Is the US moving further to the right?
Gary Jacobson is a renowned political scientist who points out a very interesting argument in Politics of Congressional Elections in which he states from his first edition to the fifth edition of the book (in a kind of evolution of the idea...kind of interesting to read all five editions to see how this idea originates and forms) that Republican Parties are moving away from state control to federal control due to the incentives offered to Republican strong candidates in a field that tended to attract mostly Democratic candidates (the point being: democrats had something to gain financially from national government while republican candidates did not as it was actually a financial loss to pursue national government rather than local government...this has all changed over the last few decades).
A further point he makes concerns the usability of PACs. And this is a lot more important than people ever suspected. Ten, twenty years ago, PACs were mainly Democratic strongholds, with labor being one of the main types of PACs. An important caveat was that these types of PACs favored the incumbent, but rarely backed the challenger as it was not financially feasible to do so. About fifteen years ago, corporate PACs came on the scene and started backing Republicans because of similar views on national issues. It was a slow, growing process, but in those fifteen years, these PACs have become huge, and they have been backing Republican candidates for quite some time. And the one important caveat is: they are just as willing to back challengers as they are incumbents. This is something the Democratic PACs are still unwilling to do.
As such, the simple theory is: the more Republicans that make it to office, the more money and incentive for them to continue running and receiving money. The PACs that don't give to challengers still give to Republicans that are incumbents, while the Republican PACs that only give to Republicans continue to support both Republican incumbents AND Republican challengers.
In essence, we have set up a situation where Republicans have much greater chances of being elected to higher office, while Democrats are forced to scramble for money, or dig into their own fortunes to seek political office.
So, using this one theory alone, I tend to believe we are going to see more and more Republicans, and thus a further move to the right as this base is solidified.
This theory has nothing to do with what anyone wants, how America feels, or any other such nonsense. Elections are always about two things: money and incumbency. Armed with both, you are pretty much guaranteed success. Very rarely does the public go against incumbencey, and rarely does it go against money. Put together, America rarely, if ever, moves against incumbency and money advantages of one side.
That's why I see the right becoming even stronger over the next few elections.
Stumble It!
Gary Jacobson is a renowned political scientist who points out a very interesting argument in Politics of Congressional Elections in which he states from his first edition to the fifth edition of the book (in a kind of evolution of the idea...kind of interesting to read all five editions to see how this idea originates and forms) that Republican Parties are moving away from state control to federal control due to the incentives offered to Republican strong candidates in a field that tended to attract mostly Democratic candidates (the point being: democrats had something to gain financially from national government while republican candidates did not as it was actually a financial loss to pursue national government rather than local government...this has all changed over the last few decades).
A further point he makes concerns the usability of PACs. And this is a lot more important than people ever suspected. Ten, twenty years ago, PACs were mainly Democratic strongholds, with labor being one of the main types of PACs. An important caveat was that these types of PACs favored the incumbent, but rarely backed the challenger as it was not financially feasible to do so. About fifteen years ago, corporate PACs came on the scene and started backing Republicans because of similar views on national issues. It was a slow, growing process, but in those fifteen years, these PACs have become huge, and they have been backing Republican candidates for quite some time. And the one important caveat is: they are just as willing to back challengers as they are incumbents. This is something the Democratic PACs are still unwilling to do.
As such, the simple theory is: the more Republicans that make it to office, the more money and incentive for them to continue running and receiving money. The PACs that don't give to challengers still give to Republicans that are incumbents, while the Republican PACs that only give to Republicans continue to support both Republican incumbents AND Republican challengers.
In essence, we have set up a situation where Republicans have much greater chances of being elected to higher office, while Democrats are forced to scramble for money, or dig into their own fortunes to seek political office.
So, using this one theory alone, I tend to believe we are going to see more and more Republicans, and thus a further move to the right as this base is solidified.
This theory has nothing to do with what anyone wants, how America feels, or any other such nonsense. Elections are always about two things: money and incumbency. Armed with both, you are pretty much guaranteed success. Very rarely does the public go against incumbencey, and rarely does it go against money. Put together, America rarely, if ever, moves against incumbency and money advantages of one side.
That's why I see the right becoming even stronger over the next few elections.
Stumble It!
posted by Duane @ 6:19 AM
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