from 1987
Charlie Rose from 1998
Charlie Rose from 1996
Charlie Rose following Moynihan's death

A Visit To Antietam: Why the Civil War Matters

2010-10-10T17:32:00.000-05:00

Of all the topics that have been explored on this blog since its creation, the one that has received the most attention, both explicitly and implicitly, has been the role of race in our politics. No doubt the 2008 campaign made much of this discussion necessary and inevitable. However, this country’s tangled and troubled, yet sometimes hopeful history with race has fascinated me since I first became interested in politics. I’ve always felt that it has been our most important societal cleavage and, while not always the most appropriate lens through which to view our politics—there are surely others like class, region, gender, etc.—it is the one that I always seem to come back to regardless of my starting point.

When we look at our country’s historical narrative, no event has shaped our society, politics, economy, and understanding of ourselves more than the Civil War. I’d go so far as to argue that the Civil War, if it was indeed the “Second American Revolution,” serves as the point around which America’s story revolves. Those issues that couldn’t be reconciled at the founding, most notably that of slavery, but also the fundamental question of the relationship between the states and the federal government, ultimately led to the conflict. In its aftermath, we can also see how the Civil War has left a long wake. As we know, the end of slavery did not heal its wounds and solve the “race problem” in this country. In fact, it has in many ways gotten more complicated. Furthermore, we still debate the role of government in our society even as the Civil War, as the greatest period of governmental expansion in our history, seemingly propelled us toward the reality of perpetual big government. If indeed, as Faulkner tells us, “there is no past,” we are destined to reckon with the Civil War as long as we are Americans. If nations have what I would term “existential moments” in which their very identity is debated and ultimately defined, the Civil War was ours. So, if we want to understand American politics, including elections, we need to spend a lot of time thinking about that most vexing time.

As any student of the Civil War knows, there were numerous points at which the conflict could have turned. In retrospect, the outcome may seem assured given the vast resource and manpower advantage of the Union and the seeming ill-preparedness of the Confederacy for the reality of secession. Both sides enjoyed military victories and had momentum working in their favor at different points in time. Yet, both sides failed to capitalize on their successes and both struggled mightily to keep their people committed to the fight. The tragedy of the Civil War was not only that it seemed destined to occur in the first place, but that once engaged, both sides seemed destined for a war of bloody attrition that would stretch the country to its very limits. With no common ground, however small, to compromise an end around, the conclusion would have to come through exhaustion and surrender rather than negotiation.

Throughout the war there were a number of battles and events that were crucial—Bull Run, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, the Wilderness, etc. But for me, Antietam has always seemed the most pivotal and important. Prior to the battle on September 17, 1862, the Confederacy had enjoyed a string of victories. Beginning with Stonewall Jackson’s success in the Shenandoah Valley and McClellan’s decision to abandon his efforts against Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign, then followed quickly by the rout at Second Bull Run, Lee’s forces were emboldened enough to undertake their first serious incursion onto northern soil. With aims on Washington, it was hoped that this thrust would bring about European recognition of the Confederacy and an end to the conflict in the South’s favor. In pursuit, the hastily reorganized northern army, again under the command of the shortly deposed McClellan, tracked westward from Frederick Maryland, across the Catoctin Mountains. The two armies, roughly 150,000 men total, converged on the tiny hamlet of Sharpsburg Maryland. Situated between the meandering Antietam Creek to its east and the Potomac River to its rear, Sharpsburg would become the next spot of American soil upon which so much blood would be shed.

Given the run of recent events, the north needed a military victory badly. What those positioning themselves on the Maryland countryside did not know was that a much larger and profound outcome hinged on the result. For months, President Lincoln had struggled with how to address the issue of emancipation. While Lincoln had not campaigned for the presidency as an abolitionist, the rapid secession of southern states was premised on the notion that he would nonetheless proceed down that path. Without going off onto a tangent regarding Lincolns’ view of slavery and its relation to the war, by 1862 Lincoln had come to the conclusion that the issue could no longer continue to simmer on the back burner. From the beginning of the conflict Lincoln had to balance his growing desire to attack the institution with his need to keep the non-seceded slave states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri in the Union. Coupled with this was the dubiousness of whether an emancipation could even be enforced and for what ends. Despite this, by the summer Lincoln had decided to move forward with an Emancipation Proclamation--but to couch it in a way that put the burden on the seceded southern states. Should they not return to the Union after a designated period, slaves residing in such states would from that point forward be free.

Given the military doldrums of the spring and summer, however, Lincoln was in no position to issue the Proclamation. It would smack of desperation and no doubt signal the weakness of the Union. For it to have any effect, no doubt psychological more than practical, it had to be issued from a position of strength. Thus, Lincoln needed a win.

The Battle of Antietam would provide Lincoln the opportunity he so badly wanted, but at a tremendous cost. September 17, 1862 was the single bloodiest day in American history. Over 25,000 northern and southern troops were killed or wounded. The battle raged over three quite distinct locales on the field. For a comprehensive rundown of the battle, see here. Dawn saw the advance of General Joseph Hooker’s First Corps from its position on the extreme north of the field. With General Stonewall Jackson’s Confederates emerging from the West Woods, some of the war’s most brutal fighting took place in what has become known simply as “the Cornfield.” The second theater that day, further south, occurred along a Confederate entrenchment along a sunken farm road. The “Bloody Lane” saw wave upon wave of Union forces mowed down until an exhausted, disorganized, and spent Confederate line was finally breached and overtaken. Finally, on the extreme southern end of the field, the Battle of Burnside Bridge raged throughout the day. Aided by the natural fortifications provided by the rolling hills opposite Antietam Creek, a small force of Georgia troops was able to continuously repel Union General Burnside’s attempts at crossing the creek in order to unify with the other northern forces and crush Lee’s army. Although ultimately able to break across, it was too late. Lee was able to muster his army together, retreat across the Potomac, and continue to fight for 2 ½ more years.

With Lee’s thrust northward repelled, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. As a result, the war became more explicitly about ending slavery. As I wrote a few posts back, opinion within the Union ranks, and among northern voters, was decidedly mixed about waging a war on emancipationist aims. Northern Democrats campaigned throughout the war to try and end the conflict and many were keen to do so without abolishing slavery. That Lincoln was able to withstand such criticism and be overwhelmingly re-elected in 1864 signaled the desire of the country to see the war through. In fact, there is much evidence to suggest that many of those on the front lines became much more opposed to the horrors of slavery once they confronted it directly during their campaigns southward (for an excellent overview of this, see Chandra Manning's "What This Cruel War Was Over").

Next year will mark the 150th Anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. No doubt there will be much discussion about the currency of the Civil War for modern day Americans. For me, its relevance is obvious, especially if we are being honest with ourselves about the war's cause--slavery. When we think about the long arc of America’s history with race, the Battle of Antietam is one of those few events which changed the trajectory of our nation.

**Photos taken September 24, 2010.

Maptastic

2010-09-21T11:17:00.002-05:00

The last few days has brought forth some amazing maps to add to our collection here. Much better than my crudely drawn, Microsoft Paint creation from the previous post, someone who goes by stanton816 has created this precinct level map of the DC mayor's race.

Also, check out this flickr stream of city maps generated by using 2000 Census data (see radicalcartography as well). Each dot, color coded by race, represents 25 people: Red dots are for caucasian; Blue for African-American; Yellow for Latino. This mapping process was developed by cartographer Bill Rankin (see this story in Co. Design for more). Here's DC and the surrounding environs:

The Rise and Fall of Adrian Fenty: Can Washington DC Become "One City"???

2010-09-16T12:33:00.007-05:00

This is what a polarized electorate, and indeed city, looks like. Now two days out from the DC’s mayor’s race that saw once popular incumbent Adrian Fenty thrown out in favor of City Council Chair Vince Gray, the post mortems are starting to come in and explanations are starting to crystallize (full results here). The reasons being offered for the downfall of Fenty point to the variables of race, class, geography, and personality as all playing a role. The Washington Post focused on the "character" aspect yesterday. Like most elections that see numerous streams intersect to produce an outcome, there’s probably some truth to all of these. I want to try and flesh them out a bit, while also pointing something unique to DC that I think provided the underlying context for the outcome. For a less nuanced analysis, Courtland Milloy hammers at Fenty today.

When Adrian Fenty was first elected Mayor in 2006 as a young, energetic Ward 4 councilman, he promised an administration dedicated, above all else, to results driven reform (see 2006 results here). The abysmal school system would be reformed; city services would be streamlined; ossified bureaucracies would be shaken up. Whereas previous administrations (i.e. Marion Barry) were staffed through patronage, Fenty’s government would be one where technocrats were in ascendance. The personification of this shift was the new school chancellor Michelle Rhee. Given a wide mandate to institute sweeping changes, Rhee has set about a radical, and some would argue much needed, reorganization and reconceptualization of education in the nation’s capital.

Coupled with this reform mindset was Fenty’s reputation for energy and constituent service. The mayor had made his climb through retail politics. He would not be outworked and was visible and accessible. With multiple blackberries holstered to his hip, he could beckon city workers at the drop of a hat to respond to potholes, piled up garbage, or a city park in need of repair. Implicit in this was the feeling on the part of citizens that they mattered. Fenty was reaching out to them, wanting to know what they needed. Not locked up in the Wilson Building, he was a man of the streets, more comfortable shuttling around the city’s neighborhoods than behind a desk. He was a fixer, yes, but also someone who cared about and understood the community.

Four years later, Mayor Fenty is no more. What happened, I think, is that these two aims—reform and service—could not be balanced. Fenty’s personality and style, no doubt, played some role in this. As much of the coverage of his administration has attested to, his drive to change the city was most often done without the input and participation of those who would feel the brunt of his efforts. He was brash, arrogant, and short tempered, yet decisive and forward looking. As long as things got “better,” the assumption was that city would respond, despite the fact that they no longer felt courted by the Mayor. Rather than the Mayor showing up at your door, it would be the improved Washington through better schools, roads, and facilities that would greet you every day.

Unfortunately, “better” can be defined differently and here is where we start to see the polarization of the city come into view. Let’s take the issue of employment. Washington, DC has vastly different levels of unemployment depending at what part of the city one looks. Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, these levels correspond to the pattern of Tuesday’s vote. The wards with the highest unemployment in the city—8, 7, and 5—were the wards where Gray’s numbers were highest. Those with the lowest unemployment—3 and 2—saw Fenty claim 70-80% of the vote. When you aren’t worried about losing your job (Ward 3's unemployment rate is 3%) dog parks, bike lanes, and lavish parks are a nice perk. When you are struggling with 25-30% unemployment rates in your neighborhood, they’re a slap in the face, an extravagance. When the Mayor is tone deaf about this to the point of rationalizing it, people are probably going to notice. As city budgets have been trimmed in the midst of economic difficulties, those in the eastern parts of the city have come to question Fenty’s priorities and whether they are being focused on the affluent of upper Northwest at the expense of those east of the Anacostia. Rather than post-material amenities, these neighborhoods cry for job training and basic services. There is not a single functioning hospital in all of Wards 7 and 8.

In this, race obviously becomes a factor. There is an almost perfect correlation between Tuesday’s vote and the distribution of the DC population by race. While there was no formal exit polling done on Tuesday, the evidence suggests that Fenty won by a roughly 4:1 margin in the predominantly white neighborhoods while Gray won by the same margin in the predominantly black neighborhoods. It is not correct to say, however, that race was the only variable that mattered. It’s a bit more muddled, and why I think we need to look at things like unemployment and the like. Remember, just four years ago Fenty won the support of both white and black voters. He won every precinct in the city. What has happened is that not every part of the city has benefited from Fenty’s changes, at least as they perceive them. Again, what “better” or “results” mean is open to debate. What also matters is how those results are achieved.

Here is where some context matters—and this is an angle I haven’t seen explored a whole lot. One thing that is unique about Washington, DC is its governing structure and history. As the nation’s capital, Washington has only recently gotten relatively full control over its own internal affairs. It was only in 1967 that we received some measure of “home rule,” allowing us to elect our Mayor. An elected City Council did not arrive until a few years later. Prior to that, Washington was ruled by a three person, federally appointed, Board of Commissioners. Prior to Home Rule, and even since, Washington has been overseen by Congress. Every piece of legislation passed by the city government is subject to congressional veto. Thus, in recent years Washington has not only had to have its duly elected representatives’ decisions subject to the whims of the congressional membership (with DC residents becoming a partisan football), but has also found itself as the laboratory in which members can pursue their pet agendas. On issues like gun control, gay marriage, needle exchange, and school choice, Washingtonians often feel as if they aren’t really in control. The height of this came during the 1990’s when Congress instituted a control board to run all of the District’s finances.

Why this matters, I think, is that many district residents are particularly attuned to their role in governing the city. Here is where age becomes an interesting variable. Many of Fenty’s supporters are younger, new arrivals to the city. They didn’t live here prior to Home Rule or the Control Board and so they probably aren’t as sensitive to slights from City Hall. For them, “results” are more important than “process.” For those older residents who have lived in DC their whole lives, being excluded from governing is going to be reminiscent of when the city was powerless. I’ll use the example of my neighborhood here. Earlier this year I moved into Ward 5, Precinct 69. This part of Washington DC is predominantly African American, with long time, older residents making up, at least anecdotally to me, the largest part of the population. Back when the campaign was starting to heat up, Vince Gray signs sprouted up throughout the neighborhoods of Brookland, Woodridge, and Michigan Park like mushrooms. These neighborhoods aren’t poor but they aren’t the cosmopolitan, young, and thriving DuPont Circle either. While only separated about twenty minutes or so by car, Brookland and DuPont can feel like totally separate worlds. Where Fenty seems to have lost these neighborhoods, it seems to me, is that he forgot how these folks have experienced their city—and their role in it—over the years.

In no other way is this better seen than in how Fenty approached the schools. When the Mayor was given the ability to control education and subsequently appointed Michelle Rhee he made it clear that results where going to be the measure of success. If teachers needed to be fired, schools consolidated and closed, and the teacher’s union weakened, so be it. Despite the merits of doing all of these, the blunt force with which this agenda was pursued ran straight into this legacy and history of how the city used to be governed. While it may seem like dull, tedious “process” to include neighbors in these decisions (beyond town hall meetings and listening sessions), for those whose children and neighborhoods that are affected, this “process” is the most intimate involvement they will have with their city’s decision making. That it affects their kids makes it even more critical that they feel invested. In short, I get the sense that for longtime Washingtonians Michelle Rhee is merely the latest incarnation of the Board of Commissioners or the Control Board—an outsider who thinks they know what’s best for the city despite the fact that they didn’t grow up here. The fact that Rhee hasn't hesitated to talk about the national implications of her work in DC makes things worse. A parent living in a struggling neighborhood and who is worried about their son or daughter's schooling doesn't care about a grand experiment in education. They care about their kid. If you're going to dramatically change the schools, you need to have the trust of the community--parents, teachers, alumni, neighborhood leaders, etc. As Matt Yglesias argues (as does Washington City Paper's Mike Madden), Rhee and Fenty never really did the work to create that trust. Ultimately, Fenty paid the price for that failing.

Thus, I can’t say that I’m at all surprised by the outcome, its magnitude, and the geographic/racial/class/age chasm that we see. Washington, DC is certainly two, if not many, cities. Governing it is never going to be easy, especially when you’re trying to make big changes. The ultimate failing of Adrian Fenty is not that he tried to change the city and make it better, its that he didn’t figure out the right way to do it.

Quick Hits

2010-09-14T20:26:00.014-05:00

9:20 pm:

Delaware just goes to O'Donnell. Castle's 44 years of public service comes to an end. Despite Tea Party enthusiasm, this result must make Democrats ecstatic. Delaware native Dave Weigel is worth following for analysis, in Twitter short form.

Wisconsin results can be followed here.

9:50 pm:

Gotta say, Wisconsin GOP primary is a lot closer than I'd have guessed. Only 5% in, albeit, but Walker with a slim lead. Wish I knew where those results were from. This would be a pretty big upset.

10:00 pm:

Also interested in Rangel/Powell contest in NY. Harlem politics can be fascinating, especially when familial revenge is at stake. No numbers yet.

10:40 pm:

Come on DC. I'm going to be ticked if everything comes out at once. I like the suspense of results trickling in bit by bit.

10:50 pm:

A nice piece by Weigel on the now defeated Mike Castle. He's reporting that O'Donnell is toast even before the applause of tonight dies down.

Drip, Drip, Drip... DC starts coming in.

11:00 pm:

With a 14 point lead and 37% reporting, Wisconsin GOP Gov primary has been called for Scott Walker. Not a surprise there. Will set up an interesting general in that, historically, Wisconsin does not pick their governors from Milwaukee. Now they will.

11:25:

Here we go. Twitter to the rescue. Mike Debonis w/precinct results for DC in real time.

11:30 pm:

Once again, people in New York just don't like Rick Lazio.

12:00 am:

Just a hunch, but this map is probably going to be useful in understanding the Fenty/Gray numbers.

12:10 am:

Rangel wins comfortably.

12:30 am:

The numbers coming out of Ward 4 don't look good for Fenty. If he can't win his home ward, he's probably cooked.

1:15 am:

The Washington Post is reporting a Vince Gray win. The numbers aren't fully out, but unless we have a 2000-like snafu, this seems pretty definitive. Good enough for me to head to bed. Some bloggers have real jobs.

Lots of analysis to come tomorrow.

Around Town As DC Votes

2010-09-14T19:43:00.000-05:00

A couple of quick shots from around town as we wait for DC numbers to come in. John and I hit a few spots in the Brookland/Michigan Park/North Michigan Park neighborhoods of Ward 5. The Vince Gray presence was much more pronounced than that of Mayor Fenty--to be expected in this part of town but bad news nonetheless for the incumbent.

