OUTSIDE
THE BOX
Why the GOP Is Winning
Democrats are stuck in the 1930s on
economics, the '60s on foreign policy.
BY PETE DU PONT
Monday,
November 10, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
Last month's
California recall vote blew away not only Gov. Gray Davis but also a great
many givens about American voting habits. The Republican candidates for
Governor (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom McClintock) captured 62% of the vote
in a state that Al Gore carried by 11 percentage points. Fifty-seven percent
of white women voted for a Republican governor to replace Davis, and so did
40% of Hispanics and a quarter of blacks.
So was it just
screwy California politics, or a real change in voter behavior? In the
introduction to his 2004 Almanac of American Politics scholar Michael Barone
suggests these voting shifts not only are real, but may be only the
beginning.
Mr. Barone believes current
American political behavior is explained by 17th-century British philosopher
John Locke's (and later Thomas Jefferson's) belief that all free people have
the right to life, liberty and property.
Life is once again
focused, as in World War II and the Cold War, on individual and national
security. When our safety is at risk, we demand that our leaders confront our
enemies, secure our nation from attack, and protect us.
So from Pearl Harbor
until the fall of the Berlin Wall we elected presidents of both parties with a
strong commitment to national defense. When the Democrats took an isolationist
turn by nominating George McGovern in 1972, the Republicans gained an almost
insurmountable advantage in presidential elections. But in the decade that
followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, national security seemed less
important, so leaders with little or no foreign-policy experience--Bill
Clinton and George W. Bush--seemed acceptable.
The terror of 9/11
refocused us on our vulnerability and thus on national security, which is now
the single most important policy matter influencing American politics.
President Bush responded quickly and forcefully to the terrorist threat, while
the Democratic Party and its candidates seem ambivalent if not McGovern-like.
"A party divided when the nation is in peril," Mr. Barone concludes, "has
grave difficulty getting its citizens' votes."
As for liberty,
since the 1960s there has been an increasing passion on both sides of the
political spectrum for litmus-test issues. Do we have the right to consume
drugs, have an abortion, bear arms, pray in public schools--even to say "under
God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Such divisive issues dominated political
debate in a great many campaigns for a great many years. But they seem to have
been eclipsed by security and economic issues, for, in Mr. Barone's words,
"the issues that had so bitterly divided us [are now] less important than what
we shared in common." If economic and security issues are trumping litmus-test
beliefs, American politics have indeed changed.
Regarding property, for the
first time in history a majority of Americans own stock--outright or in IRAs
or 401(k)s. By nature the investor class is optimistic, believing individual
choices in markets bring opportunity and a brighter future. Here there is a
growing political divide, for Democrats tend to believe that government
programs serve society better than individual decisions. So taxes should be
higher, or as one Democrat told Mr. Barone: "I want the government to have the
money."
We see it in the
Medicare drug-benefit legislation being debated in Congress. Democratic
lawmakers believe the government must set drug prices and write regulations;
Republicans that people should be able to choose their benefits and their
provider (just as members of Congress and other federal employees can do under
their health-benefit program). The Democratic view is more that of Franklin D.
Roosevelt and the 1930s than that of the current individualistic investor
class.
We see it in the
Social Security debate, where polls show that market retirement accounts,
owned and managed by individuals, have the support of 57% of the people.
Democrats insist that Social Security be kept as it is, essentially arguing
that the FDR program of 1935 cannot be improved upon. The information age
generation thinks that absurd, and with the coming shortfall in government
revenues needed to pay Social Security benefits, that generation has a real
economic interest in the outcome of the argument.
Some Democratic
presidential candidates are now arguing that protectionism is better than free
trade. Dick Gephardt, Howard Dean and John Kerry argue strongly against the
North American Free Trade Agreement--never mind that President Clinton signed
it into law or that it increased commerce, lowered the cost of goods, and
doubled the number of jobs in businesses linked to trade with Mexico and
Canada. It is another example of Democrats being for government regulation
rather than individual market choices.
Mr. Barone concludes
that for the first two-thirds of the 20th century America was a growing
industrial nation moving towards standardization and centralization, so
Democratic positions on economic issues may have made sense. But the dawning
of the information age began moving us away from centralization and towards
individual choice. And the Republican Party's advocacy of tax cuts,
individually owned Social Security accounts, parental choice of schools, and
free trade are much more appealing than Democratic loyalty to '30s centralism.
The Democrats appear--especially to young people--to be the party of
yesterday, out of step with "post-industrial, information age
America."
What makes Mr. Barone's analysis even more relevant is that it comes on
top of a steady shift in the electorate's political preferences. According to
the Harris poll, that 20 years ago 40% of people polled identified themselves
as Democrats and just 26% as Republicans. Ten years later that 14-point
advantage had dropped to six, and last year the same poll found Democrats had
but a three-point advantage.
Ten years ago there
were 176 Republican congressmen; today the GOP controls the House with 229
members. Democrats then controlled the Senate; now Republicans do. Ten years
ago Democrats held 59% of state legislative seats; now Republicans have a
majority. Republicans then controlled eight state legislatures; today it's 21
(some of the remainder are split). Then there were 18 Republican governors;
next year--with last Tuesday's wins in Kentucky and Mississippi added to
California and possibly Louisiana--there will be 28 or 29.
In other
words, there has been a substantial shift in voter party preference in the
past decade. If Michael Barone is correct that security, economic
issues and information age attitudes are dominating voters' thought process,
the change in substantive beliefs will accelerate the political shift and the
conservative shape of the political future will be very different from that of
its liberal past.
Mr. du Pont, a
former governor of Delaware, is policy chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears once a
month.
