For as long as I can remember, the two parties have each tended to rely on a favorite theme when attacking each other: the Republicans accuse the Democrats of adhering to an extreme ideology, while the Democrats accuse the Republicans of supporting extreme policies. As Matt Grossmann and I explain in our forthcoming book, there are good strategic reasons for each side to adopt its favored strategy; most Americans lean to the political right in general terms but hold left-of-center views on specific issues, so politicians respond by attempting to shift the public debate of the campaign onto turf that favors their own partisan interest.
Four years ago, the party conventions followed this pattern closely. The Republicans spent an entire evening at their 2012 convention in Tampa portraying Barack Obama as a big-government collectivist who was instinctively hostile to the private sector and individual entrepreneurship. The best-received speech of the Democratic convention in Charlotte, Bill Clinton's "explainer-in-chief" address nominating Barack Obama for a second presidential term, methodically criticized Romney's positions on a number of specific policy questions as unacceptably hostile to the interests of ordinary Americans.
But the events of 2016 have prompted both sides to rewrite their playbooks a little. There was still a fair amount of traditional conservative rhetoric at the Republican convention last week—particularly visible in the speeches of Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, and vice presidential nominee Mike Pence—but Donald Trump's acceptance address, like his campaign up to this point, relied on themes of American nationalism more than the limited-government principles ordinarily emphasized by Republican candidates, and his chief line of attack against the Democratic opposition was not that it was excessively liberal in a philosophical sense but that it was unacceptably permissive in the face of terrorism and lawlessness. Republican criticisms of Hillary Clinton, while numerous, primarily focused on the topics of the events in Benghazi and her private email server, and thus questioned her honesty, competence, and devotion to American interests more than her supposed leftism.
For Democrats, Trump's nomination presented its own novel challenge. As usual, the party's national convention this week promoted its own extensive set of policy positions, but Democrats' normal practice of characterizing Republican policies as extreme by comparison was frustrated by the fact that Trump, though he has expressed support for nearly all of the usual Republican domestic policy agenda, has not made limited government a defining theme of his campaign. Democrats who normally delight in presenting themselves as the defenders of popular entitlement programs and opponents of "giveaways" to corporations and the wealthy seem to have concluded that Trump's own personal attributes represent better attack fodder than his policy positions (such as they are). They repeatedly characterized Trump as inexperienced, ill-tempered, and divisive, with Barack Obama even referring to the Republican nominee as a "homegrown demagogue."
Most strikingly, the Democratic Party's essential nature as a coalition of social groups was on display to an unprecedented extent in Philadelphia. The Black Lives Matter cause and the Mothers of the Movement were given prominent platforms and expressions of support. Undocumented Latino immigrants spoke on Clinton's behalf, and a number of speakers, including the party's vice presidential nominee, punctuated their remarks with Spanish words and phrases. Other groups that received explicit representation from the convention stage included Asian Americans, Native Americans, feminists, gays and lesbians, transgender people, Muslims, union members, and people with disabilities. Clinton's status as the first female major-party presidential nominee and potential first female president was celebrated repeatedly during the convention proceedings—including via a video effect on Tuesday night in which a mosaic of (male) presidential portraits broke apart with the sound of shattering glass to reveal Clinton's face as she appeared live from a remote location to greet the delegates.
For much of the last few decades—especially the 1990s, when the current nominee's husband was the national leader of the party—Democrats tempered such tributes to social diversity with other gestures meant to reassure white southerners, businesspeople, and blue-collar cultural moderates that the party spoke for them too. Today, due to a combination of demographic trends, geographic realignment, and Trump's own behavior, Democratic leaders no longer feel the need to place much emphasis on courting these other voters. By nominating Trump, the Republican Party has bet heavily on a campaign message tailored to appeal primarily to middle-aged, middle-class, middle-American whites. Democrats have opted to make a different wager of their own: that the voters who will feel left out of Trump's vision for America not only represent a rainbow coalition of social groups but also a national electoral majority that can carry Clinton to victory in November.
Friday, July 29, 2016
Friday, July 22, 2016
As Cleveland Showed, The Big Republican Split Is Between Leaders and Voters
The primary purpose of a national convention—now that the actual selection of the nominee is completed beforehand by primary voters—is to foster party unity and put it on display, thus earning positive attention from the news media that will in turn engender heightened support and enthusiasm from partisan identifiers and persuadable independents in the mass electorate. It's fun to watch and kibitz over the quality of the speeches and the competence of the stage management, but most of the hour-to-hour proceedings are soon forgotten (OK, Clint Eastwood's empty chair is an exception). The big picture is what's important: what is the state of the party at the start of the general election?
It's clear from the events in Cleveland that Republicans remain a divided party. The single most dramatic moment of the entire four-day convention occurred at the end of Ted Cruz's speech Wednesday night, when the runner-up presidential candidate, building to a rhetorical peak, danced on the edge of an expression of support for Trump before exhorting his audience instead to "vote your conscience" for candidates who are true to constitutional principles, clearly implying that Trump himself did not meet this standard. The media immediately seized on Cruz's behavior as a signal not only of disunity but of political incompetence—why had the Trump campaign allowed Cruz to speak without securing an assurance that he would endorse the nominee?—and a furious Trump reignited a row with Cruz at a bizarre press conference today that defies easy summary or explanation.
The Trump-Cruz feud will consume most of the post-convention media attention, but the convention itself revealed a more fundamental, and probably more important, divide. In one camp are a majority of Republican delegates, activists, and voters, who are firm supporters of Trump (whether or not they voted for somebody else in the primaries) and highly motivated to defeat Hillary Clinton. In the other camp are the vast majority of the party's top elected officials, both past and present, who have serious reservations about the Trump candidacy and wish to limit their association with him. From beginning to end, the proceedings in the Cleveland formed a picture of a party leadership trying to cope with the fact that a presidential candidate is being forced upon them unwillingly by their own voters.
The many Republicans who harbor various degrees of qualms about Trump have responded to his nomination in different ways. One faction, including Mitt Romney, John Kasich, Lindsey Graham, Ben Sasse, Jeff Flake, and the Bush family, remains openly unreconciled to Trump; these leaders failed to appear at the convention, whether due to their preference or Trump's. A second group, consisting of many Republicans from politically competitive constituencies, is not explicitly opposed to Trump—in fact, some have endorsed him—but pointedly declined to attend the convention as a means of signaling their distance from the candidate (Marco Rubio, running for reelection in the "purple" state of Florida, recorded a brief taped message of support for Trump that was shown on Wednesday night).
That left the convention itself to be dominated by a third set of officials: the nominal Trump supporters. These politicians showed up in Cleveland to address the nation on behalf of the presidential ticket, but their speeches almost to a person spent more time attacking Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama than praising the virtues of the Republican alternatives. References to Trump, when they occurred, were brief and strikingly muted. Mitch McConnell advocated on behalf of an unnamed "Republican president" whose role would be merely to sign the legislation passed by a Republican Congress. Paul Ryan's speech mentioned the name of his party's nominee only to argue that "only with Donald Trump and Mike Pence do we have a chance at a better way." (Traditionally, predictions of future partisan governing success take a more confident tone.) Scott Walker's case for Trump rested on the premise that "any Republican" would be a better choice than Hillary Clinton.
These and other speeches communicated a message that was clear enough. Most leading Republicans view Trump as a poor candidate facing near-certain defeat in November, and they appear worried that any public expression of impassioned support for his campaign risks tainting them with political or historical embarrassment. But for many Republican delegates, activists, and voters, a Trump loss is far from inevitable and a Hillary Clinton presidency close to unthinkable. The persistence of this internal schism is likely to have implications for Republican politics for the remainder of the campaign, and may even outlast it.
As for Cruz, it will take some time before we know whether his big bet will pay off. Cruz is transparently wagering that Trump will eventually be so thoroughly discredited among Republicans that his own ostentatious refusal to endorse Trump before a national audience will be interpreted in retrospect as an honorable devotion to principle. But Cruz is sometimes prone to tactics that are too clever by half, and his own reputation among Republicans as a poor team player has cost him in the past. Even if Trump turns out to be a disaster for the party, it may turn out that the Paul Ryan approach was savvier: give a pro forma endorsement to the choice of the Republican electorate while simultaneously acting like you think it's a big mistake.
Monday, July 18, 2016
Are We Really Looking at the "End of a Republican Party"?
A new analysis by Clare Malone of FiveThirtyEight.com titled "The End of a Republican Party" takes a thoughtful, in-depth approach to addressing what is clearly the most important political question of the year: what does the rise of Donald Trump tell us about the state of American politics in general and the Republican Party in particular? It's well worth the read and contains some particularly informative reporting from within the world of the House Freedom Caucus, a group that played a key role in forcing the exit of John Boehner from the speakership last fall.
At the same time, the piece in its totality leaves me with the impression that the case for Trump as either an instigator or a product of transformational change in the Republican Party rests more on human perception than systematic data. It sure feels to many of us as if we're in the midst of a tectonic shift in our politics—and a celebrity neophyte's unexpected march to the presidential nomination of a major party, defeating a number of talented veteran politicians along the way, is just the kind of shocking development that causes observers to declare that the world has permanently changed and the old rules no longer apply. Nebraska senator Ben Sasse is even quoted as predicting the imminent end of the two-party system, expressing the view that Trump is just the leading indicator of bigger change to come.
But when I think about the evidence backing up these very strongly-felt sentiments, I keep coming up against plenty of signs that things aren't changing as fast as they seem. Here are a few specific examples:
1. Party coalitions and geography. One of the main pillars of the Malone argument, which has been echoed by many other commentators, is that Trump's rise cements a reordering of the two parties' electoral coalitions: the Republicans are now the party of the white working class, while the Democrats now represent an alliance between racial minorities and college-educated whites. To the extent that these characterizations are true, however, they are the consequences of long-term historical trends, not the products of a single electoral environment. Trump's brand of racial politics (and the Democrats' nomination of a feminist woman) are likely to further this divide, at least in the short term, but there is little reason to view this election as representing an "inflection point" of foundational party change. Compared to a number of historical cases—such as the transformation of millions of northern urbanites from Coolidge Republicans in the 1920s to FDR Democrats in the 1930s, or the migration of southern whites en masse from the Democratic Party to the GOP over the course of two generations in the late 20th century—it doesn't seem as if we are witnessing a significant realignment of party supporters in the electorate.
The article also touches on the subject of geography, demonstrating that the parts of the U.S. with the highest proportions of "non-hyphenated Americans" (mostly whites of English or Scotch-Irish descent) have shifted the farthest towards the Republican Party in recent elections. Yet this, too, can be viewed as the final stage of the southern realignment that began in the 1950s. In any case, the change described is minor in scale; the two parties' current geographic coalitions are, by historical standards, unique in their relative stability. As this figure from a forthcoming book of mine demonstrates, more than 80 percent of the states voted for the same party in each of the four presidential elections between 2000 and 2012, which is the highest level of consistency in the post-Civil War era:
At the same time, the piece in its totality leaves me with the impression that the case for Trump as either an instigator or a product of transformational change in the Republican Party rests more on human perception than systematic data. It sure feels to many of us as if we're in the midst of a tectonic shift in our politics—and a celebrity neophyte's unexpected march to the presidential nomination of a major party, defeating a number of talented veteran politicians along the way, is just the kind of shocking development that causes observers to declare that the world has permanently changed and the old rules no longer apply. Nebraska senator Ben Sasse is even quoted as predicting the imminent end of the two-party system, expressing the view that Trump is just the leading indicator of bigger change to come.
But when I think about the evidence backing up these very strongly-felt sentiments, I keep coming up against plenty of signs that things aren't changing as fast as they seem. Here are a few specific examples:
1. Party coalitions and geography. One of the main pillars of the Malone argument, which has been echoed by many other commentators, is that Trump's rise cements a reordering of the two parties' electoral coalitions: the Republicans are now the party of the white working class, while the Democrats now represent an alliance between racial minorities and college-educated whites. To the extent that these characterizations are true, however, they are the consequences of long-term historical trends, not the products of a single electoral environment. Trump's brand of racial politics (and the Democrats' nomination of a feminist woman) are likely to further this divide, at least in the short term, but there is little reason to view this election as representing an "inflection point" of foundational party change. Compared to a number of historical cases—such as the transformation of millions of northern urbanites from Coolidge Republicans in the 1920s to FDR Democrats in the 1930s, or the migration of southern whites en masse from the Democratic Party to the GOP over the course of two generations in the late 20th century—it doesn't seem as if we are witnessing a significant realignment of party supporters in the electorate.
The article also touches on the subject of geography, demonstrating that the parts of the U.S. with the highest proportions of "non-hyphenated Americans" (mostly whites of English or Scotch-Irish descent) have shifted the farthest towards the Republican Party in recent elections. Yet this, too, can be viewed as the final stage of the southern realignment that began in the 1950s. In any case, the change described is minor in scale; the two parties' current geographic coalitions are, by historical standards, unique in their relative stability. As this figure from a forthcoming book of mine demonstrates, more than 80 percent of the states voted for the same party in each of the four presidential elections between 2000 and 2012, which is the highest level of consistency in the post-Civil War era:
Will Trump fundamentally reorder the current electoral map? So far, it doesn't look likely; the current FiveThirtyEight forecast for 2016 is identical to the final results in 2012, identifying Hillary Clinton as the favorite in all 26 states carried by Obama and projecting a Trump lead in all 24 states won by Romney.
2. The GOP's electoral standing. The steady increase in the proportion of nonwhite voters in the American electorate is often portrayed as causing an electoral crisis for the Republican Party unless and until it figures out a way to broaden its appeal to racial minorities, especially Latinos. Since 2004 and especially 2008, younger voters are also disproportionately Democratic-leaning (the two trends are somewhat related, as the young are more racially diverse than their elders). Malone writes of the Republican Party's "demographic and cultural divergence from the majority of the country," and ex-Jeb Bush advisor Tim Miller is quoted as worrying that the GOP might well "move to a period of minority status."