Precinct 66: Backus Middle School

Precinct 67: Bunker Hill Elementary School

Nice violin playing--patriotic music to serenade the voting.

Precinct 68: St. Francis Hall--Franciscan Monastery

Campaign volunteers were reporting relatively light turnout. With DC now having early voting, it was difficult to ascertain whether people were taking advantage of voting early, or whether enthusiasm and motivation was down. Once we start to get some numbers, we'll be better able to answer this question.

Busy Primary Day, With An Emphasis On D.C. Mayor's Race

2010-09-14T10:31:00.002-05:00

Let's get a little more current. Today wraps up the primary season leading into November's midterms, gubernatorial, and various state and local races. Seven states are up and there are a number of interesting races. The one that is getting the most ink is the Republican Senate primary in Delaware. A month ago this race was on nobody's radar. The presumptive nominee is longtime Republican vote getter Mike Castle. Castle is one of the politicians I profiled last year in my post on small state politics. A fixture in state political circles since the mid '60's Castle has served as both governor (two terms) and as the state's lone House member since 1993. Castle has fashioned himself as a prgamatic moderate, perfectly suited to a state which typically votes Democratic statewide. The state GOP establishment has been firmly behind Castle and everything pointed to an easy pick-up for Republicans of the seat vacated by now VP Joe Biden.

That, of course, was before the year of the Tea Party. Over the past several weeks, Castle has seen his sure thing become much more precarious as Christine O'Donnell, fueled by a Sarah Palin endorsement and a slew of out of state funding and manpower, has tightened the race. Like earlier contests in Utah and Alaska, which saw incumbent GOP Senators defeated, tonight's contest in the First State could provide fireworks. The winner faces Chris Coons, New Castle County Executive.

Closer to home, the big tilt today is the DC Democratic mayoral primary (Washington Post blog coverage here). Given the underlying political affiliation of DC voters, this is the whole shebang. The winner will be the mayor. Watching this race up close over the past months, this race has become fascinating. The incumbent, Adrian Fenty shot to prominence four years ago through a retail politics performance par excellance. He won every precinct in the city, casting himself as a results oriented reformer. As is so often the case with reformers, patience and prudence take a back seat to action. The flashpoint in all of this has been Fenty's efforts to reform the long moribund DC education system. Under Chancellor Michelle Rhee, Fenty has overseen a mayoral takeover of the school system and a process of school consolidation and widespread teacher firings--with test scores both improving and ebbing as a result. In a nutshell, Fenty has been highly polarizing, especially among DC's older establishment. His opponent, City Council Chair Vince Gray has campaigned on the notion of "One City." To supporters, he will bind back together what Fenty has blown up. To detractors, he will be a throwback to the dysfunction of latter day Marion Berry/Control Board DC government. The prevailing view of the underlying dynamics of this race suggests that race and age are the faultlines upon which the election will be decided. Fenty has tended to draw his support from white, more educated, and younger voters whereas Grey is seen as strongest among African American and, especially, older voters.

John has been doing yeoman's work looking at this race from the ground level--see here, here, and here. We're both going to try and get out today to capture some of what's going on at various polling places. I'm also going to post as results start coming in later tonight.

Also of note today is the GOP gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin. Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is taking on former 1st District Congressman and one time Senate candidate Mark Neumann. The winner will take on Milwaukee Mayor and former 5th District Congressman Tom Barrett in the general.

UPDATE: As the results start coming in tonight, we're going to get very focused on the micro level for the DC mayor's race. Here's a DC ward and precinct map so you can play along at home. If the race shakes out as predicted, expect to see Gray do extremely well in Wards 5, 7 (his home), and 8. Fenty can be expected to do well in Wards 2 and 3. His home Ward 4 could be the real bellwether. Wards 1 and 6 should be relatively competitive too I would think.

John and I are going to hit some of the precincts in Ward 5 to get some local flavor. Hopefully we'll have some pictures to go along with the numbers. This should be Gray territory big time.

The 1864 Wisconsin Vote: Where the Copperheads Were

2010-08-16T16:59:00.001-05:00

Some more Civil War musings. Over the last few weeks I've been trying to unearth some of the data behind the Civil War era elections. Like the last post that looked at the secession vote in Virginia, county level data is the holy grail, yet oftentimes elusive. As has been the case so often, my native state of Wisconsin has been exceptional in its record keeping. Any Badger State political junkie is well familiar with the bi-annual Blue Book, which acts as a sort of mega almanac of Wisconsin government, economics, history, and the like. It also provides detailed election returns. Thus, I was ecstatic to find an on-line version of every Blue Book going back to when it was simply called the "Legislative Manual of the State of Wisconsin."

For the 1864 election, the report election returns down to, where relevant, the town, ward, and precinct level (!!!). From this, we can explore the relative levels of support for Abraham Lincoln and the Democratic nominee, General George McClellan. What I'm particularly interested in is how the war, and its progress by 1864, affected support for Lincoln. One thing that those familiar with the war know is how the military success of the north and south ebbed and flowed throughout the conflict. While by 1864 the north had achieved some notable successes (i.e. Gettysburg), the war was far from over and a sort of weariness had crept into northern circles. Politically, Lincoln was seen as highly vulnerable. For the duration of the war he had been trying to balance a coalition of Radical Republicans, pro-war Democrats, and border state fence-sitters. The defection of any of these groups could not only lead to the collapse of his government, but perhaps the Union as well. For any President trying to manage a coalition, any decision or action is likely to upset one camp while not fully pleasing the other--a no win situation in even the most peaceful times. The 1864 election was thus a test of whether or not the country would be willing to see the war to its conclusion or whether increasingly vocal anti-war northerners would be able to change the direction of country.

Indeed, the fact that Lincoln's re-nomination took place under the banner of the "Union Republican" Party and not the still fledgling "Republican" label is an indication of how worried northern pro-war politicos were of the coalition's splintering. The coupling of Lincoln with pro-war Tennessee Democrat Andrew Johnson as the VP nominee is further illustration of this delicate dance taking place among those trying to re-elect the President. Ultimately, Republicans were aided by the fact that the Democrats seemed to have a difficult time fielding a candidate that was 1) anti-war, or at least skeptical of the Lincoln administration's efforts and 2) viable in an electorate that had thousands of its sons, brothers, and fathers currently engaged in the fight. The fact that the Democrats ultimately settled on the popular, yet handily pro-war McClellan shows how hard it was going to be defeat Lincoln, despite public unease with the pace of the war. (We could devote a lot of time to McClellan as a General and how his dismissal by Lincoln may have played into the politics of his nomination and campaign, but we'll set that aside for now).

Those northern elements allied against the war are normally identified as "Copperheads." While being largely pro-Union, Copperheads were oftentimes driven against the war by its increasingly abolitionist tenor. With the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation after the Union victory at Antietam, many northerners felt that the war's efforts were being directed for more ambitious purposes than those originally sold to them by Lincoln. This question of "why" the war was being fought is one that I'm going to hopefully address in my next post. Until then, its worth noting that northern feelings about abolition were decidedly mixed, especially in certain segments of the electorate. When the manpower needs of the Union army were such that volunteer regiments would have to be supplemented by conscription, draft riots in such places as New York demonstrated how difficult it would be to lead men into battle under the banner of ending slavery.

In doing some background reading on the Copperhead movement, I've been spending some time with the writing of Frank Klement, a historian who used to teach at my alma mater. In his writing on the subject, Klement talks a lot about how the Copperhead movement had a strong ethnic dimension to it. Specifically, Copperheadism tended to take root in many parts of the midwest that had a strong German and Irish Catholic population. Writing in "Catholics as Copperheads During the Civil War," he argues:

The Republican party, founded during the 1850's as Whiggery disintegrated, became the home of three isms: prohibitionism, abolitionism, and Know-Nothingism. Irish-Americans and German-Americans detested each of the three, oftentimes reacting emotionally...The Irish and German-Americans detested abolitionism, for they feared that emancipation would release a flood of cheap labor that would threaten their very livelihood. (The Catholic Historical Review. January 1994. p. 36).

Midwestern voters tended to also be drawn to Copperheadism for economic reasons. Heavily agricultural, these regions relied on southern markets for their livelihood. As the war dragged on, and especially as the Mississippi River blockade shut off southern markets, many sought an end to the war as soon as possible.

When we take all of this into account when looking at one particular state--Wisconsin--what do we see??? With the data I've created the following color coded map to show the support of Lincoln (red) and McClellan (blue) on a county by county basis. Statewide, Lincoln won Wisconsin with 52.4% of the vote. He won 35 counties to McClellan's 22.

McClellan's main area of strength was Milwaukee and its surrounding counties--the urban center of the state. Winning 68% of Milwaukee county his 3700 margin there was the largest margin of victory for either candidate in any county. Neighboring Washington and Ozaukee counties gave McClellan an additional 4058 vote margin.

Aside from these areas being populous, what else does this part of the state have, that is relevant to this discussion??? German Americans. Check out the following map that shows the prevalence of German Americans in Civil War era Wisconsin:

Not only were German-Americans present in great numbers in those counties that gave McClellan his greatest support, the German presence throughout the state was immense. In fact, those who were either German born themselves, or had at least one German born parent, comprised over 1/3 of the entire state's population. In the ethnic mosaic of Wisconsin, Germans were the dominant group.

While not nearly as large as the German bloc, Wisconsin did see considerable Irish immigration as well. As Klement noted, this group was also likely to be sympathetic to Copperhead critiques of the war. Looking at a map of Wisconsin's Irish population, the correlation isn't quite as stark as we saw with the Germans.

In my next post I want to explore another facet of the 1864 vote: that of the soldiers themselves. Here, the question of how salient the issues of the war and emancipation will be at the forefront. Were those actually doing the fighting more likely to support Lincoln or were they, perhaps, ready for the war to end? Would they support their previous, and beloved commander, McClellan? Might it depend upon which group of soldiers we're looking at? Finally, we'll have something to say about the mechanics of how soldiers in the field actually voted--and whether this might have affected their choice. Stay tuned.

**Above maps from Richard N. Current. The History of Wisconsin. Volume II. The Civil War Era.

Secession Dissection in the Old Dominion. Or, Where West Virginia Came From

2010-07-30T09:56:00.000-05:00

Continuing on with a look at Civil War era electioneering, lets take a look at how one particular state (soon to become two) moved toward secession. As I mentioned in the previous post, the Confederacy was formed in waves; not every state left the Union at the same time. In the second wave of secessions was Virginia. Following the attack on Fort Sumter and President Lincoln's call upon the states to provide troops for the Union effort, the critical state of Virginia moved toward secession. Given the size of the state, its geographical location, and its history in the forming of the country, the Confederacy would probably have ended much sooner than it did had it not had Virginia in its ranks.

As must be noted, Virginia was actually quite hesitant to secede. A number of efforts were made to keep Virginia in the Union, with an early Secession Convention sending a delegation to Washington to try and ascertain the Lincoln administration's intentions. When Sumter was met with Lincoln's determination to meet Southern hostilities with force, Virginia's march to leave the Union picked up pace. On April 17, Virginia's Secession Convention voted to secede, with the final decision subject to a statewide referendum. With the data for this vote available on a county-wide basis, I thought I'd map it to see if any patterns emerge.

In the last post I tried to show a linkage between secession support across the South with the prevalence of slavery. For the purposes of this post, lets do the same thing. Our hypothesis would be that those parts of Virginia that had a higher prevalence of slavery would have a higher level of support for the secession referendum. Fortunately, I found a good map of Virginia that shows slavery by county that we can use:

As we can see from the map, slavery was more prevalent in some parts of the state than others. The most north-western part of the state (more on that in a bit) had very little slave presence at all. So, how did the vote correspond? The vote to ratify secession was held on May 23, 1861. I've taken the county data, color coded it based on the percentage of the vote for secession in each particular county, and then transposed the result onto the above map. The color scheme is as follows. Each percentage band is % of the vote in favor of secession: Dark Red 95% and above; Red 90-95%; Dark Pink 85-90%; Pink 80-85%; Orange 75-80%; Yellow 65-70%; Light Yellow 60-65%; Brown 55-60%; Light Green 50-55%; Green 35-40%; Dark Green 30-35%; Sage Green 25-30%; Light Blue 20-25%; Turquoise 15-20%; Pale Blue 10-15%; Blue 5-10%; Dark Blue 0-5%. For those parts of the map that are un-colored, there was no data available.

What becomes clear immediately is how widespread and virtually unanimous support was for ratification across a wide swath of the state. Essentially, all of modern day Virginia, even in those counties that had a comparatively small slave population, voted unanimously (95%+) to ratify secession. Once the movement toward secession had built up momentum, the population followed.

Where things are more interesting is in the north-western part of the state. Here, as we can see, resistance to secession was strong. In most of this part of the state ratification failed to not only get a majority, but received less than 20% of the vote. This, in short, is the story of how modern day West Virginia came into existence. Even prior to the May 23 vote, efforts were underway in this part of the state to not only vote against secession, but to create an alternative government and eventually break off from the Commonwealth. During two conventions held in Wheeling, strongly pro-Union Virginians plotted to resist the movement of the state into the Confederacy. Conventioneers moved to create a "Restored Government of Virginia" and utlimately break away from Virginia. Ultimately, West Virginia was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863. If you've ever driven through this part of the country you know how mountainous this territory is. This was not land where slavery ever took hold. The land was simply not hospitable to the type of agriculture that one found in South Carolina, Mississippi, and other parts of the Confederacy including modern day Virginia. Thus, Unionism was and remained strong even as the state was moving quickly into rebellion.

Civil War Secession Maps

2010-07-13T10:48:00.006-05:00

As the current electoral season has me a bit underwhelmed, I'm going to dig back into history a bit. Every once in a while I get a Civil War bug that sends me to the book store for a few weeks or months of exploration. In my mind it's without a doubt the most important period of our history. Most of the unresolved issues of our early history came to a head then; so much of our history since then can trace its legacy to this time. A lot of posts on this site have dealt with the legacy of the Civil War, especially as they relate to the role of race in our politics and elections.

I'm currently in the midst of Shelby Foote's magisterial three volume history of the Civil War. This is a project that will probably be completed in fits and starts over the months ahead, especially as other things capture my attention. Anyhow, an interesting electoral story is that of the secession votes held across the south in the wake of Lincoln's election and the subsequent firing on Ft. Sumter in early 1861. The first wave of states to secede were South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas. The second wave (following Ft. Sumter) comprised the states of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. I found this interesting map to give a sense of secession sympathy in these states:

What the history of this period tells us is that support for secession was by no means universal. Many of these deep south states had pockets of people loyal to the union (or at least not enthusiastic about secession). A classic example of this is Tennessee, which to this day has strongly Republican leaning counties in the eastern part of the state that never became part of the Solid South for Democrats. Also of note is the part of Virginia that would ultimately break off to form the new state of West Virginia.

The most common explanation for this diversity of opinion regarding secession in these states relates to the presence or reliance upon slave labor. In Alabama, for example, the northern most counties tended to have very little slaveholding. With a geography and topography that wasn't conducive to cotton or other labor intensive crops, secessionist feelings were less intense than in places like South Carolina or the Mississippi Delta. Consider these maps of slavery's pervasiveness in the region with the above to get a sense of these very interesting dynamics.

If you're interested in the Civil War and have some time on your hands, I'd highly recommend Yale historian David Blight's course on the period. Its absolutely amazing and worth the time it takes to get through all of the lectures.

Sometimes You Can't Make This Stuff Up

2010-06-22T14:21:00.002-05:00

I've done a few posts on South Carolina politics since this blog started but I'm thinking I'm going to have to retire the Palmetto State altogether. I just can't figure the place out. Aside from the total wackiness of the governor's race as well as the Democratic Senate nomination, tonight's runoff in the 1st congressional district on the Republican side adds another chapter to the state's recent run of bizarro politics. See if your head doesn't explode after reading through this.

The Difference Between Political Journalism and Political Science

2010-06-07T12:40:00.001-05:00

A little bit of satire that warmed my heart. I know where I stand.

How Not to Navigate the Primary/General Two-Step. Or, Did Artur Davis Have Any Choice Than to Move Right???

2010-06-02T14:43:00.006-05:00

Among yesterday's primary results, probably the most interesting was on the Democratic side in Alabama's governor's race. For a long time I've been puzzling over the candidacy of Artur Davis, currently (but not for long) the House member from the state's 7th District, centered around Birnmingham. For many national observers, Davis was seen as a shining light. The Harvard educated African American was envisioned as kind of a southern Obama--pragmatic, clear-eyed, and electable. First elected in 2002, Davis secured a coveted seat on the Ways and Means Committee and even got some talk as a potential Attorney General before Eric Holder got the nod.

This year, Davis mounted a campaign for Governor and in doing so had to figure out how to win both a primary (which necessarily entails catering to a more liberal audience) and the general in a state that has been pretty hostile to Democrats--at least state wide--in recent years. As an African American candidate, given the state's history, the job was all the more difficult. Davis' strategy seemed to be to tack to the right during the primary season in the belief that he could engender himself to the moderate voters he would need in the general. Davis was one of the few House Democrats to vote against the Health Care Reform Bill and during the campaign went to great lengths to distance himself from President Obama. Likewise, as much of the coverage of the race makes clear, Davis also decided not to court Alabama's black political brokers.

What happened?? Yesterday he got crushed by State Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks. Sparks won 62% of the vote and 62 of the state's 67 counties. Sparks filled the vacuum created by Davis' passivity toward the black community, winning a sizable percentage of the black vote. He was endorsed by several of the state's leading liberal organizations, including the powerful teacher's union, in a campaign that moved leftward while Davis moved right.

