The American Election 2012
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Elections, Voting, Technology
The series Elections, Voting, Technology examines the relationships between people,
electoral processes and technologies, and democracy. Elections are a fundamental
aspect of a free and democratic society and, at their core, they involve a citizenry
making selections for who will represent them. This series examines the ways in which
citizens select their candidates—the voting technologies used, the rules of the game
that govern the process—and considers how changes in processes and technologies
affect the voter and the democratic process.
Thad Hall is an associate professor of political science at the University of Utah and a
research affiliate with the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project. He is the coauthor
of several books on elections and voting, including Point, Click, and Vote: The Future
of Internet Voting and Electronic Elections: The Perils and Promise of Digital Democracy,
and coeditor of the book Election Fraud.
Confirming Elections: Creating Confidence and Integrity through Election Auditing
Edited by R. Michael Alvarez, Lonna Rae Atkeson, and Thad E. Hall
Civil Society and Electoral Accountability in Latin America
Sharon F. Lean
Elections and Democratization in the Middle East
Mahmoud Hamad and Khalil al-Anani
The American Election 2012: Contexts and Consequences
Edited by R. Ward Holder and Peter B. Josephson
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The American Election 2012
Contexts and Consequences
Edited by
R. Ward Holder and Peter B. Josephson
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the american election 2012
Copyright © R. Ward Holder and Peter B. Josephson, 2014.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the
World, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers
Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
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Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above
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Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United
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ISBN: 978–1–137–39442–2
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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In Honor of Senator Judd Gregg
True Statesman and True Friend of the New Hampshire
Institute of Politics at
Saint Anselm College
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Contents
List of Illustrations
xi
Acknowledgments
xv
Introduction: The American Election 2012—Contexts
and Consequences
R. Ward Holder and Peter B. Josephson
1
I The State of the Parties in 2012
1 The Consequences of Party Reform in the
Twenty-First Century
Terri Susan Fine
9
2 Closed for Repairs so It Can Reengage with the World:
Prospects for Reforming the Republican Party
Douglas M. Brattebo
3 The 2012 Elections and the Southern Roots of Polarized
Politics: The Continuing Power of Southern
Conservatives after Obama’s Reelection
Neal Allen
23
39
4 The Ever-Widening Gap: Gender and the 2012
Presidential Election
Derya Rix
51
5 Data, America’s Shifting Landscape, and The Meaning
of 2012
Dante Chinni
61
II Emerging Strategies in the 2012 Campaign
6 Are Super PACs Arms of Political Parties? A Study of
Coordination
Dante J. Scala
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viii
CONTENTS
7 Economic Appeals in Unequal Communities: Stump
Speeches in the 2012 Presidential Election
Christopher B. Chapp
83
8 Casualties of the Ground War: Personal Contacting and
Its Discontents
Robert G. Boatright
99
9 Unfriendly to Women? Female Politicians, Rape
Comments, and the GOP in 2012
Jennifer C. Lucas and Tauna S. Sisco
115
10 Weighing in or Waiting: When, Whether, and Whom
Republican Officeholders Endorsed in 2012
Kevin J. Parsneau and Christopher J. Galdieri
129
III Implications of the 2012 Election: Domestic and
Foreign Policies
11 The Past as Prologue: Obama, Health Care, and the
Election of 2012
Anne Marie Cammisa
12 Healthcare Spending and Prevention within the
Affordable Care Act: Contrasting the Public Health and
Medical Models of Prevention
T. Lucas Hollar
13 Natural Uncertainty: Reconciling the Contrasting
Environmental Goals of America’s First Natural Security
President—Barack Obama
Mark O’Gorman
14 Federal Judicial Vacancies: Obama’s Record and Prospects
Susan Siggelakis
145
159
171
187
15 The Politics of Presidential Foreign Policy Unilateral
Authority and the Role of Congress
Bryan W. Marshall and Brandon C. Prins
199
16 Decline or Not: America’s Continued Primacy in the
Persian Gulf
Wesley Renfro and Marc O’Reilly
215
IV Faith and Politics: 2012 and Beyond
17 Courting the Catholic Vote: Obama, Romney, and the
US Catholic Bishops in the 2012 Presidential Election
Richard J. Powell and Mark D. Brewer
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CONTENTS
18 Catholic Vice Presidential Candidates and the Politics of
Abortion: The 2012 Debate in Context
Angela Senander
249
19 What Romney’s Nomination Means for Mormons and
the Presidency
Luke Perry
259
20 The Liberal State and the Gay Marriage Debate: Lessons
from American Catholic Thought
Aaron Taylor
269
21 Obama and the Common Good
Daniel J. Daly
279
22 The Rise of the Liberal Protestant? Faith and Politics
in the Obama Administration
R. Ward Holder and Peter B. Josephson
291
Notes on Contributors
301
Bibliography
307
Index
343
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Illustrations
Figures
1.1 Number of Democratic and Republican Primaries and
Caucuses by Month, 1996–2012
15
1.2 Characteristics of Democratic and Republican National
Convention Delegates, 2000–2008
16
5.1 Voting Percentages by Community Type
64
5.2 Abortion Attitudes in 2008—Cities, Suburbs, and Exurbs
65
5.3 Global Warming Attitudes in 2008—Cities, Suburbs,
and Exurbs
66
5.4 Shifts in Voting Patterns in Monied Burbs 1976–2012
67
7.1 Content analysis scores computed by building custom
dictionaries in Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count.
Scores are the number of times a candidate used words
in a particular category, divided by the total words used
(and multiplied by 100). All differences significant at
p < .05 except “jobs”-related words.
90
8.1 Voter contact during campaign: From which major party
100
8.2 Hypothetical consequences of increased mobilization
106
8.3 Average income, education, and age of contacted and
uncontacted citizens
107
8.4 Percentage of citizens contacted by income,
education, and age
109
8.5 Campaign contact by various information and
attitude levels
111
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L I S T O F IL L U S T R AT I O N S
8.6 Campaign contact by level of partisanship
112
15.1 Mayhew’s Count of Total Major Legislation Passed by Year
204
15.2 Interventions by Year
205
Graphs
1.1 Republican super PACs and the National Republican
Senatorial committee
17
1.2 Democratic super PACs and the Democratic
Senatorial committee
17
6.1 Republican super PACs and the National Republican
Senatorial committee
78
6.2 Democratic super PACs and the Democratic Senatorial
Campaign committee
79
Tables
3.1 Democratic presidential vote 1948–2012
41
3.2 Democratic presidential vote in Southern States
41
3.3 House seats by region and party 2008–12
42
3.4 Presidential electoral vote by region
42
3.5 Senate seats by region 2012
42
6.1 Expenditures of super PACs allied with the Democratic
Party in 2012 Senate campaigns
76
6.2 Expenditures of super PACs allied with the Republican
Party in 2012 Senate campaigns
77
6.3 Viability and ideology scores for national party Senate
campaign committees
78
7.1 Characteristics of target communities for the Obama
and Romney campaigns
88
7.2 Obama’s language choices and community characteristics
91
7.3 Romney’s language choices and community characteristics
91
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L I S T O F IL L U S T R AT I O N S
10.1 Endorsements by elected officials throughout the
nomination contest
135
10.2 Variable effects on the likelihood of endorsing Romney
or Alternative candidate during different periods of the
nomination competition
138
11.1 Percentage of public rating various issues as the
Number 1 determinant of their vote in 2012
146
11.2 Differences between Obama and Romney on health
care 2012
154
11.3 Public opinion on health care and vote for president in
2012 (Realclear average 5/27-624)
155
11.4 Timeline
155
15.1 Logistic models of interventions by the United States,
1950–2000
207
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Acknowledgments
All books are nourished by more contacts than the authors can count.
That truism becomes even exponentially more the case when the volume
began its life as a set of papers presented at a conference. “Was that great
idea something I thought of, or did I just write down another’s thought
because it was so good?” That has absolutely been our experience with
this volume—it has received such a number of good thoughts from so
many sources that counting them all up to be perfectly gracious becomes
impossible. For all of those moments when we received inspiration almost
as from the air, we take this moment to surrender by saying, “thank you.”
But beyond those, some of our debts have been so clear that we can
better express our gratitude. First and foremost, this book began as a
conference, “The American Election 2012: Contexts and Consequences.”
That conference would have been impossible to contemplate without the
warm support of Fr. Augustine Kelly, O. S. B., Dean of Saint Anselm
College; Dr. Suzanne Mellon, executive vice president of Saint Anselm
College; and Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire
Institute of Politics at the college. Their early encouragement and reassurance allowed us to step forth where none had gone before, and to set
about hosting a national conference. The entire conference would have
been unfunded and the volume only a hope without a generous grant
from the Earhart Foundation. The Richard L. Bready Chair in Ethics,
Economics, and the Common Good also supported the conference. Conferences do not go smoothly without enormous effort—and we were
blessed especially by the work of Lorie Cochran, Ann Camann, and Kate
Giaquinto at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics. William Ploog
of Saint Anselm College’s grants office and Laura Bellavia in our business office kept us on track. Lauren Carson designed the original artwork
that became the logo for the conference. Many of our colleagues at Saint
Anselm College gave their time and wisdom to help; we especially thank
Kimberly Kersey Asbury, Dale Kuehne, Christopher Galdieri, Barbara
Baudot, Elizabeth Ossoff, Dennis Sweetland, and Christine Gustafson.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The conference’s student coordinator, Grace Keating, was a constant
source of both strength and good common sense. Brian O’Connor and
Scarlet Neath at Palgrave MacMillan proved time and again how helpful
truly wonderful publishing professionals can be. Finally, the participants
at the conference, many of whom have contributed to this volume, were
an excellent sounding board, a wonderful blessing in both their scholarship and their friendship.
Manchester, August 30, 2013
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Introduction: The
American Election
2012—Contexts and
Consequences
R. Ward Holder and Peter
B. Josephson
Thirty years after the Reagan Revolution, the 2012 election
presented itself as a referendum on the state of American politics and
the future of America’s promise. Candidates on both sides of the aisle
asserted that this election was a contest for the meaning of the American
dream. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama sought to characterize the
election as having greater significance than simply another opportunity to
engage in the American experiment in democracy. Romney painted a picture of a society on the brink of failure, and his candidacy as a reluctant
choice to save the country. Obama portrayed the election as the opportunity for voters to ratify the changes that had come from the 2008 election
and to protect themselves from the consequences of the reversal of those
changes. At stake were issues of America’s place in the world, the relationship of faith and politics, the role of government, and the proper balance
between individual liberty and public goods.
Downticket candidates also appealed to the electorate to take the
opportunity to recast the American vision of the good society. Eric Cantor
took most of the Ryan budget, passed by the House, as a set of prescriptions to put the country on a secure footing. Jim DeMint used his
considerable campaigning effectiveness and fundraising savvy to try and
gain the conservative majorities that would allow greater success for that
agenda. Democrats seized on the concept of a Republican war on women
and, helped by gaffes by Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, campaigned
vigorously on that issue, as well as access to health care and the needs of
the middle class.
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R . WA R D H O L D E R A N D P E T E R B . J O S E P H S O N
In the United States, elections matter. They capture a national sense
of identity and direction. In our present volume, we seek to engage in
two tasks. First, our explanatory effort concentrates on two topics—what
happened in the election and why it happened. This collective endeavor
describes identity—what America was in 2012. Much has been made of
the racial gaps between the parties. But this fact would be meaningless
if the balance of electoral voting power were not changing in ways not
previously seen. Understanding what America politically and culturally
is and is becoming remains a crucial task for analysts, and the consequences of failing to understand that are made very clear by the results
of the 2012 elections. Second, we go further to consider the policy and
cultural consequences of the choices that were made. Some are obvious—
the Republican failure to capture the White House and a majority in the
Senate meant that the repeal of Obamacare was dead. But a far greater
number of consequences can be drawn, and the chapters take on several
of them.
Prior to the election, given the enormity of the debt and deficit, the
intractability of the unemployment rate, and the difficulty in delivering
solutions on some of the most pressing foreign policy issues, many analysts saw a great likelihood that Obama would be defeated and that the
Democrats would be lucky to hold the majority in the Senate. What,
then, are we to make of the Republican failure in 2012? Was the Romney
ticket to blame?
Or did the Republican National Committee’s “Growth and Opportunity Project Report” from March of 2013 get it right, that the issue is
not the substance, but the style of the message? Or was the problem the
message itself—that women respond better to the Democratic message
about the American values which that party proposes? Here, the contexts matter—the analysis of the evidence and the present identity of the
American electorate is crucial to the task of understanding.
Our chapters are organized into four sections. The first is “The State
of the Parties in 2012.” Here we consider how the parties were dealing
with new realities on the ground and also investigate specific questions
about party futures. Terri Fine begins with an examination of how both
parties continue to deal with reforms set in place decades ago, designed to
ensure participation in the primary process. Douglas Brattebo considers
the prospects for the Republican Party and its potential for the 2016 general election. Neal Allen evaluates the Southern strategy of the Republican
Party, and probes the question of whether this no longer has the electoral
power to ensure election. Derya Rix assesses the gender gap through the
lens of the strategic use of the candidate’s wives, and analyzes the reasons for the success and failure of those strategies. Finally, Dante Chinni’s
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INTRODUCTION
chapter examines whether the problem is not with the Republican Party,
but with the way that American political scientists have been addressing
Red and Blue states.