I've said this before, but I continue to be somewhat baffled by characterizations of the two parties' contemporary electoral fortunes that completely exclude congressional and state-level elections, where Republicans are not only holding their own but are in fact doing very well. And if we accept the very reasonable proposition that Hillary Clinton would be neck-and-neck or even running behind right now had the Republicans nominated Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, or John Kasich instead of Trump, then even the party's current deficit in presidential polling looks more like the product of a nominee with limited personal appeal than a party that is systematically unable to attract a national electoral majority.
3. Will Trumpism outlast Trump? If the Trump nomination indeed marks the closing of one era of Republican politics and the opening of another, we can safely assume that Trumpism will survive and even thrive in the Republican Party regardless of whether Trump himself is elected president. So far, however, Trump looks more like an individual political entrepreneur than the leader of a transformational movement within the Republican Party. He has has served as an effective vehicle for Republican primary voters to express support for a more aggressive stance against immigration, skepticism about free trade agreements, and frustration with the party's traditional leadership. But much of the institutional Republican Party remains either resistant to or glumly resigned to Trump as a candidate, in part because most leading Republicans view his brand of politics as electorally counterproductive. If he indeed loses in November, that conclusion is likely to stick.
I don't mean to dismiss some of the very real challenges now facing the Republican Party. But even if scholars like Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein are correct that the GOP is now in a state of dysfunction, evidence suggests that the party faces a bigger problem in governing effectively than in appealing to voters up and down the ballot. If the dust clears after this election to reveal a newly-elected President Hillary Clinton serving alongside a Congress in which at least one chamber is controlled by a Republican majority, it seems likely that the next four years will look, for better or worse, an awful lot like the last six—leaving 2016 to appear in retrospect like a moment of partisan evolution rather than fundamental change.
Friday, July 15, 2016
So What Does Choosing Mike Pence Tell Us About Trump?
Earlier this week, I argued that we should primarily evaluate the selection of a vice presidential running mate by considering what it tells us about the presidential nominee, rather than merely speculate about the (likely minimal) effect of the pick on the outcome of the election.
So what do we learn about Donald Trump, as a presidential candidate or a future president, from the choice of Indiana governor Mike Pence and the process that led to it? Here are a few things that struck me:
1. Trump is famous for demanding loyalty, but he did not insist on a running mate who had endorsed him (or remained neutral) in the presidential primaries. Pence had endorsed Ted Cruz prior to the Indiana primary, though that did not prevent Trump from winning the state easily and knocking Cruz out of the race.
2. Pence has held both legislative and executive office, having served for 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and one term as governor of Indiana. However, his previous experience and responsibilities are not as extensive as past running mates chosen by presidential candidates with little or no service in Washington, such as Joe Biden (Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair and ex-Judiciary Committee chair), Paul Ryan (House Budget Committee chair), Dick Cheney (ex-Secretary of Defense, White House chief of staff, and House Republican Whip), Lloyd Bentsen (Senate Finance Committee chair), and George H. W. Bush (ex-CIA director, ambassador to China and the United Nations, House member, and RNC chair). Unlike these other political veterans, Pence also lacks a reputation as a policy specialist or managerial heavyweight. A Vice President Pence would doubtless assist a President Trump in navigating the ways of Washington, but it is not immediately clear that he would necessarily play a critical role in making policy or administering the executive branch.
3. The choice of Pence can be viewed as something of a bridge-building gesture to the subset of movement conservative leaders who remain wary of Trump. It is likely that Pence will serve as the chief intermediary between the organizational apparatus of the traditional Republican Party and the Trump campaign (and, potentially, presidential administration), and that this was a major selling point in the eyes of the pro-Pence faction among Trump's advisors.
4. The process by which Pence was selected seems as revealing as the final selection. If news media accounts are accurate, Trump faced a difference of opinion between political aides who mostly preferred Pence and family members who mostly preferred Gingrich. The political professionals got their way—though a few sources are reporting today that Trump almost changed his mind last night, long after Pence's selection had been leaked to the press. The public rollout has also been awkward; Trump canceled his scheduled press conference this morning in response to the massacre in France but confirmed Pence's selection anyway via Twitter (which may have been prompted by today's deadline for Pence to withdraw from the Indiana ballot). We are left with a picture of a candidate who is unusually dependent on his own family for political advice and who appears less than completely satisfied with the choice of Pence. A potential Trump presidency may not be especially methodical, resolute, or routinely deferential to expert opinion.
5. The evaluation of Pence's suitability as a running mate or potential vice president is dependent upon the identity of the alternatives. Compared to the other members of Trump's short list (Gingrich and Christie, with Jeff Sessions and Michael Flynn as secondary options), Pence looks like a safe and even optimal choice, suggesting that Trump is more risk-averse and politically savvy than he looks. But many other leading Republican figures who would otherwise be natural VP candidates were not under active consideration, whether due to their lack of interest or Trump's. Compared to a longer hypothetical menu of potential running mates and vice presidents, Pence seems like an adequate but not unusually inspired choice.
So what do we learn about Donald Trump, as a presidential candidate or a future president, from the choice of Indiana governor Mike Pence and the process that led to it? Here are a few things that struck me:
1. Trump is famous for demanding loyalty, but he did not insist on a running mate who had endorsed him (or remained neutral) in the presidential primaries. Pence had endorsed Ted Cruz prior to the Indiana primary, though that did not prevent Trump from winning the state easily and knocking Cruz out of the race.
2. Pence has held both legislative and executive office, having served for 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and one term as governor of Indiana. However, his previous experience and responsibilities are not as extensive as past running mates chosen by presidential candidates with little or no service in Washington, such as Joe Biden (Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair and ex-Judiciary Committee chair), Paul Ryan (House Budget Committee chair), Dick Cheney (ex-Secretary of Defense, White House chief of staff, and House Republican Whip), Lloyd Bentsen (Senate Finance Committee chair), and George H. W. Bush (ex-CIA director, ambassador to China and the United Nations, House member, and RNC chair). Unlike these other political veterans, Pence also lacks a reputation as a policy specialist or managerial heavyweight. A Vice President Pence would doubtless assist a President Trump in navigating the ways of Washington, but it is not immediately clear that he would necessarily play a critical role in making policy or administering the executive branch.
3. The choice of Pence can be viewed as something of a bridge-building gesture to the subset of movement conservative leaders who remain wary of Trump. It is likely that Pence will serve as the chief intermediary between the organizational apparatus of the traditional Republican Party and the Trump campaign (and, potentially, presidential administration), and that this was a major selling point in the eyes of the pro-Pence faction among Trump's advisors.
4. The process by which Pence was selected seems as revealing as the final selection. If news media accounts are accurate, Trump faced a difference of opinion between political aides who mostly preferred Pence and family members who mostly preferred Gingrich. The political professionals got their way—though a few sources are reporting today that Trump almost changed his mind last night, long after Pence's selection had been leaked to the press. The public rollout has also been awkward; Trump canceled his scheduled press conference this morning in response to the massacre in France but confirmed Pence's selection anyway via Twitter (which may have been prompted by today's deadline for Pence to withdraw from the Indiana ballot). We are left with a picture of a candidate who is unusually dependent on his own family for political advice and who appears less than completely satisfied with the choice of Pence. A potential Trump presidency may not be especially methodical, resolute, or routinely deferential to expert opinion.
5. The evaluation of Pence's suitability as a running mate or potential vice president is dependent upon the identity of the alternatives. Compared to the other members of Trump's short list (Gingrich and Christie, with Jeff Sessions and Michael Flynn as secondary options), Pence looks like a safe and even optimal choice, suggesting that Trump is more risk-averse and politically savvy than he looks. But many other leading Republican figures who would otherwise be natural VP candidates were not under active consideration, whether due to their lack of interest or Trump's. Compared to a longer hypothetical menu of potential running mates and vice presidents, Pence seems like an adequate but not unusually inspired choice.
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Why the Vice Presidential Picks Matter
Vice presidential running mates for non-incumbent presidential candidates are, by tradition and necessity, chosen in the summer of an election year between the end of the primary season and the start of the party's national convention—unlike the other senior members of a president's administration, who are usually not revealed until the election itself is over. For this reason, the vice presidential choice is usually treated by the news media primarily as a manifestation of the presidential nominee's campaign strategy rather than as a clue about his or her approach to governing. During the "veepstakes" phase preceding the official selection, potential contenders are mostly evaluated by pundits on the basis of electoral criteria, and this line of analysis is routinely applied to the eventual choice once he or she is finally announced to the public.
Many of these strategic angles predictably recur year after year. What social groups in the mass public might a particular vice presidential candidate attract to the party? How effective are the candidate's campaign skills? Would the candidate bolster the ticket's standing in a key battleground state? Will the running mate generate excitement among the party base, or supply gravitas, or persuasively vouch for the virtues of the presidential nominee?
Presidential candidates also give careful consideration to such questions when making up their minds—since, in their view, one critical job of a running mate is to help win the presidency. Some past vice presidential selections, such as John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin in 2008, were almost entirely motivated by short-term electoral considerations; McCain was trailing in the polls and hoped that a surprise pick and a woman on the ticket would both shake up the race and help him coax disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters to cross the partisan aisle.
But little evidence exists that the identity of the running mates normally influences the preferences of voters. (Palin turned out to be a rare exception to this rule, but her unpopular candidacy backfired and ultimately benefited the opposition.) It is therefore perfectly appropriate for political analysts to interpret the VP choice as reflecting the electoral strategy of the presidential candidate, but we should be wary of suggestions that the outcome of the election itself is likely to be determined by the decision.
The running mates are much more important for the window that they provide into the presidential candidates who select them: what perceived personal limitations or weaknesses do they wish to address, and what kind of presidency might they have if elected? George W. Bush's selection of Dick Cheney in 2000 indicated that the vice president would take a major role in the policy-making and administration of the executive branch—in contrast to his father's choice of Dan Quayle in 1988, who was clearly meant to be a junior partner with little independent responsibility. Bill Clinton chose Al Gore in part to demonstrate that he would maintain a distance from the left wing of his party while in office; Gore's decision to choose Joe Lieberman eight years signaled a personal break with Clinton. Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden reflected a perceived need to cement good working relationships with key members of Congress by choosing a Capitol Hill veteran. Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan seemed designed to reassure conservatives of his ideological devotion.
Within a week or so, we'll know the identity of each party's vice presidential nominee in 2016. Plenty of media coverage will be devoted to gaming out the potential strategic implications of the running mates for the outcome of the election. But it is even more important to consider what the selections reveal about the prospective presidents who made them—in order to better inform ourselves about the choice that awaits us in the voting booth this November.
Many of these strategic angles predictably recur year after year. What social groups in the mass public might a particular vice presidential candidate attract to the party? How effective are the candidate's campaign skills? Would the candidate bolster the ticket's standing in a key battleground state? Will the running mate generate excitement among the party base, or supply gravitas, or persuasively vouch for the virtues of the presidential nominee?
Presidential candidates also give careful consideration to such questions when making up their minds—since, in their view, one critical job of a running mate is to help win the presidency. Some past vice presidential selections, such as John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin in 2008, were almost entirely motivated by short-term electoral considerations; McCain was trailing in the polls and hoped that a surprise pick and a woman on the ticket would both shake up the race and help him coax disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters to cross the partisan aisle.
But little evidence exists that the identity of the running mates normally influences the preferences of voters. (Palin turned out to be a rare exception to this rule, but her unpopular candidacy backfired and ultimately benefited the opposition.) It is therefore perfectly appropriate for political analysts to interpret the VP choice as reflecting the electoral strategy of the presidential candidate, but we should be wary of suggestions that the outcome of the election itself is likely to be determined by the decision.
The running mates are much more important for the window that they provide into the presidential candidates who select them: what perceived personal limitations or weaknesses do they wish to address, and what kind of presidency might they have if elected? George W. Bush's selection of Dick Cheney in 2000 indicated that the vice president would take a major role in the policy-making and administration of the executive branch—in contrast to his father's choice of Dan Quayle in 1988, who was clearly meant to be a junior partner with little independent responsibility. Bill Clinton chose Al Gore in part to demonstrate that he would maintain a distance from the left wing of his party while in office; Gore's decision to choose Joe Lieberman eight years signaled a personal break with Clinton. Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden reflected a perceived need to cement good working relationships with key members of Congress by choosing a Capitol Hill veteran. Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan seemed designed to reassure conservatives of his ideological devotion.
Within a week or so, we'll know the identity of each party's vice presidential nominee in 2016. Plenty of media coverage will be devoted to gaming out the potential strategic implications of the running mates for the outcome of the election. But it is even more important to consider what the selections reveal about the prospective presidents who made them—in order to better inform ourselves about the choice that awaits us in the voting booth this November.
Monday, July 11, 2016
Right Now, Trump Isn't Saving the GOP From Anything (Except Maybe the White House)
Nearly 60 years ago, the economist Anthony Downs published An Economic Theory of Democracy, a study that remains widely-read and frequently-cited today. The book is best known for Downs's formalization of a specific model of electoral politics to which many political observers intuitively subscribe. If the competition between two political parties can be described as occurring on a single ideological dimension between matching left and right poles, and if voters predictably support the party taking the ideological position that is closest to their own, each party will face an electoral incentive to move its position in the direction of the ideological center—converging toward the preferences of the median voter in the electorate.
In practice, ambitious politicians may be restricted in their freedom to reposition themselves in this way by the demands of primary voters, party activists, financial donors, interest groups, and other influential actors who insist upon the parties' commitment to non-centrist policies. It is also fair to question whether voters indeed consistently view party conflict in ideological terms and make their choices accordingly, whether they correctly perceive the relative positions of candidates and parties on a left-to-right dimension, and whether their own political views can be coherently translated into a specific position on that same dimension. Whatever the reason or reasons, the predictions of Downs's model clash in many respects with the reality of an American political system in which the two parties' policy positions have not only remained distinct but have further diverged over the ensuing six decades. Yet few political analysts reject the median voter logic entirely—all else being equal, aren't there still more votes to be had by running to the ideological center rather than toward the left or right fringe?