In the post mortems being written today, Davis' strategy is being decried. By focusing on moderates he was, the argument goes, putting the cart before the horse. Primaries and generals are very different animals. They bring out different electorates, emphasize different issues oftentimes, and thus require different strategies and coalitions. Candidates who try to win both elections with one strategy--given these differences--oftentimes fail. What is worth thinking about, however, is whether a candidate like Davis had any other choice than to move rightward as soon as he could. Given the state's history and political profile, can a left of center African American win statewide?

Alabama Primary Coverage:

Montgomery Advertiser
Birmingham News
Washington Post
Fivethirtyeight.com
Talkingpointsmemo.com

County by County results
County Results Map

Out of the Darkness

2010-05-17T11:02:00.003-05:00

Sorry that the blog has been dark for so long. House buying and moving will do that. Now that things have somewhat returned to normal, I'll be doing much more posting in the coming days. Lots of stuff to report on--Bennett (UT) and Mollohan (WV) losses plus tomorrow's big tilts in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, and Kentucky.

Stay tuned.

A Counterfactual to the Conventional Wisdom

2010-03-25T10:59:00.003-05:00

Now that the health care vote has taken place, we move into the post-mortem phase. For the past several months, as Democrats struggled to get this bill passed, the conventional wisdom has been that the 2010 midterms were going to be a bloodbath. Democrats will lose massive numbers of seats, the reasoning goes, possibly jeopardizing their majorities in both chambers. In the end, this may indeed be what happens, and I would bet that seats will be lost (although not necessarily because of health care).

However, what happens if the conventional wisdom (as is so often the case) turns out to be wrong? In the last day or so we've started to see evidence, both anecdotally and through polling, that health care reform may indeed prove to be quite popular and a net-plus for Democrats. President Obama is beginning a massive barnstorming push to sell the bill and we even have some Republicans taking credit for some of the bill's provisions.

In the run up to the vote, a lot of ink was spent talking about which Democrats might be the most vulnerable as a result of health care. The focus was on those Democrats who hail from districts also won by John McCain in 2008. In the end, of those 49 House Democrats, 31 voted against the bill. In a similar vein, Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com created this simple graphic that shows a pretty strong correlation between Obama's success in a district and how that member ultimately voted.

In this spirit, I decided to focus on the other side of the aisle. Rather than look at vulnerable Democrats, I wonder if there might be some Republicans who--should health care reform prove to be popular and a winner politically--might suffer as a result of their vote? The table at the top of this post shows those Republicans who represent House districts won by President Obama. I've included not only Obama's vote percentage but also the member's to provide a sense of relative popularity as well as the member's seniority. If we were to target which of these member's might have the most to fear, it would be those 1) whose own level of support is closest to Obama's--there are 10 members who received the same % of the vote or less than Obama; or 2) have less seniority in Congress. Usually members are most vulnerable earlier in their career, before they have the chance to build up a strong constituent base of support and familiarity. The final column of the table also might provide some indication of danger in that it highlights how salient the lack of health insurance might be to a district. Thanks to this Washington Post graphic, we can determine how much of a district lacks health insurance. If the number is sizable, and the member seems not to appreciate this, a "no" vote could prove problematic down the road.

Again, I'm not arguing definitively that this is how things will play out, but its always worth asking whether the dominant narrative is wrong.

Lone Star Rundown

2010-03-03T12:16:00.003-05:00

As expected, Republican Governor Rick Perry cruised to renomination last night and avoided a run-off with either Kay Bailey Hutchison or Debra Medina. Bill White easily won the Democratic nod. Here's a quick rundown of the coverage:

Election results at the Office of the Texas Secretary of State

Houston Chronicle

Dallas Morning News

Austin Statesman

Burnt Orange Report

I'm trying to find a good county by county map so when I find one I'll put it up.

A Few Things For The Day

2010-03-02T11:18:00.006-05:00

First up, its primary day in Texas (coverage here, here, and here). For the best coverage of the race (from the more liberal perspective), check out the Burnt Orange Report. While the Rick Perry / Kay Bailey Hutchison tilt started out as a real clash of the titans, the campaign since hasn't really lived up to the hype. It seems clear that Perry is going to win handily with the only real question whether he will top 50% and thus avoid a run-off with the runner up. The wild card in the race is Debra Medina. Medina, who is by far the candidate furthest to the right, has seen her numbers take a hit since voicing some support for "truther" claims about 9-11. Nonetheless, her polling suggests that she may be able to force a Perry/Hutchison run-off or even sneak into second place herself. Hutchison's campaign has been, from all accounts, a complete disappointment. Despite having high approval ratings throughout her career she has clearly been out-Texased by the incumbent Perry. He has artfully tied Hutchison to Washington despite her votes against the economic stimulus plan and other parts of the Obama agenda. Former Houston mayor Bill White is expected to easily clinch the Democratic nomination.

Once numbers start coming in we'll try to provide some quick analysis.

Second up today is a report from my home state, Wisconsin, that former four term governor, and Bush II era Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson is considering enterning this year's Senate race against incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold. Since leaving the governor's office in 2001, talk about Thompson's return has bubbled up regularly--often stoked by Thomspon himself. Despite his abysmal presidential run in 2008 (he dropped out even before the caucusing in Iowa) Thompson is often portrayed as a political juggernaut in Wisconsin. While he is clearly the most successful Republican in recent Wisconsin history, count me as skeptical about his chances against Feingold.

The first thing to keep in mind about a Thompson potential run is that while he has been extremely successful in the past, he hasn't been elected to anything in 10 years. Not only has he not campaigned in Wisconsin since 2000 he hasn't been on the scene in the state either. Almost all of his time has been spent in Washington and, since leaving HHS, on a number of corporate boards and government relations firm rosters (which will no doubt be used in any campaign against him). While long departed politicians oftentimes assume they can return home to past glories, things rarely work out that easily.

Second, while Feingold has never racked up huge numbers state wide in his three elections, he does have a constant base of support that never seems to wane. Despite receiving 51%, 53%, and 55% in '92, '98, and '04 respectively, Feingold is not an easy target to knock off. He is not easily pigeonholed and has enough votes and positions that make it hard for Republican opponents to portray him as out of touch with Wisconsin and its oftentimes quirky political culture. Also, despite having a reputation as a campaign finance zealot, Feingold has built up a considerable war chest, currently totaling about $3.5 million.

A third point to keep in mind--and this is something that probably won't receive a lot of coverage--is that Wisconsin voters tend not to vote out incumbents. Of the current House delegation (8 members), none of them were elected by beating an incumbent. Over the last twenty years only two Wisconsin House members have been defeated. The most recent was Peter Barca (1st District) in 1994 who was completing the term of Les Aspin who became President Clinton's Secretary of Defense. Before him, Scott Klug (2nd District) defeated long time incumbent Robert Kastenmeier in 1990. Otherwise, the House delegation, save for retirements, has been very stable. Likewise, Wisconsin Senate races have been largely uneventful in recent years. In fact its Feingold who was the last to win via an incumbent knock-off, downing two term incumbent Robert Kasten in 1992. Feingold and his couterpart Herb Kohl (first elected in 1988 via an open seat upon the retirement of five term incumbent William Proxmire) have kept the Senate delegation in Democratic hands ever since. Despite a political environment that seems rabidly anti-Washington and anti-incumbent, Feingold seems like the type of politician--aided by an electorate that tends to value stability--who could weather the storm.

Finally, and related to last week's post about Evan Bayh of Indiana, a piece about the top Democrat running to replace him, incumbent House member Brad Ellsworth (8th District). The takeaway is that despite progressives' grumblings about Bayh's record on liberal issues, Ellsworth is in fact considerably more conservative especially on social issues.

What Does Evan Bayh's Retirement Say About Centrism and the Modern Congress??? Or, Why Are Progressives So Glad He's Leaving???

2010-02-19T15:15:00.017-05:00

The recent announcement of the retirement of Indiana Senator Evan Bayh has set off more of a conversation among commentators than that of any of the other recent congressional retirees. The debate, to be sure, has largely been taking place on the left. Much of this discussion, from the standpoint of more progressive liberals, stems from a long running frustration, if not exasperation, with Bayh. To those who have favored a robust health care reform bill, a progressive approach to energy policy, a fiscal and tax regime that rolled back many of the Bush era policies, and a less belligerent foreign policy, Bayh was someone who could never be counted upon. Though a Democrat, Bayh either sided with Republicans (an original supporter of the Bush tax cuts and the Iraq War) or required numerous concessions from Democrats before delivering his vote. Even worse, many have argued that Bayh’s approach to policy was rooted not so much in a centrist set of positions, but rather his own political agenda. In the past two presidential cycles, Bayh was on the short list for Vice Presidential consideration. He was a moderate from a historically red state, someone who would be attractive to independents and more centrist Republicans—seemingly gold for a party trying to cobble together 270 electoral votes after two narrow losses. But for those on the left, he had no core set of beliefs, but rather positions that seemed to shift with the prevailing political winds. This frustration with Bayh came to a head in the 60 vote Democratic Senate of the past year. In this environment, with no Republican support for any of the President’s major initiatives, each Democratic Senator has come to exercise maximum leverage. Thus, we’ve gotten to know Bayh, Ben Nelson, Blanch Lincoln, Joe Lieberman, and Mary Landrieu quite well over the past year. For many liberals, this has not been time well spent.

Bayh’s announcement, and his critique of Congress on the way out the door, got me thinking some more about some of the topics I’ve blogged about in the past as it relates to Congress, legislating, and elections: partisanship; centrism; and the relationship between members and their constituencies. I’d like to hit on these topics while putting them within the context of some of the political science literature. As I noted above, one of the criticisms of Bayh was that he was a political centrist, not a policy centrist. Over at Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog at the Atlantic Monthly (one of my all time favorite blogs), a commentator brought this distinction to my attention. Its worth hashing out a bit, I think. A policy centrist would seem to be someone who both holds a consistent set of policy beliefs and locates those beliefs somewhere near the middle of the ideological spectrum. What might this look like? On fiscal matters—something that Bayh prided himself on—this might include a recognition that balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility require both spending cuts and revenue increases. How these are arranged may vary depending upon the circumstance but the point would be that someone is willing to accept both of them and that they do so from a reasoned set of arguments and assumptions and, hopefully, over time. Another example could be abortion. A centrist position could entail accepting abortion under certain circumstances (rape, incest, etc.) or under certain time constraints (during first trimester). Policy centrism doesn’t need to be the result of indecisiveness or uncertainty. Rather, in the best sense, it is the result of someone recognizing that the more ideologically extreme positions aren’t likely to prove workable or successful. Political centrism is a slightly different animal. Here, a politician could hold positions that are actually to one end of the ideological spectrum but could, because of how they fit into a broader political community (say a legislature), position themselves as someone who could provide concessions and as a result, be a dealmaker (or deal-killer). Also, this person’s centrism could result from policy positions that aren’t tethered to a core set of beliefs. These stances could be unpredictable and in fact could also be contradictory (pro-tax cut and pro-spending increases while emphasizing fiscal responsibility for example). During the health care debate, Joe Lieberman embodied this for many liberals. They noted, for example, that during his own presidential run Lieberman had campaigned on the idea of a public option and health care insurance exchanges. When he later disavowed support for these, critics charged that he was less interested in policy than in his own ability to shape the debate given that his vote was essential to the Senate moving forward.

Bayh’s announcement got me thinking again about some of the themes I’ve blogged about in regard to Congress: polarization and partisanship; centrism; and the electoral connection between members and their districts. I’d like to hit on each of these and try to put some of the furor around Bayh into a broader—largely political science based—context. The criticism that Bayh was more interested in positioning himself as a “political centrist” and that he deep down had no true policy convictions brought me back to an influential piece of work from the early 1950’s that acted as the theoretical underpinning for what has come to be known as the “responsible party” model of government. “Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System” was generated by the American Political Science Association, through the collaboration of many scholars, and presented in 1950 as a way to create a more accountable governing system. At the time, many scholars (known as pluralists) had been describing and even advocating a more group or civil society based organization of politics. Parties, to them, were a remnant of a past, more corrupt, and less responsive mode of governance. To those responsible for the new report, though, group-ism was even less democratic in that it dispersed accountability too much, especially among those not electable. Only parties could provide true accountability and an organized set of choices for voters. To quote a bit of the report:

“An effective party system requires, first, that parties are able to bring forth programs to which they commit themselves and, second, that the parties possess sufficient internal cohesion to carry out these programs. Such a degree of unity with the parties cannot be brought about without party procedures that give a large body of people an opportunity to share in the development of the party program…The fundamental requirement of accountability is a two-party system in which the opposition party acts as the critic of the party in power, developing, defining and presenting the policy alternatives which are necessary for a true choice in reaching public decisions. The opposition most conducive to responsible government is an organized party opposition.”

In other words, parties produce policy proposals that give voters a clear choice of how the government will move forward. A winning party will enact that set of policies and do so as a united bloc. This movement will be opposed by a unified opposition—with their own set of policies—that frame the choice in the next election. Voters will evaluate the performance of the majority party either positively or negatively, setting the course for the next move forward.

Let’s bring this into the current environment. For those on either end of the ideological spectrum “responsible party government” is extremely attractive and desirable. Their party is unified around a common set of objectives and pledges itself to work as a bloc. Any internal dissension works against this. This is why people like Bayh, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson, and Lieberman are so maddening to liberals. They refuse to be part of a unified Democratic Senate caucus. Rather than being able to enact a health care, cap and trade, or jobs bill—which can then be put to the voters for their consideration—these members produce (again in the eyes of their liberal critics) gridlock. While Senate Republicans are acting “responsibly” by presenting a unified opposition (although some would argue without their own set of policy prescriptions) the result works against the Democrats in two ways. Not only do they not have a set of results to point to, they also can be credibly blamed for not producing them. If only they acted like the Republicans and stuck together, they could get things done. Notice how few elegies to Bayh have been given by Senate liberals and other progressives over the past week.

A critique of the Responsible Party model that one could give is that it’s impossible for parties to 1) elect members from a diverse electorate and 2) stay unified afterwards. Or, in the case of Bayh, one can argue that he had no choice but to act the way that he did given where he came from. Indiana is not California, which is not New York, which is not Pennsylvania, etc. Constituencies and districts matter. They have different electorates with different interests and thus elect different types of politicians. This is the stuff on which we’ve dwelled so much on this site.

What I decided to do was come up with a way of seeing how close Senators are to their states based on the ideologies and partisanship of the two. The table above is the result of this attempt. To be clear up front, this is going to be very, very inexact. Methodology is crucial, yet tricky. What I decided to do was come up with a way to rank states based on their level of liberalism. The only way—or perhaps the only way that matters in the end—to do this is to look at voting. Because states change and because support for one party can vary based on who the candidates are and other variables, I decided to look at the past three elections. I took the Democratic percentage of the vote for each election and then added the three to give an overall score. Thus, a state that gave the Democrats 50%, 52%, and 55% would get 157. The result is a continuum of states running from the least liberal (Utah) to the most (Massachusetts). Running through the list I don’t see anything that’s too out of whack with what we would predict coming in.

From this, we want to try and predict how that state’s Senator should behave. If Senators work hard to represent their constituencies, there should be some correlation between the Senator’s behavior/ideology and that of their state. We should, in theory, see a continuum of Senator ideology that conforms with the state voting continuum. So what I did was create a column that suggests an “expected” order of Senators based on their ideology. Because each state has two Senators, each state is listed twice as you go down the column. Thus, Utah should have the country’s least liberal Senators, Massachusetts the most. While this is what we would expect, what we’re ultimately interested in is what we’ve actually seen—and whether it confirms our expectations.

To measure the ideology of individual Senators, I’ve relied on the most recently released set of Ideology Ratings by National Journal. Each year, the magazine selects a representative sample of Economic, Social, and Foreign Policy votes. Each member’s vote is recorded across all of these votes in each category. Members are then compared to each other. The result is a percentile score that places each member in relation to their colleagues in each of these policy categories. The higher the score, the higher the level of liberalism. National Journal then combines the Economic, Social, and Foreign Policy dimension to give each member a single score. Columns 7, 8, and 9 of the table list the actual order of the Senators along with their respective state and liberalism scores. Each Senator is color coded based on party as well.

I should note a couple of things right here. First, the most recent data available is for the year 2008 so we aren’t looking at the current Congress. We might expect behavior of Senators to change a bit given a new President, somewhat different agenda, and other factors. Overall, though, I doubt that individual behavior would change dramatically although I could be wrong in certain cases. Based on when this data came out last year, I would expect the 2009 numbers to be coming out shortly so I’ll try and update this ranking to include the cast of Senators elected in 2008 (and exclude those no longer in office). A second quick note relates to three Senators whose data was not available for 2008. First, Senator Ted Kennedy, due to his illness, did not cast enough votes to produce a meaningful score. Thus, as a proxy I used his 2007 score. Given that National Journal compiles a broadly representative sample of votes from year to year, I didn’t expect there to be much difference between his behavior in 2007 and what it would have been the following year. Similarly, Barack Obama did not cast enough votes in 2008 due to his presidential campaign. I also used his 2007 score. Like Obama, John McCain didn’t have a 2008 score. He also didn’t have enough recorded votes in 2007 (???!!!) so I had to use his 2006 score as a proxy.