The second section, “Emerging Strategies in the 2012 Campaign,”
analyzes specific campaign tactics. Dante Scala takes on the issue of the
Super PACs, and finds that sometimes they worked at cross-purposes
with the party they meant to aid. Christopher Chapp explores the campaign rhetoric of stump speeches employed by both Romney and Obama,
and discerns a coded set of messages tailored to the audiences. Robert
Boatright questions the received wisdom of the ground games that are
based on the appeal of personal contact. Jennifer Lucas and Tauna Sisco
take up the question of the gender gap again, but in the rhetoric of rape
that (so bewilderingly) became a frequent issue in the 2012 campaign,
and examine the factors that influenced various Republican responses.
Finally, Christopher Galdieri and Kevin Parsneau consider the patterns
that emerge in campaign endorsements and draw conclusions about how
the ongoing influence of various factors including the Tea Party’s power
affected the timing of endorsements.
The third section is “Implications of the 2012 Election: Domestic and
Foreign Policies.” While the analytical task is crucial to understanding
the election of 2012, it is only half of the story. We seek to explore
what the outcomes and issues of the campaign mean for America as
it moves into the twenty-first century. Obama’s win (and the decision
of the Roberts Court) meant that the repeal of the Affordable Health
Care Act (or Obamacare) was an impossible dream for Republicans. But
what does the continued implementation of that legislation mean for
American businesses, economy, and access to health care? Two chapters
take up this issue, examining the significance of the most far-reaching
piece of social legislation passed since Johnson’s Great Society. Anne Marie
Cammisa forecasts an even more polarized situation because of Obama’s
election. T. Lucas Hollar examines the savings that the Affordable Care
Act promises, while analyzing the potentials for even greater savings in
the context of the debate over the distinction between private and public
goods. That debate also provides context for Mark O’Gorman’s examination of Obama’s mixed environmental record. O’Gorman argues that
Obama’s record can only be fully grasped by viewing Obama as a “natural
security president.” As certainly as Obama’s re-election meant the continued implementation of the Affordable Care Act, his election also signaled
a turn to other questions of the Obama legacy. Susan Siggelakis’s evaluation of Obama’s judicial appointments finds that it is not the case that
all the blame for delay sits with a recalcitrant Republican minority in the
Senate—Obama’s own administration has been slow to move on certain
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appointments. Her study predicts the long-term implications for the federal judiciary and the potential weighting of the Obama courts. Foreign
policy proved to be a significant area of strength for Obama throughout
much of the campaign. The enduring images of Seal Team 6, helped by
the popularity of the movie Zero Dark Thirty, supported Obama’s credentials as a foreign policy success that were difficult for Romney to match
in spite of the raid on Benghazi, Libya. Foreign policy provides the clearest view of the way political hopes and dreams encounter the realities of
the world. Brandon Prins and Bryan Marshall analyze the patterns of the
executive’s recourse to foreign policy, and find that domestic politics and
political aspiration are essential elements in shaping such policy. Wesley
Renfro and Marc O’Reilly note that the Persian Gulf will continue to be
one of the most important theaters of American foreign policy and that
the realities of power and interest in the region would shape American
policy almost regardless of which party is making that policy.
The fourth section is “Faith and Politics: 2012 and Beyond.” It
was almost possible to disregard the religious dynamic in the 2012
campaigns—but finally the importance of the religious themes pushed
to the surface. The most obvious was Romney’s Mormon faith. The calculation of the Republican base’s unease with the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints was a constant factor in the Republican primary—
but Luke Perry’s chapter discusses the longer term effects of a relatively
successful Romney campaign, and suggests that the Romney campaign
heralds a more open and inclusive attitude on the part of American voters
toward a wider variety of religious affiliations than has previously been
the case.
Romney’s religion was not the only one under consideration.
Catholicism played a remarkably large role in the election. Richard Powell
and Mark Brewer investigate the ways that both campaigns targeted
Roman Catholic voters. Both Vice President Joseph Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan were staunch Roman Catholics, and a question at
their debate about abortion drew them into discussing how that faith
affected their ideas on governing. Their responses begin a conversation
about what faith in general, and Catholic faith in particular, means
for the relation of religious belief to political action and public life.
Angela Senander’s chapter examines that moment. Aaron Taylor’s suggestion that the thought of mid-twentieth-century Catholic theologian
John Courtney Murray holds a promise for America’s negotiating of the
divide over abortion projects a sense of hopeful possibility for political and
legal discourse. Obama’s concern for the public good and the notion of
privileging that over various private goods represented a significant turn,
according to Daniel Daly’s chapter. He finds that instead of the language
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INTRODUCTION
of rights of traditional liberalism, Obama’s support of a public good may
represent a turn toward a vision of the society that is much more in line
with the Catholic social justice tradition. Finally, we examine the role of
President Obama’s Protestant faith in shaping his approach to politics and
his responses to particular crises. Obama’s legacy may include a restoration
of Mainstream Protestant political action to the national stage.
In presenting these analyses and forecasts, we wish to argue explicitly
that there is a mutually reinforcing dynamic circle between the analysis
of the election and the divining of the direction of the American experiment. We use the term “American experiment” to highlight the ties that
exist between the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of the electorate, and
the policies put forward in the real world by the elected representatives
and the goals they seek. Time and again, the analysis of what happened
and why it happened in the election is critical for understanding the ramifications of the election for the nation’s shared future. Time and again,
the direction of the nation on policy issues, both foreign and domestic,
and the direction that the national consciousness seeks for the country’s
course, affect the next election’s results. The health of the American political experiment—an experiment that grapples directly with the enduring
question of the relation between individual liberty and public goods—
depends on the regular encounter between hopes and aspirations and the
realities of the political world. Elections and their consequences are the
venue for that encounter.
In America, elections matter. They matter for the people who are
elected, and why they are elected. But they also matter in their ability
to say something about the nation. Elections encapsulate both who the
American electorate is and where it wants to go. Elections, like all other
human institutions, are not perfect. Voters can be fooled, and senators,
representatives, and presidents can lose their nerve, or at least their way.
But as a way of setting out both the present identity and the cherished
aspirations of the nation, very little compares to an election. We set these
essays forth as a manner of understanding the American election of 2012.
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Part
I
The State of the
Parties in 2012
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Chapter
1
The Consequences
of Party Reform in
the Twenty-First
Century1
Terri Susan Fine
Nominating conventions culminate in a lengthy process. Formal
public goals of conventions include nominating presidential and vicepresidential candidates and adopting party platforms. Sustained media
focus enables parties to introduce rising stars, formulate policy initiatives,
strengthen party connections, and mobilize members to work on behalf
of the party and candidates. Changes in delegate selection rules following
the party reforms in the late 1960s reflect emerging tensions about party
roles while nominating conventions matter far less in presidential nominations than in the past. Party roles as intermediaries between the public
and the government are compromised in their efforts to attract increasingly detached and disinterested voters. As more voters focus on single
issues, and are weakly tied to parties, party organizations are less involved
in nominations as such processes become ever more candidate centered.
Nominating conventions emerged in 1832. Party rules require that
presidential and vice-presidential candidates be nominated separately
although typically, and at all conventions since 1952, one person remains
to nominate for each office by the time balloting occurs.2 From 1832
to 1968, party leaders selected presidential and vice-presidential candidates for their electability after several months of state-level caucuses.
Party leaders identified vice-presidential candidates as a means to balance perceived weaknesses of presidential candidates, provide regional
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TERRI SUSAN FINE
and ideological balance to the ticket, and attract party constituencies
unenthused about the presidential nominee.3
Party legitimacy was tested in 1968 as several events shaped the Democratic nomination process and spurred party efforts to reform nomination
rules.4 While it was the Democrats who reformed through rules changes,
Republicans changed their methods without adopting new rules.
In 1968, the nation was at war overseas and with itself. These crosscutting “wars” were the Vietnam Conflict, President Johnson’s withdrawal
from the presidential nomination, the Civil Rights Movement and the
death of Martin Luther King, Jr., the assassination of Robert Kennedy,
and the election outcome.
The Vietnam Conflict escalated after the 1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution
authorizing President Johnson to “take all necessary measures to repel any
armed attack against forces of the United States and to prevent further
aggression.”5 By 1968, Johnson had lifted the draft exemption that made
evading the draft much harder for middle and upper class whites enrolled
in college. And the conflict further escalated; nearly 30,000 US troops
died in Vietnam by the 1968 Democratic National Convention.6
Growing US involvement coupled with increasing troop casualties
contributed to growing public opposition to the Vietnam Conflict
and anti-Johnson protests among college students.7 And states could
deny 18–21-year-olds voting rights; most persons drafted were in that
age range.8 Young people were also excluded from taking part in the
Democrats’ convention deliberations. Johnson’s decision to limit draft
deferments in 1968 coupled with young people’s limited political rights
contributed to their protest activity at the 1968 Convention.
These factors contributed to early primary and caucus losses for President Johnson that prompted his withdrawal on March 31, 1968.9
Johnson’s sole opposition until then was Senator Eugene McCarthy
although Senator Robert Kennedy expressed his intent to run midMarch. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated five days after Johnson’s
withdrawal, which heightened concerns among African-Americans who
sought to continue the path forged by King in his work with Johnson to
secure civil rights protections.10 Senator Kennedy soon pulled ahead of
McCarthy and secured the nomination by the final primary, in California,
on June 4. He was assassinated within minutes of declaring victory and
died from his injuries on June 6. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey
stepped in to accept the nomination. Humphrey was nominated at the
national convention having run in no primaries or caucuses.
The 1968 Democratic National Convention turmoil was seen in the
anti-Vietnam protests spearheaded by young people, African-Americans,
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T H E C O N S E Q U E N C E S O F PA R T Y R E F O R M
11
and rank-and-file Democrats, who were angry that they played no role in
selecting the eventual nominee.
Violence that erupted before and at the convention damaged the
Democrats’ image so much that they lost the next two presidential contests to an arguably easily beatable candidate.11 Responding to their 1968
loss, the Democrats formed the Commission on Party Structure and
Delegate Selection (“McGovern-Fraser Commission”), which advocated
nomination rules changes intended to democratize the nominations process and be more inclusive of minority populations and voices that would
take effect in 1972. State Republican parties also adopted more primaries
that same year even though they were not subject to the same national
party rules changes as were state Democratic parties.12
The Democrats’ new rules were intended to insure that the nominations process would be “open, timely and representative.”13 Scheduled
to take effect in 1972, the rules would open the nomination process to
more rank-and-file party members and make it easier for a broad array
of candidates to secure delegate support. For example, both parties forbid delegates from being selected before January 1 of presidential election
years and both parties implemented affirmative action programs to insure
that women, minorities, and young people were included as convention
delegates.
Delegate allocation rules also changed. The unit rule, which used
a “winner-take-all” approach whereby delegate majorities within states
determined that state’s nomination vote, was replaced with a proportional system such that candidates earning a minimum percentage of
the primary or caucus vote earned delegates. Those minimum thresholds have fluctuated between 10 and 25 percent since then. Additional
rules changes following the 1980 election included designating some current and former elected Democrats (members of Congress, governors,
former presidents and vice-presidents, Democratic National Committee
party officials, and other distinguished party members) as unpledged convention delegates. This change meant that high-level Democratic officials
did not need to compete for delegate positions and, in being unpledged,
could play a greater role in shaping the nomination outcome. These delegate positions, first designated in 1984, have been called “superdelegates”
by the media although the term is not found in Democratic Party rules.
Other rules were adopted focusing on transparency and fairness in
selecting delegates. Demonstrating that these new standards were upheld
was far easier when states held primaries rather than caucuses. Party
rules did not mandate primaries per se; rather, proving transparency and
fairness in delegate selection procedures was easier for state parties to
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demonstrate with primaries than with caucuses. Caucuses were often
perceived as events taking place in “smoke filled rooms” run by party
bosses to the exclusion of rank-and-file party activists, while the more
public and inclusive nature of primaries made such requirements easier
to demonstrate.14 Consequently, the number of primaries has substantially increased since 1968. In 1968, 17 states held Democratic primaries
(selecting 41 percent of the delegates),15 while 16 states held Republican primaries (selecting 43 percent of the delegates);16 that number more
than doubled by 1992, and the proportion of delegates selected through
primaries exceeded two-thirds during that period as well.
The number of states holding primaries instead of caucuses continues
to increase as does the percentage of delegates selected through primaries.
The Democratic rules mandating a diverse representation of delegates was
dropped as of 1980 except that one-half of convention delegates must be
female. Both parties continue to advance and manage diversity through
less formal means such as affirmative recruitment and networking.
Since 1968, several federal and state law changes have been implemented that impact the delegate selection process. The 26th Amendment
lowers the minimum voting age to 18, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
has been renewed multiple times. These and other changes have broadened and legitimized participation opportunities for the same populations
whose voices were silenced in 1968.
In the paragraphs that follow, the McGovern-Fraser and later reforms
will be discussed in the context of recent nomination contests. The analysis suggests that the reforms had unintended consequences leading to
candidate-centered nomination campaigns, aggravated concerns about
the nomination calendar, and broader questions about the national parties’ role in overseeing presidential nominations. The implications suggest
that these consequences are exacerbated by overarching social and political
change.
