Fact #1:Everything about the mood of the country (we want change!), the partisan identification trends (Dems, 50- Repubs, 35), and the issue environment (for example, he said, polls show a spike in concern about rising levels of economic inequality) favors the idea that 2008 should be a very good year to run for office as a Democrat,says pollster Andrew Kohut.
Perhaps most promising, from a long-term perspective: Kohut said that for the first time in 20 years, younger voters (ages 18-24) are showing a significant partisan difference from the older groups in the electorate, and that difference is that they are more heavily Democratic. (I’ll list a few more of Kohut’s specific poll-findings below to back up this view, which is certainly conventional wisdom, that the 2008 political climate is Dem-friendly.)
But then there’s Fact #2:trial match-ups that pit between the leading Democratic presidential candidates against the leading Republicans (Hillary Clinton vs. Rudy Giuiliani, for example, but the same thing for most of the other likely pairings) range from statistically insignificant leads for the Dem to statistically insignificant leads for the Repubs.
Kohut, of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, gave a talk at noon at the Humphrey Institute’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance. Drawing on years and volumes of polling, Kohut gave his hypotheses about what explains the apparent disconnect between Facts #1 and #2. It went like this:
The apparent Dem advantages are less about widespread public enthusiasm for the Dem candidates or their ideas and more about their lack of enthusiasm for the Repubs.
(Impressive poll result on that point: comparing 1994 with 2007, the percentage of Americans who expressed a favorable view of the Republican Party fell from 67 to 41 percent. The percentage who held a favorable view of the Democratic Party is exactly the same, at 56 percent.)
The declining view of Republicanness is mostly about the unpopularity of Pres. Bush and what he has stood for. Americans are hungry for change more than for any particular change, Kohut said.
At the moment, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney (Kohut seemed less sure about Fred Thompson) have succeeded in presenting themselves to change-hungry independents and swing voters as representing some kind of change. i.e. They’re Not Bush.
All of the pro-Democratic winds do not guarantee the election of the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008 if the Republican nominee is perceived by the public as a credible agent of change, Kohut said.
But then he shifted the challenge back to the GOP candidates. In their quest for the nomination, the Repub candidates are all running hard to the right, embracing positions that make them look more and more Bushie.
Kohut specifically cited this Ron Brownstein column about how closely the Repub contenders are clinging to Bush’s positions on Iraq, taxes, health care etc.
Kohut predicted that it will be difficult for the Repub candidates to do what they think they need to do to get the nomination and then continue to present themselves to swing voters as representing a change from Bush.
By the way, without meaning to make light of drug addiction, I call horse-race stories, and especially poll stories, “Crack for political junkies,” (a metaphor not original to me) as a reminder of how unhealthily much the politically-obsessed love poll numbers.
Kohut’s analysis above is not shockingly different from what others, and Kohut himself, have been saying for a while. One thing about him is that he has been following certain poll measures for decades. Such evergreen questions are the most useful in tracking public attitudes because they have a stable question wording. Since 1987, Kohut has been administering a battery of questions designed to measures public political values. And he drew on several of these for his generalizations about the current pro-Dem winds. For example (these question wordings are not perfect but are from my notes):
Should the government take care of people who can’t take care of themselves (percent saying “yes”):
- 1987: 71.
- 1994: 57.
- 2007: 69.
The values survey asks whether the best way to secure America is to have a strong military. (I think the alternative is through alliances and diplomacy.) Percent saying a strong military:
- 2003, 62%.
- 2007: 49%.
Kohut also said that in normal times, Republicans have higher voter participation and follow the news more closely. But those numbers are down and Dem numbers are up, which he interprets as signs of Republican demoralization.
Likewise he said that the percentage (I don’t have the numbers) of Democrats who say they are broadly satisfied with the field of Democratic candidates is higher than the percentage of Republicans who say that about their field.
Eric –
This is the money quote from Kohut –
“The apparent Dem advantages are less about widespread public enthusiasm for the Dem candidates or their ideas and more about their lack of enthusiasm for the Repubs.”
As I wrote last week in my PiPress column, the liberal/conservative political paradigm is decaying. Kohut’s quote seems to bear out that voters, especially younger voters, aren’t satisfied by either liberal or conservative ideology. That should not be surprising. The two major parties may differ significantly in their values, but they differ very little in their eagerness to assume control of government and force their values on the rest of us.
The new paradigm of political division arising is between libertarians (small “l” variety) and communitarians – between those who believe individuals grant limited power to government and those who hold that the government grants rights to individuals.
If you categorize the complaints against Bush, they revolve around the way he has used the power of government to curtail personal freedom. What people dislike about liberals is that they would curtail economic liberty to establish their vision of a better society.
The GOP presidential candidacy (and consistently above expectation) showing of Ron Paul, who ran for the presidency in 1988 as a big “L” libertarian, is evidence of the libertarian/communitarian split. It’s no surprise that the first battles in this war are being fought within the GOP.
In quest of the Presidential nomination, Paul is fighting to bring conservatives back to their principled belief in limited government – government does not unnecessarily interfere with people’s economic liberty or their personal (social) freedom. Conservatives have lost the trust of the people because they have abandoned that principle. Paul seeks to restore it.