A recent New York Times article by Sam Tanenhaus called "How Trump Can Save the GOP" contains one of the purest Downsian analyses of contemporary American politics in recent memory. The argument in the piece rests on the following premises:
1. The Republican Party is currently in an electoral crisis.
2. This crisis is due to the GOP's excessive ideological extremity and inflexibility, especially on the issue of popular federal entitlement programs, which limits the party's popular appeal in the national electorate.
3. Donald Trump is an ideological centrist compared to most Republican officeholders, and his triumph in the presidential primaries reflects the desire of many rank-and-file Republican voters to pull their party's policies to the left on economic matters.
4. Trump's nomination gives the national Republican Party a rare and perhaps welcome opportunity to shed its association with electorally disadvantageous conservative economic policies, potentially strengthening its overall popularity with the American public in the present and future.
5. If elected president, Trump would govern in a pragmatic style à la Dwight Eisenhower, developing productive relationships with congressional leaders of both parties and prizing concrete legislative accomplishments over symbolic gestures—thus "unlocking the frozen gears of government."
If one accepts these premises, Trump arguably emerges as something like the Republican version of Bill Clinton in the 1990s: a new leader who offers his party the chance to rebuild its (supposedly) declining electoral fortunes and seize the mantle of responsible governance, at the price of making certain ideological compromises. Much of Clinton's political maneuvering had a Downsian logic to it; he often pursued a strategy of "triangulation" that involved positioning himself ideologically in between the left wing of the Democratic Party and the conservative leadership of the GOP.
Poke at any of these assumptions, however, and the picture of Trump as Republican savior starts to fade very quickly. In lieu of a more thorough analysis, I offer a few thoughts in response.
First, there really isn't a strong case that the Republican Party is facing an electoral crisis—or at least it wasn't before Trump came along. At the congressional and state level, Republicans are currently as electorally dominant as at any time since the 1920s. Democratic presidential candidates have indeed won the national popular vote in 5 of the past 6 elections, but none of those elections was a double-digit landslide (one was close enough that the GOP was able to achieve an electoral college majority anyway). It's quite possible that a different Republican nominee would be leading Hillary Clinton in the national polls this year, and under that scenario few people would be talking about the need for a fundamental redefinition of Republicanism in order to allow the party to recapture the White House.
Second, the assertion that the Republican Party's economic positions are an obvious electoral vulnerability is similarly debatable. It is true that most voters agree with Democrats that the benefits provided by entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare should be maintained or expanded, but most voters also agree with Republicans that government is too big and too costly in general. Even voters who would be potentially alienated by Republican economic policy might be unaware of the party's true positions. During the 2012 campaign, staffers at one Democratic-aligned super PAC found that when they informed focus group participants of Mitt Romney's support for converting Medicare into a voucher program even as he proposed significant reductions in the tax rates paid by the wealthy, "the respondents simply refused to believe any politician would do such a thing."
Third, it is likely that Trump's deviations from Republican economic orthodoxy on issues other than international trade policy have received more attention from pundits than from voters. From time to time, Trump has expressed support for maintaining middle-class entitlement programs at their current benefit levels, but this has hardly been a central message of his campaign; he has also proposed a tax cut plan that disproportionately favors wealthy citizens. The salient distinction between Trump and other leading Republicans resembles a familiar center-versus-right ideological conflict much less than it does a difference in emphasis between Trump's prominent ethno-nationalist rhetoric and the more traditional Republican themes of limited government and cultural traditionalism.
A growing tension is evident between two competing and somewhat irreconcilable strains of media analysis. Does America now find itself amidst a formidable populist uprising against the cosmopolitan elite, with Trump himself acting as the ascendant agent of an enraged (white) working class poised to marshal its superior voting numbers to take bitter revenge on a discredited and vulnerable political "establishment"? Or does Trump's imminent nomination instead represent a political blunder of historic magnitude, as a Republican Party throws away an otherwise winnable race against a flawed opponent by choosing a standard-bearer who is likely to be uniquely unpopular with the average Americans whom he claims to champion?
We'll find out which of these two perspectives is more accurate in November, though the evidence so far strongly points in the direction of the latter view. And if Trump ultimately receives a lower share of the vote than Mitt Romney, John McCain, or George W. Bush won in preceding elections—an entirely possible outcome, given current polling—the outcome will suggest that whatever electoral advantage Trump may have gained from his supposed economic centrism relative to his party was far outweighed by the presence of other important considerations in the minds of voters. At the moment, Donald Trump looks less like a savior and more like an anchor weighing down the GOP's presidential ambitions.
In practice, ambitious politicians may be restricted in their freedom to reposition themselves in this way by the demands of primary voters, party activists, financial donors, interest groups, and other influential actors who insist upon the parties' commitment to non-centrist policies. It is also fair to question whether voters indeed consistently view party conflict in ideological terms and make their choices accordingly, whether they correctly perceive the relative positions of candidates and parties on a left-to-right dimension, and whether their own political views can be coherently translated into a specific position on that same dimension. Whatever the reason or reasons, the predictions of Downs's model clash in many respects with the reality of an American political system in which the two parties' policy positions have not only remained distinct but have further diverged over the ensuing six decades. Yet few political analysts reject the median voter logic entirely—all else being equal, aren't there still more votes to be had by running to the ideological center rather than toward the left or right fringe?
A recent New York Times article by Sam Tanenhaus called "How Trump Can Save the GOP" contains one of the purest Downsian analyses of contemporary American politics in recent memory. The argument in the piece rests on the following premises:
1. The Republican Party is currently in an electoral crisis.
2. This crisis is due to the GOP's excessive ideological extremity and inflexibility, especially on the issue of popular federal entitlement programs, which limits the party's popular appeal in the national electorate.
3. Donald Trump is an ideological centrist compared to most Republican officeholders, and his triumph in the presidential primaries reflects the desire of many rank-and-file Republican voters to pull their party's policies to the left on economic matters.
4. Trump's nomination gives the national Republican Party a rare and perhaps welcome opportunity to shed its association with electorally disadvantageous conservative economic policies, potentially strengthening its overall popularity with the American public in the present and future.
5. If elected president, Trump would govern in a pragmatic style à la Dwight Eisenhower, developing productive relationships with congressional leaders of both parties and prizing concrete legislative accomplishments over symbolic gestures—thus "unlocking the frozen gears of government."
If one accepts these premises, Trump arguably emerges as something like the Republican version of Bill Clinton in the 1990s: a new leader who offers his party the chance to rebuild its (supposedly) declining electoral fortunes and seize the mantle of responsible governance, at the price of making certain ideological compromises. Much of Clinton's political maneuvering had a Downsian logic to it; he often pursued a strategy of "triangulation" that involved positioning himself ideologically in between the left wing of the Democratic Party and the conservative leadership of the GOP.
Poke at any of these assumptions, however, and the picture of Trump as Republican savior starts to fade very quickly. In lieu of a more thorough analysis, I offer a few thoughts in response.
First, there really isn't a strong case that the Republican Party is facing an electoral crisis—or at least it wasn't before Trump came along. At the congressional and state level, Republicans are currently as electorally dominant as at any time since the 1920s. Democratic presidential candidates have indeed won the national popular vote in 5 of the past 6 elections, but none of those elections was a double-digit landslide (one was close enough that the GOP was able to achieve an electoral college majority anyway). It's quite possible that a different Republican nominee would be leading Hillary Clinton in the national polls this year, and under that scenario few people would be talking about the need for a fundamental redefinition of Republicanism in order to allow the party to recapture the White House.
Second, the assertion that the Republican Party's economic positions are an obvious electoral vulnerability is similarly debatable. It is true that most voters agree with Democrats that the benefits provided by entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare should be maintained or expanded, but most voters also agree with Republicans that government is too big and too costly in general. Even voters who would be potentially alienated by Republican economic policy might be unaware of the party's true positions. During the 2012 campaign, staffers at one Democratic-aligned super PAC found that when they informed focus group participants of Mitt Romney's support for converting Medicare into a voucher program even as he proposed significant reductions in the tax rates paid by the wealthy, "the respondents simply refused to believe any politician would do such a thing."
Third, it is likely that Trump's deviations from Republican economic orthodoxy on issues other than international trade policy have received more attention from pundits than from voters. From time to time, Trump has expressed support for maintaining middle-class entitlement programs at their current benefit levels, but this has hardly been a central message of his campaign; he has also proposed a tax cut plan that disproportionately favors wealthy citizens. The salient distinction between Trump and other leading Republicans resembles a familiar center-versus-right ideological conflict much less than it does a difference in emphasis between Trump's prominent ethno-nationalist rhetoric and the more traditional Republican themes of limited government and cultural traditionalism.
A growing tension is evident between two competing and somewhat irreconcilable strains of media analysis. Does America now find itself amidst a formidable populist uprising against the cosmopolitan elite, with Trump himself acting as the ascendant agent of an enraged (white) working class poised to marshal its superior voting numbers to take bitter revenge on a discredited and vulnerable political "establishment"? Or does Trump's imminent nomination instead represent a political blunder of historic magnitude, as a Republican Party throws away an otherwise winnable race against a flawed opponent by choosing a standard-bearer who is likely to be uniquely unpopular with the average Americans whom he claims to champion?
We'll find out which of these two perspectives is more accurate in November, though the evidence so far strongly points in the direction of the latter view. And if Trump ultimately receives a lower share of the vote than Mitt Romney, John McCain, or George W. Bush won in preceding elections—an entirely possible outcome, given current polling—the outcome will suggest that whatever electoral advantage Trump may have gained from his supposed economic centrism relative to his party was far outweighed by the presence of other important considerations in the minds of voters. At the moment, Donald Trump looks less like a savior and more like an anchor weighing down the GOP's presidential ambitions.
Thursday, July 07, 2016
Geography and the Veepstakes
Geography usually ranks near the top of the considerations that are commonly said to matter when selecting a vice presidential candidate. Political folk wisdom tells us that a would-be president seeks to balance the ticket by choosing a running mate from a different region of the nation, while a prospective VP from a critical battleground state holds the promise of attracting a favorite-son (or -daughter) vote that could tilt that state to his or her party, thus offering an advantage in the electoral college.
John F. Kennedy's choice of Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate in 1960 is often treated as the model case of vice presidential selection. Johnson was credited in retrospect with helping to keep most of the South in the Democratic column—especially his home state of Texas, which Kennedy carried by less than 50,000 votes—at a time when the Democratic Party could no longer take the region for granted in presidential elections. When speculation turns in the late spring and summer of an election year to the identity of the vice presidential candidates, governors and senators from swing states like Ohio and Florida are often among the most frequently mentioned, reflecting the assumption that their presence on the ticket could potentially prove decisive to the outcome just as Johnson supposedly did.
As a rule, however, presidential candidates have not consistently elevated geography among other considerations when selecting running mates. Joe Biden (D 2008/2012), Sarah Palin (R 2008), Dick Cheney (R 2000/2004), and Joe Lieberman (D 2000) were all residents of small states that were already electorally safe for their party. On the other hand, the home states of John Edwards (D 2004) and Jack Kemp (R 1996) were almost certain to vote for the opposition regardless of their presence on the ticket. Paul Ryan (R 2012) did come from the battleground state of Wisconsin, but he had never represented more than one-eighth of the state's residents in Congress (after the election, Mitt Romney advisors revealed that Ryan was not chosen because the campaign thought that he would deliver Wisconsin to the Republican Party). The home state of Al Gore (D 1992/1996) was politically competitive but not widely considered pivotal to the national outcome.
Since Johnson in 1960, two other Texans have been nominated for vice president: George H. W. Bush (R 1980/1984) and Lloyd Bentsen (D 1988). Geography played a role in the selection of both, though other considerations seemed to matter more; both Bush and Bentsen were identified with rival party factions to the presidential candidates who chose them, and were placed on the ticket largely to promote party unity. Despite Ohio's longstanding importance in the electoral college, no Ohioan has appeared on a national ticket since John W. Bricker served as Thomas E. Dewey's running mate in 1944. Florida, a more recent swing state, has yet to be represented by a presidential or vice presidential nominee of either party.
It appears, then, that modern presidential candidates seldom choose running mates whom they believe will help them carry a specific state—much less an entire region. Indeed, there is little evidence that parties normally perform significantly better in the VP's home state compared to what they would otherwise expect (most presidential nominees, in contrast, attract a reliable favorite-son bonus of a few percentage points in the state's popular vote).
Of the major potential running mates for Hillary Clinton floated so far in the media (Tim Kaine, Elizabeth Warren, Julian Castro, Cory Booker, and Tom Perez), only one—Kaine—resides in a battleground state. Similarly, the apparent field of candidates for VP on the Republican ticket (Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions, and Joni Ernst) includes a single swing-state representative (Ernst, though Iowa casts only 6 electoral votes). This recent article suggests that somebody in the Trump campaign—probably pollster Kellyanne Conway—is talking up Pence by portraying his selection as allowing Trump to "shore up the Rust Belt," but there is little reason to believe that many voters outside Indiana (a state that is normally safe Republican territory) would care very much about Pence's presence on the ticket.
If Kaine or Ernst is nominated for the vice presidency this year, it is probable that political geography played a role in boosting them over other potential candidates. But recent history suggests that most presidential nominees view the potential electoral impact in a particular state or region as sufficiently modest that it does not outweigh other important factors relevant to the choice of running mate, from ideological positioning and political experience to campaign skill and personal rapport. We should not be surprised, then, if the 2016 presidential candidates follow this pattern by selecting running mates from safely red or blue states rather than electoral battlegrounds.