One reform focus was the scheduling of state nomination contests,
many of which were held one year or more before the convention with
little publicity, and which excluded party rank-and-file especially racial
and ethnic minorities.17 Allowing no delegate selection before January 1
created a more open process and limited discrimination. Holding delegate
selection contests in presidential election years keeps these contests better
connected with other election-related events such as conventions, nonpresidential nominations, and elections.
Candidates have shifted strategies as more states choose primaries over
caucuses to prove openness and fairness. These strategies include appealing to less active and less informed voters. Party activists tend to be more
informed than the party rank-and-file while the party rank-and-file tend
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to be weaker in their partisan identification, lower in their voter turnout,
and more likely to be single issue voters.18 Candidate appeals need to
reflect these differences to succeed in a primary-centric system.
A primary-centric system also requires that candidates seek votes
directly from the people and not through the party apparatus. Demonstrating one’s commitment to the party agenda may hurt candidates in
their efforts to appeal to weaker identifiers. Candidates may de-emphasize
their party ties (e.g., minimizing party messages in their advertising),
focus more attention on single issues than broad party themes, and spend
less time catering to the party elite.
These factors—no primary or caucus before January 1, a primarycentric system, and the proportional allocation of delegates—have contributed to concerns about primary and caucus scheduling. Candidates
performing poorly in early contests tend to lose campaign momentum
because they are perceived as losers even though the number of available delegates in those early states may be small. Media attention dries
up except for likely winners and front runners as does financial support,
because contributors consider the strategic placement of their campaign
dollars limited by their own resources and by federal law. Candidates perceived as losers and whose media attention and financial resources dry up
tend to receive fewer votes.
The primary-centric system also adds to the candidate pool. Individuals whose positions fall outside the party line may opt to enter the
race because they will be appealing directly to the people. Further, the
Watergate era followed on the heels of the McGovern-Fraser reforms.
Campaigning as a Washington “outsider” with chief executive experience
has helped many current and former governors secure their party’s nomination.19 Contributing to the success of current and former governors,
and US Senators securing their party’s nomination, is their experience
getting elected in statewide races.
The need to win early primaries for gaining and maintaining momentum coupled with the high cost of campaigning has contributed to
frontloading. Frontloading holds two meanings. Candidates tend to
frontload resources when they focus attention on early contests. States
frontload when they seek an early calendar position to insure that their
voters have a say in the nomination.20
Frontloading contributes to candidates dropping out early if they suffer
early losses; concerns about lost momentum compel candidates to drop
out. The nomination is determined earlier in the season leaving voters in
several states with one person’s name on their ballot and no real choice.
In 2007, in an attempt to limit states from frontloading their nomination contests and to keep the suspense playing out until June 2008,
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the national committees threatened state delegations for scheduling early
primaries. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) threatened that
delegates, including “superdelegates,” whose state contests occurred before
a predetermined date, would not be seated at the convention while the
RNC threatened to cut state delegate votes by half. State parties found
themselves in no-win situations as state legislatures dominated by the
other party set primary dates that violated national party directives.
In 2008, Iowa and New Hampshire moved up their dates to accommodate their “first in the nation” status while also running up against
the January 1 start date. The Iowa caucuses took place on January 3
and the New Hampshire primary occurred on January 8; 24 states held
their nomination contests on February 5 and six more were held before
March 1. John McCain secured the Republican nomination by March 4
although the Democratic contest lasted until June. In a gesture of party
unity, no state delegation was denied its voice at the conventions, which
rendered the national party threats moot.
In response to the 2008 frontloading problem, both parties adopted
rules changes (DNC Delegate Selection Rule 11(a) and RNC Rule 15
(b)(1)) that would spread out the nomination contests in 2012. Only
Iowa (first caucus), New Hampshire (first primary), South Carolina (first
southern and first open primary), and Nevada (first western caucus) could
hold their contests before March 1. The empty threats of 2008 rendered
the rules changes moot; seven additional states held their nomination
contests before March 1, 2012.
The national parties also provided incentives rather than punishments
to encourage states to adhere to these rules. The DNC offered bonus
delegates to states keeping to their contest window; states scheduled in
April were offered 10 percent bonuses while states scheduled in May
were offered 20 percent bonuses. The Republican National Committee
(RNC) offered that states may choose to apportion delegates using a
“winner-take-all” approach if they held their contests on April 1 and later
(Figure 1.1).21
The 2012 primary calendar looked quite different from earlier twentyfirst-century calendars. Nomination contests were more evenly spread out
over the nomination period, and there was a much greater emphasis on
later primaries, and among large states, including Texas on May 29 and
California on June 5.22 Efforts to minimize frontloading did not change
the overall dynamic of the 2012 nomination as Obama had no opposition and Romney was well ahead of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich
throughout the race. Four years earlier, Mike Huckabee dropped out on
March 4 while Romney withdrew on February 7 clearing the way for John
McCain’s nomination. In 2004, John Edwards withdrew on March 3,
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45
30
15
0
January
February
March
2012
2008
April
2004
May
2000
June
1996
Figure 1.1 Number of Democratic and Republican Primaries and Caucuses by Month,
1996–2012
while in 2000, both John McCain and Bill Bradley withdrew on March 9.
Both parties continue trying to keep the primary season active until June
although dynamics occurring outside the party apparatus often preclude
that outcome.
The purpose of the 1970s reform efforts was to create an open, fair,
and representative nominating system. Reviewing recent nominations
through that lens provides opportunities to ask whether and how the
reforms were successful in democratizing certain election aspects. In evaluating the long-term consequences of party reform, both the outcomes
and the processes leading up to those outcomes are considered.
Demographic diversity among convention delegates and diversity
among candidates represented among those delegations were core reform
concerns. Yet social and political changes beyond and complementary
to reform efforts demonstrate that political activism among women and
minorities warrants their inclusion as delegates whether rules exist or not.
And, as more women and minorities seek and secure more and higher
elective offices, they will also be extended “superdelegate” delegate seats.
Recent delegate demographic profiles reflect these social changes
absent specific rules. The three populations targeted by the 1972 reforms
are reported for 2000, 2004, and 2008 in Figure 1.2.23,24
African-Americans comprised a larger share among Democratic delegates illustrating their long-term alliance. Republican efforts at women’s
outreach to secure George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election are shown in
increased delegate recruitment efforts that year. The 5 percent increase
in African-American participation between 2004 and 2008 likely reflects
increased African-American political response to Barack Obama’s historic
presidential bid.
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Characteristic
Democratic delegates
2000
2004
2008
Republican delegates
2000
2004
2008
Percent female
48
50
49
35
43
32
Percent
African-American
19
18
23
4
6
2
Percent under 30
4
7
7
3
4
3
Median age
51
N/A
51
53
54
54
Figure 1.2 Characteristics of Democratic and Republican National Convention
Delegates, 2000–2008
Party reform efforts to open nominations to more party rank-and-file
through a primary-centric system and delegations representing greater
diversity have succeeded. The number of state primaries (37 in 2012)
now far exceeds the number of caucuses (19 in 2012). Caucuses require
that party registrants deliberate on who should be the party nominee
whereas primaries require that voters show up during the polling hours
and cast their ballots. The ease associated with voting in primaries, including early or absentee voting, has opened up a system long associated with
“smoke filled rooms” outside the public eye. Delegation profile differences may be explained by party delegations better representing their core
constituencies but not the public as a whole.
Proportional allocation of delegates has also succeeded. Candidates
with little chance of securing delegates due to winner-take-all and a
caucus-centric system may now seek support directly from the people
and build momentum with lower thresholds. The proportional approach
incentivizes candidates to stay in the race; this approach also encourages
campaign activists to continue supporting their preferred candidate in
the face of primary losses early on. These changes have well addressed the
concerns manifested in 1968.
Yet political campaigns have changed tremendously during this same
period. Campaigns are now far more candidate centered with the rise of
television as an essential campaign tool. The Watergate scandal has helped
candidates presenting themselves as Washington outsiders and those with
minimal party connections, which also contribute to candidate-centered
campaigns.25
Others note that party decline has contributed to the advent of
candidate-centered campaigns. Compared with the 1960s, voters are
less tied to their parties, understood as long-term forces, and more
likely to vote based on short-term forces, understood as issues and
candidate evaluations. The proliferation of candidates in the modern
campaign age coupled with the public’s weakening partisanship has also
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Ideology score
1
2
3
Viability score
4
0 .25 .5 .75 1 1.25 1.5
0
Ideology score
NRSC
0 .25 .5 .75 1 1.25 1.5
Ideology score
0 .25 .5 .75 1 1.25 1.5
T H E C O N S E Q U E N C E S O F PA R T Y R E F O R M
NRSC
0
5
1
2
3
Viability score
4
5
NRSC
0
1
2
3
Viability score
4
5
AQ1
1 1.25
Ideology score
.25 .5 .75
1 1.25
.25 .5 .75
DSCC
0
DSCC
0
Ideology score
Graph 1.1 Republican super PACs and the National Republican Senatorial committee
0
1
2
3
4
5
0
Ideology score
0 .25 .5 .75 1 1.25
1
2
3
4
5
Viability score
Viability score
DSCC
0
1
2
3
4
5
Viability score
Graph 1.2 Democratic super PACs and the Democratic Senatorial committee
compelled candidates to be less party centric in their campaigns as they
appeal to independents and weak identifiers from the opposite party
post-nomination.26
Further, presumptive nominees now choose their running mates and
make these decisions from the party elite. Selecting a running mate is still
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tied to balancing concerns although more focus is placed on balancing
the candidate’s own deficiencies and not the party’s perceived deficiencies
more generally. Of course, these considerations overlap. Concerns about
a candidate often mirror concerns about the nominee’s party.
Convention delegates make three decisions—nominate the presidential and vice-presidential candidates and adopt party platforms. In presenting its identity to the public, platforms outline the party’s political
and policy successes, attack the other party for its failures, and defend its
record. In presenting core party positions, the platform may join together
party candidates. In supporting their platform, candidates demonstrate
that they share party positions.
For many reasons, the platform does not play such roles in the postreform era. Candidates may not follow their party’s platform. Candidates
may state agreement with those planks to which they already agree but do
not change their positions to cohere to the platform. As John Sides argues,
“The nominee is not necessarily constrained by the formal platform. They
can agree with whatever bits and pieces and ignore the rest.”27 Beyond
that, presidential candidates may hold positions that oppose their party’s
platform because platform language may lose votes. For example, in 1996
Bob Dole supported a “tolerance position” on abortion rather than adhere
to the strict anti-abortion plank included in the Republican platform.
Candidates are well aware that their party will not punish or reward them
based on their issue positions; the platform is written by party leaders
before the convention begins and is later adopted by delegates who may
not read it before they vote.28
The consequences of party reform are twofold. The focused attention
making the nominations process more open for candidates through proportional delegate allocation and rules and recruitment changes to insure
nondiscrimination have succeeded. Incentives have been developed to
encourage candidates to remain in the race until the primary/caucus season ends, yet rarely does the nomination contest remain competitive past
mid-March.
At the same time, voting rights protections and increased partisan independence have created new opportunities for women and minorities to
take a more active role in electoral politics while parties, in targeting those
votes, welcome and feature women and minorities among their delegations and convention speakers. Parties demonstrating their inclusiveness
will be more attractive to voters than will parties that do not.
Many objectives of party reform have been institutionalized in party
and electoral politics, and in public policy. Several other reform objectives have been subsumed due to the rise of candidate-centered campaigns
linked, in part, to party reform, and are otherwise tied to the rise of
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television in campaigns, campaign finance reform, and social change that
has welcomed women and minorities into party and electoral politics.
The consequences of party reform in the twenty-first century are
mixed. While reform goals have been realized, the intended outcomes
of those reforms—nominees selected through more deliberative decision making based on more diverse decision-making bodies—have been
replaced with decisions made through a primary-centric system that
chooses presidential nominees before the start of the nominating convention. Presumed nominees select their running mates without formal input
from party leaders or party rank-and-file. Their nominating conventions
have no choice but to accept the presumptive nominee’s choice. Both parties continue refining their rules to better reflect public concerns about the
nominations process and the parties’ own perceptions of what is needed to
succeed in future elections. While reform was needed after 1968, changes
beyond parties and, due in part to the success of the reforms, the consequences of party reform in the twenty-first century suggest that future
rules changes may achieve little impact on nomination outcomes.
Notes
1. This chapter is dedicated to Dr. Howard Reiter (1946–2012), Professor
Emeritus, University of Connecticut.
2. V. O. Key, Jr., Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups, 5th ed. (New York:
Crowell, 1964), pp. 375–394; Paul T. David, Ralph M. Goldman and
Richard C. Bain, The Politics of National Party Conventions (Washington,
D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1960), p. 249.
3. Howard L. Reiter, Selecting the President: The Nominating Process in Transition
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1985), p. 121.
4. See Nelson Polsby, Consequences of Party Reform (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); Howard L. Reiter, Selecting the President: The Nominating
Process in Transition; Gerald Pomper, Passions and Interests: Political Party
Concepts of American Democracy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas,
1992); L. Sandy Maisel, Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process, 3rd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999); Terri Susan
Fine, “Presidential Nominating Conventions in a Democracy,” Perspectives
on Political Science, Winter 2003, Volume 32, Number 1, pp. 32–39.
