One of the great tests of politics in the present time is just how much reality is able to break through Versailles' profound confusion on just such basic matters. It was demonstrated once again this week in slightly-more-sophisticated-than-usual piece by AP writer Charlest Babington, "Voters hate partisan sniping, but fuel its growth", which Digby took note of on Wednesday. She quoted the following passage:
In a January poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, 93 percent agreed there is too much partisan fighting between Democrats and Republicans. In a March Associated Press-GfK poll, 84 percent said it was important that any health care plan have support from both parties in Congress.Voters' behavior, however, often works against such sentiments.
"People will tell you they don't like partisanship, but their solution is, 'The other side should give in to us,'" said Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz, author of "Voice of the People: Elections and Voting in the United States."
She then observed:
Uhm yes. They want their agenda to be enacted and they don't like the idea that their opponents are standing in the way. When one party say, wins a super-majority, they think they have a perfect right to expect that it will happen. It's a mistaken idea they learned back in civics class in high school, I imagine.Now, Republicans have good reason to define bipartisanship as Democrats capitulating because there is a history of doing just that. Democrats, not so much, but that's no reason they shouldn't think that "two way street" might be defined as the Republicans doing the same thing when the Dems are in the majority. (Alas, they have learned the hard way that this is not going to happen.) I fairly sure it's only the vaunted "centrists" who define bipartisanship as a Chinese menu or splitting the baby. Everyone else thinks that elections actually mean something.
While the above passage takes note of one crucial asymmetry between left and right, it's hardly the only one here. After all, the "Democrat's healthcare plan" that passed into law was actually based on the GOP's plan crafted by the Heritage Foundation back in the 1990s and implemented by George Romney in Massachusetts just a few short years ago. Furthermore, Abramowitz's statement:
"People will tell you they don't like partisanship, but their solution is, 'The other side should give in to us,'"
ignores the rather unsurprising fact that Pew recently found that Republicans were far less interested in compromise:
This finding directly contradicts another statement in the story:
Voters who want bipartisanship are mostly in the political middle, said Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, one of the Senate's most centrist members. Activists on the left and right often dominate the nomination process, and demand ideological loyalty, he said.
That passage continues, getting even more problematic:
"You squeeze the middle out, and then there will be more criticism of the lack of bipartisanship" without an awareness of "why there is less bipartisanship," Nelson said. He noted that a liberal group ran ads attacking him last year when he refused to support a government-run health insurance option."It's counterproductive thinking," he said, "and counterproductive voting."
In reality, the public option was more popular than the healthcare plan as a whole, which Nelson supported. So rejecting it actually made Nelson less bipartisan in terms of voters. And since no Republican voted for healthcare reform anyway, his position had no impact at all in terms of bipartisanship in the Senate. Thus, Nelson's narrative is quite consistent with Versailles' dominant narratives, but with the facts, not so much. And this doesn't even begin to touch upon his calamitous pork-barrel Medicare deal, which even he now recognizes as "counterproductive thinking... and counterproductive voting."
Another glitch in the narrative: the article as a whole mentions three Republican Senators who've been pressured because of not being partisan enough in some way, but only one Democrat--Nelson. The Republicans are Lindsey Graham, Bob Bennett and John McCain. Of these, Bennett has been blocked from even running in the party primary, and John McCain still might lose his primary. Only Graham and Nelson seem to be actually comparable--Senators subject to pressure, so far, but not electoral challenge. And if one looks at them more closely, then even the article itself admits that Graham (unlike Nelson, though it goes unsaid) has a strong ideological record:
The American Conservative Union gives Graham a lifetime score of 89.68 percent, a fraction higher than those of GOP stalwarts Orrin Hatch of Utah and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate's Republican leader.
Of course, the article could have mentioned other Senators--Specter and Lincoln are obvious choices much more directly comparable to Bennett and McCain. But the article itself makes plain that both Bennett and McCain are in trouble because of how the GOP itself has shifted. First Bennett:
Utah GOP convention-goers who ousted Bennett on May 8 not only derided his efforts to craft a health care bill with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., but they also taunted him with chants of "TARP, TARP."His sin? He was among 74 senators who voted for the 2008 bank bailout bill (or Troubled Asset Relief Program) pushed by President George W. Bush, a Republican.