John F. Kennedy's choice of Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate in 1960 is often treated as the model case of vice presidential selection. Johnson was credited in retrospect with helping to keep most of the South in the Democratic column—especially his home state of Texas, which Kennedy carried by less than 50,000 votes—at a time when the Democratic Party could no longer take the region for granted in presidential elections. When speculation turns in the late spring and summer of an election year to the identity of the vice presidential candidates, governors and senators from swing states like Ohio and Florida are often among the most frequently mentioned, reflecting the assumption that their presence on the ticket could potentially prove decisive to the outcome just as Johnson supposedly did.
As a rule, however, presidential candidates have not consistently elevated geography among other considerations when selecting running mates. Joe Biden (D 2008/2012), Sarah Palin (R 2008), Dick Cheney (R 2000/2004), and Joe Lieberman (D 2000) were all residents of small states that were already electorally safe for their party. On the other hand, the home states of John Edwards (D 2004) and Jack Kemp (R 1996) were almost certain to vote for the opposition regardless of their presence on the ticket. Paul Ryan (R 2012) did come from the battleground state of Wisconsin, but he had never represented more than one-eighth of the state's residents in Congress (after the election, Mitt Romney advisors revealed that Ryan was not chosen because the campaign thought that he would deliver Wisconsin to the Republican Party). The home state of Al Gore (D 1992/1996) was politically competitive but not widely considered pivotal to the national outcome.
Since Johnson in 1960, two other Texans have been nominated for vice president: George H. W. Bush (R 1980/1984) and Lloyd Bentsen (D 1988). Geography played a role in the selection of both, though other considerations seemed to matter more; both Bush and Bentsen were identified with rival party factions to the presidential candidates who chose them, and were placed on the ticket largely to promote party unity. Despite Ohio's longstanding importance in the electoral college, no Ohioan has appeared on a national ticket since John W. Bricker served as Thomas E. Dewey's running mate in 1944. Florida, a more recent swing state, has yet to be represented by a presidential or vice presidential nominee of either party.
It appears, then, that modern presidential candidates seldom choose running mates whom they believe will help them carry a specific state—much less an entire region. Indeed, there is little evidence that parties normally perform significantly better in the VP's home state compared to what they would otherwise expect (most presidential nominees, in contrast, attract a reliable favorite-son bonus of a few percentage points in the state's popular vote).
Of the major potential running mates for Hillary Clinton floated so far in the media (Tim Kaine, Elizabeth Warren, Julian Castro, Cory Booker, and Tom Perez), only one—Kaine—resides in a battleground state. Similarly, the apparent field of candidates for VP on the Republican ticket (Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions, and Joni Ernst) includes a single swing-state representative (Ernst, though Iowa casts only 6 electoral votes). This recent article suggests that somebody in the Trump campaign—probably pollster Kellyanne Conway—is talking up Pence by portraying his selection as allowing Trump to "shore up the Rust Belt," but there is little reason to believe that many voters outside Indiana (a state that is normally safe Republican territory) would care very much about Pence's presence on the ticket.
If Kaine or Ernst is nominated for the vice presidency this year, it is probable that political geography played a role in boosting them over other potential candidates. But recent history suggests that most presidential nominees view the potential electoral impact in a particular state or region as sufficiently modest that it does not outweigh other important factors relevant to the choice of running mate, from ideological positioning and political experience to campaign skill and personal rapport. We should not be surprised, then, if the 2016 presidential candidates follow this pattern by selecting running mates from safely red or blue states rather than electoral battlegrounds.
Friday, July 01, 2016
Beware of Analyzing Demographic Groups in Isolation (Even the All-Important White Working Class!)
Even in an election year with more than the usual degree of surprise, a few familiar patterns have returned—such as the quadrennial flurry of media stories about the supposedly pivotal role of the white working class in deciding the presidency. Some of these pieces are colorfully anecdotal tours through blue-collar communities; others are more systematic and data-driven. However, their tone and conclusions tend to converge on a single theme: the Democrats need to watch out, because the Republicans are cutting into their traditional base.
We'll probably hear this caution more often than usual in 2016, since Donald Trump appears to hold disproportionate appeal among whites without bachelor's degrees compared to other voting blocs in the American population. (I have some objections to accepting a methodological definition that classifies the richest person in the United States as "working class," but that's a discussion for another time.) It's also quite possible that Hillary Clinton is not exactly beloved by this set of voters—especially the men among them—further opening the door for Trump to win a substantial chunk of their support.
According to the polls so far, however, any newfound advantage that Trump provides the Republican Party among the "white working class" is more than balanced out by his weaknesses among the racial minorities and college-educated whites who constitute the remainder of the electorate. It is likely that both phenomena reflect the same underlying set of candidate attributes: Trump's outspoken nationalism, racially charged rhetoric, and idiosyncratic persona could be expected to attract some types of voters while repelling others.
Such tradeoffs are common in politics. Party tents can only stretch so far; the actions that welcome one group into an electoral coalition can often alienate the members of another. When the Democratic Party moved leftward on civil rights in the mid-20th century, it won a greater share of the minority vote but lost popularity in the South. The white southerners who migrated into the GOP then helped to establish social conservatism as a foundational Republican creed, which in turn propelled culturally liberal northern metropolitans toward the Democrats. Politicians often seek to raise issues or develop messages that might cause segments of the opposition to defect from their habitual partisan alignment, but such maneuvers can be risky and are seldom entirely costless.
Close study of the changing preferences of a single demographic group or stratum of the electorate can yield insights and illuminate developments that otherwise go unappreciated—such as the dramatic pro-Democratic trend among Asian-American voters since the 1990s. The evolution of the parties' popular coalitions over time holds significant implications for a number of important political phenomena, from voter mobilization to elite policymaking.
But these analyses are often conducted in the context of a campaign horse race, where any change in the prevailing partisanship (or relative size) of a particular voting bloc primarily receives attention because of its potential impact on the outcome of an imminent election. Examinations of a single category of voters may incorrectly assume that no countervailing trends exist among other citizens, potentially leading to misguided conclusions. For example, the growing electoral strength and partisan loyalty of Latino voters is surely an asset to Democratic candidates, holding all else equal—but if it is accompanied by an erosion in the party's popularity among racially conservative or immigration-skeptical whites, it will hardly provide Democrats with a decisive long-term advantage. (The much-hyped increasing demographic diversity of the American electorate notably did not prevent Republicans from winning more seats in Congress in 2014 than at any point since the 1920s.)
One of the reasons why we hear so much about the white working class every four years is that many of the battleground states in presidential elections are located in a nearly contiguous band between Pennsylvania and Iowa that roughly corresponds to the so-called Rust Belt. It is easy for party leaders and media figures alike to envision the pivotal voters in these pivotal states as retired steelworkers or out-of-work machinists, and to thus conclude that the election will turn on these Americans' specific attitudes and concerns. Despite popular perceptions, however, these states also contain plenty of professional-class residents who may be just as alienated by the Trump campaign as their blue-collar neighbors are attracted to it.
Moreover, the logic of partisan tradeoffs can apply to the electoral college as well. If Trump's rhetoric on race and immigration inspires a large enough popular backlash among minority voters to deliver the ethnically diverse states of Florida, Nevada, Colorado, and Virginia to the Democratic ticket this November, then he could carry Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Hampshire, and the northern district in Maine and still lose the presidency. Yes, it's a problem for Hillary Clinton if she loses Johnstown by a landslide—but it's a bigger problem for Trump if he gets blown out in Miami.
In 1996, the consultants running Bill Clinton's reelection campaign successfully convinced reporters that they had identified the decisive voting bloc in the race: white suburban women with children, whom they dubbed "soccer moms." Those of us old enough to remember that election can recall numerous media stories about this narrow supposed demographic. It is easy—and cognitively appealing—to focus the analysis of a large and heterogeneous electorate on a single "crucial" subpopulation. But everyone's vote counts the same, and restricting our field of vision to the voters shifting in one partisan direction may prevent us from noticing an equal or larger group moving the other way.
We'll probably hear this caution more often than usual in 2016, since Donald Trump appears to hold disproportionate appeal among whites without bachelor's degrees compared to other voting blocs in the American population. (I have some objections to accepting a methodological definition that classifies the richest person in the United States as "working class," but that's a discussion for another time.) It's also quite possible that Hillary Clinton is not exactly beloved by this set of voters—especially the men among them—further opening the door for Trump to win a substantial chunk of their support.
According to the polls so far, however, any newfound advantage that Trump provides the Republican Party among the "white working class" is more than balanced out by his weaknesses among the racial minorities and college-educated whites who constitute the remainder of the electorate. It is likely that both phenomena reflect the same underlying set of candidate attributes: Trump's outspoken nationalism, racially charged rhetoric, and idiosyncratic persona could be expected to attract some types of voters while repelling others.
Such tradeoffs are common in politics. Party tents can only stretch so far; the actions that welcome one group into an electoral coalition can often alienate the members of another. When the Democratic Party moved leftward on civil rights in the mid-20th century, it won a greater share of the minority vote but lost popularity in the South. The white southerners who migrated into the GOP then helped to establish social conservatism as a foundational Republican creed, which in turn propelled culturally liberal northern metropolitans toward the Democrats. Politicians often seek to raise issues or develop messages that might cause segments of the opposition to defect from their habitual partisan alignment, but such maneuvers can be risky and are seldom entirely costless.
Close study of the changing preferences of a single demographic group or stratum of the electorate can yield insights and illuminate developments that otherwise go unappreciated—such as the dramatic pro-Democratic trend among Asian-American voters since the 1990s. The evolution of the parties' popular coalitions over time holds significant implications for a number of important political phenomena, from voter mobilization to elite policymaking.
But these analyses are often conducted in the context of a campaign horse race, where any change in the prevailing partisanship (or relative size) of a particular voting bloc primarily receives attention because of its potential impact on the outcome of an imminent election. Examinations of a single category of voters may incorrectly assume that no countervailing trends exist among other citizens, potentially leading to misguided conclusions. For example, the growing electoral strength and partisan loyalty of Latino voters is surely an asset to Democratic candidates, holding all else equal—but if it is accompanied by an erosion in the party's popularity among racially conservative or immigration-skeptical whites, it will hardly provide Democrats with a decisive long-term advantage. (The much-hyped increasing demographic diversity of the American electorate notably did not prevent Republicans from winning more seats in Congress in 2014 than at any point since the 1920s.)
One of the reasons why we hear so much about the white working class every four years is that many of the battleground states in presidential elections are located in a nearly contiguous band between Pennsylvania and Iowa that roughly corresponds to the so-called Rust Belt. It is easy for party leaders and media figures alike to envision the pivotal voters in these pivotal states as retired steelworkers or out-of-work machinists, and to thus conclude that the election will turn on these Americans' specific attitudes and concerns. Despite popular perceptions, however, these states also contain plenty of professional-class residents who may be just as alienated by the Trump campaign as their blue-collar neighbors are attracted to it.
Moreover, the logic of partisan tradeoffs can apply to the electoral college as well. If Trump's rhetoric on race and immigration inspires a large enough popular backlash among minority voters to deliver the ethnically diverse states of Florida, Nevada, Colorado, and Virginia to the Democratic ticket this November, then he could carry Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Hampshire, and the northern district in Maine and still lose the presidency. Yes, it's a problem for Hillary Clinton if she loses Johnstown by a landslide—but it's a bigger problem for Trump if he gets blown out in Miami.
In 1996, the consultants running Bill Clinton's reelection campaign successfully convinced reporters that they had identified the decisive voting bloc in the race: white suburban women with children, whom they dubbed "soccer moms." Those of us old enough to remember that election can recall numerous media stories about this narrow supposed demographic. It is easy—and cognitively appealing—to focus the analysis of a large and heterogeneous electorate on a single "crucial" subpopulation. But everyone's vote counts the same, and restricting our field of vision to the voters shifting in one partisan direction may prevent us from noticing an equal or larger group moving the other way.
Monday, June 27, 2016
More on Donald Trump as Media Creature
Ever since Donald Trump took a clear lead in the Republican presidential nomination race some months ago, a debate has been occurring over the extent to which the news media aided his rise. At one level, this question is purely analytical, engaging a topic that has long interested political scientists: what are the main sources of influence on the political behavior of citizens, and to what degree can exposure to new information via media exposure pull voters away from their pre-existing political orientations? The non-traditional nature of the Trump candidacy—and the unique manner in which it has been covered by the press—provides a particularly valuable case study with which to explore this relationship in a systematic fashion.
But few people, whether academics or not, find it easy to suspend normative judgment where Trump is concerned. As a result, suggestions that the media may well have played a role, even if unintentionally, in assisting Trump's campaign can easily take on the form of angry indictments of the journalistic profession—or are at least interpreted as such by defensive newspeople. In response to perceived accusations of abetting a candidate who is widely disdained and feared among well-educated metropolitans of the political left, right, and center alike, a pundit class that in other contexts openly acknowledges and even overstates the capacity of media coverage to influence electoral outcomes—how often have we been told by talking heads that "winning the news cycle" is the key to winning the election?—has pushed back repeatedly against the notion that it bears any responsibility for Trump's success in gaining the Republican nomination and advancing closer to the presidency.
A few days ago, John Sides and Kalev Leetaru published a detailed analysis that contains an extensive empirical examination of the media's role in boosting Trump. Sides and Leetaru present a variety of data, but their central point is simple: Trump received a disproportionate share of media attention during the Republican primaries, the coverage devoted to Trump was not unusually negative in tone compared to other candidates, and Trump's standing among Republican primary voters over time closely reflected the contemporaneous volume of publicity that his candidacy was generating in the press.
Sides and Leetaru mostly focus on analyzing news coverage since Trump announced his candidacy last summer, though they note that Trump's 30-year status as a national figure is itself a product of substantial media attention. "Celebrities," they observe, "including Trump, are created in part by their own efforts and in part by news outlets’ willingness to write about them."