5. Southeast Asia Resolution, also known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (Public
Law 88–408, August 7, 1964).
6. Joseph B. Treaster, “Fresh Fighting Reported at DMZ: American Combat
Deaths Pass the 30,000 Mark,” New York Times, December 13, 1968.
7. John Mueller, War, Presidents and Public Opinion, 2nd ed. (New York:
University Press of America, 1985), pp. 84–85.
8. Combat Area Casualty File, Center for Electronic Records (Washington,
DC: National Archives, 1993).
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9. Lyndon B. Johnson, Address to the Nation Announcing Steps to Limit the War
in Vietnam and Reporting His Decision Not to Seek Reelection (http://www.
lbjlibrary.org/ March 31, 1968).
10. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act (Public Law 88–352) on July 2, 1964,
and the Voting Rights Act (Public Law 89–110) on August 6, 1965.
Both laws were upheld in early US Supreme Court challenges including
Katzenbach v. McClung (379 U.S. 294), 1964 and Heart of Atlanta Motel
v. U.S. (379 U.S. 241), 1964.
11. Nixon had angrily withdrawn from politics after losing the California governor’s race in 1962. In blaming the media for his loss, he stated, “You won’t
have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press
conference.”
12. L. Sandy Maisel, Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process,
3rd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), p. 267. See also
Kevin J. Coleman, The Presidential Nominating Process and the National
Party Conventions, 2012: Frequently Asked Questions (Washington, D.C.:
Congressional Research Service, May 14, 2012), p. 2.
13. L. Sandy Maisel, Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process, 3rd
ed., p. 268.
14. Kevin J. Coleman, The Presidential Nominating Process and the National Party
Conventions, 2012: Frequently Asked Questions, p. 1.
15. Marjorie Randon Hershey, Party Politics in America, 13th ed. (New York,
NY: Longman, 2008), p. 175.
16. Ibid.
17. Scott Piroth, “Selecting Presidential Nominees: The Evolution of the Current System and Prospects for Reform,” Social Education, September 2000,
Volume 64, Number 5, p. 278.
18. Ryan L. Claassen and Benjamin Highton, “Policy Polarization among
Party Elites and the Significance of Political Awareness in the Mass Public,” Political Research Quarterly, September 2009, Volume 62, Number 3,
pp. 538–551.
19. Of the 11 presidential races since, and including, 1972, the major parties have nominated five former governors nine times. Current and former
US Senators constitute most other presidential nominees.
20. William Crotty, Party Reform (New York, NY: Longman), p. 92.
21. Source: Kevin J. Coleman, The Presidential Nominating Process and the
National Party Conventions, 2012: Frequently Asked Questions, p. 12
22. California’s primary was March 10 in 2000 and March 26 in 1996. See Pritee
K. Thakarsey, “California Wants More Clout: Moving the Presidential Primary to February”, McGeorge Law Review, 2008, Volume 39, pp. 459–468.
23. The American Enterprise Institute did not collect demographic information
among convention delegates at the 2012 national nominating conventions.
These data represent the latest available.
24. Source: Karlyn Bowman and Andrew Rugg, AEI Special Report: Delegates at
National Conventions 1968–2008 (Washington, DC: American Enterprise
Institute Special Report, 2008), p. 1.
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25. Laws regulating campaigns including those protecting voter participation
(Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Public Law 89–110)), Help America Vote Act of
2002 (Public Law 107–252), and regulating campaign finance and the media
(Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (Public Law 92–225)), Bipartisan
Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (107–155) have also fostered many of the
conditions contributing to candidate-centered campaigns.
26. See Brett R. Gordon and Wesley R. Harmann, “Advertising Effects in Presidential Elections,” Marketing Science, January–February 2013, Volume 32,
Number 1, pp. 19–35.
27. Quoted in Suzy Khimm, “Do Party Platforms Really Matter?” Washington
Post, August 23, 2012.
28. Terri Susan Fine, “Political Parties Trumpet Inclusion”, Orlando Sentinel,
September 22, 1996.
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QUERIES TO BE ANSWERED BY AUTHOR (SEE MARGINAL
MARKS)
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please mark your corrections and answer to
these queries directly onto the proof at the relevant place. Do NOT
mark your corrections on this query sheet.
Chapter 1
Query No.
Page No.
AQ1
17
Query
Please provide text citation for Graph 1.1
and 1.2.
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Chapter
2
Closed for Repairs
so It Can Reengage
with the World:
Prospects for
Reforming the
Republican Party
Douglas M. Brattebo
The Republican Party emerged from the 2012 presidential and
congressional elections beleaguered and disoriented. Former Republican
standardbearer Bob Dole said, “I think they ought to put a sign on the
[Republican] National Committee doors that says closed for repairs until
New Year’s Day next year and spend that time going over ideas and
[a] positive agenda.”1 The party was shocked to discover that the country’s values and priorities had diverged sharply from its own. Reeling from
the first waves of a demographic tsunami destined to intensify year upon
year, GOP leaders realized the party would have to become a more tolerant and inclusive organization in order to remain a going concern in
American politics. But the party was uncertain about what this would
require in practical terms. Political strategists of all stripes grasped immediately that an increasingly kaleidoscopic and ideologically progressive
populace posed a mortal threat to the party. The more common tendency within the party, though, was to talk about the need simply to
express Republican doctrines using different language, to find new candidates to deliver the message, or both. The prospect of rebranding the
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DO U G L A S M. BR AT T E B O
party was less daunting than the hard task actually required: designing and
adopting new policies comporting with the needs of a rapidly changing
country.
In the short and intermediate term, the best the GOP could hope
for was a “controlled burn,” taking painful steps that would mitigate the
damage to the party and make possible a genuine turn of its fortunes at
the presidential level a decade or more hence. To stanch its bleeding, the
GOP would have to do two immensely difficult, counter-intuitive things
to remain viable as a political party: (1) enact comprehensive immigration
reform and (2) endorse and pursue full and equal access to voting for all
Americans. The stakes regarding both items could not be higher. Of the
first priority, Republican strategist Frank Luntz has said, “Immigration
reform that brings people out of the shadows is the last best opportunity
for the party to reset its broken relationship with Hispanics.”2 Of the second priority, former secretary of state Colin Powell observed on the day
President Barack Obama took the oath office for a second term, “The
Republican Party ought to be out there not restricting voting by voter
ID, but saying we want everybody to vote.”3 Nothing short of these steps
could arrest the party’s free-fall.
Carrying out either one of these maneuvers would be a tall order for
the Republican Party; doing both would be nothing short of astonishing. Yet, even these significant measures were mere tactics, designed to
help the party tread water—not a true strategy devised to buoy it into the
coming decades. The severity of the GOP’s predicament was such that
a grand and truly strategic project beckoned the boldest of those interested in the resuscitation of the GOP: creating, outside of the formal
party organization, an entity endowed with the intellectual capital necessary to reexamine the philosophy of conservatism, including its recent
offshoot of Reaganism, to translate the core principles into a set of innovative policy prescriptions relevant to the lives of twenty-first-century
Americans.
Such an audacious project had been undertaken by only one American
political party in modern memory. Along the way to losing five out of
six presidential elections from 1968 through 1988, the Democratic Party
benefited mightily from the policy innovations of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). Formed by political strategist Al From, Arkansas
Governor Bill Clinton, and other “New Democrats” in 1985, the DLC
became the intellectual workhouse of Democrats across the country who
were seeking a way for the party to retake the vital center in American
politics.
As difficult as this transformation was for the Democratic Party of
that era, the task presently before the Republican Party is much greater,
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perhaps by an order of magnitude. Like the Democratic Party before it,
the GOP has now lost the popular vote in five of the past six presidential
elections, but neat parallels cease with this fact. The United States during the DLC’s halcyon period was demographically stable, by and large.
Moreover, twenty-first century America, buffeted by the currents of globalization, is changing with brutal rapidity, not just demographically but
also economically, technologically, and socially. The nature and pace of
this transformation has sorted and aligned new party coalitions. The
biggest and most unexpected multiplier of complexity for the GOP, however, is a set of problems that have grown out of a series of calculated
choices the party made over a period of two generations, from the late
1960s to the late 2000s, to enlarge its national appeal in order to win both
the presidency and congressional majorities. Those decisions, all pertaining in one way or another to the American South, have played out in
mercurial ways, saddling the GOP with a vanishing core constituency
(old, white, religious, rural, mostly Southern males) that has unusually
recalcitrant sensibilities on a wide range of matters. The Republican Party
establishment, try as it might to tamp down the loudest members of this
cantankerous base, is finding that it cannot steer the party back from
the ideological fringes—or even prevail upon it to engage in responsible
governance.
Having gerrymandered into existence a nearly impregnable majority
in the House, the GOP now finds itself stuck—most likely until the
next redistricting process takes effect in the 2022 elections—with a dominant caucus of obstreperous ideologues. One faction of the Republican
Party has prevented the country from addressing its most pressing matters. But the epochal pressures building between the first two branches
of the national government, and between citizens’ rising policy demands
and government lethargy, cannot go unrelieved forever. For the third time
in three centuries, American history seems poised to use Dixie as its fulcrum. The Federal Government is no less likely to prevail this time than
in the Civil War or the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Whether and
how nimbly the Republican Party comes to grips with this coming cascade of events will determine whether the party recovers gradually or dies
violently, lashing out as it falls.
Boomerang: The GOP’s Ingenious, Devastating
Southern Strategy
Today’s Republican Party is often called a “Southern” party. The label is
pregnant with meaning, both in terms of how the GOP ended up with
its most fervent constituency in the South and also with respect to how
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the party acquired its modern intellectual doctrines, which tend to resist
governmental power, particularly the federal government’s power. Suffice it to say that the modern Republican Party, in figuring out a way
to resurge in the South after an absence there of nearly a century as an
effective political force, got more than it bargained for. So did the United
States.
Michael Lind has described compellingly how the white Southern historical narrative is starkly at odds with that of the broader American
narrative. Whereas Americans generally have experienced victories—
winning independence from the British, defeating the Confederacy, and
then triumphing over Fascism and Communism, white Southerners recall
military defeat by the Union army, the externally imposed end of slavery,
and forced racial integration a century later. And although much of the
United States became a melting pot across the course of the twentieth century, the South continued with limited exceptions to be a land of English
and Scots-Irish Protestants living in a setting of racial apartheid.4 When
the Republican Party hitched its political fortunes to white Southerners
in the 1950s and particularly in the 1960s to make dramatic inroads
into what had been since the Civil War a decidedly solid Democratic
region, the deal had a twist. Sam Tanenhaus recounts absorbingly how the
GOP effectively bought into the nullification doctrine preached by South
Carolinian politician John C. Calhoun (1782–1850), who had sought to
limit the reach of the federal government and uphold states’ rights.5 This
resistance to authority of all kinds has morphed among members of the
base of the Republican Party into something both comical and horrible,
but a distrust of science and evidence does the GOP no favors among
the broader population. Paul Krugman is correct in stating that “the parties aren’t just divided on values and policy views, they’re divided over
epistemology. One side believes, at least in principle, in letting its policy
views be slapped by facts; the other believes in suppressing the facts if they
contradict fixed beliefs.”6
Republican House members, safe in their demographically and politically artificial districts, need not recognize a wide range of things that the
rest of the country understands, including the significance of national
election outcomes.7 Remarkably, the average percentage of white voters in Republican congressional districts has actually increased from 73
to 75 percent—even as the country has become more racially diverse.8
Charlie Cook is right to ask whether Republicans have “inadvertently
boxed themselves into an alternate universe that bears little resemblance to
the rest of the country.”9 Yet such House members are behaving eminently
rationally, at least in an electoral sense, because their constituents will
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not punish them for what the rest of the country recognizes as absurd
behavior. Pollster Andrew Kohut estimates that staunch conservatives now
make up “45 percent of the Republican base.”10 However, as E. J. Dionne
has pointed out, Republican defiance often has irrational effects, even by
the GOP’s own standards—as when Republican governors refuse to set up
health care exchanges in their states, and the federal government steps in
to do so, as per the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, thus “undermining states’ rights and giving liberals something far closer to the national
system they hoped for.”11
The fact that the Republican Party was too clever by half in drawing
House districts after the 2010 midterm elections explains only a part of
today’s breathtaking polarization in American politics. Other forces have
exacerbated the problem. Nate Silver’s analysis shows that an increasing
percentage of voters in recent elections have stopped splitting their tickets, causing congressional districts to lean more decidedly to one political
party or the other and enabling the same party’s House, Senate, and presidential candidates all to prevail by similar margins.12 Issues of civil rights
and economic inequality are cross-cutting the electorate in ways that reinforce divisions rather than tempering them.13 For instance, as Michael
Gerson has pointed out, “America is moving in the direction of having
one secular party and one religious party, bringing polarization to a new
level of intensity.”14 Accordingly, voters in a particular congressional district are now likely to be liberal or conservative on both social issues and
fiscal issues—and so is their representative. Too, there is an emerging body
of evidence that Americans have begun to sort themselves politically whenever they decide where to live, drawn more to certain areas on the basis
of political leanings than on the availability of economic opportunities.15
Finally, ideological insurgents have captured a number of state party organizations in recent years, making it almost impossible for moderates to
run for office in such states.16
All of this means that divided—and dysfunctional—government has
become reified, with so few House seats likely to be up for grabs that even
a “wave election” favoring the Democratic Party is unlikely to dislodge the
Republican majority prior to the next round of redistricting following the
2020 US Census takes effect in the 2022 midterm elections.17 To merely
recapture a majority in the House, the Democratic Party would have to
exceed the 6.6 percentage point advantage in the popular vote that the
Republicans won in 2010—an unlikely scenario.18 Thomas B. Edsall may
be correct that the Republican House majority ultimately “rests on the
week reed of gerrymandering,”19 but that reed may not snap for nearly a
decade.
