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

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???

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

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

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?

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

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

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???!!!

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

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"

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

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???

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???

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

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

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

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"???

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

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

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.