Anyhow, you can see the continuum of Senators that we have as a result. The least liberal Senator is John Barrasso of Wyoming while the most liberal was Obama. One point we need to make clear is that although I have produced an ideological continuum of Senators, the ideological distance between each is not the same. Rather, as we have talked about a lot here, there is considerable polarization of the modern Congress. Thus, most Republican members are clustered on the right of the ideological spectrum whereas most Democrats are clustered together on the left. A better way to represent and visualize this would be to produce a bell-curve of this distribution of scores. Here is one that was generated based on the 2007 rankings. Going back to an earlier point, this clustering and polarization is what we might expect in a “Responsible Two Party System.” Also worth noting is that Senators from the same state are not necessarily located close to each other on the continuum but in many circumstances are quite distant.

What we’re interested in with people like Bayh is what’s going on in the middle of the continuum. How liberal/conservative are these Senators, where are they from, and how does this conform with their states? With National Journal’s rankings, we actually see a bit of overlap between Democratic and Republican moderates. Senator Bayh is actually more conservative than Maine Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins while Democrats Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu score more conservative than Snowe. Its no surprise, then, that these members have been the ones getting the most attention over the last year—and driving their respective party ideologues crazy in the process.

How do they compare with their states??? What I did next (Column 10) is calculate the distance between where they are based on their Senate behavior and where they should be based on their state’s behavior (Column 6). Thus, is a Senator more liberal or conservative than their state and by how much? What we see is a range of distances as well as a small handful of Senators who are exactly where we would expect them to be (Enzi, Feinstein, Schumer, and Reed). The Senators who are far away are interesting to speculate about and also show us how elections and survival in Congress are oftentimes based on more than just a member’s voting. We should note, though, that because of the clustering around the ideological poles (that bell curve above) the distances I'm calculating here might look much further than they really are--i.e. moving 20 spots might mean traversing over 20 Senators who are only marginally different than you. Because we’ve had an election since these numbers were produced, I highlighted the Senators who lost re-election (Yellow) and the seats that changed party after a retirement (Green). While most of the flips took place in states where the incumbents had a bit of distance from their expected slot, two switches (Dole and Warner) did not. Overall, though, there is a tremendous amount of variance among the members. To further demonstrate how states and members can differ in their behavior, the final column is color coded to show the degree to which each state splits its vote among its Senate delegation. Red coincides with both Senators being Republican; Blue for both being Democratic; and Purple connotes a split delegation. Here, too, one sees some pretty good variation. As I noted above, we often see Senators from the same state behaving quite differently. National Journal has an interesting discussion of this phenomenon here.

To come back to those “centrist” members including Bayh, we see that there is a range of variance between their actual and expected behavior. Bayh, it turns out, is actually pretty closely aligned with Indiana (12 spots more liberal than expected) whereas Republicans Snowe and Collins are 25 and 28 spots respectively more conservative than we would expect for a Maine Senator. With Ben Nelson, his reluctance to sign on to the Democratic agenda seems understandable given his distance from Nebraska’s expected ideological location (he’s 38 spots more liberal).

So where does this leave us??? What this discussion, I think, shows is that (no surprise here) legislating is difficult, especially in the modern Congress. “Responsible Party Government” is attractive in that it is clean and efficient. For those who find themselves in wide agreement with a party’s ideological positions, there will be a demand that politicians act accordingly. Unfortunately for these people, we don’t seem to have a country—geographically, demographically, etc.—that is conducive to producing this type of politics. This wasn’t the case in 1950 and it is even less the case today. What you get instead is a politics that is much more messy and slow. When you have polarization coupled with this demographically and geographically produced diversity, things slow down even more and frustration mounts. In the past week, the frustration felt by those on the left has been aimed at Evan Bayh. Similarly, in past months Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman have occupied the position of “Democrats’ Most Hated Democrat.” I’d expect this type of frustration to continue.

What's the Current State of Play???

2010-02-11T13:47:00.002-05:00

Just a quick post. The New York Times has a nice set of interactive maps showing, in their estimation, the status of the various House and Senate races for this year. We'll be giving a lot of these races some attention and more in depth coverage as the weeks and months go on.

Two Passings of Note

2010-02-10T16:19:00.011-05:00

I'm on the road this week and don't have my full arsenal of Almanacs of American Politics at my disposal, so I'm going pretty much on memory here, but I wanted to make a quick note of two members of Congress--one current and one former--who've died in the past few days. Both members were in many ways throwbacks. Not only were they pro-defense and pro-defense spending Democrats from rural areas, but they were proud (some critics might say shameless) of promoting government largesse on behalf of their districts and beliefs.

John Murtha, who represented southwestern Pennsylvania's 12th District passed away on Monday. An ex-Marine and Vietnam combat veteran, Murtha was first elected in 1974. As an advocate for his economically ravaged district, Murtha was known for his skill in steering millions of defense dollars to his corner of the Keystone State. As Chairman of the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, Murtha was perfectly positioned to use the levers of power on his district's behalf. Murtha received much attention when he came out against the Iraq War in 2005 as his unblemished military credentials and track record gave cover to more liberal members, including Nancy Pelosi (who pushed for his elevation to Majority Leader following the 2006 Democratic takeover), to become more outspoken in challenging the Bush administration. A special election is expected to take place in May and this contest, once the candidates emerge, should prove to be a real barnburner. An interesting bit of trivia that has been noted in some of the coverage of Murtha's death is that his district was the only one in the country that voted for John Kerry in 2004 but also John McCain in 2008. Back during the 2008 primary season I wrote up a short profile of the district that we might revisit given the news of Murtha's death.

Then today comes word of the passing of former Texas congressman Charlie Wilson. "Good Time Charlie" is perhaps best known as the subject of the book and film "Charlie Wilson's War" which chronicles not only his colorful personal exploits but also his support for the Afghan Mujihadeen during the 1980's. For a great profile of Wilson's exploits, see here. Wilson represented the 2nd district of east Texas from 1973 until 1996. Aside from Wilson's penchant for covert ops in support of the Afghan resistance, Wilson's domestic policy positions were actually quite liberal, especially given where he was from. He was a supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, was pro-choice, and took a number of anti-corporate positions. While the 2nd District has been substantially redrawn since his tenure, one can get a flavor of it here.

While there is certainly a lot that one can find in both of these members' backgrounds that opens them to criticism (as well as ethics inquiries)--and their obituaries no doubt run through them--both Murtha and Wilson were refreshing in that they represent a type of politician that we seem to find fewer and fewer of. More "earthy" than today's breed of blow-dried, overly scripted, and rigidly ideological politicians, Murtha and Wilson's style of representation and legislating seem almost anachronistic, more suited to the LBJ and Sam Rayburn era Congresses. Both members were pure horse-traders, more interested in getting something done and possessing the political skills to do so--than staking out positions of purity. They also added a lot of color to an increasingly bland Congress. One can only imagine, for example, what type of fodder Good Time Charlie would have provided for the blogosphere.

Illinois Primary Rundown

2010-02-03T12:12:00.004-05:00

Yesterday brought primaries in Illinois for two big prizes, the governorship vacated by the impeachment of Rod Blagojevich, and the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. The Chicago Tribune has a good rundown on the results (more coverage here, here, here, and here) . Of all the candidates moving on, the one likely to get the most coverage is GOP Senate nominee Mark Kirk. The moderate north shore Republican currently represents the 10th District in the state's House delegation. A pro-choice fiscal conservative, Kirk has managed to hold his seat despite decent challengers, Democratic gains nationally, the Obama wave, and his state's increasingly blue hue. Despite having to tack a bit to the right during the primary, he's clearly the best nominee the GOP could put forward in hopes of capturing the seat. On the Democratic side, Alexi Giannoulias, the 31 year old State Treasurer, won the nod in a closer race. Moving to the fall, this race should be among the most competitive in the nation, and probably among the most expensive as well.

Updates to come.

**Update: This is not the type of news you want your newly nominated Lieutenant Governor to be generating. Makes Thomas Eagleton look quaint.

Everybody Likes to Say They're an Independent--But Are They?

2010-01-27T10:57:00.002-05:00

Back in grad school when I was taking a seminar on electoral behavior, one of the major concepts we discussed and read about at length was the notion of whether or not "independents" are actually as prevalent as the conventional wisdom suggests. Among mainstream media reporters, a common assertion is that America is increasingly becoming disconnected from the two major parties. They are dissatisfied with their choices, are less ideological, and will gravitate toward candidates who offer "real solutions" and are pragmatic. The success of candidates like Michael Bloomberg, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John McCain, and other self styled "mavericks" feeds the media obsession with this meme.

But is this really true? Are Americans really becoming more independent??? While voters might certainly identify themselves as independent, it is their behavior that really matters. In response to the latest talk about Barack Obama and his declining support, John Sides over at the Monkey Cage throws water (convincingly I believe) on the rise of the independent.

As a slew of political science research has demonstrated over the past decade or so, self identified independents actually behave quite similar to highly partisan voters. Although they claim no partisan allegiance, they tend to vote consistently with one party. In the research's parlance, they are "leaners." The number of pure independents, those whose votes are truly up for grabs, especially over time, is only in the neighborhood of about 10% of the electorate. Furthermore, their numbers seem to actually be decreasing.

So as you continue to hear more and more discussion about the vaunted "independent voter," dig a little bit deeper and ask whether appearance and reality match up.

Massachusetts Special Election

2010-01-20T14:23:00.003-05:00

I like to wait a few days before I try to analyze why an election turned out the way it did. Too often, in the immediate aftermath of the voting, there's a rush of speculation and "analysis" that treats the election in question as if it, and it alone, will tell us everything we need to know about the current state of our politics. There tends to be very little context and a lot more heat than light.

So, just some links at this point regarding yesterday's tilt in Massachusetts, in which Republican State Senator Scott Brown, as was predicted in the days leading up to the voting, defeated Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley for the right to fill the remainder of Ted Kennedy's term (town by town results here). The most comprehensive coverage of the race can be found at the Boston Globe and Boston Herald's site as well as a great blog that tracked the race, kennedyseat.com.

Our own John LaBeaume was on the ground in Massachusetts this week and filed some dispatches to give you a little bit of the local flavor (here and here).

Finally, via The Electoral Map, here's a good primer on the political geography of the Bay State to help put some of the returns in context.

Amidst the Tragedy, Some Fascinating Numbers

2010-01-14T16:01:00.007-05:00

As we watch the horrific tragedy unfold in Haiti, I came across a staggering statistic that I thought was worth looking at in the context of this blog. During one of the news stories last night, it was reported that Brooklyn contains roughly 100,000 people of Haitian descent and that over 200,000 Haitian Americans live in the broader New York area. While we know how much of a melting pot New York is, this number really jumped out at me. This story from a few years back gives some specifics. A while back I did a post on the micropolitics of these ethnic communities throughout the city so its worth revisiting this topic.

The Haitian community in NYC is most prevalent in the Flatbush and Crown Heights neighborhoods In 2007 Mathieu Eugene became the first Haitian American elected to the New York City Council, representing the 40th District which is bisected by Flatbush Avenue. The New York Haitian community is served by the Haitian Times, the Bedford Haitian Community Center, and Radio Soleil, which has been broadcasting continuously in the midst of the earthquake crisis.

The number of elected officials of Haitian descent is relatively widespread across the United States although Florida and New York tend, unsurprisingly, to be best represented. Interestingly, President Obama's former Illinois State Senate seat is currenly held by Kwame Raoul, whose parents immigrated from Haiti. A further Obama--Haiti connection is provided by his Political Director, Patrick Gaspard, who is Haitian born.

For information about how to donate to the relief efforts in Haiti, click here.

Is It Freak Out Time for The Democrats???!!!

2010-01-07T13:01:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past several weeks. With the end of the semester, holiday season, etc. its been a bit hectic. I'll try to get some new things up over the next few days.

The big news over the past forty eight hours or so has been the announced retirements of several Democratic big hitters: Senators Chris Dodd (CT) and Byron Dorgan (ND), plus Colorado Governor Bill Ritter. As we might expect, there's been tons of speculation within the mainstream press about what this says about the Democrats' chances in this year's midterms (see here, here, and here). Most of it, in my opinion, tries to create a "sky is falling" sense of hysteria.

We need to remember that so far, more Republicans have announced their retirement than Democrats. Despite the GOP's attempt to play up their chances of capturing Congress, most members realize that the math is too difficult (a point even conceded by RNC head Michael Steele). For House members, being a member of the minority is not much fun. The procedural advantages that the majority possesses gives minority members little role to play in the day to day crafting of policy. Thus, for a lot of members, this anemic position is enough to tip them toward getting out.

Back in September I did a post about congressional retirements, trying to add a little perspective to what's been transpiring. In short, I argued that in order for the Democrats to be in any real danger of losing control of Congress-- a la 1994--we'd need to see a much larger wave of defections than what we've seen to this point. Despite Dodd and Dorgan announcements, plus the recent announced retirments of Tennessee Blue Dogs John Tanner and Bart Gordon (see this earlier post about them), we're still a long ways from bed wetting time for Democrats.

The more interesting aspect of these announcements, for my money, is what their replacements will mean for the next Congress. I'm particularly interested in what will happen in the districts being vacated by House Blue Dogs like Tanner, Gordon, and KS Rep. Dennis Moore. Rather than conservative Democrats being replaced by moderate Republicans--which one might expect given the underlying ideologies of the districts--what may happen instead is that these Blue Dogs will be replaced by more conservative Republicans. Even though the districts aren't changing, we may see considerable change in who represents them. In short, many of these retirements may produce a more polarized 112th Congress.

Part of the reason for this may spring from some of the debates taking place within Republican circles these days--the "purity" vs. "big tent" conversation. To get a sense of the intra-GOP dynamic taking place across the country, check out some of these recent stories (here, here, here, and here) on the primary (or potential) races heating up on the Republican side. While the Florida contest between popular Governor (and more moderate) Charlie Crist and the more conservative Marco Rubio has been getting the most press coverage, there are other races that may complicate Republicans' efforts to have a bloodless attempt at capturing Capitol Hill. If the GOP goes through months of fractous primaries that not only produces nominees less palatable to moderate districts but also turns off voters from the losing side (and maybe even swing them to the Democratic nominee), the Democrats' fortunes may turn out much better than a lot of Washington reporters are now predicting.

Redistricting Louisiana--When Every Variable Collides

2009-12-03T11:30:00.004-05:00

This study by the Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna brings together everything that gets me excited about elections and political demography (great maps too). When Louisiana begins its redistricting process after next year's census, its going to have its work cut out for it. As a result of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent out-migration of thousands of Louisianans, the state's population has actually declined. That's a sure fire way to ensure that the state is going to lose one House seat. Thus, its delegation is poised to fall from 7 to 6 members. The process of reshuffling districts in order to remove one is almost always messy.

There are some other variables at play here as well. The state government is currently divided between a Republican Governor (Bobby Jindal) and House (with a narrow GOP majority) and a Democratic Senate. Thus, assuming this division remains, partisan wrangling will run through all of the mapping and deliberations. The current delegation is 6 Republicans to only 1 Democrat. Obviously both parties want to grow the size of their delegation. What either party is able to propose is somewhat limited by another consideration. As a result of the Voting Rights Act, the 2nd District which encompasses New Orleans will likely have to be kept majority-black. I profiled the interesting turn this district took in last year's election. Currently represented by Republican Joseph Cao, this district is likely to swing back to the Democrats next year. The requirement to maintain its racial balance limits the ability of the state to shift its black population into neighboring districts or to move outlying white constituents in.

The district that appears to be most in jeopardy is the 3rd, encompassing the southeastern part of the state. Currently held by Blue Dog Democrat Charlie Melancon, the willingness of state legislators to carve this district up and disperse its constituents to surrounding districts is buttressed by the fact that Melancon is vacating the seat next year to challenge GOP Senator David Vitter. As the study notes, it may be easier to force out Melancon's freshman successor than any of the more senior members of the delegation. If someone needs to lose out, better it be a freshman than someone with more political clout.

The part of the state that seems to be ground zero in both parties' attempts to maximize their electoral chances is the greater Baton Rouge area (also profiled last year). The 6th district has been the most competitive in recent cycles and contains the largest African American population outside of New Orleans. Thus, moving enough whites out into surrounding districts or adding enough African Americans (probably from the 2nd assuming one could do so and still abide by the Voting Rights Act) would seem to be on the Democrats' agenda. Moving more whites in, probably from the 3rd, would help the GOP's chances.

Overlaying all of this is a general statewide trend toward Republicans. John McCain carried the state by 19 points in 2008, an improvement on Bush's 53% and 57% totals in 2000 and 2004 respectively. However, Democrats are able to be competitive in statewide offices. Senator Mary Landrieu is currently in her third Senate term. With an African American population of roughly 33% (with that population being very well dispersed as well), Democrats have a sizable base of support from which to build upon.

Thus, we've got the intersection of dramatic population shifts, partisanship, race, and the interests of individual politicians and their careers--all within a process that must produce a final outcome. Louisiana has always had one of the most colorful politics in the country. 2011 should live up to the state's reputation.

Voting for Mayor in the "City Too Busy To Hate"

2009-12-02T16:16:00.006-05:00

Some interesting results from yesterday's mayoral runoff in Atlanta. The race pitted Kasim Reed, the Democratic candidate and a former state senator against independent City Councilwoman Mary Norwood. The result--a tentative 620 vote win by Reed--has triggered calls for a recount, something Norwood is entitled to by law and which Reed has pledged to adhere to. What's interesting about this election is not so much the results, but what they might say about the role race plays in voting. I've spent a lot of time on this site talking about the racial dimension of American voting behavior, much too much to recount ad nauseum here. Suffice it to say, its an issue, especially in many southern states. The results in Atlanta, however, go against the conventional wisdom that whites won't vote for blacks and blacks won't vote for whites (especially when running against a black opponent). Reed is black; Norwood is white.

