Mr. Brown, you're such a lovely moderate...
One of the under reported aspects of this financial regulation bill has been the fact that Scott Brown, newly minted Republican senator from Massachusetts, crossed party lines to vote for it.
That is some fucking interesting shit to me. Here's a guy who campaigned on opposing Obama's health care plan, who somehow gets elected from a politically odd but generally liberal state. (Of course, this is the same state that voted Mitt Romney in as governor, so it's not quite as liberal as people might assume). Oddly enough, most senators start off more extreme and then move toward the center as their re-election approaches, but Brown seems to be coming out of the gate as a moderate, which these days, is a fucking rare species indeed.
I'm not really sure how to interpret that. I guess it would go something like this...
Brown knows that his victory was something of a fluke, driven by a combination of weak opposition and anti-incumbency, not some drastic shift in his constituency's underlying ideological orientation. He knows that his party is significantly to the right of the median voter in his state. He knows that this particular magic wand (an overconfident opposition and a general anti-incumbency groundswell) is now defunct for him. Six years from now, he can't expect to face these conditions again. What's much more likely is that his constituents will vote according to their underlying partisanship and ideological proximity to the candidates, and which in Massachusetts tends to favor Democrats. And what's the danger? That he MIGHT get a primary challenger six years from now? oh, TERRIFYING!!! That he won't get a nice committee chairmanship? Well, he wouldn't for many years to come anyway. So...the median voter it is.
So...I guess...congratulations to the Republicans for having their own Joe Lieberman!!!!! Have fun with that!!
And that brings me to the other point. The tea-bagger element of the right is vastly overestimating their own influence. They're a growing force in the Republican party, yes, but they're mistaking their spotty victories for some mass groundswell of militant reaganite libertarianism, when in fact it's mostly a short-term anti-incumbency effect resulting from the bad economy and distaste for what appears on the surface to be deep dysfunction in Congress.
The point is that, if that party shifts even more to the right, over the long haul, they are going to suffer for it electorally. The country has a remarkably stable ideological orientation, and people consistently rank themselves as more moderate than either party. I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand, I want them to get crazier, so they'll lose. On the other hand....
Over the really, really long haul, people will shift their preferences to match the party (studies indicate that partisanship is sort of the bedrock, and people are more apt to change their views to fit the party than the other way around). That means that, eventually, the party will drag the electorate to the extremes, at least to some degree. That means they might win. And if they win, and they're crazier, I will be quite displeased.
So, in the short to medium run, I like the tea bagges...I like Sarah Palin...because they're about a nut hair away from advocating open rebellion, which is pretty extreme, which means they will lose. On the other hand, over the long haul, they might just succeed in dragging the Republican half of the electorate even more to the right, which means if they win, it'll suck for my side.
posted by Joe @ 8:17 AM
10 Comments:
Actually what is happening, is that like the Democrats, the Republican party is simply becoming more regional. The national, lock-step, shift to the social right largely lead by the south already happened and failed. There is greater evidence that Scott Brown is part of a trend rather than an outlier.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/05/moderate-republican-comeback-tea-party
"But this year, anti-incumbency fervor—fueled on the right by the Tea Party movement—could bring the Northeastern moderates back from the dead. Republicans with centrist credentials are making strong bids for a number of recently vacated Democratic swing seats—and the Tea Party could aid their efforts."
I'd also take exception to your contention that somehow Scott Brown is exceptional in his proclivity to cross the aisle. Almost every recent Democratic primary winner has also actively campaigned against the new health care legislation. Have they fallen victim to "tea-bagger" madness too?
I think you misinterpreted this post. Your comments don't really make sense as a response to what I wrote.
Really?
Let's juxtapose.
You said: "Brown knows that his victory was something of a fluke, driven by a combination of weak opposition and anti-incumbency, not some drastic shift in his constituency's underlying ideological orientation."
My source said: "But this year, anti-incumbency fervor—fueled on the right by the Tea Party movement—could bring the Northeastern moderates back from the dead. Republicans with centrist credentials are making strong bids for a number of recently vacated Democratic swing seats—and the Tea Party could aid their efforts."
You suggest Mr. Brown is a fluke. My source suggests a trend.
Seems germane to me.
I think the key phrase there is "this year," which is what I meant by fluke...a temporary coincidence of forces that are unlikely to last much beyond this election cycle. So, again...you appear to be disagreeing with points that I did not make.
Isn't every election ultimately determined by a "temporary coincidence of forces"? I mean if they weren't political scientists could simply call every election long beforehand.
The only point I'm trying to make here is that whatever "coincidence of forces" that got Brown elected appears to be a factor for several other moderate New England Republicans. I think it's becoming increasingly diffecult to characterize every competitive blue state race as a "fluke" given the increasing number and overall party preference as a whole. Republicans have only led in the generic ballot, briefly, two other times since 1950 (1994 and 2002).
http://www.gallup.com/poll/127439/Election-2010-Key-Indicators.aspx
Political scientists CAN call MOST elections beforehand. The jargon for this idea is the "normal vote." And the normal vote is mostly determined by party id and ideology, moderated by strong incumbent effects. This anti-incumbency wave will not last. I don't doubt that other moderate New England republicans are benefiting from it, but I'm skeptical that it reflects any kind of shift in the underlying normal vote over the long term.
But...wasn't there an anti-incumbancy wave in 2006 and 2008 too?
Sure, but still, most incumbents kept their seats (as they will this year), and insofar as there was a wave, it consisted of short term issues: Anti-Bush sentiments in 2006, and anti-bush sentiment combined with economic panic in 2008. There are always going to be these short-term, unpredictable effects, but what those are will vary year to year in unpredictable ways. To clarify the original point of the post, the tea partiers might have some success at mobilizing sympathetic voters, but they are NOT altering the underlying ideological makeup of the country. Just as Obama and the Democrats' ascendence did not mark a leftward shift in the country's underlying ideology.
Bingo. The GOP rule of the early aughts didn't mean the country was becoming more conservative anymore than Obama's election meant that the country was becoming more socialized.
Personally I think it's great. The follies of both parties have a greater chance of being exposed when ideologues are running things and it really gets people involved.
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