Demographic and State Shifts: Temporary Change or Realignment???

Charles Franklin of Pollster.com has created the above visual showing the performance of Obama versus Kerry across a range of demographic groups. What we see as a broad shift across virtually every group in the direction of greater Democratic support. Thus, like we saw at the state and county level, the movement toward the Democrats was quite impressive. What is no doubt the more fundamental question, however, is the duration or permanence of this shift. In the academic discussion of "realignments," what is necessary for a fundamental re-orientation of the electorate is not just movement of numerous social groups from one party to the other, but the durability of this movement. Also, with every demographic group here moving more Democratic, save three, one must wonder the degree to which the economic downturn and not other factors was ultimately responsible for the magnitude of Obama's win. Should many of these groups move back to their previous levels of partisan support over the next few years then November 4th's results won't seem so dramatic. In other words, with one election we don't have enough evidence to conclude we've had a realignment. These can only be viewed in the rear view mirror. However, much of the analysis of the exit polling that's been done over the past few weeks suggests that Democrats should be very happy about the trend lines. John Judis, who wrote "The Emerging Democratic Majority" with Ruy Teixeira discusses the possibility of this enduring majority here.

The above image of the state by state change compared to 2004 was created by Andrew Gelman at Princeton.

Is Realignment Coming? Some Thoughts on Critical Elections and the State of Modern Parties

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted so I want to get a number of ideas flowing over the next few days. As a result, this post is going to be a bit of a stream of consciousness. After doing a number of posts on V.O. Key, I’ve started to revisit a number of “classic” studies of voting behavior to see of there are any parallels we can draw to the current contest. Next on the bibliography is Walter Dean Burnham’s “Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics,” published in 1970.

Burnham’s work is seminal in that it brought forward the theory of “realignment,” namely the notion that American political history has been characterized by long periods of stable voting behavior and party coalitions, punctuated by rapid periods of upheaval, leading to the emergence of reordered coalitions and a new political order.

A couple of aspects of the current campaign got me thinking about Burnham and led me to dust off his book. First, as I wrote a few weeks ago, the speculation about Obama’s ability to “redraw” the political map hints at the potential for a modern realignment. With the Obama campaign producing increased political participation and drawing new groups to the Democratic side (at least for now), two preconditions of a “realignment” are present. Obviously it’s difficult (and dangerous) to use primary voting to predict dramatic systemic change so I don’t want to do much more than raise some ideas and questions. If you listen to much of Obama’s message on the stump—including the current brouhaha about voters being “bitter”—he is describing a state of voter unease that Burnham identifies as preceding these critical elections. Realignments “arise from emergent tensions in society which, not adequately controlled by the organization of outputs of party politics as usual, escalate to a flash point…They are involved with redefinitions of the universe of voters, political parties, and the broad boundaries of the politically possible” (p. 10). So, when Obama talks about “change,” he seems to be calling for realignment. Burnham also argues that following realignments we tend to see more dramatic policy change, another part of Obama’s message.

This has led me to think a lot about the importance of candidates themselves in this process. Does it matter who is running for office at the time of realignment? Does the right candidate make realignment more likely? Do politicians matter? Here, Burnham is less clear. He, like Kevin Phillips, and more modern writers like Judis and Texeira, focuses much of his analysis on historical, demographic, and socio-economic changes over the long term. Or put more crudely, political change follows societal change. As old political orders can no longer contain societal forces in flux, new orders erupt. Politicians seem secondary in this analysis. However, when we look at periods of realignment, we see presidents emerge that are by no means ordinary—Lincoln and Roosevelt, for example. While Burnham’s work was released before the Reagan ascendancy, many have pointed to his rise as the most recent realignment. Many of Obama’s supporters, though perhaps overly enthusiastic, see him as the next great charismatic leader who can reorder American politics. The question that I’ve been pondering is, if the conditions are right for a realignment, could a candidate like Clinton, Edwards, Richardson, or any of the other Democrats who sought the nomination produce the same magnitude of change that others are looking to Obama to create?? Again, Obama’s message suggests the answer is no. He wants us to believe that, yes, who is running matters.

Finally, Burnham’s book has gotten me thinking a lot about parties themselves. During the long periods of stability and the short periods of flux, parties are crucial actors. They serve to aggregate voter demands and structure political conflict. As the supporting coalitions shift, parties may disappear (the Whigs) or undergo substantial change. In earlier party systems, Burnham describes very strong party organizations with control over ballot distribution, candidate nomination, and even the distribution of political information through their own media. Beginning with the Progressive movement in the early 20th century, these party organizations were weakened dramatically. As voters became responsible for their own registration, primaries became the means for awarding candidates’ nominations, and as more voters became willing to identify themselves as independents, party “decomposition” began to accelerate.

