Jay Cost: Will Democratic Disunity Matter in November?

The last two weeks have brought a shift in the perception of the parties' electoral prospects. The President has enjoyed some good press in the last few news cycles, which seems to have had a positive effect on his job approval rating. The Democrats, meanwhile, are looking quite divided. The spectacle of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, their best-known representatives, taking opposite stands on the issue of the day from the same podium was a stark indication of the division within the party. This has given the press pause in their rush to prejudge the November election. Many pundits have begun to wonder if the Bush bounce and Democratic division will keep Congress under Republican control.

This, of course, is the job of pundits; they are tasked with elucidating the long-term importance of every minor political event. Unfortunately, the nature of the job creates a systemic bias in political commentary - one that is not limited to the mainstream press, but extends to, and is amplified by, the blogosphere. Political commentators - paid or unpaid, professional or pajama-clad - are far too inclined to see the inconsequential as consequential, the irrelevant as relevant, the minute developments in the Beltway soap opera as gravely important to the future of the nation. It comes with the territory: if your job is to explain why today's events are important, eventually you are going to overemphasize something, as some day nothing important will happen.

In the parlance of the social scientist, this is known as "Type 1 error," the error of the false positive. You commit it when you identify a relationship that does not really exist. Falling prey to a mirage is a Type 1 error - you think there is an oasis ahead of you, but there is only desert. (A "Type 2 error" is the error of the false negative. So, for instance, if you were in the desert and walked past an oasis without realizing it, you would be committing a Type 2 error!) Unfortunately, we can never eliminate the possibility of the false positive. We can, however, reduce the probability that it will occur. We do that by following Saint Paul and Karl Popper: by critically examining everything, even the hypotheses we presume to be true. So, when the pundits proclaim that last week's events possess electoral relevance, we should ask what grounds there are to accept the proclamation.

It is far too early to evaluate the electoral relevance of Bush's bounce - for there is no indication yet that it is stable. So, what of the electoral consequence of Democratic disunity? Many think that disunity will harm them in November, but few offer a critical investigation of the claim. Is it a valid one?

First, some historical and theoretical clarification is appropriate. It is not so much that the Democrats have become more divided in the last year; it is that recent events - notably Ned Lamont's good showing in Connecticut, the stories reporters filed from Yearly Kos, and the strange Clinton-Kerry dichotomy on display at the Take Back America conference - have reminded the forgetful that the Democrats are far from cohesive. This has been the case for a long time. Since FDR transformed the party of William Jennings Bryan into a majority party, the Democrats have been a pluralistic bunch.

While the existence of Democratic division has not changed, its nature has undergone a marked transformation. Previous party divisions usually involved conflicts over core values and goals among major voting blocs within the party. In the past the Democratic electorate was variably divided by the different interests of its racial, religious, class and professional sub-groups. The party's voting bloc today, however, is - if anything - less heterogeneous in its interests. Today's division largely involves the party elites - those who, by virtue of their position in the party, their interest and activity in party politics, or their ability to finance party activities, are different from the average Democratic voter.

Perhaps because the division exists mainly in elite circles, today's Democratic leadership seems to be acutely self-conscious of it - hence their continued attempts to unveil agendas and slogans to offer the appearance of unity. Unfortunately, they can only seem to agree on specific proposals for issues that are not salient. On the salient issues of the day, they have not offered anything approaching a unanimous position. This is what has attracted the attention of the pundit class. As the theory goes, disunity prevents the Democrats from making a clear and compelling case to the American public, thereby reducing their capacity to take Congress. Is there any validity to this claim?

Obviously, in the midst of a presidential campaign, the party cannot be of two minds on matters. A party cannot have its presidential and vice-presidential candidates taking opposite positions. How is it that it can be pluralistic and successful on the congressional level? It is because congressional races ultimately turn upon voters' evaluations of the candidates in each contest. This is not Britain. Our parties are weak; they exert relatively little influence on candidates, members of Congress, or the minds of voters.

Though always weaker than their European counterparts, our parties used to be stronger than they are today. However, thanks to (a) reforms in the nominating system, which freed candidates from party bosses; (b) reforms in the campaign finance system, which limited the amount of money a party could spend on behalf of its candidates; and (c) the rise of television, which offered candidates unmediated access to the mass electorate, the parties have become less relevant on Election Day. Candidates, meanwhile, have become much more relevant. We have long since passed the point where the candidate, and not the party whose label he uses, is the critical factor in any given election. This is a candidate-dominated age of American politics.

Accordingly, a vote for a congressional candidate should be understood as little more than that: a vote for that candidate. We must be careful not to draw too many inferences from the average person's vote choice. The great scholar of our political parties, E.E. Schattschneider, wrote in his seminal Party Government, "The people are a sovereign whose vocabulary is limited to two words, 'Yes' and 'No.' This sovereign, moreover, can speak only when spoken to. As interlocutors of the people, the parties frame the question and elicit the answers." In this age, in which candidates dominate the political process, the "question" of a congressional election is framed in terms of the individuals on the ballot. The public's choice is little more than a choice between individuals - it is not a choice between competing ideologies or party platforms. Each candidate wins or loses depending upon the impression he or she, as an individual, makes upon the electorate. Thus, the fact that the party's ideology is ill-defined or its platform is ambiguous means very little. Jim Gerlach is going to lose if - and only if - Lois Murphy can convince enough voters in Montgomery County that she is a better choice than he. The party's internecine feud will not really enter into it.