Lets look at some numbers. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports the results by city council district (and also precinct) here and also provides an excellent interactive map of the city. Their data also includes each district's white and black population %. From this I created the following chart:

What we see is that the voting does not show a consistent correlation between the racial makeup of the electorate and its vote. If we were to hypothesize an electorate perfectly polarized by race, we'd expect each candidate's performance to essentially match the racial composition of each district. That is far from what happened. In the three whitest districts (6, 7, and 8) Reed did better than we might expect. Likewise, in the four blackest districts (4, 10, 11, and 12) Norwood also outperformed expectations based solely on race. These numbers are even more interesting when we throw the variable of party into the mix. We would assume that those whitest parts of Atlanta, located in the northern part of the city, would be the most Republican. That he still reasonably well here is quite fascinating. Likewise, although Norwood campaigned as an Independent, she has more often than not voted as a Republican in past elections. That she could perform so well in heavily black areas further suggests that there were some interesting dynamics at play.

When the Civil Rights Movement threw much of the south into turmoil, there was a saying that Atlanta--which didn't produce the violence seen in places like Birmingham, Selma, and Oxford--was a "City Too Busy To Hate." Maybe yesterday's vote was an indication that many people in Dixie have moved on.

West Tennessee Open Seat Creates More Ground For the Democrats to Defend

2009-12-02T11:44:00.006-05:00

Well, it looks as if we might have been on to something in the last post. Yesterday brought word that one of the members I highlighted, Tennessee Democrat John Tanner (8th District), was announcing his retirement from Congress. While fear of electoral defeat does not appear to be the overriding factor in his decision making (he contemplated stepping down after his previous term despite the fact that he would ultimately run unopposed), his 2010 campaign was shaping up to be pretty daunting with his top challenger already having banked over $300,000 in campaign contributions.

Tanner has long been a leader of the House Blue Dogs and represents a rural chunk of western Tennessee. While west Tennessee has historically been the more Democratic part of the state, it has been trending Republican in recent cycles. John McCain garnered 56% last year while Bush received 53% in 2004. Native son Al Gore narrowly won the 8th with 51% in 2000. To expand a bit on the interesting geographic/partisan divisions of the Volunteer State, here's a bit from "The Transformation of Southern Politics":

The politics of contemporary Tennessee have their roots in the Civil War. The state rejected the Confederacy until after the fall of Fort Sumter and after President Lincoln asked for 75,000 troops. For almost a century after the Civil War, Tennessee politics remained frozen by the state's division in that conflict...Much of Middle Tennessee and most of west Tennessee was plantation country, but the mountainous East was dominated by small farmers who found slavery unprofitable and who rejected the notion that it was a divinely ordained institution.

The modern day 8th district is from that part of the state that supported secession and clung to its Democratic loyalties for generations. Thus, there is little history of GOP success in the region and it will be interesting to see whether the Democrats (who may push forward a credible candidate in State Senator and current gubenatorial candidate Roy Herron) are able to draw upon these longstanding loyalties and maintain control of the seat. Republican hopes lie in the fact that the district includes wealthier suburban areas of both Memphis and Nashville. Should the currently hypothesized "enthusiasm gap" between Democratic and GOP voters continue into next year, this could be where the race is won. Democrats, in addition to relying on history and tradition, have been able to draw upon the large African American population of the district--currently 22%. Their turnout will be crucial to preventing this district from flipping to the GOP for the first time since Reconstruction.

While I won't predict the outcome of next year's race, here's one thing that wouldn't surprise me. Congressman Tanner currently chairs the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security. If President Obama, as has been reported, pivots from the current focus on health care to a focus on long term deficits and entitlement reform, expect Tanner to be tapped as a member of an entitlement reform commission charged with creating recommendations for Congress.

**An interesting bit of trivia: the city of Jackson in the southern part of the district is the home of the only Pringles production facility in the U.S. due to the local abundance of cotton seed oil. Who knew?

Vulnerable Democrats in 2010--Where Should We Look???

2009-11-18T16:06:00.007-05:00

Yesterday, John and I attended a CQ-Roll Call hosted event on the 2010 elections. Billed as a preview of what might lie ahead, the event featured three pollsters (representing Quinnipiac, Public Policy Polling, and Rasmussen) plus CQ Roll Call's Greg Giroux. Given that you had three pollsters present, the analysis was derived heavily from recent polling both nationwide and in a number of key states. In this sense, I would have liked to seen some analysis that took a broader, more demographic and historical perspective rather than one dominated by the snap shots of polls, but given the panel's composition the numbers presented were very much geared toward the present landscape. Nonetheless, there were some interesting insights.

The main takeaway from all the presentations is that the current environment is quite perilous for Democrats. With independents showing a greater predilection to support Republicans (not out of an underlying movement ideologically to the right but out of dissatisfaction with the status quo) and Democrats displaying complacency (despite giving President Obama consistently high marks), you not only get the results that we saw a few weeks back in New Jersey and Virginia, you also have the recipe for large GOP gains next fall.

On the congressional side, one caveat stressed by Giroux, and one that I hinted at a few months back, is that the Democrats don't appear as if they'll have to defend a large number of open seats. Unlike in 1994 where Republicans picked up the vast majority of seats created by Democratic retirements, only a small handfull of Democratic seats, to this point, are being vacated (and even fewer of those are in truly competitive districts). Thus, Republicans appear headed into an election year in which they must hope (against longstanding historical norms) to knock off a significant number of incumbents.

So where might we look for fertile GOP hunting grounds??? Here, Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling made a useful insight. He suggested that we look to parts of the country 1) in which GOP performance has increased, that are 2) currently represented by Democratic House members who 3) haven't had highly competitive races recently. These members might not be prepared for an anti-incumbent or anti-Democratic wave and might also be out of campaign fighting shape. When he mentioned this, I immediately thought of the map below, which I highlighted in the aftermath of the Obama/McCain campaign. The map chronicles change between the 2004 and 2008 election. Counties that became more Democratic in 2008 are shaded blue (with increasing darkness based on magnitude of change) while those shaded red became more Republican (also with increasing darkness based on magnitude). Thus, the vast majority of the counties in the U.S. gave Obama more support than Kerry.

In his remarks, Jensen talked quite a bit about some recently released polling from Arkansas. In it, Democratic incumbent Vic Snyder (2nd District) has seen his numbers crater as has Senator Blanche Lincoln. Snyder, especially, has had little challenge recently in his Little Rock based district. As we see from the map, Snyder (and Arkansas more broadly) fall into the band of counties that broke from the national trend and actually became more Republican last year. Similarly, if we extend our gaze northeastward we see how Tennessee counties also moved right. This brings to mind another handful of Democratic members, namely a cadre of blue dog Volunteer State Dems including Congressmen Lincoln Davis, Bart Gordon, and John Tanner who represent the 4th, 6th, and 8th districts respectively. A look at these gentlemen's recent elections show that they've been quite secure. Tanner has been the most insulated from a serious challenge. He was unopposed last year and received 73% and 74% in 2006 and 2004. Gordon's last three victories have come with 74%, 67%, and 64%. Davis has had closer races, winning with 59%, 66%, and 55%. A potential clue to their own sense of vulnerability might be gleaned from the much discussed (see previous two posts) health care vote from two weeks ago. In it, all three voted against passage.

Keep these two maps in mind as we continue through the health care debate and into next year's mid-terms.

The Geography of the House Democrats' Health Care Vote II: Is the Stupak Amendment Crucial For Passage???

2009-11-18T10:58:00.007-05:00

I've modified the map I created for the last posting to include the Stupak Amendment. There are now four categories, each color coded, that members can fall into: 1) Those who voted for the final bill and against the Stupak Amendment (light green). 178 members fall into this group. 2) Those who voted for the final bill and for the Stupak Amendment (dark green). 41 members are in this group. 3) Those who voted against the final bill and against the Stupak Amendment (dark red). This group includes 16 members. 4) Those who voted against the final bill and for the Stupak Amendment (light red). This is 23 members. For a spreadsheet of the vote and categorization of the members, see here.

Which category each member fell into says a bit about how the leadership probably approached the decision about when to schedule the vote on the bill and how they viewed its likelihood of passage. It also sets up an interesting calculus for the leadership to solve as the bill moves to the Senate and then conference. Those members in the "Pro-Health Care, Anti-Stupak" camp would be those, going into the vote, with the strongest pro-reform position. In other words, this is the "Pelosi/Hoyer House Leadership" position. Those in the "Pro-Health Care, Pro-Stupak" position would seem to be made up, largely, of members more on the fence about reform and, given their pro-life position, needed the inclusion of the Stupak Amendment to push them off the fence and onto the side of reform. The "Anti-Health Care, Anti-Stupak" members are an interesting bunch. This cadre shows that issues besides abortion entered into their hesitancy to support the bill. These members appear more on the blue-doggish side of things (Herseth-Sandlin, Baird, Boyd). The "Anti-Health Care, Anti-Stupak" members also seem to include a number of the blue dog regulars (Shuler, Tanner, Taylor), but obviously have anti-abortion positions in addition to their fiscal concerns about the bill.

As the bill moves to the Senate, conference, and then back to the House, I wouldn't assume that these categories will remain constant. Obviously, how the next stages deal with the inclusion of the Stupak Amendment will be an important factor in how the pro-Reform coalition forms. I wonder about some of the members who voted for Stupak and whether they would oppose the bill should it come back to the House with the Amendment stripped out. Specifically, members like David Obey, John Murtha, and Jim Oberstar are long standing members of the caucus. Two are committee chairmen (Obey and Oberstar) and the other is an Appropriations Committee subcommittee chair (Murtha). These members have a strong incentive to keep the House in Democratic hands and the degree to which health care's failure could cripple the party and bring about defeat, they would seem willing to do everything to ensure its passage. Obey and Oberstar also have deeply held progressive beliefs that would make it very hard for them to vote no for a bill stripped of Stupak.

You also need to wonder about some of the members who voted no initially. What seems to have been driving the leadership in the vote counting and whipping process was the goal of 1) passing the bill with 2) The smallest majority possible. At this stage of the process all that mattered for House Democrats was getting the bill on to the Senate. The size of their majority was irrelevant as long as the bill proceeded to the next step of the process. Thus, there was no incentive to have members cast a hard vote, potentially angering their constituency, if they didn't have to. While many might point to the 220 votes Pelosi mustered (including the single Republican yes vote) and argue that the bill is in trouble, I'd argue that Pelosi, Hoyer, et al achieved exactly what they wanted. Thus, the next time the House votes, this time for final passage, one might assume that the leadership has, in case they need them, some of these initial no votes ready to vote yes should some of those that originally voted yes defect the second time around.

At this stage, it doesn't seem as if the inclusion or exclusion of the Stupak Amendment would have much predictive power on the votes of these "no but could be yes" members, on its own. There doesn't appear to be much of a pattern to the no votes (pro and anti Stupak). What could happen, though, is a situation in which the bill returns to the House, stripped of Stupak, setting off a revolt among some of the hard core pro-Stupak members. If this happens, and several of these members announce a willingness to vote no, Pelosi and Hoyer need to approach these members who originally voted no and try to get them to switch. In this sense, the "Anti Health Care, Anti Stupak" group would be the logical place to start. Thus, if we were to identify a group of House Democrats as potentially being the least likely to support the final bill, regardless of what is included in it, those whose districts are colored light red would be my pick.

In addition to the interesting geographical dimensions to this issue, what this discussion also illustrates extremely well is how intricate the leadership and vote whipping process is. A leadership team that isn't able to function well and can neither read nor get commitments from its members is going to fail miserably, especially on an issue as controversial as health care. When you are managing individual politicians, given their own interests, fears, foibles, and agendas, a tremendous amount of skill is required.

The Geography of the House Democrats' Health Care Vote

2009-11-11T14:34:00.009-05:00

I've created the above map to provide a visual sense of how the House Democratic caucus voted on the Health Care Reform measure. Its not quite as sharp as I'd like given the map I had to work with and Microsoft Paint's less than precise coloring, but it still works. Those districts colored green are the House Democrats who voted yes and those colored red are the 39 House Democrats who voted no. The only district that can't be seen too well is NY Rep. Mike McMahon (13th District)who hails from Staten Island. The full vote tally can be seen here.

When I first started to create the map, without looking at the vote too closely, the first instinct was that there would be some geographical correlation between support and opposition. Would the "no" votes all be from conservative, blue-doggish, southerners? The answer is pretty clearly no. Although many of what we might identify as "the usual suspects" did vote against the bill, the 39 no votes were actually quite geographically diverse. Something that is often lost in the discussion of the conservative end of the Democratic continuum is that these members are not universally from the south. While many of these non-southern members do hail from largely rural districts (see Colin Peterson--MN7, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin--SDAt-Large, Walt Minnick--ID1), the fact that there were a smattering of northeasterners (now seen as the Democrats' geographic base) such as Congressmen McMahon (13th), Murphy (20th), and Massa (29th) from New York and John Adler (3rd) from New Jersey should be noted.

What many of these members have in common (and what has been discussed in the days since Saturday's vote) is that they come from districts carried by John McCain. Of the 39 Democratic "no" votes, 31 come from districts that voted Republican last year. What will be interesting to watch is whether any of these numbers shift when the bill comes back for final passage after Senate and conference committee action. Already brewing is an intra-party squabble over the House approved Stupak Amendment that limits abortion coverage in the reform package. While I doubt that pro-choice progressive Democrats will bolt should these limits survive the next few stages of the process, the possibility exists that pro-Stupak, pro-health care Dems might bolt should the restrictions be stripped (for some discussion of this dynamic, see here). One also has to assume that the Democratic leadership has a few votes in their back pocket--i.e. Dems who voted "no" on Saturday--that they have commitments from should their vote be needed in the end.

Also of note is that many of these "no" votes come from members early in their careers. More junior members are less secure in their districts and haven't built up a record of constituent service and trust that might allow them to go against the grain from time to time. Of these 39, 14 are currently in their first term with an additional 2 in just their second.

Catalytic Events and American Political History--The Fall of the Berlin Wall

2009-11-10T11:41:00.003-05:00

This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and thus the march toward the end of the Cold War. In the subsequent two years, the various Iron Curtain countries underwent dramatic transformations as the Soviet Empire crumbled. The Europe of today--a unified Germany and an expanding European Union is vastly different from the one that developed in the aftermath of World War II. Its indisputable that the Cold War affected American politics and elections. While there is debate among scholars about how much foreign policy shapes individuals' voting decisions, there is no doubt that many of the events of the era created the context in which our elections were conducted. Primary among these would be the Red Scare and McCarthyism, the Vietnam War, and the Iran Hostage Crisis (also having an anniversary).

It has usually been assumed that, in partisan terms, the Cold War benefitted the Republican Party. For example, in the eleven presidential elections conducted between 1948 and 1988, the GOP won 7 garnering an average of 51% of the popular vote. In the five presidential elections since, they've won only two (including 2000 in which Al Gore won the most popular votes) and have seen their average popular vote total drop to 44.5%.

I haven't done any postings on last week's elections because, to be honest, I don't think there's a whole lot that can be gleaned from them. While most media outlets have been suggesting that the GOP pick-ups in Virginia and New Jersey are a sign of resurgence and should offer a warning to Democratic members of Congress, it seems to me that both races are an indication that governors, in particular, are being hurt by the tough economy. Hypothetically, if last week had seen two Republican Governors up for re-election (say Schwarzenegger and Pawlenty, perhaps), would they have won? Both have approval ratings right now that are less than stellar. If they'd have lost, how would last Tuesday have been interpreted?

Slightly more interesting was the special election in New York's 23rd district that saw the Democrats pick up the seat vacated by Republican and now Army Secretary John McHugh. Most of the coverage of that race centered on the intra-GOP rift that developed when local party leaders nominated NY assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava. The pro-choice, pro-gay marriage moderate Scozzafava was soon challenged by Doug Hoffman, running on the Conservative Party line. After weeks of attacks from her right flank, led by the Club for Growth and others, Scozzafava dropped out of the race on the final weekend and threw her support behind Democratic nominee Bill Owens, who ultimately won. The Scozzafava / Hoffman tussle illustrates a broader tension within the GOP, something that the Cold War largely succeeded in keeping under wraps. Last week a senior GOP House member spoke to my students and talked about how, in his mind, the Republican coalition is made up of three groups, no two of which consistently get along: 1) fiscal conservatives; 2) social conservatives; and 3) foreign policy conservatives. The Cold War, and the party's emphasis on defeating the Soviet Union, largely allowed this loose coalition to stay together. Issues that now provide heartburn for the party were put on the backburner, allowing the Republicans to mount a unified effort against the much more fractured Democratic coaltion. With the fall of the Soviets, Democrats (after a long period of soul searching and moderating) were able to compete on much more favorable terrain. While George W. Bush tried, it seems, to resuscitate the original Cold War electoral stragegy under the guise of the "War on Terror," the success of this strategy outside of 2002 and 2004 has been less than complete. Thus, where the GOP goes from here on out is unclear, despite some of the results from last Tuesday.

Hamlet Coming to the U.S. Senate For a (Hopefully) Limited Run

2009-10-28T11:10:00.011-05:00

As the healthcare debate slowly winds its way toward a coda, we now move to the stage where every individual senator will take center stage to use their power to try and exert concessions from Majority Leader Reid and President Obama. With efforts underway to 1) avert a filibuster; 2) include a public option of some form; and 3) hopefully have some (read Olympia Snowe) bipartisan support, a large handful of senators occupying the right flank of the Democratic spectrum, plus Republican moderates like Snowe, each know that the path to passage must pass through them.

