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

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

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

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"???

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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???

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

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

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

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

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???

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.