If anything, I think Sides and Leetaru may understate the media's role in fueling Trump's political ambitions. They refer to Trump's career as a tabloid personality and reality TV star prior to his presidential campaign, comparing him to the Kardashians in his demonstrated success at creating a symbiotic relationship with news outlets who provided him with the publicity he sought.
But Kim Kardashian, for all her fame and gifts, would have a hard time getting millions of voters to view her as a good potential president. For decades, Trump has benefited from media coverage that not only has made him a household name, but has also portrayed him as having skills that would be generally considered assets in the world of politics. Trump managed to build a national reputation as an exceptionally shrewd businessman and negotiator through popular media accounts, and his years of appearances on morning shows, newsmagazines, and interview programs like Larry King Live often invited him to comment on current events under the assumption that his business success naturally gave him valuable insight on the political topics of the day.
The volume and generally deferential character of this media attention encouraged Trump to flirt with a political career as early as the late 1990s. His later phase as an outspoken critic of Barack Obama was similarly given substantial amplification by national media outlets; Trump made regular appearances on Fox News Channel (including a weekly "Monday Mornings with Trump" feature on Fox and Friends) and CNBC during much of Obama's presidency, treated once again as a captain of industry who could boast substantial expertise on the subject of politics.
Now that Trump is a viable candidate for president of the United States, political journalists have published and broadcast a number of more critical stories about his past and present career. Today, Trump is frequently portrayed as someone with severely limited knowledge of public affairs; as a candidate who intentionally skews the truth, appeals to popular prejudices, and incites violence among his supporters; and even as a business mogul who is much less successful, wealthy, and ethical than he claims. Members of the press who reject the "Trump as media creation" argument often point out that Trump is the most unpopular major-party nominee in the history of public opinion polling, suggesting that the coverage Trump has received has damaged rather than boosted him in the eyes of the electorate.
To be sure, it is likely that Trump will face mostly negative press coverage from now until November that will, if anything, make it more difficult for him to win the presidency. But critics both inside and outside the news media who view Trump as self-evidently unqualified for national office should examine the basis upon which millions of Republican primary voters formed the opposite impression. Donald Trump did not descend into the American electoral arena on an escalator from oblivion; the media presented him to us as a political authority for many years before they began to decide that maybe he was just an authoritarian.
But few people, whether academics or not, find it easy to suspend normative judgment where Trump is concerned. As a result, suggestions that the media may well have played a role, even if unintentionally, in assisting Trump's campaign can easily take on the form of angry indictments of the journalistic profession—or are at least interpreted as such by defensive newspeople. In response to perceived accusations of abetting a candidate who is widely disdained and feared among well-educated metropolitans of the political left, right, and center alike, a pundit class that in other contexts openly acknowledges and even overstates the capacity of media coverage to influence electoral outcomes—how often have we been told by talking heads that "winning the news cycle" is the key to winning the election?—has pushed back repeatedly against the notion that it bears any responsibility for Trump's success in gaining the Republican nomination and advancing closer to the presidency.
A few days ago, John Sides and Kalev Leetaru published a detailed analysis that contains an extensive empirical examination of the media's role in boosting Trump. Sides and Leetaru present a variety of data, but their central point is simple: Trump received a disproportionate share of media attention during the Republican primaries, the coverage devoted to Trump was not unusually negative in tone compared to other candidates, and Trump's standing among Republican primary voters over time closely reflected the contemporaneous volume of publicity that his candidacy was generating in the press.
Sides and Leetaru mostly focus on analyzing news coverage since Trump announced his candidacy last summer, though they note that Trump's 30-year status as a national figure is itself a product of substantial media attention. "Celebrities," they observe, "including Trump, are created in part by their own efforts and in part by news outlets’ willingness to write about them."
If anything, I think Sides and Leetaru may understate the media's role in fueling Trump's political ambitions. They refer to Trump's career as a tabloid personality and reality TV star prior to his presidential campaign, comparing him to the Kardashians in his demonstrated success at creating a symbiotic relationship with news outlets who provided him with the publicity he sought.
But Kim Kardashian, for all her fame and gifts, would have a hard time getting millions of voters to view her as a good potential president. For decades, Trump has benefited from media coverage that not only has made him a household name, but has also portrayed him as having skills that would be generally considered assets in the world of politics. Trump managed to build a national reputation as an exceptionally shrewd businessman and negotiator through popular media accounts, and his years of appearances on morning shows, newsmagazines, and interview programs like Larry King Live often invited him to comment on current events under the assumption that his business success naturally gave him valuable insight on the political topics of the day.
The volume and generally deferential character of this media attention encouraged Trump to flirt with a political career as early as the late 1990s. His later phase as an outspoken critic of Barack Obama was similarly given substantial amplification by national media outlets; Trump made regular appearances on Fox News Channel (including a weekly "Monday Mornings with Trump" feature on Fox and Friends) and CNBC during much of Obama's presidency, treated once again as a captain of industry who could boast substantial expertise on the subject of politics.
Now that Trump is a viable candidate for president of the United States, political journalists have published and broadcast a number of more critical stories about his past and present career. Today, Trump is frequently portrayed as someone with severely limited knowledge of public affairs; as a candidate who intentionally skews the truth, appeals to popular prejudices, and incites violence among his supporters; and even as a business mogul who is much less successful, wealthy, and ethical than he claims. Members of the press who reject the "Trump as media creation" argument often point out that Trump is the most unpopular major-party nominee in the history of public opinion polling, suggesting that the coverage Trump has received has damaged rather than boosted him in the eyes of the electorate.
To be sure, it is likely that Trump will face mostly negative press coverage from now until November that will, if anything, make it more difficult for him to win the presidency. But critics both inside and outside the news media who view Trump as self-evidently unqualified for national office should examine the basis upon which millions of Republican primary voters formed the opposite impression. Donald Trump did not descend into the American electoral arena on an escalator from oblivion; the media presented him to us as a political authority for many years before they began to decide that maybe he was just an authoritarian.
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Why Rubio Is Running
When he jumped into the 2016 presidential race last year, Marco Rubio announced that he would not seek reelection to his Florida Senate seat even if he failed to win the Republican nomination. At the time, this made sense. Unlike Rand Paul this year or Joe Biden in 2008, Rubio represents a large, politically competitive state where he would face serious opposition for reelection. He would be spending a lot of time out of state (and away from the floor of the Senate) on the presidential campaign trail, and keeping a foot in the Senate race might suggest to Republican voters and donors that he was not fully committed to seeking the presidency. Leaving Congress also allowed him to appeal to anti-Washington sentiment in the Republican electorate by rhetorically trashing the place on his way out the door. Even if Rubio lost the Republican nomination, he would have been a logical candidate for vice president on a ticket headed by someone like Scott Walker or Chris Christie.
But now Rubio's unfulfilled presidential ambitions have dictated a change of mind. After swearing up and down ever since he ended his presidential campaign more than three months ago that he would not jump back into the Florida Senate race, Rubio confirmed today that he will indeed seek reelection. He is not being very coy about the reasoning behind this reversal; as the New York Times reported, Rubio wants to run for president again and believes that he would be a weaker candidate running from the private sector.
At first glance, this seems like an odd calculation. Plenty of ex-officeholders, from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney to Hillary Clinton, have successfully won a major-party presidential nomination. Running for president while out of office frees a candidate from the duties of another position (or from being accused of shirking those duties) and allows him or her to avoid the pitfalls of being forced to take positions on controversial legislation that might later prove politically disadvantageous—as Rubio himself knows well from his Gang of Eight experience. Moreover, Rubio is no shoo-in for reelection this year, especially on a Trump-headed Republican ballot; a defeat would likely be permanently fatal to his presidential chances.
But Rubio's calculus makes a bit more sense if we game out the next four years a bit. First, Trump's nomination makes Hillary Clinton a strong favorite to assume the presidency next January. If she wins, Republicans will spent the next four years in opposition mode, competing among themselves to lead the charge against her administration. And right there in the center of the arena will be Rubio rival—and runner-up in the 2016 Republican presidential race—Ted Cruz. With a Clinton victory ensuring that no incumbent will be running for the 2020 Republican nomination, the stage would be set for Cruz to mount a second presidential campaign of his own. If Rubio no longer served in the Senate, Cruz would be able to contrast his own ongoing legislative activity fighting for the conservative cause (and against Clinton) with Rubio's absenteeism.
Rubio still has a substantial fan base among Republican consultants and high-dollar donors, but his disappointing 2016 candidacy is a much weaker foundation on which to build a second presidential campaign than previous candidates, like Clinton, Romney, McCain, or Reagan, who needed more than one try to win their party's nomination. He may well be worried that leaving the Senate this year would permanently marginalize him as the GOP moves on to other candidates, while remaining in Congress would allow him to rebuild his public reputation. Under the circumstances, Rubio's decision to risk defeat for a shot at another Senate term makes political sense—but it is safe to say that his sights remain set not on the U.S. Capitol, but on a different white building farther down Pennsylvania Avenue.
But now Rubio's unfulfilled presidential ambitions have dictated a change of mind. After swearing up and down ever since he ended his presidential campaign more than three months ago that he would not jump back into the Florida Senate race, Rubio confirmed today that he will indeed seek reelection. He is not being very coy about the reasoning behind this reversal; as the New York Times reported, Rubio wants to run for president again and believes that he would be a weaker candidate running from the private sector.
At first glance, this seems like an odd calculation. Plenty of ex-officeholders, from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney to Hillary Clinton, have successfully won a major-party presidential nomination. Running for president while out of office frees a candidate from the duties of another position (or from being accused of shirking those duties) and allows him or her to avoid the pitfalls of being forced to take positions on controversial legislation that might later prove politically disadvantageous—as Rubio himself knows well from his Gang of Eight experience. Moreover, Rubio is no shoo-in for reelection this year, especially on a Trump-headed Republican ballot; a defeat would likely be permanently fatal to his presidential chances.
But Rubio's calculus makes a bit more sense if we game out the next four years a bit. First, Trump's nomination makes Hillary Clinton a strong favorite to assume the presidency next January. If she wins, Republicans will spent the next four years in opposition mode, competing among themselves to lead the charge against her administration. And right there in the center of the arena will be Rubio rival—and runner-up in the 2016 Republican presidential race—Ted Cruz. With a Clinton victory ensuring that no incumbent will be running for the 2020 Republican nomination, the stage would be set for Cruz to mount a second presidential campaign of his own. If Rubio no longer served in the Senate, Cruz would be able to contrast his own ongoing legislative activity fighting for the conservative cause (and against Clinton) with Rubio's absenteeism.
Rubio still has a substantial fan base among Republican consultants and high-dollar donors, but his disappointing 2016 candidacy is a much weaker foundation on which to build a second presidential campaign than previous candidates, like Clinton, Romney, McCain, or Reagan, who needed more than one try to win their party's nomination. He may well be worried that leaving the Senate this year would permanently marginalize him as the GOP moves on to other candidates, while remaining in Congress would allow him to rebuild his public reputation. Under the circumstances, Rubio's decision to risk defeat for a shot at another Senate term makes political sense—but it is safe to say that his sights remain set not on the U.S. Capitol, but on a different white building farther down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Honest Graft on the Primary Concerns Podcast
This week, I was interviewed by Brian Beutler of the New Republic about the Bernie Sanders–Hillary Clinton race and the future of the Democratic Party, following up from my recent Vox interview on the subject. We were joined by fellow political scientist Theda Skocpol of Harvard. The interview is now posted as part of the New Republic's weekly Primary Concerns podcast, which you can listen to here or on iTunes.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
The Democratic Endgame Begins (Or, How Trump Undercuts Sanders's Leverage)
Tuesday night's Democratic primary in the District of Columbia brought the 2016 presidential delegate selection season to an official end, four and a half months after it began with the Iowa caucuses. While Hillary Clinton has accumulated enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination, her opponent Bernie Sanders remains—for now—an active presidential candidate. At some date in the near future, Sanders will no longer be a candidate and will instead be a supporter of the Clinton campaign. The precise sequence by which Sanders moves from A to B is presumably the main topic of discussion at a private meeting between Clinton and Sanders that occurred in Washington Tuesday evening.
It is clear that Sanders intends to use his current status as an active rival candidate to extract concessions from Clinton and, by extension, the Democratic National Committee. Clinton supporters frustrated at Sanders's behavior might object that their own candidate, in a similar position eight years ago, dropped out of the race at the end of the primaries and immediately endorsed the victorious Barack Obama without apparent conditions. Yet Clinton did receive something quite valuable in exchange for her unequivocal support of Obama in June 2008: credentials as a loyal Democrat and team player that not only gave her the opportunity to hold a high-level position in the Obama administration, but also allowed her to position herself as Obama's (tacitly-sanctioned) successor in the presidential office once he reached the constitutionally-prescribed two-term limit.
Sanders has a different set of interests. His age prevents him from being a realistic candidate in 2024 or even 2020, and his independence makes him a poor fit for a position in somebody else's presidential administration. Instead, he has three other objectives in mind: (1) winning demonstrable influence over the Democratic platform in order to be able to boast to his supporters that they succeeded in pulling the party to the ideological left; (2) forcing reforms to the presidential nomination process, both as another achievement to claim for his campaign and as a procedural benefit to future insurgent candidacies; and (3) visiting revenge upon DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whom Sanders blames for exhibiting a perceived favoritism toward the Clinton campaign during the nomination process.
This is an ambitious wish list for a losing presidential candidate to expect from the winner, and it seems unlikely that Sanders will be in a position to insist upon all of his demands. Indeed, his leverage over Clinton is quickly beginning to weaken—in part because of the identity of the presumptive Republican nominee.
The looming nomination of Donald Trump undercuts Sanders's bargaining position in three ways. First, Trump's routine dominance of the daily political news directs attention away from the Democratic race, making it more difficult for Sanders to win the publicity he needs to press his case. Second, Trump is something of a custom-built Democrat repellant, which will encourage even Clinton-wary Democratic voters to rally quickly around her as the only person standing between their archnemesis and the White House even if Sanders himself remains a holdout. Third, Clinton and her advisors likely view Trump as eminently beatable whether or not they receive Sanders's blessing, which makes them more likely to call Sanders's bluff than if they were facing a race against Marco Rubio or John Kasich.