Part of being a senator, it seems, is maximizing one's leverage and place in the limelight. To do so, one can't commit too early on the legislation in question. Rather, there's an incentive to deliberate, ponder, and agonize over the decision. Hence, we will see over the next weeks a large cast of characters playing Hamlet in the backrooms of the capitol and especially through the media. To vote for cloture or not...to allow debate to proceed but vote against final passage...to demand that the public option be weakened...those are the questions. Today's Politico gives a short rundown of some of the actors in question. Lets take a look at some of the senators as well as their recent and upcoming campaigns for some insight into how they may be approaching this process.

Ben Nelson (D-NE). Nelson is arguably the most conservative Democrat in the Senate and, as a result, gets a lot of attention as Harry Reid tries to avert filibusters over a wide range of issues. As the Politico story notes, he has been non-committal on virtually every aspect of the current Senate bill although earlier this year he came out against a public option. Not a member of any of the committees actively involved in the health care debate, he hasn't had to show many of his cards to this point. While Nebraska has been a reliably Republican state, Nelson (a former governor) was handily re-elected in 2006 and thus doesn't face voters until 2012. A part of his background to note is that Nelson was once CEO of the Central National Insurance Group and was Director of the Nebraska Department of Insurance.

Blanche Lincoln (D-AR). Lincoln has been more involved in the deliberations to this point as a member of the Senate Finance Committee and voted against the public option during the drafting of the Baucus healthcare bill. Lincoln is also up for re-election next year. She gained 55% and 56% in her previous two elections, which were preceded by two House terms. What's interesting here is that Lincoln is viewed as vulnerable, despite the fact that no clear cut opponent against her has yet emerged. In a series of hypothetical matchups, though, her numbers are underwhelming. While the Razorback state has been in the Republican camp in recent presidential elections (with the exception of Bill Clinton's two wins), its congressional delegation has been overwhelmingly Democratic--though markedly Blue Dog-ish. Lincoln's Senate colleague David Pryor can also be viewed as somewhat on the fence.

Joe Lieberman (I-CT). The bane of progressives' existence, Lieberman made waves yesterday by signaling his willingness to join a Republican filibuster against the Reid bill. Lieberman, as we know, was defeated in the Democratic Senate primary in Connecticut in 2006, only to re-emerge, and win, as an Independent. Since then he has proven a constant thorn in the side of his Democratic colleagues with the height of his apostasy coming with his endorsement of John McCain in last year's presidential race. It seems as if President Obama's willingness to look past this (and signal to Reid his preference that Lieberman retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee) hasn't kept Lieberman from straying from the reservation.

Mary Landrieu (D-LA). Landrieu, just re-elected last year with 52% of the vote (she received 52% in 2002 and 50% in 1996), is using her post as chair of the Senate Small Business committee to advocate for the needs of small business owners (see additional coverage here). Up until this point Landrieu has been skeptical of the public option but may prove amenable to a bill including the "opt out" provision for states. Representing a state that seems to be moving more to the right, this compromise could allow her to thread the needle of both supporting health care reform (and her party) but representing the needs (and doubts) of her constituents.

Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The most powerful woman in Washington. Throughout the crafting of health care legislation in the Senate--especially as a member of Max Baucus' "gang of six"--Snowe has been a pivotal player. Her vote in favor of a final passage, even if she is the only Republican "Yes" vote in either the House or Senate, will allow the package to be labelled "bi-partisan." She is virtually unbeatable in Maine and recent polling suggests that her favorability is higher among Maine Democrats than Republicans. Reid's decision to include an "opt-out" public option in his version of the bill, rather than Snowe's preferred "trigger," has turned her mood sour, however.

Where any of these senators end up is anyone's guess. Health care supporters have to hope that Harry Reid knows which levers to pull for each of these members. Senate leadership, oftentimes referred to as "herding cats," requires an almost preternatural understanding of human nature. Is a senator being sincere? Is he bluffing? Is he truly undecided? Can he be pressured? Is he feigning indecision to get attention for something else? All of this must be determined and a response crafted. While some might fear that catering too much to those in the middle jeopardizes the support of Democrats on the left flank, its hard to envision a scenario in which Senate liberals don't support whatever emerges in the end. So, as we go through the next several weeks the Senate will oftentimes seem less like a legislature and more like a theater.

Does Voting Democratic Make You More "Manly"???

2009-10-22T13:03:00.012-05:00

Apparently the feeling of winning or losing an election actually affects one's physiology. A newly released study suggests that on election night, the testosterone levels of male voters changed when the results were broadcast. Male McCain voters saw a precipitous drop in their testosterone upon learning that their candidate had lost, whereas male Obama voters saw no change in their testosterone. In the parlance of the anthropologists and pharmacologists behind the study (which had participants submit saliva samples throughout the evening) elections are "dominance contests" which, like other competitions in society, "are a critical component of determining the leadership of social hierarchies." The feeling of victory of defeat, despite the fact that one did not win or lose personally, but vicariously, apparently triggers something quite deep in our psyches. Considering a variety of other variables, the authors find that:

the pattern of testosterone change remained significant even when variance in a multitude of factors was controlled for including voters' political values, support intensity for the candidates, timing of saliva collection, levels of conservatism, consumption of alcohol on the night of the election, and social surroundings on the night of the election.

Also of note is the fact that the testosterone levels of females was unchanged, regardless of whether one supported Obama or McCain. Apparently women are much more even keeled than men in this regard.

One can imagine all the arm chair extrapolation one could make from this study. Is Republican opposition to Obama not just based on policy differences but rooted much more deeply in a fear of "dominance"??? Can this be applied more broadly to some geographical variations in the vote--i.e. a southern inferiority complex??? One could run wild with this type of stuff, so feel free to hypothesize in the comments section. Anyhow, this is certainly a different way of looking at voting than what we normally consider here.

Catalytic Events and American Political History--John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry

2009-10-18T14:40:00.006-05:00

In the course of American history few events have proven more influential than the Civil War. One could probably argue that, given the questions left unfinished by the country's founding, the Civil War was inevitable. One can also argue that, given how the Civil War and Reconstruction divided the country, we are still living with its aftermath. The country's "original sin" of slavery, while ended by the sword (and constitutional amendment) has left a legacy--far more intractable--of racism and inequality.

In the march toward the Civil War, few events were more "catalytic" than the raid on Harpers Ferry Virginia by John Brown. This weekend marks the 150th anniversary of Brown's ill-fated attempt to mobilize an armed insurrection of slaves and abolitionists and lead them throughout the countryside, striking a mortal blow to bondage in America. The story of John Brown is incredibly fascinating, despite the fact that his raid on Harpers Ferry ended in failure and his hanging. While his rag-tag band, in retrospect, seemed destined to fail (a judgment made at the time by abolitionist Frederick Douglass), what John Brown did, in many people's eyes, was send a shock wave throughout the south and move the country, perhaps inextricably, toward war. Whether John Brown was a prophet or terrorist, his place in American history cannot be denied.

To get a sense of John Brown, his raid, and its effect on the country, please check out this lecture by Yale historian David Blight. In fact, spend some time with his entire course on the Civil War and Reconstruction. This series of lectures is absolutely riveting. I'm only half way through them and have been deliberately pacing myself. Each lecture sends me to the library and the internet to further immerse myself in this most important episode of our history.

Musical Chairs In the Upper Chamber

2009-10-14T11:11:00.009-05:00

In writing last week's post about the politics of small states, I came across the interesting Senate career of North Dakota's Kent Conrad. To recap, Conrad was elected to the Senate in 1986 with a pledge to serve only one term unless the budget deficit was reduced. When it wasn't he announced that he wouldn't seek re-election, allowing then House member Byron Dorgan to run for, and win, the Senate seat. However, a few months later, North Dakota's senior senator, Quentin Burdick, died. Upon entreaties from state Democrats, Conrad reconsidered his resignation and ran successfully in the special election to succeed Burdick. He has held that seat ever since. In fact, he resigned his first Senate seat early, allowing Dorgan to gain a month of seniority, and was sworn into Burdick's old seat the same day. Thus, not only does Conrad have the interesting history of holding both of his state's Senate seats, he held them both on the same day!!!

It turns out that Conrad is not alone in holding both of his state's Senate seats. In fact, he shares this bit of trivia with one of his colleagues--New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg. While I was aware of Lautenberg's entrance--exit--entrance to the Senate I hadn't realized the similarity with Conrad. In Lautenberg's case, he was first elected in 1982 to the seat vacated by previous incumbent Harrison Williams (who was convicted in the Abscam probe). After two successful re-elections, Lautenberg announced his retirement in 2000 and was succeeded by now NJ Governor Jon Corzine. When Lautenberg left, the Garden State's other Senator was Democrat Bob Torricelli. Due to campaign finance shenanigans (in New Jersey??!!), Torricelli abandoned his 2002 re-election campaign. In haste, Democrats turned to Lautenberg to keep the seat in the party's hands. He obliged, came out of retirement and won the seat (and was successfully re-elected last year).

Earlier this week I challenged my U.S. Congress students to find the similarity between Conrad and Lautenberg--having not discussed any of this with them. I thought it would take a few days worth of digging but within two hours two of them had solved the riddle. The offer of extra credit points, plus the internet, will do that I guess.

On a final note, there is one other recent member of the Senate who also has the distinction of holding both seats during their career--Washington's Slade Gorton. His case is perhaps the most interesting. Gorton, a Republican, first came to the Senate in the Republicans' 1980 Senate landslide, defeating Washington's longtime incumbent, and Senate titan, Warren Magnuson. 1986, as we know, was a very different year than 1980, and Gorton was swept out of office by challenger Brock Adams after just one term. Two years later, in 1988, Gorton re-emerged to seek the seat being vacated by the state's other Senator, Republican Dan Evans. Gorton won, defeating then House Democrat Mike Lowry. In 1994 (another great Republican year) Gorton was re-elected. In 2000, though, he was challenged by former House Democrat Maria Cantwell. In a razor thin race, Cantwell was victorious by a mere 2000 votes (and was since re-elected in 2006). Thus, Gorton has not only held both of Washington's Senate seats, he has also lost them both--Conrad and Lautenberg have held both having never lost. In addition, he has been both the junior and senior Senator from Washington for both seats!!!

So that's three senators who have held both of their state's Senate seats--a pretty fascinating bit of trivia. If anyone knows of others who have done this I'd be interested to know. There have to be earlier examples, especially from the period before the direct election of senators. Another bit of trivia I'm wondering about--again, please help--Has anyone ever been elected to Congress from two different states over the course of their career???

**Caricatures by Kerry Waghorn

**Update. One of my former students, via the comments section, identifies former Senator James Shields who, over the course of several decades in the mid 19th century, represented three states. Good work.

What Happens When You've Got More Senators Than Representatives??? The Crazy, Confusing, and Convoluted Politics of Our Smallest States

2009-10-07T10:53:00.011-05:00

Republicans got a boost yesterday when Delaware House member Mike Castle announced that he would seek the Senate seat vacated by Vice President Joe Biden. With Biden's departure, the seat has been temporarily filled by appointed Senator Ted Kaufman, who vowed not to seek election to the remainder of Biden's term. Castle is a politician of long standing and high popularity in the First State. Since 1966 he has served in the Delware House and Senate, as Lieutenant Governor and Governor, and as the state's sole House member since 1993. That's quite an impressive resume. While Delaware went overwhelmingly for Barack Obama last year and Democrats have been dominant in the state of late, Castle's candidacy immediately gives the Republicans an opportunity to chip into the Democrats' 60 seat caucus. On the Democratic side, all eyes are now on Attorney General Beau Biden (son of Joe) to see whether he enters the race to seek his dad's old seat.

Besides setting up a potential barn burner of a race, Castle's candidacy gives us a chance to explore the politics of those smallest of states--those with only a single House member. When I read about Castle's entrance, I got to thinking about the advantages of running for a higher office within the same constituency as the one you're leaving. When other House member's seek to move on to the Senate or Governor, they need to introduce themselves to hundreds of thousands of new voters--a daunting and expensive task. Furthermore, the partisanship of one's House district likely differs dramatically from the state as a whole. Candidates like Castle don't have to worry about this. Thus, these Senate candidates might find themselves running a redux of their previous House races. What I didn't know was whether or not this was truly the case. How often do House members from single district states move on to the Senate??? Let's take a look. What we find is a fascinating, yet complicated, tangle of politicians, offices, and campaigns.

There are two ways we might look at this phenomenon. First, we can look at the Senate delegations of those states with at-large House districts and see how many came from the House. There are currently seven states that have a single House member--Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. Aside from Kaufman, the placeholder in Delaware, that leaves 13 Senators. Of these, 6 have previous service as their state's House member: Tom Carper (DE); Max Baucus (MT); Byron Dorgan (ND); Tim Johnson (SD); John Thune (SD); and Bernie Sanders (VT). Of these, 4 moved to the Senate directly from the House. The exceptions are Tom Carper who served two terms as Delaware Governor between the House and the Senate and John Thune who took an interesting path between the two chambers. After serving three House terms, Thune decided to challenge incumbent Senator Tim Johnson in 2002. After narrowly losing that race, he reloaded and mounted an attack on the other state's Senator, Tom Daschle, and was successful in a narrowly decided contest just two years later. The Thune example is instructive in a couple of ways. First, these races in small states are oftentimes extremely close. Due to the fact that Senators (namely incumbents) running against a House challenger share the same constituency, many of the normal incumbency advantages disappear now that both candidates share them. Second, Thune's case shows us how these states tend to have a small cadre of politicians who always seem to run against each other--appearing and reappearing as different elections get contested over time (you can throw gubenatorial contests in here as well).

This second point can be seen further as we look at the next way to explore this phenomenon. Rather than looking at the Senate delegations and tracing their paths backwards, we can look at the House members from these states and see who tried to move up--and whether or not they were successful. Here things can get a little nutty, especially in the Dakotas. Rather than try and create a chart or spreadsheet to present the data here, its probably best to just go state by state. I've taken a look at each of these states over the past few decades. I'd also note that their single district status has changed at different times. Montana, for example, became a single member state after the 1990 census while North Dakota lost a seat after the 1970 census and South Dakota after 1980.

Alaska: Alaska is a simple case to explore in that there's been no movement. Alaska's lone House member, Republican Don Young has held his seat since 1973 and has not attempted any run for higher office.

Delaware: Going back to the mid-60's, Delaware has had five House members. As noted above, Mike Castle has held the seat since his election in 1992. Prior to him, now Senator Tom Carper (D) held the seat between 1983 and 1993 when he assumed the governorship. He became Senator upon the retirement of incumbent Republican William Roth. Before Carper the seat was held for three terms by Republican Thomas Evans who was defeated by Carper (interesting backstory here). From 1971 until 1977 Pete DuPont IV (R) was in office before vacating the seat to run for, and win, the governor's office. DuPont was elected upon the vacancy of the seat by William Roth who held it between 1967 and his movement to the Senate following the 1970 election. Got that??? Essentially the House, Governor, and Senate seats from the state acted as a game of musical chairs for a very small set of actors (Carper, Roth, DuPont, and now maybe Castle).

Montana: Montana is a little more easy to follow with not a whole lot of movement. The current House member, Republican Dennis Rehberg has held the seat since his election in 2000. Previous to Rehberg, Republican Rick Hill held the seat for two terms before retiring. It was during the term of Hill's predecessor, Democrat Pat Williams, that Montana switched from two to one House seats. Williams, first elected in 1978, retired in 1996 without seeking to move to the Senate. Williams was preceded in the then 1st District by now Senator Max Baucus who was first elected to the House in 1974. So Baucus fits the pattern of taking advantage of a House seat to move up to the Senate.

North Dakota: This is going to be a bit complicated. Since 1993 North Dakota's House seat has been held by Democrat Earl Pomeroy. Before Pomeroy, current Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan occupied the office beginning with his election in 1980. Dorgan won election to the Senate in 1992 upon the retirement of Democratic Senator Kent Conrad. Wait. Isn't Conrad currently the other North Dakota senator??? Yes he is and this is where things get weird. Conrad was elected to the Senate first in 1986 from the position of ND Tax Commissioner (a position also held by Dorgan earlier in his career!!!) and promised to serve only one term unless the country's trade and budget deficits were not reduced. With the fiscal situation not resolved, Conrad announced his retirement in 1992. Later that year, however, the state's other Senator (Dorgan's still in the House, remember) Quentin Burdick died suddenly leaving the seat vacant. Upon the entreaties of state Democrats, Conrad decided to run in the special election which he subsequently won. So Kent Conrad has been elected to both of North Dakota's Senate seats (but not its House seat). He and Dorgan essentially entered the Senate at the same time.

OK, where were we? Prior to Byron Dorgan, ND's House seat was held by Republican Mark Andrews, first elected in 1964. In 1980, he gave up the seat to run for, and win, the open Senate seat vacated by Milton Young. In 1986 Andrews was defeated by Conrad. If anyone can keep this convoluted bit of political history straight they win the ElectionDissection.com Lifetime Achievement Award. The story of North Dakota, like Delaware, shows how a few politicians seem to continuously jockey for a limited number of offices.

South Dakota: A little less complicated than its northern neighbor, but not much so. The current SD rep. is Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin who won the seat in a 2004 special election. That race was contested when her predecessor, Republican Bill Janklow (first elected in 2002 and a former Governor to boot) resigned upon being convicted of vehicular manslaughter. Janklow was elected when previous Rep. John Thune (see above) gave up the seat to run against, yet lose to, current Senator Tim Johnson. Remember, Thune came back in 2004 to knock off Tom Daschle (who we'll read more about in a second). Prior to Thune, the House seat was held by Tim Johnson, first elected in 1986. Johnson gave up the seat in '96 to run against, and ultimately beat, incumbent Senator Larry Pressler. Prior to Johnson, South Dakota's lone House member was??? That's right, Tom Daschle!!! Daschle vacated the seat in '86 to challenge and beat the other incumbent Senator James Abdnor. During Daschle's time in the House South Dakota lost its second House seat, which for two terms was held by----Larry Pressler until he moved to the Senate in 1979. That's four members--Pressler, Daschle, Johnson, and Thune--who've held both the House and Senate seats from the state and have run against and succeeded each other in various permutations.