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New America: The Nascent Demographic and Policy
Revolution and Its Discontents
The oft-referenced “coalition of the ascendant,” presciently heralded
(if not named) by John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira in their 2002 book, The
Emerging Democratic Majority,20 is now flowering fast. Judis and Teixeira
foretold this new majority political coalition, which they believed would
come into being by the time of the 2008 presidential election due to
America’s rapidly diversifying population. This coalition of “progressive
centrism” would consist of blacks, Latinos, and Asians plus professionals, the highly educated, women, singles and secular people. Importantly,
the co-authors said the building blocks of this coalition would be joined
together not only by common views on public policy initiatives they
favored, but also in reaction against what they perceived to be imprudent
policy overreach by conservatives. Today it is evident that LGBT voters
also have become a reliable component of this coalition.
In a twist few Republicans saw coming, “all of their party’s sources
of strength have turned into weaknesses.”21 Emblematic of this strategic
turn of fortune was the fact that blacks in 2012 voted at a higher rate than
other minority groups, and also a higher rate than whites, for the first
time in history.22 Nonwhites, and more than a few whites, are reacting
against the loud, dominant voice of the Republican base and its members’
penchant for grinding the wheels of government to a halt. Republican
pollster Steve Lombardo has captured the heart of the issue in noting
that the GOP’s identity crisis is “not that the party doesn’t know who
it is—it’s that part of the party knows exactly who they are, and they
don’t want to move from a very rigid and defined identity.”23 Edsall’s
conclusion is that, “In effect, for many cultural and social conservatives,
being a Republican is not just an allegiance to one of two major political
parties but a deeply held belief system, an ideology with a strong religious
core.”24
The rub for Republicans is that Latinos decisively favor a significant
role for government. The rising cohort of second generation Latinos
is even more politically liberal and bonded with the Democratic Party
than their parents.25 On the question of government’s size and scope,
and on social issues including abortion, LGBT issues, and reproductive choice, Latinos overall are decidedly more liberal than the median
voter and are likely to be for the foreseeable future.26 David Plouffe,
Obama’s senior advisor, trumpets the fact that Latinos have consistently
been the group most supportive of Obamacare, and Republicans’ biggest
problem with Latinos thus “isn’t immigration. It’s their economic policies and health care.”27 The policy issues that Obama highlighted in his
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Second Inaugural address, a speech much-criticized by Republicans as
being unapologetically liberal, are in fact now mainstream positions that
work to the Democratic Party’s advantage.28
This left-of-center policy stance of the decisive majority of Latinos
means that immigration reform is no silver bullet for the Republican Party
even if, as some studies indicate, third generation Latinos are a tad less
enamored than their parents and grandparents of a large and active government.29 Obama, so far stymied by Congress in his efforts to address
immigration, has sought to push ahead on the issue through executive
action. Most significantly, in June 2012 the president issued a policy directive to stop the deportation of people who were brought to the country
as children and have gone on to abide by the law in all other respects; he
also kicked off 2013 by easing visa requirements for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants.30 Tending to this new cornerstone
of the Democratic coalition is understandably a top priority of the party,
as the following bit of context demonstrates: Democratic presidential
nominee Michael Dukakis won 39 percent of the white vote in 1988
but lost the Electoral College 426–111; Obama won 39 percent of the
white vote in 2012, and was handily reelected, carrying the Electoral College 332–206.31 And although some Republicans tout Cuban-American
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as a possible savior for the party on the
presidential level, the fact is that Latino Republican candidates tend to
perform less well among Hispanic voters in senatorial and gubernatorial
races than do white Democratic candidates.32
The United States is on its way to becoming a minority-majority country by 2043, when whites, now 63 percent of the population, fall below
50 percent.33 Along the way, Hispanics will increase from 17 percent to
26 percent of the population.34 If Republicans are worried about their
prospects in the 2016 presidential race, they should be petrified about
2020 and beyond. Whites constituted 87 percent of Americans who voted
in 1972 but had fallen to 72 percent in 2012, a downward trend certain
to continue for decades to come.35 Pew Research Center data indicates
that Latinos cast 10 percent of the ballots in the 2012 presidential election.36 Even assuming that their rate of voting does not increase, they are
sure to cast at least 15 percent of ballots by 202037 and 20 percent after
2030.38 And this trajectory assumes that Hispanics, termed an “electoral
sleeping giant” by one political analyst due to their low voting rates, will
not follow the historical pattern of African-Americans and come to vote at
much higher rates.39 Immigration reform containing a path to citizenship
would make it possible for 5.4 million adult legal permanent residents and
7.1 million adult illegal immigrants to pursue citizenship—a group half
the size of the pool of Latinos currently eligible to vote.40 Even allowing
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for the fact that not all of these immigrants would opt to become citizens,
the prospect of a steady inflow of left-leaning registered voters is unlikely
to help the GOP in the short term, even if projecting a more open and
tolerant image is essential to help the party compete for Latinos and other
minority voters in the longer run.
Having lost the civil rights struggle of the 1960s and now contemplating what it perceives to be the white man’s last stand, the Southern core
of the Republican Party is using every tool at its disposal to marginalize nonwhite, predominantly Democratic voters. The GOP’s attempts
to hold onto the levers of political power have included a brazen proposal to change the way crucial states award their electoral votes to a
by-district method, which would have the effect of giving most electoral
votes in those states to the Republican presidential candidate, even if he
or she lost the state-wide popular vote decisively.41 Similarly, the Republican Party in several states sought to deter Democratic voters in 2012
by imposing stiffer registration requirements, reducing the availability of
early voting, and neglecting to administer polling places effectively. Blacks
and Hispanics waited an average of 20.2 minutes to vote, compared to
12.7 minutes for whites; 18 percent of Democrats waited at least 30
minutes to vote, compared to 11 percent of independents and 9 percent
of Republicans.42 One study concluded that 200,000 voters in Florida
“gave up in frustration,” and left their polling places, which cost President Obama a net of 15,000 voters in a state that he carried by about
74,000 votes.43
In late June 2013, in the case Shelby County vs. Holder, the US Supreme
Court declared invalid the existing congressional findings relating to
Section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which had required nine states
and various other localities and counties around the country to obtain
the pre-approval of the US Justice Department when seeking to adjust
their voting procedures.44 (Due to ideological stalemate and dysfunction,
there is no prospect that Congress will produce new findings to reactivate
Section 4 anytime soon.) Within 24 hours, five southern states (Alabama,
Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia) moved ahead with new
laws on voter identification; Florida soon resumed a systematic removal
of some Hispanic names from its voting rolls; and North Carolina moved
forward on enacting the most restrictive voting legislation in the country, with its effects sure to fall disproportionately on minority voters. All
of this occurred despite the findings of the Brennan Center for Justice at
New York University School of Law that voter fraud in the United States
is almost as rare as death by lightning strikes.45
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Homecoming: First Principles, Republican
Reformation, and the Role for a Republican
Leadership Conference (RLC)
In mid-March 2013, the Republican National Committee (RNC)
released its “Growth and Opportunity Project,” a post-election analysis of the strategic dilemma confronting the party. The report candidly
conceded, “Focus groups describe our party as ‘narrow minded,’ ‘out
of touch,’ and ‘stuffy old men.’ The perception that we’re the party of
the rich continues to grow.”46 Yet the report was less notable for its
very limited recommendations on policy matters than for what David
Weigel has characterized as its unmistakable attempt to recalibrate intraparty rules and procedures to render “the national party, and its nominee,
less vulnerable to eruptions from the base.”47 Among the steps advocated
by the five-member panel were cutting the number of debates among
presidential candidates, selecting the moderators of the debates more
carefully, replacing party nominating caucuses and conventions with primaries, and holding a series of regional multi-state primaries after the
early nominating contests of the traditional states. Conservative activists
and prospective 2016 presidential candidates including Rick Santorum
and Rand Paul reacted harshly to a plan designed to marginalize them
and their ideas.48
Fascinatingly, the “Growth and Opportunity Project” went to pains
to specify the one policy priority on which the party would be least
willing to budge: “We need to remain America’s conservative alternative
to big-government, redistribution-to-extremes liberalism, while building a route into our party that a non-traditional Republican will want
to travel.”49 As evident from the earlier analysis of the rising demographic coalition’s component groups, this illogical statement embodies
the crux of the GOP’s strategic quandary. Greg Sargent is absolutely correct in stating, “The very ‘non-traditional Republican’ constituencies the
report itself identifies as the ones the party needs to improve its standing among—Latinos, young voters, etc.—don’t believe the Democratic
approach constitutes ‘redistribution-to-extremes liberalism’ . . . these constituencies agree with the Democratic Party.”50 The New York Times
editorial board also excoriated the report for showing:
no recognition that the Republican goals of shrinking government and
lowering taxes for the rich—which have turned particularly malicious during the Tea Party era—have proven brutally unpopular at a time when the
recession left more people in need of government assistance than ever. The
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party’s job, it says, ‘is to champion private growth so people will not turn to
government in the first place,’ but the party has never been able to demonstrate how its trickle-down agenda of cutting budgets and taxes, embodied
in the new Paul Ryan House budget, would do that.51
Despite the cautions contained in the 2012 postmortems of the RNC,
the base of the party has showed more enthusiasm for rigidifying ideologically rather than budging. As Karl Rove and his new Conservative
Victory Project have rolled out plans to assist moderate candidates in
primary races for the Senate, Tea Party and other conservative activists
at the state and local levels have fought back ferociously.52 The Rove
effort may be a move in the right direction, but one dare not overlook
Nate Silver’s caution that such establishment efforts have the potential
to inadvertently raise the profile and fundraising capabilities of insurgent
ideologues, thereby backfiring on the party.53 Expressing opposition to
same-sex marriage was almost a requirement for admission to speak at
the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). So, perhaps
more than anything, was a stated refusal to change course. As Rubio told
CPAC: “We don’t need a new idea; the idea is called America, and it still
works.”54
The intellectual transformation of the GOP will only begin when
Republicans, taking heed of the country’s rapidly falling budget deficits,
“declare a victory for fiscal conservatism and move on to the battle to have
their priorities reflected in the budget.”55 To become again a party that
participates in governing the country, it will require a new policy agenda
devised within an adequately equipped entity like the DLC in the 1980s
or today’s Centre for Social Justice, the ideas shop of Britain’s Conservative
Party, “which in the past year has produced policy documents on fighting
modern slavery, addressing child poverty, breaking the cycle of domestic
abuse and strengthening marriage.”56 William Galston of the Brookings
Institution, who was instrumental in retooling the Democratic Party in
the 1980s, states that a political party is only renewed “when three ideas
come together—new ideas, a new organizational base and an attractive
new standard-bearer who understands the ideas and this new orientation
in his bones. It’s not something you learn in a briefing book.”57 The DLC
road tested its policy ideas by running candidates in Democratic primaries
for the House, Senate—and ultimately, the presidency.58
Conclusion
The party of Abraham Lincoln—he who saved the Union, vanquished
the national scourge of slavery, and imposed an income tax to fund
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the whole undertaking59 —has transmogrified into something dreadful
to behold. Having made a series of calculated bargains with social conservatives designed to burnish its brand and deliver electoral success in
the short run, the GOP now finds itself “stuck between the rock of a
dying brand and the hard place of a band of fanatics.”60 Former New
Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Fergus Cullen has conceded that
party leaders “looked the other way too often” and “smiled, winked and
nodded too often when they should have been calling ‘crazy, crazy.’ ”61
The significance of this turn of events is not lost upon those who know
the Republican Party best, from the inside.