As I read this I couldn’t help but think about the current state of the party nomination process we’re now going through, especially for the Democrats. We’re now at a point where, for example, the DNC has $5 million in the bank as opposed to Obama’s $40 million. Or, look at the debate about the Florida and Michigan delegations. We’ve spent the better part of two months engaging in a debate about whether rules established by the party (and agreed to by the candidates and states in question) can be changed simply because the campaign has played out differently than one of the candidates intended. Finally, we have Obama supporters suggesting that Clinton should spare the party more months of bloodshed by gracefully dropping out in the face of unassailable delegate math. The common thread that runs through all three of these is the weakness of modern political party organizations. Even though we have a party organization, it seems to lack any authority to shape the process and exert leverage over the candidates. In reality, it seems as if the party organization, as many have historically understood it, simply doesn’t exist anymore. All authority has been usurped by the candidates themselves. For Democrats hoping to win in November, their fear seems to be that the “decomposition” of the party has become complete. So complete, in fact, that it could kill their chances.

**Listen to Burnham discuss his work, in 2006, here.

Buckley and New York, 1965

Continuing our remembrance of William F. Buckley, I wanted to write more on his 1965 mayor's race. As this masterful portrait of the race in the New York Times Magazine recalls, Buckley entered the race almost on a whim. Running on the recently established line of the Conservative Party, Buckley didn't so much "campaign" in the traditional sense as use the race as an opportunity to give voice to the maturing conservative ideology that he had spent years developing. He knew he had no chance of winning and joked about the realities of the race. In retrospect, one sees that the race was rather an opening shot in the ascendancy of modern conservatism. In order for this new order to rise, the old order had to be vanquished.

This old order was, of course, a technocratic and bureaucratic liberalism that had become universally accepted by the political, academic, and journalistic classes. Social problems could be solved, society could be perfected, and government was the instrument. For Buckley, it was John Lindsay, the Republican congressman and mayoral candidate who embodied all that was wrong with this regime and who drew most of his fire. As Walter Lippmann commented at the time, Buckley was "determined to wreck the party in order to rule the wreckage."

While I haven't been able to find precinct level returns yet, the borough by borough numbers are available. Lindsay, of course, won followed closely by Democrat Abe Beam. Buckley received 13% city wide. Breaking down the numbers further, Buckley's totals were:

Queen's--17.3%
King's--12.7%
Richmond--25.2%
New York (Manhattan)--7.2%
Bronx--13.9%

So who were Buckley's voters and why are they important? In his portrait of the race, Sam Tanenhaus argues: "Though he failed to capture any single district, he finished second in parts of Queens and fared especially well among Irish and German Catholics. Once again, ethnic group interests and values--'who hates who,'--in the shorthand used by Kevin Phillips, author of 'The Emerging Republican Majority'--held true. The difference was that those aggrieved white ethnic voters now appeared to be Republicans..." In his biography of Lindsay, Vincent Cannato comes to a similar conclusion: "The twelve strong Buckley districts were in the white Catholic outer boroughs." Thus, Buckley expanded on the project begun earlier, as so ably described by Phillips, of giving voters a reason to use fear as the basis for their vote. Even though Buckley claimed to not want to divide the electorate into groups and pander to each in order to build a coalition, the result of his campaign was that just such a strategy would be viable in the future.

The importance of the race, I believe, was not so much felt in New York--although there were certainly repurcussions as Lindsay found it virtually impossible to govern a disintegrating city. What is of greater import is what this race said about the future of American politics. These Buckley voters were in fact all across the country. They lived in big cities that were in decay. They felt they were being left behind and that other groups were being given privileges--affirmative action, busing, etc. While they had at one time been the backbone of the New Deal Coalition, they would soon begin casting votes for George Wallace and comprise part of Nixon's "Silent Majority." Finally, they would provide the margin for Reagan's ascendancy. In metropolitan areas like Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Chicago, they were on a path toward realignment. There can be no doubt that this process was, in many ways, an ugly one. Race was used as a cleavage and latent fears and prejudices were exploited. Crime, welfare dependancy, and illegitmacy were used as metaphors for liberalism's failure. In retrospect, the tactics and language these candidates (including Buckley) often used were deplorable. However, if we want to be honest about our political history, we must reckon with them. As someone interested in why people vote the way that they do, I have to acknowledge that these reasons are not always admirable. But they must be studied.

In earlier posts on this blog, I have shown a number of examples of this, focusing on George Wallace. I wondered how a small state governor from the deep south, despite never winning the presidency, could change American politics so much. The answer, I believe, is that he gave voice to the rage and alienation of millions of Americans. At certain times in history, individuals are a perfect reflection of their times. They are the vessel in which others' aspirations, and sometimes fears, are placed. Here we have a Yale educated, patrician, son of an oil magnate drawing large numbers of votes from blue collar, lunch bucket carrying voters in Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Tempermentally and intellectually, Buckley was the polar opposite of Wallace. Reflecting on his death this week, I have to conclude that Buckley, like Wallace, was a crucial actor in this play. His influence on our politics over the past half century is incalculable.

Update: Here is a column by Buckley that I just found, written just prior to the 1968 election, on the subject of Wallace. The crux: votes for Wallace are votes that would otherwise go to Nixon. Thus, Buckley seems to agree that these were voters on the path to becoming Republicans, away from the Democrats. Here is a longer column from the same year, laying out his objections to Wallace at greater length.