Vermont: The current Vermonter in the House is Democrat Peter Welch, first elected in 2006. Welch's predecessor was current Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders moved to the Senate directly from the House, to which he was first elected in 1990. Sanders Senate seat was created by the retirement of Independent (and former Republican) James Jeffords. Jeffords himself had held the House seat from 1975 to 1988. The two year interval between Jeffords and Sanders was the House term of Republican Peter Smith, who Sanders knocked off in 1990.

Wyoming: Wyoming is now represented by freshman Republican Cynthia Lummis who took the spot of retiring Republican Barbara Cubin, first elected in 1994. Cubin's predecessor was Craig Thomas. Thomas, first elected to the House seat in 1990, gave up the seat to run for, and win, the Senate seat of retiring Republican Malcolm Wallop. Thomas captured the House seat when then Rep. Dick Cheney vacated it to become George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense. Prior to Cheney (first elected in 1978), Wyoming's seat was held by Republican Teno Roncalio, who retired making way for Cheney.

Thus, in only one of these states, Alaska, have we not seen a House member successfully parlay their incumbency into a Senate seat at some point. The only reason Alaska hasn't seen this happen, perhaps, is because of 1) the long incumbency of both its House member and one of its Senators, Ted Stevens (defeated last year); and 2) its strong Republicanism, ensuring little partisan competition for these coveted few spots. Everywhere else we've seen much more fluidity with a seemingly constant cast of characters moving around from office to office throughout their careers and finding themselves often opposing a set of "usual suspects." With small states offering only a limited number of opportunities for politicians to achieve their ambitions, things can get awfully crowded at the top.

Have you kept all of this straight???

Campaigning to Lead the Ungovernable City

2009-10-06T10:20:00.003-05:00

A recent Time magazine cover story on Detroit portrays a city ravaged by the current recession, rendering it virtually ungovernable. Consider: Unemployment currently sits at 30% (!!!); the public school system is in receivership; and the city coffers are $300 million in the red. Whereas Detroit was at one time the country's fifth largest city, it has been hemorrhaging population and now ranks eleventh nationally with just over 900,000 residents. While the auto industry reigned, the city had no incentive to diversify its economy. Now that we've seen the Big 3 teeter on the verge of collapse, this shortsightedness has come back to haunt the region. While a city like Pittsburgh--equally reliant on a single industry a few generations back--has weathered globalization and economic difficulties quite well by becoming a leader in health care and high tech, Detroit is in danger of imploding.

If matters weren't bad enough, Detroit's recent political leadership has been dismal. Disgraced former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was forced to resign in the wake of numerous allegations of corruption, infidelity, and obstruction of justice. Trying to right the ship is Dave Bing, former Detroit Piston and successful business executive. Bing has brought to the job a no nonsense style and willingness to rumple feathers to get things done. Victorious in a 15 person Democratic primary (!!!) to complete Kilpatrick's unfinished term (see results here), Bing is now running for a full term on November 3. In reading the profile's of Bing and his candidacy one gets the sense that while he may not be loved, he may be the city's best hope. Reluctant to glad hand and do the banquet circuit, Bing has alienated a number of the city's key constituencies, including the public sector unions. Nonetheless, most commentary suggests that he'll be victorious nonetheless. Given the work ahead of him, one wonders why anyone would want the job in the first place.

**Above photo via Time.com

Riposte to My Last Post--ElectionDissection.com Book Club

2009-09-30T13:09:00.008-05:00

After my last post I got to wondering whether I was being a little hard on the Palmetto State. Pulling out V.O. Key when talking about the south (and race) is certainly heavy artillery, but his conclusions--while valid in 1949--may no longer hold. So we should maybe look at more recent history. To help with this, I recently came across a book that was specifically designed to be an update of Key's "Southern Politics." From the title you get a sense that the authors wanted to take another look, state by state, at what Key explored. "The Transformation of Southern Politics," written by Jack Bass and Walter DeVries shows how, in the years after Key, two party politics began to emerge across the south. Whereas Key found factionalism within the solidly Democratic south to be the traditional form of politics, we here start to see the makings of more "rational" competition between the parties.

I should note, though, that this book was written in 1976 so we don't have the opportunity to explore the full arc of southern political transformation to the point where the region is now the most Republican part of the country. Indeed, in many of the states Bass and DeVries explore, parity between the parties had yet to emerge by the mid-70's. Nonetheless, the process was under way, spurred by several events and forces. Among these was the 1949 Dixiecrat revolt, Barry Goldwater's 1964 inroads in Dixie, as well as a social transformation that saw a massive in-migration into the south from many northern states. While these forces tended to help Republicans, Democrats also saw their politics transform--and this is a process the authors focus on. With the 1965 Voting Rights Act's passage, southern politicians could no longer ignore the numerical strength of black voters. In fact, they now had the incentive to court them. Thus, the 60's and 70's saw the emergence of many Democratic politicians who were much more moderate, and indeed sometimes progressive, on the issue of race in comparison to their predecessors. Jimmy Carter is probably the best example but lesser known figures like Ernest Hollings in South Carolina, Dale Bumpers in Arkansas, and Reubin Askew in Florida saw their rise assisted by black votes. Another consequence of the Voting Rights Act's passage, along with the breakup of malapportioned state legislative districts, was the election of sizable numbers of black politicians. Thus, Key's "Southern Politics" is very much in recession by this time.

In their chapter on South Carolina titled "The Changing Politics of Color," Bass and DeVries suggest that the state's politics, along with Tennessee's, were the furthest along in developing a true two party system. The responsibility for the growth and early maturation of SC's Republicans can be most ascribed to Strom Thurmond. After first bolting the Democrats to run as a Dixiecrat in 1948, Thurmond joined the Republican ranks and was elected to the Senate. One story that I found fascinating in Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland" was the role that Thurmond played in the election of Richard Nixon in 1968. By providing affirmation of Nixon's bona fides (some would call this a wink and a nod to the "Southern Strategy"), Nixon was able to win South Carolina, not only denying it to George Wallace who swept the rest of the Deep South, but helping to cement his victory over Hubert Humphrey.

While South Carolinian, and southern politics more broadly, was changing, that's not to say that some of the characteristics Key identified had disappeared. Voting could still be very racially polarized. In his recent look at southern politics, Thomas Schaller argues that white southern voters oftentimes increase their participation in response to high levels of black voting--in other words, the fear that black voters could tilt elections leads whites to vote in reaction to them (and thus for Republicans). Bass and DeVries found a similar phenomenon in South Carolina:

A look at county data reveals, as expected, that the combination of heavy black population and a high rate of black participation greatly stimulates white political participation. Whites in all 12 of the majority black counties were registered at a higher percentage than the state average of 61.3 percent. In ten of the counties the white registration rate was more than 15 points higher than the statewide rate. As a percentage of those registered, whites in the majority black counties voted at a slightly higher rate than the state average, and blacks in those counties at a rate about equal to the state average.

Thus, there's a mixture of both fluidity and stability in the politics of the south. What we need to look at next is the subsequent chapter of southern political history--the rise of Reagan, the maturation of the Republican Party across the region, and its subsequent dominance epitomized in the 1994 congressional election. Bass and DeVries have updated the version that I have so that is probably the best place to start but I'll try and search out some more works, comprehensive in scope, to continue this process of exploration.

From Now On, Is Everything About Race???

2009-09-16T14:26:00.011-05:00

Over the past week, especially since President Obama’s health care speech to Congress, the political debate in Washington and across the country has reached a heightened sense of craziness. Crystallized by the outburst of South Carolina congressman Joe Wilson—and the subsequent vote of disapproval in the House yesterday—the issue of race has once again been raised. Wilson’s “You lie!” comment has been interpreted in a variety of ways, with many arguing that racism lies not far beneath the surface. The most high profile advocate of this position is former President jimmy Carter. Commentary about Wilson’s motivations has been more divided.

As readers of this blog know, the role of race in American politics and society fascinates me. The Obama candidacy and now presidency have presented us with the opportunity to look, perhaps as never before, at how race defines and divides us. In theorizing about race, though, we need to be extremely careful—not because of the sensitivity of the issue and a fear of being either too overly or insufficiently “politically correct”—but because of how difficult it is to prove anything, especially when it comes to individuals’ motivations, beliefs, and biases. A case for such humility was made recently by Ta-Nehisi Coates in his blog over at The Atlantic (one of my favorites).

So having said this, I want to proceed gingerly in talking about this series of events. Nonetheless, the Wilson case brings to the fore some fascinating political/geographical history--stuff that gets us excited here. Whenever I’ve ventured to talk about race, especially in terms of its salience in the south, I turn to the great work by V.O. Key, “Southern Politics,” originally published in 1949. Key’s work was a landmark study of how the “solid south” evolved in the post-bellum south. In his introduction, Key argues

In its grand outlines the politics of the South revolves around the position of the Negro. It is at times interpreted as a politics of cotton, as a politics of free trade, as a politics of agrarian poverty, or as a politics of planter and plutocrat. Although such interpretations have a superficial validity, in the last analysis the major peculiarities of southern politics go back to the Negro. Whatever phase of the southern political process one seeks to understand, sooner or later the trail of inquiry leads to the Negro.

The main “peculiarity” Key explores is why traditional two party politics never emerged in the south after the Civil War. Whereas “rational” politics entails conflicts around economic issues—and thus divides the classes—such cleavages never took hold in the south’s politics. The reason, for Key, was because the fear of black advancement and political political power united both rich and poor whites. Even though poor whites and blacks shared many economic interests, an alliance between the two never congealed. Thus, southern politics was more factional than ideological, playing out completely within the arena of the Democratic party which, due to Jim Crow, was a totally white enterprise.

In Key’s analysis of individual southern states, he found that this type of politics was most entrenched in those areas with the largest black populations. The “blacker” a state or county, the greater incentive there was for whites to unite. Of all the southern states, South Carolina had the second largest black population, second only to Mississippi. In fact, Key entitled his chapter on the Palmetto State “The Politics of Color.” He opens this chapter by noting:

South Carolina has had a succession of spectacular race orators who almost blanket out the achievements of its abler and more temperate leaders, such as James F. Byrnes. While others shared their views, the politicians of South Carolina—and Mississippi—have put the white-supremacy case most bitterly, most uncompromisingly, most vindictively.

Does this history make Joe Wilson’s outburst racist? Who knows. Is he responsible for this history? Of course not. But history is hard to escape and it shapes people’s context and it shapes our culture. And when we’re discussing American history and especially that of the south and its politics, we can’t ignore race, even though doing so would make us more comfortable. We should also recognize that others will consider it and have their own judgments shaped by their particular experiences and histories. An interesting aspect of the Wilson brouhaha has been the role played by fellow SC congressman, and Democratic Whip, James Clyburn. Clyburn represents the neighboring district in the state and has a storied personal history as a leader of the civil rights struggle there. That he was the member driving the move to admonish Wilson should remind us how personal this issue can be.

Interestingly—and here we can find more sure footing—when one looks at Congressman Wilson’s district, one finds that his district is not one where we’d expect quite the level of demagoguery that Key described. The 2nd District finds itself, of the state’s 6, in the middle in terms of its racial composition. It is the third “blackest” with African Americans making up roughly 26% of the population. Also, it has the highest median income in the state and the highest proportion of residents with a college degree. Recent conventional wisdom has suggested that those with higher incomes and education will be the least likely to hold unenlightened views on race. In last year’s presidential race the 2nd was Obama’s third best district, giving him 45% of the vote. Furthermore, as has been noted at length over the past week, Wilson had a relatively close re-election last time, garnering only 54% of the vote. Both candidates have used the events of the past week to rake in huge sums of money for next year’s rematch. Thus, there doesn't seem to be much incentive, in a purely political sense, for Wilson to become the new incarnation of George Wallace.

So where does this leave us??? The fact that we’ve been focused on the meaning of two words over the past week—and that this meaning has been interpreted by many to have sinister racial undertones—tells us that we’ve not yet arrived at a mythical “post racial” America. Given our history and how much in is entwined into our consciousness, perhaps we never will. Where it does leave us is with a realization that these types of debates, clashes, and parsings of words are going to be with us for a while. The Obama presidency makes this unavoidable. However much we might want our political fights (in the best sense of the word) to be “just” about health care, the economy, education, and the like, they won’t be. Beneath the surface of all of these will be the unspoken, and often loudly spoken, role of race in America. We best proceed humbly.

**Top image, slave map of South Carolina, originally published in The Atlantic in 1861.

Is It Too Early To Be Thinking About 2010???

2009-09-01T13:41:00.006-05:00

As August wraps up and the Democrats emerge from a month long, town hall meeting inspired, collective freak-out, the punditry is already asking whether the Dems are doomed come next fall. A recent Politico story samples opinion from the likes of Charlie Cook and Nate Silver, both of whom seem to be forcasting dire straits ahead.

All of this seems extremely premature to me. With 14 months to go until the voting we (if we are honest) have to acknowledge that we have no idea what the political and party dynamics will be that far down the road. While the health care debate has been (predictably) ugly, confusing, and divisive, it's also pretty much assured that something will pass. When it does, things will calm down. Perhaps this isn't the best time to be making predictions. Its also useful to put the upcoming election into some broader context.

Toward the end of the Politico story, the issue of retirements comes up. This, I'd argue, is a good place to start. Open seat races caused by an incumbents' retirements have always provided parties with their best opportunity to gain seats. The formidable incumbency advantages of name recognition, legislative record, constituency service, and fundraising might disappear, creating a much more level playing field. Should the out-party manage to field and support a credible candidate they can feasibly gain the seat. A crucial variable in their ability to do this, of course, is the underlying nature of the district itself. A Democrat retiring from a solidly liberal district isn't going to be likely to change, whatever the Republican candidate does. To look at the role that retirements play in assisting party gains, I created the following chart, focusing on the House of Representatives. Senate races have a much more individualistic dynamic that we'll explore over the coming months.

The above chart shows each party's success in gaining seats for each congressional election cycle since 1960. Column 2 indicates the total number of House retirements for that particular cycle. Column 3 provides the total number of Democratic retirements, followed by the number of those retirements lost. Column 5 provides the percentage of retirements lost. Column 6 notes the total number of Democratic losses (open seat losses plus incumbents defeated). Column 7 (based on the Republican numbers) shows how many of the Democrats' total gains for that year were the result of their capture of open seats. The remaining columns provide the same data for Republicans over this period.

So what do we see? First, both parties are quite successful in defending the seats of their retirees. Both parties lost, on average over the length of this data set, 29.5% of their open seats. Thus, if a party wants to rely on retirements to make big gains, they are going to need an extremely large number of retirements from the other side. The best example of this is 1994. I've highlighted 1994 in the chart (as with 2006) to show what happens during cycles when the party majority switches. In '94, Republicans managed to win 21 of the 28 vacancies created by Democratic retirements. These wins gave them 38% of the seats they captured that year. While they managed to unseat a very large number of incumbent Dems, these open seat wins were crucial.

A second trend that jumps out is that the Democrats have been more reliant on open seat wins to make their gains than Republicans have been. The Dems have averaged 46.5% of their gains through open seat wins as opposed to the Republicans 39%. Thus, for the Republicans in 2010, the data would seem to point to their need to knock of Democratic incumbents--at least given past trends. For them to do this, though, they'll need to target vulnerable Dems--probably those from moderate to Republican leaning districts. Hence, we've seen how the Blue Dogs have been at the center of the current hand wringing. One thing I've wondered about, as a result of how well the Democrats have done in the past two cycles, is whether the party is at its high water mark in terms of seats. In other words how many more districts, even under the most favorable circumstances, could possibly go Democratic? It's hard to think of many. Thus, any gains that the Republicans might make next year might be the result not of voter backlash against health care or Obama, but rather a natural correction in the electorate, a return to equilibrium if you will. Rather than doing so poorly now, it may be that the Democrats did too well in '06 and '08.

Looking ahead to 2010 with attention on retirements, what do we know at this point? Currently, 16 House members have announced their retirements (10 Republican and 6 Democrat). Looking at the range of this data set, one sees that even allowing for more retirement announcements in the future, 2010 doesn't seem like it will be a year with a large number of retirements--hence opportunities--for Republicans. With a new majority and now a President of their party in the White House, Democrats have an incentive to stay in office and push their policy agenda. One can also be sure that party leaders are pushing their members to stay put rather than retire or seek higher office. Thus, should some of these early prognostications materialize, they would seem to have to be driven by incumbent defeats. Not only are these difficult to produce individually, but to do so in large number and across numerous regions requires extremely unusual circumstances. While the current health care debate has certainly gotten some House Democrats scared, we shouldn't automatically assume that 2010 is going to be the equivalent of 1994 or 1966--years that saw the minority party make huge gains. A lot more would need to happen.

Free For All Guv's Race in Wisconsin

2009-08-19T12:47:00.003-05:00

Two term Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle (D) announced last week that he would not seek a third term, throwing wide open next year's race for the Badger State's top office (for a decent rundown see here). Doyle had been a consistent vote getter statewide, winning three terms as Attorney General and then two as Governor. Under normal circumstances, Doyle would have been virtually assured a third term (Wisconsin does not have term limits). However, with the worsening economy, Doyle's approval has cratered over the past year, with his numbers now hovering somewhere in the low 30's. With his announcement, several candidates have already announced, several more may be expected to jump in, and I'll venture that a few probably should.

