Adapted from a response I gave to Alan in the Obama? thread:
It is amazing to me that Obama and McCain are each the leading choice, within their respective parties, of “independents” and those supposedly seeking bridges across the partisan divide.
The stats on the most recent 50 roll call votes, available at Keith Poole’s VoteView site, show the following, on the one-dimensional L-R scale:
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Obama, 11th most L
McCain, 8th most R
Apparently “post-partisanship” has to do with something other than voting record.
While I have the relevant page open, a few other Senators that may be of interest:
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Sanders, 3rd most L (after Feingold and Dodd)
Kerry, 14th most L
Clinton, 20th most L
Lieberman, 32d most L (out of 51 Dems)
While Lieberman is no lefty, notice how far he is from the Republicans that he is often accused by liberals of resembling.1
Back on the R side of things, that other alleged bridge-builder, Hagel, is the 26th most R (which puts him just left of his party’s median). At least his claim is better than those of Obama or McCain.
Granted, these one-dimensional rankings are a blunt measure, but if Senate record matters, Obama and McCain are due for some scrutiny if they become (or look on the cusp of becoming) the nominees.
(Turning to the House members who are running for President, Kucinich is his party’s 5th most L, while Paul is his party’s 2nd most R.)
- There is no longer any overlap between the members of the two parties. That is, there are no Democrats to the right of any Republican, or vice versa. [↩]
I was clearly unclear in my bemusement about Obama.
I see a huge gap between his rhetoric and his record. The Republicans exploited the Kerry gap, even though there was none. What they are likely to do to Obama is not something anyone voting in a primary should think about without a certain amount of concern.
Last couple of weeks I’ve read things ranging up to Obama;s policies and record do not matter because he (somehow) is change. That may fly in a caucus or a primary. It’s not going to fly in a general election. Nor would it be persuasive, except to those troglodytes likely to vote against Obama for reasons they are not going to disclose to a polltaker.
I think it would probably be news to FDR, Truman, LBJ or JFK that all you need do is smile a lot when you sit down with Republicans. They did not (except perhaps FDR) have to deal with irrational ideologues like the contemporary movement conservative.
Seed planted by Alan — 09 January 2008 @ 02:24
A pollster friend has just alerted me to a problem with the sampling of independents. I attempt to elucidate.
Seed planted by Jack — 09 January 2008 @ 07:49
Is it so amazing, though? Very few people are aware of Senate voting records, and are much more swayed by how the candidates portray themselves (and, in turn, how the media portrays them).
Seed planted by Greg Weeks — 09 January 2008 @ 12:36
The whole “post-partisan” business is clearly linked, as Greg eludes, to rhetoric and perception.
And, for that matter, the media persists in poorly dealing with the issue of what “independents” means. There is also the notion, that being “centrist” (also poorly defined and applied) means “non” or “post” partisan.
Seed planted by Steven Taylor — 09 January 2008 @ 16:52
While on the subject, it is interesting to go back four years. In the 108th, Edwards was the 20th most left-wing Senator and Kerry was 21st. Clinton was 22nd. So Kerry has drifted left a bit, but Clinton has stayed put. Lieberman was 33rd, so being an “independent” (with a significantly Republican electorate in 2006) has not led him to move much. There were 49 Democratic Senators at the time, and one of them (Zell Miller) was further right than 11 Republicans. Obama, of course, was not yet in the Senate. (Jeffords was 8th from the left, meaning that when Vermont in 2006 replaced a former Republican with a socialist, the position of the occupant of that seat did not change much!)
McCain was the 4th most right-wing Senator in the 108th.
In the 108th House, Kucinich was the third most left-wing, and Paul the most right-wing member. (Apparently their White House ambitions have forced them to moderate their views!)
Seed planted by MSS — 09 January 2008 @ 19:51
I must admit that I do greatly care about the rhetoric, at least when it comes to presidential candidates. Yes, presidents can affect policy by choosing whether to veto bills, and through their control of the executive branch. But I think most of their influence comes through their ability to speak for the entire country.
It’s critical to me that we have a president who can make the country understand that we don’t have to panic over toothpaste tubes and metal forks; that thought and doubt are virtues, not deficiencies; that failure to kill or torture people is not a sign of “weakness”. I don’t know that any of the actual candidates are capable of this, perhaps politics really does rot souls, or maybe there’s just too much inertia. But it’s certainly more important to me than the smaller details of policy proposals.
Seed planted by Vasi — 09 January 2008 @ 21:13
I think Vasi’s point is spot-on. Presidents affect policy in the proactive way (i.e. by more than vetoes) mainly through their ability to command sufficient support in the country that even those in Congress (including, or perhaps especially, in their own party) feel they can’t shirk. For that goal, rhetoric is probably many times more valuable than all the position papers.
I will admit that I often vote for the policy–as if I were voting in a nationwide or statewide, low-threshold PR election (if only!)–but a good case can be made that in a presidential primary election, one should pay attention to the likely ability to move people from the presidential office. Yes, move, in both the sense of stirring people’s emotions with rhetoric, and in the sense of moving members of Congress to fear electoral retribution for not voting with the president (should that candidate make it all the way).
