It’s January 20, 2010, one year to the day after Americans made history by electing Democrat Barack Obama President of the United States and just 17 hours (or so) after Massachusetts voters sent a very surprising and stern warning to President Obama by electing Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate seat occupied by liberal icon Ted Kennedy for more than four decades. I went to bed last night as a sad Democrat. I woke up this morning, still a sad Democrat. As I made the 40 minute commute to the office this morning I slowly went from just a sad Democrat to a sad Democrat and a very exited political science professor, who by a wonderful coincidence is teaching a course on American public opinion this semester. In less than two weeks (it appears) Republicans were able to turn Massachusetts politics on its head and fire a powerful political and ideological shot across the bow of a popular president. For a guy in the political/ ideological questions business, this is a windfall. How did it happen? Why did it happen? How will it impact national politics and policy making? Will Brown have a chance to “kill” the health care reform bill? Will the Employee Free Choice Act be filibustered to death? What will happen to Wall Street reforms, the jobs bill, climate change legislation, and more? What does this election tell us about voter behavior and public opinion in general? What will the Democrats do about it? How will the Republicans parlay this historic victory into greater success in the 2010 midterm elections?
Yesterday’s election results may be bad news for establishment Democrats, but they are good news for our democratic system. Competitive elections are good for democracy and uncompetitive elections are bad in the long run for all sides. It’s better for committed partisans to lose now and then. Complacency is a killer. Elections in Massachusetts (state and federal) are not very competitive. A Republican victory in a statewide legislative election should (God willing) breathe life into a state Republican Party that badly needs it. Massachusetts has been a virtual one-party state for decades, with the exception of its governors. This has produced a state and federal legislative delegation that has taken its base supporters and their ideas and interests for granted and a state minority Republican Party without enough political clout to keep the majority Democratic Party accountable. Alienated conservative and progressive voters will hopefully be inspired by this “David beats Goliath” election to stay in (or get in) the game and to organize for political action at the state and local levels in Massachusetts. When enough voters from both sides are paying attention and are willing to engage in political activism, public policy debates are more reasonable and more transparent.
As a politics educator, competitive elections provide the best chance for an engaged and well informed electorate. I also believe (and preach to my students) that political knowledge and skills (often honed by the experience of competitive elections) enhance individual efficacy in virtually every facet of one’s life. Political knowledge and skills can make you better at whatever occupies you; you job, your relationships, even your sense of confidence and self worth. Political cynicism and apathy, on the other hand, are mind numbing and soul sucking delusions.
How should voters of all stripes view the results of this election?
The results are a victory for conservatism and the Republican Party, not merely a victory for a good candidate and campaign. Fifty-three percent of Massachusetts voters now prefer the conservative approach of the Republican Party and have serious doubts about the Obama Administration/Democratic Party’s reform agenda. Even if Brown won some votes because he drives a truck, or has a beautiful family or whatever, it would be a mistake (in my opinion) to say – as some Democrats will no doubt say- that this was about a good candidate/campaign beating a bad candidate/campaign, not a referendum on Obama or the liberal reform agenda. Denial is not the way to go here.
Lots of solid scholarly research has advanced the notion that voters’ conscious fixation on candidate preferences, rather than ideological or specific policy preferences, ARE reflective of and consistent with conscious and/or subconscious ideological and public policy preferences. Voters didn’t simply like Scott Brown more; they also agreed with his party’s claims and positions on the issues.
I tend to think that voters focus on candidates rather than ideology or policy because it’s more convenient. I see it as a convenient and more accessible proxy for philosophical and/or policy oriented discussion. Focus on candidate character and competence may be frustrating for political partisans, analysts, and even educators but the more sophisticated, substantive public policy debates craved by the experts may be just as easily distorted by intellectual elites as candidates’ characters, resumes, and positions are by political elites. Besides, getting a firm grip on our personal views of numerous complex public policy questions is virtually impossible for anyone with a real job. The vast majority of voters have no choice but to trust someone about politics and public policy in much the same way they have to trust their auto mechanic, physician, or priest. They should be smart customers, patients, church goers, and citizens but they can’t be “do-it-yourselfers” in more than a few areas of life. There simply isn’t time to understand everything a modern American citizen is expected to understand, but everyone has the time to make judgments about people. We do it every day and we rely on such judgments for many very important decisions.
Put simply, if you like one candidate more than another it’s highly probable (though not certain) that you also generally prefer the ideas and policy positions of that candidate’s political party. Trust can’t really be earned and sustained through trickery. Obviously, electoral losers have a powerful incentive to pretend that voters were tricked by a pretty face or slick rhetoric or a deceitful campaign. These are understandable rationalizations, but they are also counter-productive and almost always exaggerated.
So congratulations to conservative voters and to the Republican Party. I urge you to act like you’ve been there before and to remember that Senator Brown’s success depends on your ACTIVE support BETWEEN elections as much or more than your efforts during the election. This is a lesson on which President Obama’s enthusiastic supporters may need a refresher course.