The fallout could not be more poignant to anyone than it is to Bob
Dole. Dole, approaching 90 years of age, sat in the Senate chamber in
December 2012 as Republican Senators voted down an international
treaty, already ratified by 129 countries, designed to protect the rights of
the disabled. Some of the GOP Senators voted no despite having previously assured Dole, a key figure behind the enactment of the 1990
Americans with Disabilities Act, that they would support it. Yet they
walked past him—a World War II veteran, now wheelchair-bound, who
had given his whole life to serving his country—and sought to justify
their betrayal by referencing conspiracy theorists convinced that making American law a global standard would somehow enable the United
Nations to take control of home-schooled children in the United States.62
Months later, Dole said he had concluded that there would be no home
today in the Republican Party for him, or Richard Nixon, or Ronald
Reagan.63 He also said of his own generation of congressional leaders,
“I mean, we weren’t perfect by a long shot, but at least we got our work
done.”64
United in its opposition to government spending, the GOP undercuts
its own national ambitions by hewing fast to the austerity budget plan
of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan and ginning up endless showdowns in Congress over the budget. If the Republican Party is to broaden
its political support, particularly among nonwhite voters, it must “move
away from budget policies seeking to starve the government.”65 Admittedly, there is the inescapable risk that by enacting immigration reform
and/or adjusting its fiscal and economic policy positions to increase its
vote share among nonwhites, the GOP might alienate some white voters.66 But, as Larry Sabato has observed, “The hardest thing for a party
to do is to make painful choices that require a break-up with the old
coalition in order to create a new more competitive coalition.”67 At some
point, perhaps soon, there may be no getting around the need to cut loose
hardcore social and Tea Party conservatives from the Republican Party.68
But Thomas B. Edsall thinks the vast majority of these ideologues may
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opt to stay put in the Republican Party, and tolerate its process of moderating, rather than leave it.69 Either way, it is hard to quibble with Thomas
L. Friedman’s conclusion that the GOP “can’t win with a base that is at
war with math, physics, human biology, economics and common-sense
gun laws all at the same time.”70
Any outcome in the midterm elections that Republicans could plausibly consider a success would be manifestly adverse to the objective
long-term interests of the GOP in pursuing substantive reform right
away.71 It also would be a tragedy for the country, which only realizes
its full promise when it has two functioning political parties, one in loyal
opposition to the other. It is theoretically possible that the GOP could
somehow bounce back to win the presidency in 2016 without reforming substantively, but it would take an improbable confluence of factors
for this to happen—much like it took “Watergate, an oil embargo and
a presidential pardon of Nixon for Jimmy Carter to secure a thin victory in 1976.”72 Any observer would be hard-pressed to dispute Edsall’s
conclusion that “The Republican Party will likely replicate the experience
of the Democratic Party in the 1970s and 1980s, changing only after
repeated rejection of the party’s presidential nominees . . . The question is,
how long will it have to suffer the defeat before it begins the process in
earnest?”73
Notes
1. Chris Cillizza, “Bob Dole Is Right, but Republicans Can’t Follow His
Advice,” Washington Post, May 28, 2013.
2. Frank Luntz, “Why Republicans Should Watch Their Language,”
Washington Post, January 11, 2013.
3. Falcone Michael, “Colin Powell Slams ‘Idiot Presentations’ by Some Republicans, Urges GOP Leaders to ‘Speak Out.’ ” ABC News Special Inauguration
Day Coverage, January 21, 2013. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/
2013/01/colin-powell-slams-idiot-presentations-by-some-republicans-urgesgop-leaders-to-speak-out-2/.
4. Michael Lind, “The White South’s Last Defeat: Hysteria, Aggression and
Gerrymandering Are a Fading Demographic’s Last Hope to Maintain
Political Control,” Salon, February 5, 2013.
5. Sam Tanenhaus, “Original Sin: Why the GOP Is and Will Continue to
Be the Party of White People,” The New Republic, February 10, 2013.
6. Paul Krugman, “The Ignorance Caucus,” New York Times, February 10,
2013.
7. Greg Sargent, “Destructive Anti-Tax Fanaticism,” Washington Post,
December 14, 2012.
8. Alex Isenstadt, “GOP Could Pay Price for Gerrymandering,” Politico, July 1,
2013.
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9. Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro and Brooke Brower,
“First Thoughts: A Consequential Anniversary,” First Read from NBC News,
March 18, 2013.
10. Andrew Kohut, “The Numbers Prove It: The GOP Is Estranged from
America,” Washington Post, March 22, 2013.
11. E. J. Dionne Jr., “Republicans Rejecting Their Own Ideas,” Washington Post,
December 26, 2012.
12. Nate Silver, “As Swing Districts Dwindle, Can a House Stand?” New York
Times, December 27, 2012.
13. Ezra Klein, “Gerrymandering Is Not What’s Wrong with American Politics,”
Washington Post, February 3, 2013.
14. Michael Gerson, “A Country Polarized by Religion,” Washington Post, March
29, 2013.
15. Nate Silver, “As Swing Districts Dwindle, Can a House Stand?”
16. Ezra Klein, “Gerrymandering Is Not What’s Wrong with American Politics.”
17. Nate Silver, “As Swing Districts Dwindle, Can a House Stand?”
18. Dana Milbank, “In the House, a Deck Stacked for Republicans,” Washington
Post, January 4, 2013.
19. Thomas B. Edsall, “Can Republicans Change Their Spots?” New York Times,
January 23, 2013.
20. John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, The Emerging Democratic Majority
(New York: Scribner, 2002).
21. Paul Krugman, “The G.O.P.’s Existential Crisis,” New York Times, December
13, 2012.
22. Charles M. Blow, “Holiday Doldrums,” New York Times, December 26,
2012.
23. Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman, “CPAC Muddle Mirrors GOP
Mess,” Politico, March 13, 2013.
24. Thomas B. Edsall, “Can Republicans Change Their Spots?”
25. Hope Yen, “Children of Immigrants Lean Even More Democratic Than
Elders,” Associated Press, February 7, 2013.
26. Jamelle Bouie, “Immigration Reform: Great for the Country, Not for the
GOP,” Washington Post, January 28, 2013.
27. Robert Draper, “Can the Republicans Be Saved from Obsolescence?”
New York Times Magazine, February 14, 2013.
28. Kenneth S. Baer, “Obama’s Mainstream Pitch,” Washington Post, January 23,
2013.
29. Jamelle Bouie, “Immigration Reform: Great for the Country, Not for the
GOP.”
30. David Nakamura and Tara Bahrampour, “White House Pushes Forward on
Immigration Ahead of Bigger Reform Fight,” Washington Post, January 3,
2013.
31. Linton Weeks, “Forget 2016: The Pivotal Year in Politics May Be 2020,”
National Public Radio, January 25, 2013.
32. Jonathan Capehart, “Intriguing Dilemma for ‘The Party of White People,’ ”
Washington Post, February 11, 2013.
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33. Hope Yen, “The Tipping Point: White Minority—Rise of Latino Population
Blurs US Racial Lines,” Associated Press, March 18, 2013.
34. Ibid.
35. Thomas B. Edsall, “Should Republicans Just Focus on White Voters?”
New York Times, July 3, 2013.
36. Alan Greenblatt, “Immigration Opponents Remain Adamant, Despite Political Risks,” National Public Radio, January 29, 2013.
37. Linton Weeks, “Forget 2016.”
38. Alan Greenblatt, “Immigration Opponents Remain Adamant, Despite Political Risks.”
39. Chis Cillizza, “The Disappearing White Vote (and 3 Other Observations
from the 2012 Census Report),” Washington Post, May 10, 2013.
40. Chris Cillizza, “How Immigration Reform Could Hurt Republicans,”
Washington Post, February 5, 2013.
41. Aaron Blake, “The GOP’s Big Electoral Vote Gambit, Explained,”
Washington Post, January 15, 2013.
42. Jeremy W. Peters, “Waiting Times at Ballot Boxes Draw Scrutiny,” New York
Times, February 4, 2013.
43. Ibid.
44. David A. Love, “The US Civil War Is Playing Out Again—This Time Over
Voter Rights,” The Guardian, August 2, 2013.
45. Ibid.
46. Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro and Brooke Brower,
“First Thoughts: A Consequential Anniversary.”
47. David Weigel, “The GOP, Now with Less Crazy,” Slate, March 18, 2013.
48. Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman, “Right Blasts RNC ‘Autopsy’ as
Power Grab,” Politico, March 19, 2013.
49. Greg Sargent, “Until Republicans Ditch the Paul Ryan Vision, Nothing Will
Change,” Washington Post, March 19, 2013.
50. Ibid.
51. New York Times Editorial Board, “For the G.O.P., It’s Not Just the Message,”
New York Times, March 19, 2013.
52. Jeff Zeleny, “Top G.O.P. Donors Seek Greater Say in Senate Races,”
New York Times, February 2, 2013.
53. Nate Silver, “New Rove Group Could Backfire on G.O.P.,” New York Times,
February 11, 2013.
54. Chris Cillizza, “What the GOP’s Old Bulls Versus Young Bucks Skirmish
Says about the Party,” Washington Post, March 15, 2013.
55. Eugene Robinson, “The GOP Is Too Juvenile,” Washington Post, May 30,
2013.
56. Michael Gerson, “The Republican Party’s Shortcomings,” Washington Post,
March 21, 2013.
57. Dan Balz, “Republicans Today Can Learn from the Democrats’ Past—But
Will They?” Washington Post, March 22, 2013.
58. Ibid.
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37
59. Karen Tumulty, “Tax Fight Sends GOP into Chaos,” Washington Post,
December 21, 2012.
60. Carter Eskew, “The Republicans Are in a Bad Place,” Washington Post,
December 13, 2012.
61. Trip Gabriel, “Tea Party, Its Clout Diminished, Turns to Fringe Issues,”
New York Times, December 25, 2012.
62. Michael Kranish, “The Story of Washington Gridlock Seen Through the
Eyes of Bob Dole,” Boston Globe, March 23, 2013.
63. Lyndsey Layton, “Bob Dole: GOP Should Be ‘Closed for Repairs,’ ”
Washington Post, May 26, 2013.
64. New York Times Editorial Board, “The Wisdom of Bob Dole,” New York
Times, May 28, 2013.
65. Neera Tanden, Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin, “On Government Spending,
GOP Faces a Reckoning,” Washington Post, March 20, 2013.
66. Nate Silver, “How Immigration Reform and Demographics Could Change
Presidential Math,” New York Times, April 30, 2013.
67. Thomas B. Edsall, “Can Republicans Change Their Spots?”
68. Ibid.
69. Thomas B. Edsall, “A Republican Left Turn?” New York Times, March 27,
2013.
70. Thomas L. Friedman, “Send in the Clowns,” New York Times, December 22,
2012.
71. Jamelle Bouie, “The GOP’s Ongoing Lack of Interest in Reform,”
Washington Post, June 28, 2013.
72. Andrew Kohut, “The Numbers Prove It.”
73. Thomas B. Edsall, “Should Republicans Just Focus on White Voters?”
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Chapter
3
The 2012 Elections
and the Southern
Roots of Polarized
Politics: The
Continuing Power
of Southern
Conservatives after
Obama’s Reelection
Neal Allen
In 2012, for the second time Barack Obama won the nation but lost
the South. The election of a president with a minority of Southern votes
and little connection to the region is unique in modern American history.
Since the 1920s America has elected presidents who either were from
the South—Eisenhower (Texan by birth), Johnson, Carter, both Bushs,
Clinton—or won large majorities of Southern popular and electoral
votes—Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan. After two victories with a minority of support in the South and a life spent in Hawaii,
California, New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois, Barack Obama can be
understood as the “least Southern” president since the 1920s. His narrow wins in Virginia and Florida mask his larger weakness in the South.
He won fewer Southern electoral votes than any candidate elected President since Calvin Coolidge in 1924. He could have won a clear Electoral
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College majority in both elections with no Southern states, and Florida
and Virginia were his first and third narrowest victories in 2012.
This chapter analyzes 2012 Southern1 election returns in national and
historical context. I first review President Obama’s vote in the region, and
how it compares with his vote in the non-South and other post-majorparty candidates. I then turn to the continuing and growing weakness of
Democrats in down-ballot Southern elections, as Republicans increased
their share of US House seats, governorships, and control of state legislatures in 2012. I conclude by assessing the place of the South in national
political institutions, with Southerners in Congress forming the core of
a strong minority opposed to the growth and maintenance of federal
government power.
The South in 2012: Continued Democratic
Presidential and Congressional Decline
The 2012 presidential election in the South was a continuation of the
long-term shift away from the Democratic Party in the region. Southern white voters, who make up the majority of the region’s electorate,
have moved in the last few decades from heavily Democratic to heavily
Republican. Barack Obama, who had succeeded in 2008 winning three
Southern states where Al Gore and John Kerry had won none, faced a
daunting challenge in the Republican Party’s best region. None of his
three state-wide victories in 2008 were by large margins, and his party has
suffered massive losses in the 2010 midterm election in the South.
Mitt Romney also had no personal connection to the South, and his
Mormon faith is seen negatively by many of the Protestant evangelicals
that predominate in the region. But as a Republican, he benefited from
the culmination of a shift lasting more than four decades, which is most
clearly found not merely in the long-term drop of Democratic support in
the South from Truman’s 63.8 percent in 1948 to Obama’s 44.9 percent
in 2012, but in the growing gap between how Democratic candidates
for president perform in the South relative to the rest of the country.
Table 3.1 shows the Democratic candidate’s percentage in the South, the
Non-South, and the difference between them since the election of Harry
Truman in 1948.
Obama’s 44.9 percent, down from 46.2 percent in 2008, is in the lower
range for the period. No Democratic presidential candidate has won a
majority of the two-party vote in the South since Jimmy Carter in 1976,
which was itself a temporary recovery for his party amidst its long-term
slide. Table 3.2 shows the trend in Democratic percentage by region, and
Table 3.3 presents the same data as the relative Southern advantage or
disadvantage for the Democratic presidential candidate.