Given Sanders's rapidly eroding strategic position, here's my best guess for how the Clinton-Sanders contest gets resolved:
(1) Sanders will soon suspend his campaign and make a public gesture of support for Clinton—though he might save a wholehearted endorsement until the convention itself.
(2) With Clinton's support, Sanders will win approval of platform language echoing his anti-Wall Street campaign message.
(3) The Democratic convention will approve a resolution calling for an internal party commission to study potential "democratizing" reforms to the presidential nomination process prior to the 2020 elections. It is less likely that the resolution will commit to specific reform provisions sought by Sanders such as requiring open primaries or abolishing superdelegates.
(4) Wasserman Schultz will stay at the DNC through November.
It is clear that Sanders intends to use his current status as an active rival candidate to extract concessions from Clinton and, by extension, the Democratic National Committee. Clinton supporters frustrated at Sanders's behavior might object that their own candidate, in a similar position eight years ago, dropped out of the race at the end of the primaries and immediately endorsed the victorious Barack Obama without apparent conditions. Yet Clinton did receive something quite valuable in exchange for her unequivocal support of Obama in June 2008: credentials as a loyal Democrat and team player that not only gave her the opportunity to hold a high-level position in the Obama administration, but also allowed her to position herself as Obama's (tacitly-sanctioned) successor in the presidential office once he reached the constitutionally-prescribed two-term limit.
Sanders has a different set of interests. His age prevents him from being a realistic candidate in 2024 or even 2020, and his independence makes him a poor fit for a position in somebody else's presidential administration. Instead, he has three other objectives in mind: (1) winning demonstrable influence over the Democratic platform in order to be able to boast to his supporters that they succeeded in pulling the party to the ideological left; (2) forcing reforms to the presidential nomination process, both as another achievement to claim for his campaign and as a procedural benefit to future insurgent candidacies; and (3) visiting revenge upon DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whom Sanders blames for exhibiting a perceived favoritism toward the Clinton campaign during the nomination process.
This is an ambitious wish list for a losing presidential candidate to expect from the winner, and it seems unlikely that Sanders will be in a position to insist upon all of his demands. Indeed, his leverage over Clinton is quickly beginning to weaken—in part because of the identity of the presumptive Republican nominee.
The looming nomination of Donald Trump undercuts Sanders's bargaining position in three ways. First, Trump's routine dominance of the daily political news directs attention away from the Democratic race, making it more difficult for Sanders to win the publicity he needs to press his case. Second, Trump is something of a custom-built Democrat repellant, which will encourage even Clinton-wary Democratic voters to rally quickly around her as the only person standing between their archnemesis and the White House even if Sanders himself remains a holdout. Third, Clinton and her advisors likely view Trump as eminently beatable whether or not they receive Sanders's blessing, which makes them more likely to call Sanders's bluff than if they were facing a race against Marco Rubio or John Kasich.
Given Sanders's rapidly eroding strategic position, here's my best guess for how the Clinton-Sanders contest gets resolved:
(1) Sanders will soon suspend his campaign and make a public gesture of support for Clinton—though he might save a wholehearted endorsement until the convention itself.
(2) With Clinton's support, Sanders will win approval of platform language echoing his anti-Wall Street campaign message.
(3) The Democratic convention will approve a resolution calling for an internal party commission to study potential "democratizing" reforms to the presidential nomination process prior to the 2020 elections. It is less likely that the resolution will commit to specific reform provisions sought by Sanders such as requiring open primaries or abolishing superdelegates.
(4) Wasserman Schultz will stay at the DNC through November.
Thursday, June 09, 2016
Vox Interview on Clinton, Sanders, and the Future of the Democrats
I was interviewed this week by Jeff Stein of Vox.com about the legacy of the Sanders presidential campaign, and you can read an edited transcript of our conversation here.
Monday, June 06, 2016
The Reason Sanders Wouldn't Have Won Lives in the White House
Over the weekend, the Washington Post published a long retrospective article on the Sanders presidential campaign entitled "How Bernie Sanders Missed His Chance to Beat Hillary Clinton." While the story departs from the official Sanders campaign line in conceding that the Democratic nomination race is effectively over, it is otherwise an extremely sympathetic account told from the perspective of Sanders, his wife, and his top advisors.
These figures—and, by extension, the Post writers—characterize the election as a tantalizing near-miss for Sanders, who supposedly fell just short of victory due to a variety of relatively minor factors under his own control. The article suggests that if Sanders had started just a bit earlier in building a national campaign infrastructure, in forging an appeal to black and Latino Democrats, in criticizing Hillary Clinton, and in (I'm not kidding here) posing for more selfies with voters at his rallies, he might have pulled off an astounding upset victory over Clinton.
It's only natural for a candidate in Sanders's current position to engage in this sort of "if-we-had-only-done-X" thinking, but the understandable frustrations produced by electoral defeat do not necessarily lead to sound analysis. In particular, a stronger Sanders campaign would have provoked a more formidable strategic response from Clinton, who more or less coasted after Super Tuesday (and especially after her March 15 victories) on a secure delegate lead rather than directly engage in counterattacks on Sanders. Nate Silver noted that the Clinton campaign and pro-Clinton super PACs have about $77 million in cash that could have been spent against Sanders had he continued to pose a threat to her nomination.
What would an anti-Sanders rhetorical offensive have looked like, and how effective would it have been? Sanders has various political vulnerabilities, but surely the biggest in this particular race would have been his longstanding ambivalence about the Obama presidency. Sanders has smartly avoided direct criticism of Obama during his run—though, as Clinton noted from time to time, some of his attacks on her served as implicit rebukes to the sitting president as well—but he was on record suggesting that Obama should be opposed from the left prior to the 2012 election. Retrospective analyses like the Post's that lament the time it took for Sanders to become comfortable speaking in black churches and discussing racial issues—suggesting that he could have seriously competed with Clinton for black support had he only found his footing a bit earlier—need to contend with the likely effect that a hypothetical television ad based on film of Sanders criticizing Obama and encouraging a primary challenge would have had on his popularity among African-American voters.
If Clinton had really found herself in trouble, she would have been able to call on campaign help from Obama himself. Obama has chosen to formally remain on the sidelines so far, but it is hard to believe that he would have refused to come to Clinton's aid against Sanders had the need arisen. Indeed, he is preparing to do so once she reaches the required number of delegates to secure the nomination, and will work to begin unifying the Democratic Party behind her despite Sanders's pledge to soldier on to the convention in July.
Given Obama's popularity among Democrats, it is difficult to see how it would have benefited Sanders had the race become anything like a referendum on the incumbent's performance. Sanders ran an impressive campaign and far exceeded initial expectations, but he never had much chance of actually winning the Democratic nomination.
These figures—and, by extension, the Post writers—characterize the election as a tantalizing near-miss for Sanders, who supposedly fell just short of victory due to a variety of relatively minor factors under his own control. The article suggests that if Sanders had started just a bit earlier in building a national campaign infrastructure, in forging an appeal to black and Latino Democrats, in criticizing Hillary Clinton, and in (I'm not kidding here) posing for more selfies with voters at his rallies, he might have pulled off an astounding upset victory over Clinton.
It's only natural for a candidate in Sanders's current position to engage in this sort of "if-we-had-only-done-X" thinking, but the understandable frustrations produced by electoral defeat do not necessarily lead to sound analysis. In particular, a stronger Sanders campaign would have provoked a more formidable strategic response from Clinton, who more or less coasted after Super Tuesday (and especially after her March 15 victories) on a secure delegate lead rather than directly engage in counterattacks on Sanders. Nate Silver noted that the Clinton campaign and pro-Clinton super PACs have about $77 million in cash that could have been spent against Sanders had he continued to pose a threat to her nomination.
What would an anti-Sanders rhetorical offensive have looked like, and how effective would it have been? Sanders has various political vulnerabilities, but surely the biggest in this particular race would have been his longstanding ambivalence about the Obama presidency. Sanders has smartly avoided direct criticism of Obama during his run—though, as Clinton noted from time to time, some of his attacks on her served as implicit rebukes to the sitting president as well—but he was on record suggesting that Obama should be opposed from the left prior to the 2012 election. Retrospective analyses like the Post's that lament the time it took for Sanders to become comfortable speaking in black churches and discussing racial issues—suggesting that he could have seriously competed with Clinton for black support had he only found his footing a bit earlier—need to contend with the likely effect that a hypothetical television ad based on film of Sanders criticizing Obama and encouraging a primary challenge would have had on his popularity among African-American voters.
If Clinton had really found herself in trouble, she would have been able to call on campaign help from Obama himself. Obama has chosen to formally remain on the sidelines so far, but it is hard to believe that he would have refused to come to Clinton's aid against Sanders had the need arisen. Indeed, he is preparing to do so once she reaches the required number of delegates to secure the nomination, and will work to begin unifying the Democratic Party behind her despite Sanders's pledge to soldier on to the convention in July.
Given Obama's popularity among Democrats, it is difficult to see how it would have benefited Sanders had the race become anything like a referendum on the incumbent's performance. Sanders ran an impressive campaign and far exceeded initial expectations, but he never had much chance of actually winning the Democratic nomination.
Wednesday, June 01, 2016
What the Trump vs. Sanders Polls Do, and Don't, Tell Us
A Quinnipiac poll released today shows what has become a familiar pattern: Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 4 percentage points in the national popular vote (45 percent to 41 percent), while Bernie Sanders leads Trump by a 9-point margin (48 percent to 39 percent). These results are consistent with other recent poll results; the Pollster.com aggregator estimates Clinton's current lead over Trump at 2 points as of today, while Sanders leads Trump by 11 points.
The reason for this persistent gap is not difficult to divine: Sanders is viewed much more favorably than Clinton in the broader electorate. Pollster.com calculates his current favorability rating at +9 (49 percent favorable to 40 percent unfavorable); Clinton is currently at –16 (40 percent favorable to 56 percent unfavorable) and Trump at –21 (37 percent favorable to 58 percent unfavorable).
Purist insurgencies like the Sanders campaign usually lack direct evidence that they might be stronger general-election nominees than their primary opponents, which causes them to fall back on "hidden vote" theories claiming that they would inspire large numbers of previously inert citizens to flock to the polls to their behalf—thus compensating for their comparatively weaker standing among habitual voters. (This was Barry Goldwater's professed path to victory in 1964, an election that he lost by 23 points.) But Sanders and his supporters can currently point to national surveys suggesting that he would be a more electable candidate for the Democratic Party, which have become incorporated into his current pitch for why superdelegates should reverse the results of the pledged delegate count in order to award him the nomination.
Of course, popularity in June does not guarantee popularity in November. The flaw in Sanders's argument is that he has yet to demonstrate that he can survive a sustained blast of negative attacks. His advocacy of higher taxes on the middle class, support for government-run universal health care, past dalliances into leftist foreign policy, and self-identification as a "socialist" all represent potentially serious political vulnerabilities for Sanders, who represents a small, left-leaning state where he hasn't faced a serious electoral challenge in over 20 years and who therefore has little experience in defending his record against well-financed opposition in an unfriendly political constituency.
The fact that Sanders is currently polling well in a hypothetical matchup against Trump therefore don't necessarily predict how a general election between the two would turn out. Sanders would begin the race unburdened by the negative popular evaluations that now weigh down the Clinton campaign; on the other hand, November is a long way off, and there would be plenty of time for him to lose his current relative appeal—while Clinton, as more of a known quantity, may be less vulnerable to further Republican attacks and may in fact make a modest recovery in the polls once the Democratic nomination contest has concluded. Most Democratic leaders view Clinton, for all her flaws, as still representing a safer choice for the party's nomination (putting aside the question of whether it would be appropriate for the superdelegates to overturn the results of the pledged delegate count).
But these polls do tell us something useful about the election all the same. Some observers who view Trump as a potentially formidable general election candidate have suggested that he could receive a significant crossover vote from Democrats. "Because Trump isn’t a doctrinaire conservative—because he appeals on emotion and not policy—the theory is that he can win white working-class Democrats and other disaffected voters in the Democratic coalition," wrote Jamelle Bouie of Slate in a March critical appraisal.
The reason for this persistent gap is not difficult to divine: Sanders is viewed much more favorably than Clinton in the broader electorate. Pollster.com calculates his current favorability rating at +9 (49 percent favorable to 40 percent unfavorable); Clinton is currently at –16 (40 percent favorable to 56 percent unfavorable) and Trump at –21 (37 percent favorable to 58 percent unfavorable).
Purist insurgencies like the Sanders campaign usually lack direct evidence that they might be stronger general-election nominees than their primary opponents, which causes them to fall back on "hidden vote" theories claiming that they would inspire large numbers of previously inert citizens to flock to the polls to their behalf—thus compensating for their comparatively weaker standing among habitual voters. (This was Barry Goldwater's professed path to victory in 1964, an election that he lost by 23 points.) But Sanders and his supporters can currently point to national surveys suggesting that he would be a more electable candidate for the Democratic Party, which have become incorporated into his current pitch for why superdelegates should reverse the results of the pledged delegate count in order to award him the nomination.
Of course, popularity in June does not guarantee popularity in November. The flaw in Sanders's argument is that he has yet to demonstrate that he can survive a sustained blast of negative attacks. His advocacy of higher taxes on the middle class, support for government-run universal health care, past dalliances into leftist foreign policy, and self-identification as a "socialist" all represent potentially serious political vulnerabilities for Sanders, who represents a small, left-leaning state where he hasn't faced a serious electoral challenge in over 20 years and who therefore has little experience in defending his record against well-financed opposition in an unfriendly political constituency.