While I am still not quite “there” on Obama, I do inch closer all the time. It says over on the left sidebar to always vote sincerely, so I had better do so. But “sincerely” can be for the candidate with the policies closest to my ideal point or for the potential president who would make best use of the office among those in serious contention.* I think in presidential systems, it makes perfect sense to focus on the person and his or her rhetoric and symbolic and persuasive value, given that a president often has limited power beyond those characteristics (the current incumbent notwithstanding).
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* That is, as much as I want to see the Clintons dumped, I would not vote for an opponent I did not like only in the hopes of stopping H. Clinton–i.e. strategically.
Seed planted by MSS — 09 January 2008 @ 21:27
Both Vasi and the Head Orchardist have it right, IMO.
Andrew Sullivan’s written about how Obama might be the Liberal Reagan, which sent me digging through my old textbooks for breakdowns of Reagan’s “Time for Choosing” speech. Agree with it or not, the speech is rhetorically brilliant, almost flawless in its advocacy and defense of a conservative agenda. That’s the speech that put Reagan on the map, made him the governor of California, and moved the entire country to the right with his ascendency to the White House.
Of course, it wasn’t just the one great speech, but if you look closely at the text, all the pillars of Reagan’s vision of what America should be are there. (What few there were; Reagan’s ideal vision of American government was pretty spartan.) That he was able to, first, articulate his vision with such clarity, then convince all sorts of disparate groups (the religious right, cold warriors, 2nd Amendment advocates, small gov advocates, pro-lifers, etc., etc.,) that together they could move America. Legislation can’t do what Reagan’s speeches did, but the movement created by Reagan’s speeches certainly created legislation that (re)shaped the national scene.
I’m greedy this election season. I honestly don’t just want some legislator to play keep-away with the Presidency, not when there may be someone available who has the kind of oratorical prowess to articulate a progressive agenda that is both convincing and motivating. Again, I know how naive I sound, but I’m convinced rationalizations like “electability” are a trap. Never again with that stuff.
Seed planted by David Peng — 09 January 2008 @ 22:36
Yes, you’re right, it does have to do with more than voting records.
First of all, to understand post-partisanship at all, you have to eliminate the conception of a 2-dimensional political spectrum. We have never had a 2-dimensional spectrum, we do not now, and God willing, we never will.
Second, understand that this falsified politcal spectrum, and the labels of certain ideas as “liberal” and other ideas as “conservative”, are not inherent. They are comparative constructs, embraced by the media because it enables them to manufacture conflict, and embraced by political authors and thinkers for the same reason.
Third, understand that the Democratic and Republican parties are not bastions of a particular ideology. They are centers of power who adjust their ideologies to appeal to certain constituencies and win elections.
The truth is that if you remove all the rhetoric, there is no real political spectrum. There is a three-dimensional nebula of ideas embraced at different times by different people for different reasons.
If you can accept these premises, post-partisanship becomes easy to understand, and in fact obvious.
Post-partisanship (or radical centrism, or whatever) embraces the idea that all policies should be judged on the answers to these questions- do they work, and are they fair?
Moreover, if you remove the misconceptions about the “political spectrum”, you’ll find that there is actually an emerging consensus on many public problems in the United States.
For instance, there may be a hot debate about whether or not abortion should be legal, but you’d be hard pressed to find anybody that thinks abortion is a wholesome thing, and equally as hard pressed to find anybody who thinks public policy shouldn’t be geared in such a way that we try to reduce abortion on the “demand” side.
There may be a debate about health care, but you’d have a hard time finding someone who thinks there is no healthcare crisis, or that we shouldn’t be doing anything to increase access.
On the issue of health care especially, there is even an emerging policy consensus. Republicans and Democrats both broadly acknowledge that rising costs are to blame for the health care crisis, and that wringing inefficiency out of the system is of paramount importance. Even Mitt Romney thinks a health care mandate is a good idea.
On the issue of immigration, both parties nearly completely agree with each other. The only real bone of contention is technical- whether illegal immigrants should return home before they can re-apply for citizenship. Republicans might talk tough, and Democrats might talk nice, but policy-wise, they are much more alike than different.
This is my point- we’re going through a political maturing process right now. In the 60′s and 70′s, the “right” and “left” dug in, invented a bunch of “new” or “traditional” values (both falsely labeled) for each side to embrace, and promptly engulfed the nation in partisan gridlock. We need a way out of that, and most Americans recognize this.
The way out is not through mushy “centrism”. It’s not Democrats “voting Republican” or vice-versa. It’s a technocratic approach to government that values efficacy, efficiency, and fairness above all else.
That approach is called post-partisanship.
Given Obama’s record as a conciliator, as well as his technocratic approach to policy (check out his website for proof), as well as McCain’s refusal to embrace his party’s dogma and his common-sense approach to policy, make them both great candidates for the “post-partisan” mantle.
Seed planted by Matthew Gerring — 16 January 2008 @ 03:20