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Table 3.1 Democratic presidential vote 1948–20122
Year
South%
Non-South%
1948
1952
1956
1960
1964
1968
1972
1976
1980
1984
1988
1992
1996
2000
2004
2008
2012
63.8
51.9
48.6
50.9
51.8
46.7
29.5
54.4
46.1
37.2
41.4
49.1
49.9
44.2
42.3
46.2
44.9
50.8
43.3
41.0
49.9
63.7
50.2
40.8
49.9
44.2
42.3
47.9
55.3
56.9
53.0
51.7
57.3
54.8
% Difference
13.0
8.6
7.7
1.0
−11.9
−3.6
−11.3
4.5
1.9
−5.1
−6.6
−6.3
−7.0
−8.8
−9.4
−11.1
−9.8
Table 3.2 Democratic presidential vote in
Southern States
State
2012 %
Shift 08–12
VA
FL
NC
GA
SC
MS
TX
LA
TN
AL
KY
AR
OK
51.6
50.4
48.9
46.0
44.6
44.0
42.0
41.2
39.6
38.8
38.5
37.8
33.2
−1.22
−.98%
−1.2%
−1.33%
−.76%
−.84%
−2.07%
+.71%
−2.72%
−.33%
−3.31%
−.98%
−1.13%
The Democratic success in presidential elections since 1992, with the
party winning the popular vote in four of five elections, is best understood
as a non-Southern phenomenon.
This regional bifurcation in elections extends to Congress. Democrats
have now held a majority of Non-Southern House seats since the 1996
elections, and a majority of non-Southern Senate seats since 1992. In races
for Congress in the South the shallowness of the Obama victory is evident.
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Table 3.3 House seats by region and party
2008–12
Year
South
Non-South
2008
2010
2012
83R, 61D
102R, 37D
109R, 36D
196D, 112R
153D, 140R
163D, 125R
He not only failed to provide coattails to gain back what the party had
lost in 2010, but was unable to prevent further losses. The Republican
Party’s disappointing showing in 2012 nationally was partly mitigated
by a strong showing in Southern elections to the House and Senate.
The party gained House seats, held steady in Senate seats, and continued its momentum in statehouse races from 2010. Republicans have
majorities in every Southern state legislative chamber except the Kentucky
House, and hold all Governorships in the region except in Kentucky and
Arkansas.
In 2012 the Republicans, though their majority in the House slipped
by 8 seats to 234 nationwide, actually gained seats in the South. Table 3.4
shows the regional distribution of House seats after the last three elections.
The Republican caucus in the House is now 47 percent Southern, a
percentage unmatched by either party since the Democrats of the 1950s.
Just as in the House, the gains of Democrats in non-Southern Senate races have produced an increasingly Southern Republican caucus
(Table 3.5).
Table 3.4 Presidential electoral vote by region
Obama
Romney
South
Non-South
42
290
120
86
Total
332
206
Table 3.5 Senate seats by region 2012
South
Non-South
Total
Note:
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∗ Includes
Obama
Romney
6
49∗
20
25
55
45
Independents Sanders and King.
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Table 3.5 shows the partisan and regional breakdown of the Senate
after the 2012 elections. The Republican caucus is now 44 percent
Southern, down from an all-time high of 48 percent in 2009–10.
The South and Minority Blockage of Majority
Will in American Political History
The divergence between the South and the rest of the country in terms
of partisanship has significant consequences for contemporary American
voting patterns, and thus the working of American democratic government. The Republican Party, increasingly dependent on white Southern
votes, was unable to take advantage of a weakened president and the large
numbers of Democratic senators up for re-election in 2012. In some
political systems, a party that won only 45/100 Senate seats and a
minority of votes for president and House would be relegated to criticizing the party in government and waiting for the next election. But
the American federal system gives Republicans two significant points
of influence with the Senate filibuster and the majority of House seats.
The complex institutional interaction of a national non-Southern majority and a Southern-dominated minority is clear in the rapid shifts in
Washington during President Obama’s first four and a half years in office.
Obama’s election in 2008, combined with the gains in Congress in
both 2006 and 2008, brought about a clear, but precarious, liberal governing majority in Washington. The 59-member Democratic Senate caucus,
augmented to 60 with the addition of party-switcher Arlen Specter of
Pennsylvania in April 2009, was the largest elected by either party since
1976. If old-line Southern conservatives like James Eastland and John
Stennis of Mississippi and Harry Byrd, Jr., of Virginia are subtracted
from the reliable Democratic count, then the 2009 Democratic majority was the largest in the Senate since the mid-1960s. This strength was
barely sufficient to produce economic stimulus and health care reform
legislation, and also the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation.
The elections of 2006 and 2008 lend support to Thomas Schaller’s
argument, expressed in Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win
Without the South, that divergence between Southern whites and the rest
of the country enables Democrats to win majorities for President and
Congress without the South. But the use of the filibuster by a Republican Senate minority with Southerners at its core shows that only the
rare Democratic supermajority can overcome Southern obstruction. Senate Democrats had to use the budget reconciliation process in the Senate
to enable a 56-vote majority in 2010 to preserve the 60–39 vote for the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2009.3 Their 41 votes
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were unable to stop the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer
Protection Act in 2010, as Olympia Snowe of Maine abstained and Scott
Brown of Massachusetts voted with all Democrats to end debate and
move to what became a 60–39 vote in favor. But since the new Financial
Products Safety Commission requires a director for significant regulatory powers to take effect, and that appointment did not occur until
after the 2010 elections, Republicans were able to force Obama into a
constitutionally-questionable recess appointment.
Southern leaders have demonstrated a tendency throughout American
history to limit the scope of national government power4 when opportunities arose. The pressing need for a new constitution enabled slave-state
delegates to the 1787 Philadelphia convention to extract protection for
the slave trade, a fugitive slave clause, and most important a representation advantage with the three-fifths clause. The clause inflated the slave
states’ share of House seats, and thus of Electoral College votes.
The direct victims of this rule were white politicians in the North,
the only potential allies with political power available to Southern blacks.
The consequential and relatively close presidential election of 1800, with
Jefferson winning the electoral vote 73–65, would likely have resulted
in an Adams victory if Southern states had not had the bonus electoral
votes granted by the three-fifths clause.5 The need to settle the 1876
presidential election without prompting a new civil war necessitated ending military Reconstruction and allowing the disenfranchisement of black
voters and imposition of a caste system. That disenfranchisement enabled
the Democratic Party, as the party of the white South, to enjoy a built-in
advantage in congressional and presidential elections.
Other institutional arrangements created between the ratification of
the Constitution and Civil War also were constructed to block the power
of a majority hostile to Southern interests. Both the Democratic and
Whig parties were intentionally designed to avoid a shift in national slavery policy by including elite and mass support from both South and
non-South.6 But even with the 1850s breakdown of the cross-sectional
party system and the loss of the “balance” of Senate seats between slave
and non-slave states, in the Supreme Court the South retained a block
to an antislavery majority. Dred Scott came before a Supreme Court with
five of nine Justices from slave states, and two of the Northern Justices
appointed by the pro-slavery Democratic President James K. Polk. This
pro-slave state bias was built into the system of Justice selection, as one
Justice was customarily drawn from each Federal Judicial Circuit, and a
majority of circuits were located in slave states.7
As soon as former confederate states were allowed to participate in presidential elections after the Civil War, Southern leaders used their available
political resources to ensure the blockage of federal power to enforce the
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TH E 2012 EL E C T I O N S
protections of black rights contained in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and
Fifteenth Amendments. When the 1876 presidential election was disputed due to allegations of voting irregularities including intimidation of
potential black Southern voters, and the Democratic House and Republican Senate could not agree on certifying a winner, Southerners extracted a
pledge to end military Reconstruction in exchange for supporting Republican Rutherford B. Hayes for president. Thus Southern states were free to
disenfranchise black voters, making the narrow Democratic presidential
victories in 1884, 1892 and 1916 of questionable majoritarian status.
From the introduction of the cloture rule in the 1917 Senate until
the weak and ineffectual 1957 Civil Rights Act,8 no civil rights measure could survive a filibuster led by Southern Senators. Even the mass
movement of black voters into the electorate of the large industrial states
that determined presidential elections in the 1940s and 1950s could not
break the Senate filibuster of meaningful civil rights legislation. It took
the combination of the Birmingham demonstrations of 1963 and the herculean effort of President Johnson and his congressional allies to produce
the cross party non-Southern supermajority (93 percent of non-Southern
Democrats and 84 percent of non-Southern Republicans) needed to pass
the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The growing Southern control of the Republican Party, which takes
on particular significance in periods of Democratic electoral success like
2006–08, differs from the episodes discussed previously in that it is not
explicitly directed at preserving the subjugation of black Southerners.9
What the filibusters of health care reform and appointments to the Consumer Products Safety Commission and National Labor Relations Board
share with previous race-specific uses of countermajoritarian institutional
resources is a hostility to federal government intervention in the economy
and society. This position is not uniquely Southern, but has become the
dominant position of the Southern white majority.
The most analogous use of Southern institutional power to affect
national policy to the contemporary congressional Republican attempt to
block the 2009–10 Democratic agenda is the successful drive by Southern Democrats in the late 1930s and 1940s to weaken labor protection
and labor union power in federal policy. Farhang and Katznelson show
how Southern congressional Democrats, after acquiescing in the protections for strikes and collective bargaining in the Wagner Act of 1935,
worked to limit the reach of labor legislation. In particular Southerners
joined with farm-state Republicans to carve out an exemption from labor
standards for agricultural employers. This exemption appealed both to
the free-market values of Southerners, as well as their desire to continue
the low compensation and poor working conditions of black agricultural
workers.10 When the national majority shifted in favor of anti-union
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Republicans in the 1946 election, Southern Democrats provided crucial
support to pass the pro-employer Taft-Hartley Act, and override President Truman’s veto. The South was able to limit the policy effect of a
pro-federal power majority, and then join a majority to roll back federal
power when non-Southern voter preferences shifted their direction.
While the recent filibusters of health care reform and the implementation of financial services reform did not succeed in blocking legislation,
they raised the threshold that pro-federal power majorities must clear to
a level only rarely reached by modern American political parties. If the
South, as the most distinctive American region, can organize itself in
Congress in alliance with small-state Senators from other regions, the
political system in effect will work in two different ways depending on
whether the national majority includes white Southerners.
If Senators from a different region, or group of regions, could unify to
use the filibuster to block Republican legislation and appointments, then
the playing field would be even in its requirement of regional supermajorities to change national policy. If, for example, Republicans in 2012
maintain their control of the House and capture the Presidency and Senate (with less than 60 votes), then Democrats from the Northeast and
Pacific Coast could conceivably filibuster a repeal of the Affordable Care
Act or Dodd-Frank. But if such a Democratic filibuster included Senators
from California, New York, and Pennsylvania, it would likely be more
accurately understood as a majoritarian action.
The current Southern advantage in the Senate, and thus the national
government, may be overcome as previous regional institutional advantages have fallen before extraordinary supermajorities. The three-fifths
clause was eliminated by the Civil War, black disenfranchisement was
reversed by the Civil Rights Act, and the current Senate cloture requirement stands at 60 votes because of a drop from the two-thirds requirement
of mid-century. The American political system does not permanently
restrain majorities from acting against a given region’s desires, as Calhoun’s
concurrent majority intended. The South, however, has continually
reasserted itself in institutional power positions that restrict the growth
of the federal government.
Conclusion: The South and the Quest for
a Governing Majority
Barack Obama begins his second term at the head of a Democratic Party
that has lost the Southern popular and electoral vote in nine consecutive
elections. Their share of Southern House Seats is the lowest held by
either party since the Republicans in 1968. The Democrats are now in
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a position similar to that of the Republicans between Reconstruction and
the New Deal, dependent on large majorities outside of the South to
build a national governing majority. Such a result is possible, as shown
by the results of 2006 and 2008. But Republicans, whether in a period of
national strength or national weakness, are now the clear majority party
in the South.
This concentration of Republican support in the most distinctive
American region has significant consequences for how majorities are
constructed in national governing institutions. Separation of powers,
single-member district candidate-centered elections, bicameralism and
the Electoral College channel the will of the majority to differing results.
Republican domination of the South is a major contributor to the
contemporary politics of divided government and constrained majorities.
Democrats won a majority of the total vote for the House of Representatives, but face a 34-vote deficit. If they could manage a mere 37 percent
of Southern House seats, they would retake the majority with the 2012
strength in the non-South. Such a result at this point seems impossible,
and any effort to retake the House will concentrate on further gains in
the Midwest and Northeast. Republican strength in the South, combined
with the filibuster, makes building an effective governing majority in the
Senate dependent on multiple wave elections like 2006 and 2008.
The continued movement of white Southerners from voting Democratic to Republican, evident in the 2012 elections, has further deepened
the partisan polarization of national politics. The complex institutional
and electoral system set out by the American constitution leads to
divergent impacts of the contemporary Republican Southern advantage.
On the presidential level, Southern states outside of Virginia, Florida
and North Carolina produce such large Republican majorities that future
Republican candidates will likely need to garner more than the 51.2
percent of the two-party vote won by George W. Bush in 2004. The
limited-government philosophy favored by Southern whites and their
allies in the Mountain West was at the center of the Romney campaign that fell short of a popular vote majority and even further from
an Electoral College majority.