It seems to me that a divided Democratic Party is better for somebody like Murphy. When we talk about a united Democratic Party - and we put aside the possibility of the DLC and the members of DailyKos breaking bread to celebrate their newfound ideological brotherhood - we are talking about one faction winning at the expense of another. How does that help Democratic candidates on the ground? If anything, a Democratic power struggle will produce a set of losers, who would be less likely to make campaign contributions to members of the party that just jilted them. Candidates like Murphy would probably be better off with a divided party that is as large as possible; this would enable them to finesse potential donors on the left and in the center to maximize the size of their war chests.

A possible rejoinder is the fact that there are several hotly contested Democratic primaries that are hurting party prospects. For instance, in districts like NH 02 and WI 08, Democrats are wasting resources fighting one another when they could be fighting the Republicans. While it is true that such primaries do exist, most of them do not stem from the divisions that have caught the eye of the pundit. The divisions about which pundits are talking are inherently philosophical, ideological, and theoretical: how should the party as a whole orient itself toward the big issues of the day? The divisions within the party at the primary level seem to be largely strategic: the Republicans look weak this year; accordingly, ambitious Democrats have decided that 2006 offers the best chance to get into Congress, and thus primaries are contested. The only notable exception is in Connecticut - whose Democratic Senate primary is indeed ideological in character. Of course, the net result of this is nil, as the Republicans have a similar problem next door. In Rhode Island, Cranston mayor Steve Laffey has mounted a conservative challenge to moderate Lincoln Chafee.

Of course, there is a limitation to this argument. There is a certain advantage that candidates obtain only through attaching themselves to a party label. The label offers candidates free publicity about their general orientation toward government. Thus, party disunity - if taken far enough - would sap the label of any meaning. However, we obviously are not near that point. Everybody still knows what it means to identify oneself as a Democrat. The party label still carries with it a great deal of meaning. And, as mentioned before, the Democrats have been much more divided at many points in the past, and their electoral success was still great.

Generally speaking, the "division means defeat" argument does not operationalize very well. It is one thing to claim it in the abstract, as so many do. It is another thing altogether to explain how it actually works. Which candidates are harmed by Democratic pluralism, how are they harmed, why are they harmed? These are the questions that need to be answered, and answered with specificity, for this presumption to stand. I do not think there the answers are sufficient. "Disunity means defeat" is one of those arguments that seems intuitive in the abstract, but upon closer inspection makes little sense in a candidate-centered age of politics.

However, thanks to (a) reforms in the nominating system, which freed candidates from party bosses; (b) reforms in the campaign finance system, which limited the amount of money a party could spend on behalf of its candidates; and (c) the rise of television, which offered candidates unmediated access to the mass electorate, the parties have become less relevant on Election Day. Candidates, meanwhile, have become much more relevant. We have long since passed the point where the candidate, and not the party whose label he uses, is the critical factor in any given election. This is a candidate-dominated age of American politics.

I'm not sure I'm ready to buy into this assertion. We know that campaign finance reform has had no effect on the politicians, it has only stifled the voters' right to free speech. We also know that it is neither the party bosses, nor the party affiliation that drives the voters as much as it is the candidate's profile (ego). The outrageousness of Democrat Party "leaders" leaves a lot to be desired from the standpoint of traditional party politics and, as the party out of power, the "loyal opposition".

Somewhere along the line, Dems didn't see the "loyal" part and only became the opposition party of obstructionists. And, America has suffered as a result.

The spectacle of the shrill fingernails-on-blackboard wail of the bwitch, in a debate with the lip-licking metrosexual "I have a Plan" new improved JFK, is one that will require LOTS of popcorn. And if you add in the ever-fatter algore crying doom doom gloom, I just might have to go out and buy one of those high-end popcorn machines, like they have in movie theaters.

2008 is going to be a VERY good year!

If the Democrat Party keeps on its well established "traitor/treason" path, the 2006 elections are going to be a diaster for the Democrat Party. And......they can forget 2008!!! Moron Pundits Charlie Cook and Stuart Rothenberg look dumber then they ever have been before!!!

Mike Barrone says that the Dems in Nov. will pick up 5-7 House seats and the Pubs will lose 2-3 Senate seats. Thus, the GOP will keep the Congress and lead up to the 2008 killer election.

Cool. I'm in good company, then.

Although, I think the Senate could be closer to break even if not a gain of one.

R's look endangered in MT, PA, and RI. While Dems, who have to defend more seats, look vulnerable in WA, NJ, MD, and MN.

With MI and WI possibly coming into play - but only under condidtions that have yet to present themselves.

The worst thing for the GOP Senate prospects is that none of the 4 red state dems running, look vulnerable.

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