The fact that Sanders is currently polling well in a hypothetical matchup against Trump therefore don't necessarily predict how a general election between the two would turn out. Sanders would begin the race unburdened by the negative popular evaluations that now weigh down the Clinton campaign; on the other hand, November is a long way off, and there would be plenty of time for him to lose his current relative appeal—while Clinton, as more of a known quantity, may be less vulnerable to further Republican attacks and may in fact make a modest recovery in the polls once the Democratic nomination contest has concluded. Most Democratic leaders view Clinton, for all her flaws, as still representing a safer choice for the party's nomination (putting aside the question of whether it would be appropriate for the superdelegates to overturn the results of the pledged delegate count).
But these polls do tell us something useful about the election all the same. Some observers who view Trump as a potentially formidable general election candidate have suggested that he could receive a significant crossover vote from Democrats. "Because Trump isn’t a doctrinaire conservative—because he appeals on emotion and not policy—the theory is that he can win white working-class Democrats and other disaffected voters in the Democratic coalition," wrote Jamelle Bouie of Slate in a March critical appraisal.
If Trump had a unique appeal to non-Republicans, however, we'd expect to see evidence of it in trial heat polls against Sanders, who may be viewed as more or less a generic Democratic candidate by a general electorate who is not yet very familiar with him. Sanders's fairly wide lead at this stage indicates that there is no substantial population of Democrats who are sufficiently attracted to the Trump candidacy that they would support him over either candidate of their own party.
Perhaps things will change, and Trump will succeed in crafting a message that appeals to Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents—or perhaps the Democratic nominee will alienate a sufficiently large sector of the electorate that such an achievement won't be necessary. But while the polls can't tell us for sure whether Clinton or Sanders would be a stronger general-election candidate, they do continue to demonstrate that the Trump fan club has very few non-Republican members. Regardless of the final outcome in 2016, it is therefore unlikely that the Trump candidacy will fundamentally redefine the two parties' mass bases of support.
Monday, May 23, 2016
The Press Buckles Up for Six Months of Backseat Driving
As former Jeb Bush advisor Tim Miller recently revealed, among the unwelcome challenges faced by the modern presidential campaign is the relentless proffering of advice by top financial donors, who take the opportunity presented by personal access to the candidate or senior staff to promote their own theories on how best to win votes:
In some walks of life, professional expertise is given a modicum of deference; few airline passengers think that they know better than the pilot how to fly the plane, while most patients trust their dentist to fill a cavity correctly without the need for them to weigh in on the subject. Not so in politics. No record of previous experience or success is sufficient to insulate either politicians or their staff from the passing opinions of others, even if they are as ridiculous as the belief that entire elections can turn on the candidate's choice of suit coats.
We could have probably had 19 full-time staffers dedicated just to the donor advice. . . . Donors had a lot of thoughts about [the candidate's] cable TV look. Donors are obsessed with cable TV. The most feedback we got was with regards to cable TV: Why aren’t you on enough? When you are on? Why is he not wearing a suit coat rather than a sweater? Can he get a new suit coat jacket?’
In some walks of life, professional expertise is given a modicum of deference; few airline passengers think that they know better than the pilot how to fly the plane, while most patients trust their dentist to fill a cavity correctly without the need for them to weigh in on the subject. Not so in politics. No record of previous experience or success is sufficient to insulate either politicians or their staff from the passing opinions of others, even if they are as ridiculous as the belief that entire elections can turn on the candidate's choice of suit coats.
Aside from wealthy supporters who are accustomed on a daily basis to being treated as if every utterance is sacred wisdom, a particularly rich vein of unsolicited input is supplied by journalists and pundits—especially if a candidate is trailing or falling short of his or her expected performance in the polls. Politicians also vary in the extent to which they are credited with political smarts by reporters and commentators, and those deemed less savvy are more likely to be the recipients of frequent second-guessing.
It's safe to say that very few members of the national media, whether liberal, conservative, or in between, are supporters of Donald Trump's campaign. In fact, many view him as a uniquely unqualified and destructive potential president. To these analysts, it is therefore critical to the health of the nation that Hillary Clinton defeat Trump in November.
But Clinton is not particularly well-liked by the press in her own right, and her acumen as a candidate is routinely given little respect. Conditions are thus ripe for members of the media to spend the upcoming campaign picking over every strategic and tactical choice made by Clinton or her advisors, not only questioning the political wisdom of each decision but also suggesting that Clinton bears grave moral responsibility for keeping alive the possibility of a Trump presidency.
This behavioral tendency is already visible. On May 9, the New York Times ran a story about a series of anti-Trump attacks made via Twitter by Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. One might think that it would be unadulterated good news for the Clinton campaign that a well-known liberal Democratic senator popular with Bernie Sanders supporters (and formally neutral in the Democratic primary race) was leading a rhetorical charge against Trump, laying the groundwork for a united partisan front behind Clinton in the general election. But to Maggie Haberman, a reporter with the Times who contributed to the story, Warren's offensive was actually important because she was "maybe signaling she doesn't think HRC is doing [a] bang up job [attacking] Trump" herself. Thus an article about Warren's successful engagement with Trump to Clinton's potential benefit (which contained no direct evidence in its text supporting Haberman's suggestion that Warren was in fact unhappy with Clinton or her campaign) became one more supposed indication of Clinton's own political limitations.
In the same vein, a May 6 press release produced by the Democratic National Committee that referred to Trump as "Dangerous Donald" drew an unusual amount of attention among journalists. Receiving boilerplate press releases is presumably an unremarkable daily occurrence for political reporters and is rarely worthy of comment. This time, however, members of the media acted as if the Clinton campaign had settled on its primary anti-Trump message for the entirety of the election season, collectively judging said strategy to be hopelessly lame—which therefore represented an unacceptable case of political malpractice in the face of the Trump threat. Anti-Trump (and anti-Clinton) conservative David Frum sketched out a Trump victory scenario for the Atlantic which suggested that the Clinton campaign might be so incompetent as to drive significant shares of Obama-supporting racial minorities, ideological moderates, and college-educated whites into Trump's corner—a prediction that seems fanciful given current evidence about these groups' opinions of Trump but nonetheless was taken seriously by some analysts. (Trump has a chance of winning, of course, but not because he is likely to attract a large percentage of the Latino vote.)
Expect this dynamic to hold for the remainder of the presidential race. Any indication of a rise in the polls for Trump will inspire a frenzy of media analysis about what Clinton is doing wrong—even if she remains in the lead and a favorite to win in November—while a widening of Clinton's popular margin will be interpreted as reflecting Trump's weaknesses rather than the political effectiveness of the Democratic opposition. The chief strategic decisions made by Clinton and her advisors may not always be correct, but they will be based on opinion surveys, focus groups, and other forms of data employed by modern campaign professionals—yet they will be subjected to routine second-guessing by media analysts who lack confidence that Clinton will defeat Trump on the basis of superior political skill.
Expect this dynamic to hold for the remainder of the presidential race. Any indication of a rise in the polls for Trump will inspire a frenzy of media analysis about what Clinton is doing wrong—even if she remains in the lead and a favorite to win in November—while a widening of Clinton's popular margin will be interpreted as reflecting Trump's weaknesses rather than the political effectiveness of the Democratic opposition. The chief strategic decisions made by Clinton and her advisors may not always be correct, but they will be based on opinion surveys, focus groups, and other forms of data employed by modern campaign professionals—yet they will be subjected to routine second-guessing by media analysts who lack confidence that Clinton will defeat Trump on the basis of superior political skill.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Process Obsessions Aren't Enough to Sustain Sanders Past June
Yesterday, I wrote a long post interpreting the melee at the Nevada state convention on Saturday as reflecting the broader tendency of liberals to get bogged down in process arguments when denied political success, which can often prove counterproductive to their long-term goals. The Bernie Sanders campaign has become increasingly preoccupied with procedural issues, citing them as excuses for their inability to defeat Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.
The New York Times provides additional evidence with an article eye-catchingly headlined "Bernie Sanders, Eyeing Convention, Willing to Harm Hillary Clinton in the Homestretch." The piece seems intentionally written to provoke nervous Democrats into uncontrollable bouts of hand-wringing over the possibility of an angry and undaunted Sanders waging a kamikaze mission against Clinton all the way to, if not after, the national convention this summer. Stripping away the various inferences, suggestions, and on-background complaints from the Sanders campaign, however, leaves us with the following on-the-record quote from Sanders strategist Tad Devine, which is hardly a call to storm the barricades:
The New York Times provides additional evidence with an article eye-catchingly headlined "Bernie Sanders, Eyeing Convention, Willing to Harm Hillary Clinton in the Homestretch." The piece seems intentionally written to provoke nervous Democrats into uncontrollable bouts of hand-wringing over the possibility of an angry and undaunted Sanders waging a kamikaze mission against Clinton all the way to, if not after, the national convention this summer. Stripping away the various inferences, suggestions, and on-background complaints from the Sanders campaign, however, leaves us with the following on-the-record quote from Sanders strategist Tad Devine, which is hardly a call to storm the barricades:
The only thing that matters is what happens between now and June 14 [the date of the final primary]. We have to put the blinders on and focus on the best case to make in the upcoming states. If we do that, we can be in a strong position to make the best closing argument before the convention. If not, everyone will know in mid-June, and we’ll have to take a hard look at where things stand.
It seems more likely that Sanders and his top aides don't really know today what they'll do once the primary season is over, and there may be some internal difference of opinion on the subject. That they remain privately as well as publicly preoccupied with process questions is clear: the Sanders camp is still nurturing long-held grievances about perceived unfair treatment by the Democratic National Committee, and one suggested set of demands at the convention would involve unspecified "fundamental changes to how presidential primaries and debates are held in the future."
But complaints about nomination procedures, however valid they might be, are simply not important or motivating enough at the mass level to sustain a presidential campaign—especially a campaign that will not be able to claim the most votes or the most pledged delegates once the primary calendar is complete. Superdelegates, party activists, and Democratic voters are unlikely to view the Sanders campaign's gripes as justifying a post-primary battle over the nomination in the face of a general-election race against Donald Trump. It's one thing to continue a debate within the party over substantive policy priorities that might affect millions of people, but it's hard to run a serious campaign for the office of president of the United States that is primarily dedicated to the cause of exacting revenge on Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Why Bernie Sanders Loves to Argue About Process
The conflict that broke out last weekend at the Nevada Democratic Convention—which not only encompassed protests and physical altercations during the event itself but also included the subsequent defacing of the state party headquarters as well as multiple nasty phone and text messages directed toward the state party chairwoman and her employer—demonstrated that some liberal activists are neither as tolerant and cheerful as they might portray themselves nor as wimpy and passive as their detractors on the right might suggest. The nub of the disagreement concerned the procedural conduct of the convention itself, which was in charge of selecting members of the Nevada delegation to the Democratic national convention this summer.
Some Sanders supporters believed that the Nevada Democratic Party, which is under the firm control of Senate minority leader (and Clinton endorser) Harry Reid, had acted improperly in order to marginalize their candidate's strength (e.g. by rejecting the credentials of a few dozen would-be Sanders delegates). At issue was a handful of national delegate slots that might have allowed Sanders to gain a greater share of the Nevada delegation than he would normally be entitled to receive based on the results of the February caucus, which Clinton won by a five-point margin.
Though Reid strongly hinted after the rebellion in Nevada that Sanders would—and should—accept the results of the convention as legitimate and call on his followers to refrain from directing abusive behavior at the state party and its leadership, Sanders issued a statement that was relatively defiant, listing several grievances while minimizing the transgressions of his supporters. "If the Democratic Party is to be successful in November," he warned, "it is imperative that all state parties treat our campaign supporters with fairness and the respect they have earned."
These latest developments represent the fruition of a trend that has been building over the past few months. Ever since Sanders fell behind Hillary Clinton in the delegate count on Super Tuesday, his campaign has increasingly complained about matters of process, from the existence of superdelegates to the use of closed primaries (which prohibit participation by registered independents) in several states.
Liberals are particularly susceptible to process arguments for two reasons. First, liberal concerns about social equality more generally make it easy for left-leaning critics to accuse any disliked procedural attribute of being "unfair" and therefore unacceptable. For example, the Democratic National Committee's "Fairness Commission" prohibited the use of winner-take-all delegate allocation in primaries in the 1980s, on the stated egalitarian principle that delegates should properly be awarded in proportion to the popular vote, while Republicans—who are less deferential to claims that internal procedures are undemocratic—continue to allow states to use winner-take-all rules if they hold primaries after early March.
Second, and perhaps more fundamentally, liberals tend to view themselves as self-evidently standing for the rights and interests of "the people" against the elites. In a democracy, of course, the many should rightfully prevail over the few—so any political battle in which the left suffers defeat is easy to dismiss as the product of an undemocratic process rather than revealing the limits of liberalism's popular appeal. It is very telling that the statement released by Sanders after the Nevada convention began by referring to "establishment politics and establishment economics" and criticizing "big-money campaign contributions." Some critics, such as Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, found this strange—"you open with your stump speech?" he asked Sanders rhetorically.
But from Sanders's perspective, it makes perfect sense: the economy is rigged, the campaign finance system is rigged, and so too are the state parties and the nomination process—all by the same dreaded "establishment" controlled by the "millionaires and billionaires." Otherwise, suggests Sanders, he would be winning—or would have already won, since the chief barrier to the implementation of democratic socialism in the United States is, in his mind, not the will of the American people but rather the illegitimate influence of moneyed interests. (He once remarked that the Republican Party would get only "5, 10 percent of the vote" if not for the behavior of the corporate media.)
This viewpoint also explains why the Sanders campaign has in fact been quite selective in its complaints about process. One could easily impugn the caucus system as undemocratic, yet Sanders's successes in caucus states make that argument an uncomfortable one. Even superdelegates, though a regular target of criticism from Sanders, are also cited by his campaign as representing their candidate's sole remaining path to a numerical majority, justifying his continued presence in the race. The events in Nevada arose out of an attempt to effectively overturn the results of the popular vote in the state on Sanders's behalf, which sounds undemocratic on its face—but if one views a Sanders victory as more legitimate by definition than a Sanders defeat at the hands of "establishment" figures Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid, such tactics begin to look increasingly justifiable.
