As the country has become more and more polarized, election results have become more and more of a pendulum, swinging rapidly from one party to the other and back again. The 2010 midterms provide a good example. Just two years after a dramatic swing to the left, the pendulum has now swung back to the right. What’s going on? In addition to the historical norm of voter preference for split party rule, it seems there are two factors conspiring together to yield this result. We have an ever increasing polarization of the party bases, combined with a disasatisfied independent electorate.
Roughly 2/3 of the voting population identifies itself with one party or the other. That split is very nearly even, 1/3 Republican, 1/3 Democrat. Within each of those camps, you have a solid core of die hard supporters who have become completely intolerent towards the other side. Obviously, some disagreement is to be expected...that is why they are in different parties. But as the political climate has hardened through the Clinton and Bush years, these folks have quite frankly gone off the deep end. They hate each other and view with derision anything the other side has to say. For them, it is no longer important what the specifics of a proposal are...they just want to know whether the idea came from their side, in which case it is the best thing since sliced bread, or the other side, in which case it would be the worst disaster the country has ever known. For them, an election victory for the other side is an affront to freedom that demands an immediate rallying of the party faithful to "throw the bums out" in the next election. We saw it in the ’90s when the Republicans were whipped into a frenzy by Democratic control of the White House and majorities in Congress. We saw it again in the mid ’00s when the Democrats had the exact same reaction to Republican control of the White House and Congress. Following the pattern, the backlash against Democratic majorities struck again this year as the hard core right convulsed with hate for the idea of <gasp> a Democrat in the White House and powered its way to an election night of Republican victories to begin the "throw the bums out" story again. Given their way, they will finish the job in 2012 by retaking control of the Senate and the White House, setting the stage for the next wave as the Democrats begin their next revolt. Back and forth, round and round.
The remaining 1/3 of the electorate are the moderate independents. These are the people most likely to exhibit independent thought, and can be convinced to support either side based on who is currently making the best argument. In short, these are the people who actually decide who wins and who loses. These voters are not interested in ideology and demagoguery. They want their leaders to govern from the center, leaving their wedge issues aside and working with each other by finding points of common ground and building on them. This is where our "leaders" so often fail and set the pendulum swinging. The politicians long ago figured out that to win general elections they need to run to the middle to capture the independents. But for some reason they can not seem to make the connection between successful campaign tactics and successful governing tactics. They campaign to the middle in order to win office, but as soon as they get in office they begin governing to their base, alienating the moderates and setting themselves up to be on the receiving end of the next cycle’s "throw the bums out" mindset. Back and forth, round and round.
Repost from my blog