Mr. Malstrom,
I’ve been following your Kermit posts with interest as a student in Political Science. The analysis on both sides is what it is and needless to say we’ll see who’s right come Nov 6. What you refer to regarding conservatives finding candidates that represent them is an effect of political polarization. Every political scientist knows of polarization as its the big trend in politics that’s been ongoing since the 60s when the Civil Rights and Voting Rights laws expanded and diversified the electorate.The election of Reagan is seen as the start of this process. It accelerated under Clinton and Gingrich, and it is beginning to crystallize under Obama’s presidency. Turnout in elections and participation in the process has been slowly but steadily rising. This is because candidates are becoming increasingly more differentiated in style and substance along conservative and liberal lines. While 2010 was a huge election for Republicans, we must remember that moderates from BOTH parties were wiped out as well in favor of more pure candidates. Moderates are going extinct, and political parties are going to be very powerful again, but not like it was in the 20th century. Grassroots supporters are what’s going to drive both parties in the future.
The simpler answer is that was a realignment of the electorate in 1980 (although not the parties). There is a significant amount of the electorate that is bouncing around (e.g. the Perot voters).
Jay Cost speaks on this:
From 1932 to 1980, the Democrats had unified control of the Congress for all but four years. That is an extraordinary level of dominance, unprecedented in American history, and speaks to the overwhelming advantage the Democrats had due to the Great Depression. But since then, the Democratic edge has collapsed, the Republicans have drawn to parity, and now we see control of Congress regularly swing back and forth. The reason is simple: Independent voters hold the keys to Capitol Hill.
The same goes for the presidency. Between 1932 and 1980 Democrats won eight of twelve presidential elections because the country was simply more Democratic. All four of the Republican victories came under unique circumstances, be it a war hero or a crack in the Democratic coalition. But since 1980, Republicans have won four presidential elections to the Democrats three, with one being a virtual tie. What’s more, the Perot phenomenon of 1992 remains a testament to the power of the independent vote.
How do the rise of independent voters mesh with you talking of ‘greater political polarization’. It’s actually THE OPPOSITE. Independents control more and more of who wins elections. It is why some people call this period the Era of Non-Alignment.
When I look at the New Deal Era, what strikes me is how Alf Landon’s campaign was identical to FDR. The GOP, then, wanted to be like FDR and wanted the New Deal Coalition to come underneath them. The alignment prior to the New Deal Era, the Republican dominated era started with McKinley, was about a type of economic conservatism which is also articulated with Calvin Coolidge. After the Great Depression, no Republican candidate ran on that economic conservatism.. until Ronald Reagan. Since Reagan, every winning presidential candidate has run on economic conservatism (e.g. lowering taxes, lowering the deficit, etc.). In 2008, Obama was campaigning tax cuts, lowering the deficit, and the economy was the dominant issue in the 2008 campaign. It certainly wasn’t ethnoculture.
If you want to see polarization, look at what the Vietnam War did. That was polarization. Prior to the 1980s, there was no alternative offered to the New Deal type policies. Today, there are. If I was a politician raised in the New Deal Era, what other context would there be going from monopoly to alternatives but polarization?
It’s like ABC, NBC, and CBS complaining of ‘media polarization’ out there. They liked it better where they were the only three networks on. They don’t like competition out there with cable, the Internet, and all these other news sources.
With the rise of independents, the argument for ‘political polarization’ flies out the window. If anything, everything is becoming unaligned.