Prior to this announcement, the two Republicans in the race were Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and former Wisconsin House member (1st District) Mark Neumann. Walker has been twice elected in Milwaukee County and was a candidate for the GOP governor's nomination last time around in 2006. However, midway through the race Walker dropped out (after some prodding by national GOP higher ups) to give then House member Mark Green (8th District) clear sailing to the party nod. Green went on to lose to Doyle handily (53%-45%) in a year Wisconsin moved solidly to the Democratic side (Green's House seat went blue to Rep. Steve Kagen). Neumann also has statewide ballot experience. After capturing the 1st District House seat in the 1994 GOP landslide, Neumann sought to take down Sen. Russ Feingold in 1998. Aided by Feingold's questionable campaign strategy (refusing national party money and abiding by the limits of the yet to pass McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill), Neumann almost scored an upset, losing by only 3 points. Both Walker and Neumann are fiscal and social conservatives. Of the two, Neumann is probably more to the extremes, especially because he hasn't been forced to govern and take pragmatic stances like Walker has as the head of Wisconsin's largest county.

On the Democratic side, things are just starting to shake out. First in the race is the current Lieutenant Governor, Barbara Lawton. While Lawton's first elected experience came with the number two spot under Doyle, she hails from a part of the state that is, in my mind, the most fascinating for Dems' chances--Green Bay and the upper Fox River Valley (see this post from last year's cycle).

The next Democrat that people are watching is 3rd District Congressman Ron Kind. The 3rd District is made up of the mostly rural western part of the state (see this older post for some background). The Blue Dog Kind has held the seat since replacing GOP moderate Steve Gunderson back in 1996. Given that the Democratic nominee will have to grapple with the state's economic downturn and no doubt have to demonstrate some fiscal bona fides, Kind is an intriguing potential candidate.

Third up, and yet to declare, is Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk. Falk has two things in her favor. First, she hails from the vote rich and most reliably Democratic part of the state--Madison. Dane County consistently has the state's highest turnout levels and, in a close primary or general, this could prove crucial. Second, she has run statewide before, losing to Doyle in the 2002 Democratic primary for governor. In a three way race, along with then Milwaukee congressman and now Mayor, Falk garnered 27% of the vote.

Which brings us to Barrett. Barrett has gotten a lot of unwanted attention, given the circumstances, over the past week, after being beaten outside the Wisconsin State Fair. Upon leaving with his family, Barrett came across a domestic disturbance and, in the process of calling the police and trying to separate the parties, ended up losing a few teeth, fracturing his hand, and requiring plastic surgery to close up some nasty cuts. Rachel Maddow profiled the episode the other day, speculating that this may gain Barrett some sympathy, and potentially votes, should he again seek the Governor's mansion. While Barrett hails from the largest city and county in the state, this may--ironically-work against him (and Walker too). Historically, Wisconsin voters have not elected their Governor from Milwaukee. One needs to go back to Civil War era elections to find the last time this happened. The big city / out state dynamic that I wrote about a while back has held quite well in Wisconsin.

One candidate that I would watch closely is 1st District Congressman Paul Ryan. While Ryan begged off the question of whether he was interested in the race, the clearly ambitious (many think he will run for the Senate soon) Ryan should, in my view, consider entering. The Republican candidate should, all things being equal, be at an advantage next year. While Ryan has risen quickly up the GOP ranks in the House--he now sits as the ranking member on the Budget Committee--his prospects of being a member of the majority party any time soon (and thus having any tangible policy influence) are dim given the size of the Democratic majority. Thus, for a wonkish, yet charismatic, politician like Ryan, the Governor's mansion would seem to be an attractive destination.

The wild card in all of this is how the Wisconsin political landscape will look 15 months from now. Should the economy improve the current GOP advantage could vaporize. While Wisconsin is always considered a classic swing state, recent elections have seen it move further to the Democratic side. A GOP presidential candidate hasn't won the state since Ronald Reagan in 1984. Democrats have won the past two governor's races and the past 7 Senate races. In the last two cycles the Democrats have captured both houses of the state legislature and have gained one U.S. House seat. Obama romped through Wisconsin, winning the state by 14 points. Thus, both parties have reason to be optimistic. The result will hopefully be (for political junkies at least) a multi-candidate Battle Royale.

A Quick Note on the Sotomayor Confirmation

2009-08-06T14:25:00.004-05:00

Judge Sonia Sotomayor was just confirmed by the Senate, 68-31. Nine Republicans voted yes. One thing I would note is that 4 of those 9 yea votes are from retiring members (Gregg, Martinez, Bond, and Voinovich). Early on the process I speculated on how things might shake out on the Republican side (turns out I was wrong about a lot).

What seems clear is that the partisan voting trend continues on these nominations. Because of their impending retirments, these four no longer had to worry about any repurcussions stemming from supporting Sotomayor. Its hard for the leadership to whip Senators into line behind the party position when those Senators are on the way out the door. Voinovich's comments last week about the state of the Republican party and its increasing "southern-ness" seems, in retrospect, to be an insight into his thinking. Perhaps the most interesting of the Republican yeas is Lamar Alexander (R-TN) whose comments in support of Sotomayor sought to defuse the polarization of these nomination fights. Having run for President himself, Alexander may, one might speculate, be sympathetic to the critique offered by his Ohio colleague--although one can't imagine the Tennessean voicing his agreement.

***UPDATE: Nate Silver provides a rundown of the GOP vote and provides the following helpful visual on states' Hispanic population and the ultimate vote of their GOP senators.

Grampa Stayed Home

2009-07-21T11:35:00.005-05:00

A new Census Bureau report was just released that gives a highly detailed look at turnout during last year's campaign (summary press release here and coverage here). The main takeaway is that 2008 actually saw a decrease in turnout among eligible voters (those 18 and over). The main reason for this decrease, apparently, is that older white voters decided to stay home in significant numbers.

While turnout among the young increased, it was the only age group whose numbers were up significantly compared to 2004. Largely responsible for this spike, it seems, is much higher participation by young African-American voters whose turnout increased 8% over 2004 and gave them a higher turnout rate than young whites. Overall, though, younger voters still had the lowest turnout rate. Thus, the longstanding correlation between turnout and age was maintained.

While I haven't dug through all of the date in this report yet, it seems further indication that although the 2008 election brought many new voters into the political process, it didn't produce an electorate that was radically different from what we've seen in recent contests.

Does Anyone Want to Be the Next Senator From Illinois???

2009-07-13T10:09:00.008-05:00

There's been a rash of Hamlet-like indecision in Illinois. For next year's Senate race, a number of candidates have been mulling entering what will no doubt be an expensive, highly watched, and potentially highly competitive campaign.

Last week came word, not surprisingly, that the appointed incumbent (and Blagojevic stained) Democrat Roland Burris would not seek to retain the seat. While claiming that the cost of mounting a race would be too prohibitive, his demurral certainly also has to do with the fact that he has virtually no support among Democratic higher ups in the state, including senior Senator Richard Durbin.

Also last week came the announcement that the Democrats' top hope for the seat, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, was also saying no. While Madigan was being courted by the White House to enter the race, she was also mulling a run for Governor. In the end, she decided to seek re-election as AG. While the Senate race seemed hers to lose, perhaps fear of a Republican rebound has led her to keep her powder dry for the time being. Only 42 years old, she has many campaigns in her future.

Another potential Dem is Christopher Kennedy, son of RFK, and head of the longtime Kennedy holding, Chicago Merchandise Mart. He's also reportedly on the fence.

Fourth on our roster of potential Senators is 5th term Republican House member Mark Kirk. Over the last few days Kirk has gone back and forth, sending out signals that he was out as well as in. Key to his deliberations, apparently, is a desire to avoid a costly and divisive primary. As of today, thanks to Illinois GOP head Andy McKenna's decision not to mount his own campaign, Kirk is in.

Kirk is perhaps the most interesting of these candidates. For the GOP to make a Senate pick-up in Illinois, a moderate would seem to be a requirement. Kirk certainly fits this bill. He represents the upscale 10th district, comprising the north and northwest Chicago suburbs. In last year's presidential race, Barack Obama received 61% of the vote in the 10th. In 2004, John Kerry won the district with 52%. Despite the recent Democratic wave, Kirk managed to hold his seat with 53%. The newly published Politics in America 2010 describes the district thusly:

Suburban white-collar workers and the more working-class residents of Waukegan combine to make the 10th fiscally conservative but socially liberal, especially on abortion rights and gun control. Its proximity to Lake Michigan makes environmental issues important here. While area residents have sent a Republican to the U.S. House for decades, the area generally supports Democratic presidential candidates...

Kirk is among the most left-leaning Republicans in the GOP caucus. He's managed to parlay his moderate positions into a reliable base of support back home, allowing him to withstand the strong Democratic winds of the past few cycles. He would seem to possess the necessary ability to siphon off the votes of Democratic leaning independents in the Chicago suburbs. While these voters have been moving increasingly leftward in recent years, Kirk may be able to bring them back (perhaps only temorarily) with a message of fiscal responsibility. Should the benefits of the recently passed stimulus package remain elusive, coupled with high unemployment, Kirk may have a solid economic platform on which to mount his campaign.

There is one announced Democrat in the race, State Treasurer Alex Giannoulias. Another potential Dem entrant is 9th District House member Jan Schakowsky, whose district border's Kirk's, and who would be the most liberal candidate in the race. She has strong progressive bona fides, is part of the House Democratic leadership, and would bring fundraising potential to the campaign.

Keep an eye on Illinois as things become more straightened out over the coming weeks.

Michael Barone:Forget Deep/Old South vs New/Upper SouthIn the Age of Obama,it's "The South Atlantic" vs. "The Interior South"

2009-06-30T05:09:00.013-05:00

Over at the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog, the free daily’s senior Political Anaylst Michael Barone parses the House roll call vote on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill – aka “cap-and-trade.” It’s a vote worth dissecting as it’s one of the first major roll calls of the Obama Administration where partisan solidarity took a back seat - especially on the Democratic side of the aisle - to economic worries back home.

Per his methods in his authoritative biennial guide, “The Almanac of American Politics,” Barone analyzes the vote geographically, digging into partisan breakdowns in various regions to examine how the vote played out, and to handicap the bill’s prospects in the Senate. (He’s skeptical, if it’s not amended, noting Democratic Senators such as North Dakota’s Kent Conrad, who voiced, and Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, who Tweeted(!), their public skepticism of the bill’s potential burdensome economic impact on their constituents’ wallets.)

Barone still assigns regional monikers that bear a sort of charm redolent of an earlier era of political science: “The Germano-Scandinavian Midwest (IA, MN, WI).” Others are more contemporarily shrewd.

Barone updates the traditional “Deep South” vs. “Upper South” or “Old South” vs. “New South” dichotomies. In 2009, the Obama Era, Barone cleaves the coastal “South Atlantic (FL, GA, NC, SC, VA)” from the vast “Interior South,” limning a wide arc through what’s left of the Section across states of seemingly dissonant political traditions: from Appalachian West Virginia, through once decidedly “Upper South” Tennessee and Kentucky, snapping up the old Wallace/Thurmond redoubt and segregationist strongholds of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, onto western-tinged Oklahoma and Texas.

Roughly, Barone is drawing a distinction between the growing, suburbanizing states that Obama won, but George W. Bush took in 2000 (FL, VA, NC) and the rest of the South where population and incomes remains stagnant, and Democrats still struggle for traction.

Of course, these are only blunt designations. Barone’s “Interior South” includes bastions of educated Southern natives sprinkled with highly educated transplants, trend-setting metropolises like Austin, TX; Nashville, TN; and Lexington, KY that may one day overwhelm the Wacos and Memphises and Paducahs that keep those states conformably combined within the same category as West Virginia, Oklahoma and Mississippi.

And his “South Atlantic” includes South Carolina, once the most “Solid” of the “Solid South” in its Democratic partisan fervor and electoral expression of Southern Sectional defiance. (SC Dem presidential vote performance ranged from 1896-1944 spanned from 85%-98%.) But, the once-Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond impressed a durable Republican tradition when he switched parties back in the ‘60’s. The urbane Gov. Mark Sanford hails from a resort-dotted coast that’s the growing part of the state that gave an openly lesbian – if business friendly - Democratic Congressional candidate a respectable vote total in 2008. Sanford’s Coastal Carolina taste in genteel plantations and “exotic” Argentine paramours contrasts with the Up Country, South Carolina’s “Interior South,” where Mike Huckabee’s blend of social conservatism and economic populism played better.

Georgia is a sort of awkward fit in this column, too; something of a lagging indicator. Atlanta’s ‘burbs are driving demographic shifts at play in Virginia and North Carolina, but the Peach State’s Republicanism bloomed later than that of other Southern states, possibly retarded by Favorite Son Jimmy Carter’s legacy. Nevertheless, Obama scored the highest raw Dem vote total ever here, and snared the biggest share of Georgia’s popular vote since “that peanut farmer” bested Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

But, Barone needed to hammer these circled squares into contiguous clusters. And, I-95 is useful as a spine that conjoins “The South Atlantic.” If trends in Tennessee and Texas continue apace, and Georgia’s and South Carolina’s still lollygag along, Barone may have to engage in his own creative Reapportionment.

But, for 2009, Barone’s updated distinction between “The South Atlantic” and “The Interior South” offers a more-than-serviceable thumbnail snapshot of an ever-changing Southern political landscape.

The "Social Issue," Crime, and Inner Cities--Are They Still Important???

2009-06-23T11:43:00.005-05:00

Some seemingly random, but I think connected, thoughts on crime, urban life, demographic change, and politics:

I’m working my way through Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg’s “The Real Majority.” Written in 1970, it is in many ways a follow up to Phillips’ “The Emerging Republican Majority.” Though not nearly as exhaustive or as focused on political geography and history, it does grapple with the same turbulent time period—the late 1960’s—and tries to figure out how we seemed to move from LBJ to Nixon so quickly. Whereas Phillips had worked for the Nixon campaign, Wattenberg had worked for Johnson, and later Henry “Scoop” Jackson. Thus, their political leanings (at the time) and agenda differ a bit. Central to “The Real Majority” is the contention that the country’s rejection of LBJ was not rooted, as many have argued, in a disdain for the Vietnam War. While there was certainly opposition, the support for first Eugene McCarthy, and ultimately Nixon, was driven by what Scammon and Wattenberg call the “Social Issue.” Foremost among voters’ concerns was a combination of crime, urban unrest, racial strife, alienation, and other related issues that produced a broad uneasiness or malaise about the direction of the country. Whereas Vietnam may have been the most “important” issue for the country, it was not the “voting” issue that defined politics. In this vein, one can see how politicians like George Wallace, Ronald Reagan (first as California Governor), and even, I’d argue, William F. Buckley in his 1965 race for NYC mayor could tap into the anxiety of voters. Because elections are ultimately about putting together coalitions, the ability of candidates to capitalize on these sentiments and have them (rather than economic concerns, for example) determine voting outcomes can lead to a re-ordering of our politics.

As our country has become both 1) more suburbanized and 2) less afflicted by crime, we tend to forget how big of an issue the problem of our cities was by the late ‘60’s. With mass migration out of the central cities attention turned to other issues. I’ve always been fascinated with big cities—not only their politics, but also how they grapple with issues like crime, housing, education, and transportation. A few weeks ago, the New York Times came out with a fascinating story, and interactive map, on the incidence of murders across the five boroughs over several years. The first thing that we note is that compared to earlier years—especially during the ‘70’s and ‘80’s--the murder rate in New York City is substantially lower today. Whereas there were 2245 murders in NYC in 1990, last year saw only 521. Thus, we might imagine—using the parlance of “The Real Majority--that the “Social Issue” has receded in importance for New Yorkers, and others nation wide. One also finds, and the interactive map is amazing is allowing one to track each murder, that there are definite patterns in 1) who tends to commit murder; 2) who tends to be a victim; and 3) where these crimes take place. The combination of these variables will probably contribute to how people think about the severity of crime and the way it affects them. We see that murders in NYC tend to be concentrated in certain areas and tend to have perpetrators and victims who belong to the same race.

All of this—the rise of the “Social Issue,” issues of race and poverty, and the prevalence of crime—conditions how we view not only our cities, but our politics more broadly. Rarely, unfortunately, do we get the opportunity to take a step back and reflect upon these areas and the people who occupy them. These issues have been bouncing around in my head since I became aware of (and now obsessed with) an amazing photographer who has devoted the last 30 years to documenting inner city America. Camilo Jose Vergara currently has two exhibitions going, one in New York and one in Washington, that showcase his documentation of places (and people) we tend to overlook. While he primarily photographs inner city buildings, his work forces you to think about how our cities change (or don’t) and what those changes mean. He has created a website devoted to his work—Invincible Cities—that takes one to Harlem, Camden NJ, and Richmond CA and allows you to go street by street to see not only how these neighborhoods look today, but how they looked over several decades. His show currently in Washington, “Storefront Churces” presents his look at inner city houses of worship. A central theme to these portraits is that inner city churches have tended to spring up in places previously occupied by businesses, schools, or other, now departed, congregations. By tracking these changes one can get an understanding not only of the importance of religion to these communities but of how our urban areas have transformed themselves over time. Whereas many of the neighborhoods Vergara photographs were originally home to European immigrants, they are now virtually entirely black.

How do we put all of this together??? Ultimately (but perhaps unfortunately), politics and policy is about the issues that we are paying attention to and that we feel directly affect us. A generation ago, crime and the “problem of the cities” were among the top few issues driving our politics. Now these issues would seem to fall far down the list of Americans’ concerns. These urban areas, however, don’t disappear even if their problems get subsumed within the mix of more pressing concerns. Fortunately we have artists like Camilo Jose Vergara who force us to remember and ponder what is going on there.