Then McCain:
McCain, once a champion of balanced immigration overhaul that rejected massive fence building on the Mexican border, now calls for a "security-first" approach that would "complete the danged fence" and send 6,000 more National Guard troops to the region. The change occurred after hard-core conservative J.D. Hayworth announced his bid to deny McCain the Republican nomination this year.
Left unstated is that McCain's immigration position was virtually identical to Bush's--and entirely necessary in order to avoid an even more disastrous shellacking in 2008. So both Bennett and McCain are being punished for Bush's positions.
The contrast between these two, on the one hand, and Specter and Lincoln, on the other, should be crystal clear: Specter was a party-switcher that Democratic primary voters had been voting against for 30 years, and Lincoln is an out-of-touch corporate mouthpiece, headed for almost certain defeat in November, while her challenger could actually save the seat for Democrats. This is not to say that Democrats aren't somewhat "polarizing" by choosing less "centrist" candidates. The difference is that their polarization actually makes good political sense.
Indeed, earlier this week, in his Senate forecast update, Chris showed that this was part of a larger, surprisingly lopsided trend:
While the tea party wave in Republican primaries is dragging down GOP hopes in the 2010 Senate elections, progressive primaries are actually improving Democratic chances. The net result is that Democrats are making big gains on Republicans during the 2010 primary season.Since April 14th, Republicans have slid backwards in the general election polling averages in 10 of the 12 states that have featured both competitive primaries and competitive general elections. The average general election loss for Republicans has been significant: 3.7% on the mean, and 4.9% on the median.
Here are the changes in those 12 states. The April 14th Senate forecast can be seen here, and the current Senate forecasat is in the extended entry of this article:
Change in Republican general election position, Senate campaigns, April 14-current
12 states with competitive primaries and general elections
State Republican loss Nevada 14.2% Florida* 10.2% Iowa 7.0% North Carolina 6.1% Pennsylvania 5.2% California 5.0% Kentucky 4.7% Ohio 3.0% Colorado 2.7% Arizona** 2.0% Indiana -5.5% Arkansas -9.8%
* = Compares mid-April status of Rubio vs Meek general election to current three-way standings ** = For both April and current forecasts, J.D. Hayowrth is considered to be the likely Republican nominee in Arizona, not John McCainThese nearly across the board improvements for Democrats come during a time when Democrats have not improved their standing nationally.
It's hardly news that Chris's empirical analysis directly contradicts the Versailles narrative. What is news is that Digby detects an ever-so-slight shift:
But here's a very interesting little twist at the very end of that story that made my heart swell:With partisanship surging, Abramowitz sees two possible routes for Congress. One involves continued gridlock and all the public anger and frustration it generates.
The other is a revived effort to change the Senate's filibuster rules, a daunting task that would make it easier for the majority party to enact bills despite unanimous minority opposition, as the House often does. Leaders of both parties say Republicans probably will gain House and Senate seats this fall, narrowing, if not wiping out, the Democrats' advantage. "That can only lead to more polarization," Abramowitz said, "and more pressure to change filibuster rules." The pressure may grow, but a closer Democratic-Republican divide in the Senate will make a rules change even harder to achieve.
Not if the politicians pay attention to their constituents it won't.Seriously, even the fact that mainstream news organizations are beginning to entertain this as a serious notion is very good news. It means that we are finally seeing a reluctant acceptance of the idea that this isn't just a "naturally" center right nation that always prefers the congress to enact conservative policy. It seems to be dawning on at least some people that the nation actually is polarized and we are going to have to fight this out rather than simply relying on conservatives like Ben Nelson to be our true north.
Now let us be perfectly clear: the polarization that's becoming increasingly hard to deny is between rightwing crazies on the one hand (a majority of whom aren't even certain the President is native-born), and a pragmatist center-left on the other.
It's David Koresh vs. the Unitarians. Both religious in-groups, if you must put it that way. If you're absolutely dedicated to missing the story, that is.
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