Sanders is far from the only left-winger who believes that if the political system itself is reformed (by overturning Citizens United, easing voter registration requirements, prohibiting gerrymandering, eliminating superdelegates, and other measures), an endless parade of liberal victories would follow. This line of thinking greatly exaggerates the degree to which public opinion in America collectively lines up on the left side of the ideological spectrum. The fiction that only the likes of the Koch brothers stand in the way of implementing progressivism in the United States makes it easier for the left to claim righteously that it represents the true voice of the people against the privileged few, but also represents an overly simplistic view of reality that cannot, in the long term, be a solid ground on which to build a political movement.
Liberal preoccupations with process may be ultimately counterproductive to the political aims of the left in other ways as well. If the lesson drawn by Sanders and his supporters from the 2016 nomination race is "the fix is in" rather than "good start—let's get 'em next time," it will be harder to sustain momentum for their agenda within the Democratic Party and the electoral arena more broadly past the end of this campaign.
In part, this is because complaints about a rigged system may breed more apathy and cynicism than motivation to remain productively active in party politics. But blaming defeat on outside forces also discourages the kind of internal stock-taking and retrospective evaluation that can allow a political movement to learn from its mistakes and increase its future effectiveness. If the Sanders cause is to outlast the Sanders presidential campaign, it needs to put the process complaints aside and figure out how to win more votes.
Some Sanders supporters believed that the Nevada Democratic Party, which is under the firm control of Senate minority leader (and Clinton endorser) Harry Reid, had acted improperly in order to marginalize their candidate's strength (e.g. by rejecting the credentials of a few dozen would-be Sanders delegates). At issue was a handful of national delegate slots that might have allowed Sanders to gain a greater share of the Nevada delegation than he would normally be entitled to receive based on the results of the February caucus, which Clinton won by a five-point margin.
Though Reid strongly hinted after the rebellion in Nevada that Sanders would—and should—accept the results of the convention as legitimate and call on his followers to refrain from directing abusive behavior at the state party and its leadership, Sanders issued a statement that was relatively defiant, listing several grievances while minimizing the transgressions of his supporters. "If the Democratic Party is to be successful in November," he warned, "it is imperative that all state parties treat our campaign supporters with fairness and the respect they have earned."
These latest developments represent the fruition of a trend that has been building over the past few months. Ever since Sanders fell behind Hillary Clinton in the delegate count on Super Tuesday, his campaign has increasingly complained about matters of process, from the existence of superdelegates to the use of closed primaries (which prohibit participation by registered independents) in several states.
Liberals are particularly susceptible to process arguments for two reasons. First, liberal concerns about social equality more generally make it easy for left-leaning critics to accuse any disliked procedural attribute of being "unfair" and therefore unacceptable. For example, the Democratic National Committee's "Fairness Commission" prohibited the use of winner-take-all delegate allocation in primaries in the 1980s, on the stated egalitarian principle that delegates should properly be awarded in proportion to the popular vote, while Republicans—who are less deferential to claims that internal procedures are undemocratic—continue to allow states to use winner-take-all rules if they hold primaries after early March.
Second, and perhaps more fundamentally, liberals tend to view themselves as self-evidently standing for the rights and interests of "the people" against the elites. In a democracy, of course, the many should rightfully prevail over the few—so any political battle in which the left suffers defeat is easy to dismiss as the product of an undemocratic process rather than revealing the limits of liberalism's popular appeal. It is very telling that the statement released by Sanders after the Nevada convention began by referring to "establishment politics and establishment economics" and criticizing "big-money campaign contributions." Some critics, such as Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, found this strange—"you open with your stump speech?" he asked Sanders rhetorically.
But from Sanders's perspective, it makes perfect sense: the economy is rigged, the campaign finance system is rigged, and so too are the state parties and the nomination process—all by the same dreaded "establishment" controlled by the "millionaires and billionaires." Otherwise, suggests Sanders, he would be winning—or would have already won, since the chief barrier to the implementation of democratic socialism in the United States is, in his mind, not the will of the American people but rather the illegitimate influence of moneyed interests. (He once remarked that the Republican Party would get only "5, 10 percent of the vote" if not for the behavior of the corporate media.)
This viewpoint also explains why the Sanders campaign has in fact been quite selective in its complaints about process. One could easily impugn the caucus system as undemocratic, yet Sanders's successes in caucus states make that argument an uncomfortable one. Even superdelegates, though a regular target of criticism from Sanders, are also cited by his campaign as representing their candidate's sole remaining path to a numerical majority, justifying his continued presence in the race. The events in Nevada arose out of an attempt to effectively overturn the results of the popular vote in the state on Sanders's behalf, which sounds undemocratic on its face—but if one views a Sanders victory as more legitimate by definition than a Sanders defeat at the hands of "establishment" figures Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid, such tactics begin to look increasingly justifiable.
Sanders is far from the only left-winger who believes that if the political system itself is reformed (by overturning Citizens United, easing voter registration requirements, prohibiting gerrymandering, eliminating superdelegates, and other measures), an endless parade of liberal victories would follow. This line of thinking greatly exaggerates the degree to which public opinion in America collectively lines up on the left side of the ideological spectrum. The fiction that only the likes of the Koch brothers stand in the way of implementing progressivism in the United States makes it easier for the left to claim righteously that it represents the true voice of the people against the privileged few, but also represents an overly simplistic view of reality that cannot, in the long term, be a solid ground on which to build a political movement.
Liberal preoccupations with process may be ultimately counterproductive to the political aims of the left in other ways as well. If the lesson drawn by Sanders and his supporters from the 2016 nomination race is "the fix is in" rather than "good start—let's get 'em next time," it will be harder to sustain momentum for their agenda within the Democratic Party and the electoral arena more broadly past the end of this campaign.
In part, this is because complaints about a rigged system may breed more apathy and cynicism than motivation to remain productively active in party politics. But blaming defeat on outside forces also discourages the kind of internal stock-taking and retrospective evaluation that can allow a political movement to learn from its mistakes and increase its future effectiveness. If the Sanders cause is to outlast the Sanders presidential campaign, it needs to put the process complaints aside and figure out how to win more votes.
Monday, May 16, 2016
Emotion Meets Calculation in Both Parties
Late spring is an odd time in every presidential election year. The presumptive nominees of the two parties have reliably emerged by this point (if not before), yet the schedule of primaries and caucuses continues at a slow, drawn-out pace, sometimes contested by an active opponent or two who can still score a few popular state-level victories despite the unforgiving arithmetic of the national delegate count. The leading candidates prepare to fight each other for the support of swing voters in the general election, even as they attempt to inspire unity and enthusiasm within the popular bases of their own respective parties. With six months to go before the election itself, the political press and other attentive observers follow every strategic move with great interest while most voters remain only intermittently engaged in the day-to-day combat of the campaign.
Things are even stranger than usual in 2016. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have both claimed an insurmountable lead in delegates—Trump is now running unopposed in the Republican race—yet visible segments of both parties have not become reconciled to their nominations, as demonstrated by the events of this weekend.
Saturday's Washington Post brought news of a draft campaign that is actively attempting to recruit an anti-Trump Republican to contest the general election as an independent candidate. The ringleaders of this scheme (Mitt Romney, Erick Erickson, and Bill Kristol, along with a few veteran Republican political consultants) appear undecided about what qualities they are looking for beyond (1) antipathy to Trump and (2) some commitment to run as a conservative—as is clear from the rather incoherent collection of names on their wish list, which includes John Kasich, Condoleezza Rice, ex-Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn, first-term Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, a couple of retired generals, and even Dallas Mavericks owner (and reality TV star) Mark Cuban.
It's easy to understand the frustration felt by conservative elites who currently face the prospect of choosing among Trump, Clinton, and a pro-choice/anti-interventionist Libertarian Party nominee on their November ballots. But their lack of success so far at persuading any of their targets to volunteer for this mission isn't hard to figure out, because it would be a big mistake for any sensible politician to agree. Siphoning off Republican votes from Trump would clinch a sizable Democratic victory—ignore the nonsense about how it might throw the election to the House of Representatives—and ensure that the candidate would go down in party history as the Republican version of Ralph Nader. Ex-McCain and Jeb Bush strategist Mike Murphy's idea that an anti-Trump conservative might only contest a handful of swing states is even sillier; why would a significant share of voters turn out to support a candidate who couldn't even claim a hypothetical chance of victory?
On the Democratic side, the Sanders campaign and some of its most fervent supporters have largely declined to acknowledge the true state of the delegate math, instead nurturing unrealistic theories that superdelegates will overturn Clinton's victory in pledged delegates at the national convention this summer. Such hopes sit with a certain awkwardness alongside claims that dastardly Democratic "bosses" have illegitimately manipulated the nomination process to prevent a Sanders nomination—a point of view that even fueled open conflict at this weekend's state party convention in Nevada.
Once the primary season is over, however, the political environment will change in a way that will make the Sanders campaign's position strategically unsustainable. Many of the superdelegates who are now publicly undeclared will likely endorse Clinton on or shortly after the final primary date (as occurred in 2008, with Obama in the front-runner position) One of those undeclared superdelegates is Obama himself, who can be expected to offer his public support to Clinton once the primaries are over. Sanders's own backers among the ranks of Democratic elected officials and national committee members will then exert pressure on the campaign to begin the process of promoting party unity.
Sanders may well withhold his formal endorsement until he secures concessions from the Clinton camp at the convention itself. But any attempt to continue an active fight against her past the end of the primary calendar will leave him open to substantial criticism from within the party that he is becoming a spoiler in the Democratic Party's battle against a potential President Trump.
In both parties, resistance among the losing factions in the nomination contest is still unusually elevated at the moment, preventing each side from quickly uniting around its future standard-bearer. But the strong emotions of disaffected activists are beginning to collide with the cold calculations of actual and potential candidates, who perceive substantial political risk from maintaining or exacerbating divisions within the party as it turns to face the opposition in a general election in which the political stakes will be particularly high. By October, it is likely that most of the current intraparty strife will be a distant memory, and the population of Republicans who remain unreconciled to Trump (perhaps a smaller and less visible group than those who are currently vowing to stand in opposition) will probably lack a prominent candidate of their own, leaving them with an unappealing choice between voting for Clinton and sitting out the presidential race.
Things are even stranger than usual in 2016. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have both claimed an insurmountable lead in delegates—Trump is now running unopposed in the Republican race—yet visible segments of both parties have not become reconciled to their nominations, as demonstrated by the events of this weekend.
Saturday's Washington Post brought news of a draft campaign that is actively attempting to recruit an anti-Trump Republican to contest the general election as an independent candidate. The ringleaders of this scheme (Mitt Romney, Erick Erickson, and Bill Kristol, along with a few veteran Republican political consultants) appear undecided about what qualities they are looking for beyond (1) antipathy to Trump and (2) some commitment to run as a conservative—as is clear from the rather incoherent collection of names on their wish list, which includes John Kasich, Condoleezza Rice, ex-Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn, first-term Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, a couple of retired generals, and even Dallas Mavericks owner (and reality TV star) Mark Cuban.
It's easy to understand the frustration felt by conservative elites who currently face the prospect of choosing among Trump, Clinton, and a pro-choice/anti-interventionist Libertarian Party nominee on their November ballots. But their lack of success so far at persuading any of their targets to volunteer for this mission isn't hard to figure out, because it would be a big mistake for any sensible politician to agree. Siphoning off Republican votes from Trump would clinch a sizable Democratic victory—ignore the nonsense about how it might throw the election to the House of Representatives—and ensure that the candidate would go down in party history as the Republican version of Ralph Nader. Ex-McCain and Jeb Bush strategist Mike Murphy's idea that an anti-Trump conservative might only contest a handful of swing states is even sillier; why would a significant share of voters turn out to support a candidate who couldn't even claim a hypothetical chance of victory?
On the Democratic side, the Sanders campaign and some of its most fervent supporters have largely declined to acknowledge the true state of the delegate math, instead nurturing unrealistic theories that superdelegates will overturn Clinton's victory in pledged delegates at the national convention this summer. Such hopes sit with a certain awkwardness alongside claims that dastardly Democratic "bosses" have illegitimately manipulated the nomination process to prevent a Sanders nomination—a point of view that even fueled open conflict at this weekend's state party convention in Nevada.
Once the primary season is over, however, the political environment will change in a way that will make the Sanders campaign's position strategically unsustainable. Many of the superdelegates who are now publicly undeclared will likely endorse Clinton on or shortly after the final primary date (as occurred in 2008, with Obama in the front-runner position) One of those undeclared superdelegates is Obama himself, who can be expected to offer his public support to Clinton once the primaries are over. Sanders's own backers among the ranks of Democratic elected officials and national committee members will then exert pressure on the campaign to begin the process of promoting party unity.
Sanders may well withhold his formal endorsement until he secures concessions from the Clinton camp at the convention itself. But any attempt to continue an active fight against her past the end of the primary calendar will leave him open to substantial criticism from within the party that he is becoming a spoiler in the Democratic Party's battle against a potential President Trump.
In both parties, resistance among the losing factions in the nomination contest is still unusually elevated at the moment, preventing each side from quickly uniting around its future standard-bearer. But the strong emotions of disaffected activists are beginning to collide with the cold calculations of actual and potential candidates, who perceive substantial political risk from maintaining or exacerbating divisions within the party as it turns to face the opposition in a general election in which the political stakes will be particularly high. By October, it is likely that most of the current intraparty strife will be a distant memory, and the population of Republicans who remain unreconciled to Trump (perhaps a smaller and less visible group than those who are currently vowing to stand in opposition) will probably lack a prominent candidate of their own, leaving them with an unappealing choice between voting for Clinton and sitting out the presidential race.
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