While conservatives go astray when they depart from their core values, liberals become dangerous when they follow their core values to their evitable end — totalitarianism. The idea that government is virtually unlimited in the “good” it can do means that individuals must be only means to government’s ends. Government provides solutions to all problems and has a legitimate right to any and all necessary resources to achieve the common good. Government derives its power from the barrel of a gun.
The problem ought to obvious – planned pursuit of a perfect or even a “better” society is incompatible with a “free” society. Perfection cannot tolerate the imperfections that inevitably derive from individuals making free choices; the imperfections of free choice will never produce a perfect society or one that is “just” and “fair” to everyone’s thinking.
Americans may not be ready to choose between libertarian and communitarian in 2008, but the choice is coming. And it can’t come soon enough.
By most accounts Ron Paul is in 7th or 8th place in most Republican polls and hovering around 1 percent. What would his numbers look like if he wasn’t exceeding expectations? If Ron Paul is the evidence that we are headed for a new political paradigm, I won’t hold my breath.
Maybe Paul would get some traction if his words actually matched his actions. The WSJ did a story about Paul recently and found that despite his purported interest in limiting goverment, he is a big fan of pork projects.
“Texas Congressman Ron Paul — libertarian gadfly and current Republican Presidential hopeful — has made a name for himself as a critic of overspending. But it seems even he can’t resist the political allure of earmarks.
After reporters started asking questions, the Congressman disclosed his requests this year for about $400 million worth of federal funding for no fewer than 65 earmarks. They include such urgent national wartime priorities as an $8 million request for the marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to fund shrimp-fishing research.”
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2007/08/ron_paul_loves_pork_projects.php
Hmmm. Millions of tax dollars for shrimp research. Doesn’t sound like a new paradigm to me. When a guy like Ron Paul comes out and claims that he is more principled than everyone else, it just means that he is a bigger liar.
I enjoy watching Paul blast away at Republican debates as much as the next guy. But in the grand scheme of things, Paul is a very, very tiny footnote.
[…] new, nor is the discovery that view of America have been souring steadily over the Iraq war. In a second presentation of the day Wednesday at the Humphrey Institute, Andy Kohut of Pew last night simply brought the latest evidence that the […]
Dan –
Don’t miss the ocean for the shrimp.
Picking Paul apart (the more principled someone is, the easier that is to do) doesn’t negate the premise that the political divide is shifting. I think you are asking the wrong question – a point from history is worth considering.
From a historical perspective, one might label Thomas Jefferson a “hypocrite” for penning, “all men are created equal” while penning black men, women and children on his plantation as slaves. A man who writes that big idea and keeps slaves is just a “bigger liar.” But isn’t the more pertinent question, “How could a man raised in a slave-based society, a man who’s livelihood depended on slave labor, even entertain the idea that all men are created equal?” Perhaps because there are fundamental, external, objective, self-evident truths that supercede the values and contingencies of the day. In any case, the ideas, not Jefferson’s failures of character, ultimately shaped history.
So from one perspective, Ron Paul can be portrayed as a “big liar” every time his actions don’t fit his words – How can a man that supports instances of pork barrel spending preach against unnecessary government spending? I submit the better question is, “How can a politician who operates in system based on distributing spoils as a means to retain power even entertain the idea of dismantling that system?” It is libertarian ideas (or communitarian thought on the flip side) that will affect history.
In that vein consider this analysis from the Cato Institute:
“Not all Americans can be classified as liberal or conservative. In particular, polls find that some 10 to 20 percent of voting-age Americans are libertarian, tending to agree with conservatives on economic issues and with liberals on personal freedom. The Gallup Governance Survey consistently finds about 20 percent of respondents giving libertarian answers to a two-question screen.
“Our own data analysis is stricter. We find 9 to 13 percent libertarians in the Gallup surveys, 14 percent in the Pew Research Center Typology Survey, and 13 percent in the American National Election Studies, generally regarded as the best source of public opinion data.
“For those on the trail of the elusive swing voter, it may be most notable that the libertarian vote shifted sharply in 2004. Libertarians preferred George W. Bush over Al Gore by 72 to 20 percent, but Bush’s margin dropped in 2004 to 59-38 over John Kerry. Congressional voting showed a similar swing from 2002 to 2004. Libertarians apparently became disillusioned with Republican overspending, social intolerance, civil liberties infringements, and the floundering war in Iraq. If that trend continues into 2006 and 2008, Republicans will lose elections they would otherwise win.”
The point is Paul’s challenge to Republican “overspending, social intolerance, civil liberties infringements, and the floundering war in Iraq” is more than the cosmetic differences among other Republican candidates and within the ranks of Democratic presidential hopefuls, who exhibit their own brand of overspending, intolerance of diverse (politically incorrect) opinion, infringement of economic liberties (and consequently personal freedoms), and justification for the war in Iraq if only Bush had been telling the truth about WMDs and Iraq’s role in 9/11.
The trend can’t be negated because the messenger is flawed. Ideas ultimately stand or fall on their own merits.
Craig,
Well, that’s certainly an explanation for Paul’s fondness for earmarks. It kind of reminds me of the explanation for why his newsletter said that 95 percent of black men were criminals (a staffer wrote it without his permission!) In response to your Thomas Jefferson quote, I’ll cite Michael Jackson, who believes that change begins with “the man in the mirror.”
Dan