The continued Republican strength in the 2012 congressional elections, however, maintained the place of Southern conservatives. The
filibuster rule maintains the relevance of Republicans, even with their
decreased strength in numbers, and the party’s Southern surplus in the
House contributes to a small but durable majority. Southerners have now
reached a position of strength with the Republican Party in Congress
similar to that of Southern Democrats in the pre-Civil Rights era. But
instead of an uneasy alliance between liberal Northerners and conservative
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Southerners of the Democratic Party of the past, the contemporary
Republican Party is dominated by a relatively congruous alliance between
Southerners and like-minded non-Southerners who both regard governmental action with skepticism. Thus the kind of transactional politics and
cross-party coalition that overcame Southern resistance to federal government action in the economy and civil rights in the twentieth century are
unlikely.
The 2012 election is best understood as the preservation of the results
of the first half of Barack Obama’s first term, and sets the two parties
on difficult quests to shift the regional balance of power. Democrats will
seek to build a majority in the non-South, and in heavily-minority areas
of the South, that is large enough to overcome Republican advantages
in the House and the Senate filibuster. This majority likely needs to be
even larger than that of 2008, with the almost complete loss of moderate Southern House incumbents in 2010 and 2012. Republicans will
seek another region of the country that can produce majorities equivalent
to the South in presidential and senatorial elections. Neither possibility seems as likely at this stage as a continuation of the regionally-based
stalemate that has followed the re-election of Barack Obama.
Notes
1. In this chapter I include in the South the 11 former confederate states, along
with Kentucky and Oklahoma. Scholars of Southern politics differ on the
extent of the region, ranging from a 10-state to a 16-state South.
2. Source: Dave Leip, National Election Atlas Available at uselectionatlas.org (accessed December 21, 2012); David Wasserman, 2012 Presidential
Vote Tracker. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjYj9mXElO_
QdHpla01oWE1jOFZRbnhJZkZpVFNKeVE#gid=0</RHT
(accessed
December 21, 2013)
3. Republicans gained a 41-vote filibuster-enabling status with Scott Brown’s
win of the Massachusetts Senate seat left open by the death of Edward
Kennedy. The 43 votes against the reconciliation bill included 21
Southerners—all 19 Republicans from the region, and Arkansas Democrats
Blanch Lincoln and Mark Pryor.
4. Southern members of Congress have also sometimes used institutional
resources and veto points to increase federal power, such as support for federal censorship of antislavery writings using the postal service, and the strong
fugitive slave law contained in the Compromise of 1850. These instances
stand as policy-specific exceptions to a larger tendency toward restricting
national government power.
5. Richards, Leonard L. The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination 1780–1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000),
p. 42.
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6. Aldrich, John Hebert. Why Parties: The Origin and Transformation of
Political Parties in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995),
pp. 124–125.
7. Fehrenbacher, Don E. The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law
and Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 461–462.
8. This act, which had the effective support of Southern leaders like Richard
Russell of Georgia, is best understood as an attempt to give Lyndon Johnson
national credibility on civil rights without disrupting white rule in the region.
9. The opposition of white Southerners and their elected representatives to
extension of the federal welfare state may have racial components, with voters
and politicians linking federal aid and regulation with poor non-whites.
10. Farhang and Katznelson, “The Southern Imposition: Congress and Labor in
the New Deal and Fair Deal,” Studies in American Political Development, May
2005, Volume 19, pp. 1–30.
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Chapter
4
The Ever-Widening
Gap: Gender and the
2012 Presidential
Election
Derya Rix
When the 19th amendment passed giving American women the right
to vote in 1920, politicians feared that women would vote significantly
different from men, changing the dynamics of elections. This fear failed
to become reality until recently, when women progressively started to
vote more for the Democratic Party in presidential elections, reaching
a historic high of 20 percent in November 2012.1 Through this chapter,
I shall frame the issue of an ever-widening gender gap around the involvement of Michelle Obama and Ann Romney in the presidential campaigns
of their husbands. I will demonstrate that women’s participation in the
work force and the rising number of single women with children made
this voter group lean towards the Democratic candidates who support a
welfare system, reproductive rights and bigger government that provides
more social services. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has been falling
short of addressing women’s concerns instead of successfully communicating that a stronger economy would benefit all and that the GOP does
not intend to make women second-class citizens by taking away their
reproductive rights.
Even though a consensus concerning why the gender gap has been
increasing has not been reached; several contributing factors can be identified. The major change throughout the last decades has been the rising
autonomy of women and the transformation of the family dynamics.
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DE R YA RI X
After the 1960s, women started to become more and more involved in
the labor force. For instance, in 1970 only 30 percent of women were
employed, whereas in 2005, women’s employment passed 50 percent.2
By 2009, 60 percent of all women were in the workforce. Increasing participation of women in the workforce was also accompanied by rising
education levels for women since the 1970s. Also more married women
with children decided to become breadwinners.3 As the gender gap in
the labor force narrowed, the gender gap in politics widened. Manza and
Brooks argue that the origins of the gender gap can be traced back to
“the steady increase in the proportion of women in the paid labor force.”4
Working women, especially when they do not have any assistance from
husbands or the immediate family, are more in need of public programs
related to childcare and income support.5
In addition to changes in their professional lives, American women
started to witness higher divorce rates, even though the number of marriages declined and the number of co-habitating couples increased.6 The
introduction of more lenient divorce laws (by 1985 every state had
adopted some form of “no-fault” divorce), resulted in more women living or raising children alone.7 Divorced, widowed or single women have
different interests, thus different voting behavior, than married women.8
Therefore, while the unmarried women moved towards the Democratic
Party; the last several presidential elections demonstrated that married
Americans, regardless of gender, formed a key part of the Republican
Party.9 Increasing involvement in the labor force, increasing divorce rates
and women’s liberation movements contributed to the changing profile of
women who moved away from their role as the home-maker in the traditional family. Therefore, not only did the men start to see the women in
a different light, more importantly, women carved a different place in the
society for themselves. This shift in perspective was inevitably reflected in
politics.
All of these factors created a different profile for American women in
2012 than in 1980. A contemporary woman can work and raise a child
without the help of a man. By 2012, almost a quarter of all children in
the US were raised in mother-only homes.10 She is independent and selfreliant, because more women than ever before participate in the work
force and get higher education. If she doesn’t have children, she wants
to be able to control her body and she doesn’t want any men to tell her
what to do: 85 percent of women who had abortions were unmarried
women and 40 percent did not have any previous live births.11 If she
has children, she wants security for them regardless of her marital status.
Since the likelihood of an absent father increased through the years, the
job of providing the security net fell to the state.12 This, of course, is
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53
not a comprehensive picture of the American woman, but it remains an
accurate generalization.
This situation naturally had an impact on how women voted in the
past presidential elections. The Democratic Party was able to harvest the
social and cultural change among women through policies that supported
abortion rights, funding of contraception, taxing the wealthy and widening the social safety net. Meanwhile the Republican Party fell victim to
being, at least for women, portrayed as the party of old-fashioned and outdated ideas of stay-at-home motherhood and pro-life movement. To their
dismay, the GOP could not shake off this portrayal, especially after the
Democrats launched their “War on Women” campaign. In this highly
charged atmosphere, Michelle Obama and Ann Romney were used to
secure women’s votes. Even though Ann Romney was respected by many,
she was not able to convince American women that the Republican Party
was worthy of their votes. In contrast, the First Lady was able to complement her husband’s policies and reassure women that Obama had their
best interests and freedoms at heart.
In the face of changing gender relations in the US, Michelle Obama
and Ann Romney were pushed to the front more than the wives of the
candidate during previous elections. Michelle Obama was mentioned as
one of the top two (next to Hillary Clinton) among the people women
mentioned as the most admired.13 Ann Romney was seen favorably only
by 37 percent of the independents and 24 percent of the Democrats.14
Both women were valuable assets in their husbands’ campaigns. Romney,
on more than one occasion, alienated the female voters and desperately
needed his wife’s softening and humanizing touch. In the same context,
professorial and distant Obama needed his wife’s strong approval ratings
coupled with her ability to connect with the public, especially the women
who saw her as a role model.
In the context of a charged atmosphere about reproductive rights, a
fragile economy and two men who were not very successful at reaching
the female voters, Michelle and Ann’s contribution to their respective election campaigns became crucial. The backgrounds of these two women
reflect how female voters perceived each party. Michelle Obama was
the embodiment of Democratic ideals, while Ann Romney continued
to reinforce the perception that Republicans were stuck in the 1950s.
The First Lady’s background screamed education and activism. Michelle
Obama was raised in a small house in South Chicago. During her years
at Princeton and Harvard, she became a strong advocate for minorities. By the time she met Barack Obama in the late 1980s, her views
were clearly in line with those of the Democratic Party. She was perceived as an angry black woman at the beginning of the 2008 presidential
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campaign, but by the end of the summer, a softer image was carved for
her and as a result, her favorability reached 55 percent.15 In addition to
her public appearances, she initiated many legislative processes involving education, housing and pay equality. In 2010, she started the Let’s
Move campaign to combat childhood obesity. Prior to her years in the
White House, Michelle Obama was actively involved in her husband’s
fund raising efforts to lift the federal ban on partial birth abortion16 and
had been a fierce advocate of LGBT rights. Since Obama took office
in 2009, Michelle Obama has been well received and respected by the
public. As well as her inspiring past, her easygoing personality and emphasis on her family made the First Lady become more popular than the
president himself.17 When the time came for another presidential election, she became a fierce campaigner on her husband’s behalf. During
the campaign, not only was she charged with making Barack Obama
more approachable, but also with reaching out to minorities, especially
the black audience, and with rallying the core Democratic supporters by
mobilizing the volunteers.
Michelle Obama buttressed the broader agenda of the Democratic
Party for today’s women. Even though she was married with children, her
life before the White House was an inspiration to activist, independent
and self-reliant women. Furthermore, her active involvement in furthering the causes for availability of abortion, contraception, LGBT rights and
broader health care availability painted the inspiring picture of a woman
with convictions rather than one simply following her husband. Therefore, she was able to reach liberal women, who supported the progressive
agenda, and the undecided women, who wanted more security for her
children and more freedom for her body.
On the other hand, Anne Romney’s father was a businessman who
could send his daughter to a private school, where she met her future husband, Mitt. While Mitt was in France fulfilling the Mormon missionary
requirement, Anne converted to Mormonism and was baptized by Mitt’s
father. After the wedding, she chose to become a stay-at-home-mother,
despite the criticism she received from her parents and peers.18 During Romney’s campaign for the Massachusetts Senate in 1994, Anne was
labeled as a “Stepford wife,” who was too deferential to her husband.19
Even after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Anne continued to
be involved in numerous charities including teenage pregnancy prevention efforts and raising awareness of MS. During the brutal months
of the 2012 Republican primaries, during which Romney was barely
ahead and sometimes behind the other candidates, she became actively
involved by traveling to battle ground states and by criticizing the Obama
administration.
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Coming from the backgrounds that spoke much louder than any
speech, the First Lady and Mrs. Romney were charged with securing
more votes, especially the women’s votes, for their husbands. When
the Democratic National Convention called for her speech in August,
Michelle’s mission was to appeal to those who saw Barack as inapproachable, unreachable and professorial. She spoke of the hardships they both
endured growing up. She talked about her father and painted the portrait
of the economy from the perspective of the working people. She drew
a clear picture of how Barack Obama and Mitt Romney differed in their
upbringing, even though she avoided attacking the Republican candidate.
She used instances from their past and family lives to humanize her husband’s signature laws, including Obamacare and expanding of the welfare
state.20 Barack was one of them, unlike the other guy, and he understood
what America needed because he has been there.
Ann Romney’s job was much more difficult. Brutal Republican primaries and financial concerns had left the Romney campaign lacking,
especially in regards to the issues most important to women. Why would
financial concerns do that? Furthermore, Mitt was seen as technocratic,
robotic and privileged, someone who was far away from understanding
today’s women. Ann Romney was in charge of changing this perception
and attempting to help in prying some of the women’s vote away from
Obama. Throughout the campaign, she often introduced her husband
with stories that made him more accessible and less elusive, which demonstrated his human side. She had the potential to reach mothers, working
or not, because she had raised five boys. When Hilary Rosen attacked her
for being a stay-at-home mother, many came to her defense, including
President Obama himself. Her speech at the RNC was also geared towards
personalizing Mitt. Ann’s stories about the early years of their married life,
living in a basement apartment and eventually growing into a family with
the challenges of five sons attempted to demonstrate that Mitt, too, had
hardships in his past and has learnt how to overcome them. Her words
about still being in love with the boy she met in high school made the
businessmen Mitt Romney a little more likeable. She told the women
to give her husband a chance, because he would provide an answer to
their economic struggles and take the country to a better place. She was
not afraid to show her emotions, which complemented her mission to
show the softer side of Mitt Romney. Her speech was well received and
many in the news media declared her mission of humanizing Romney
accomplished. However, it was not enough to win the hearts of American
women.
Three main reasons could be identified why the Romney campaign was
not able to stop the gender gap from widening, let alone closing it. First of
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all, the Democratic Party was able to coin the phrase “War on Women,”
which was used extremely successfully to paint a ghastly picture of how
women would be treated under the Republicans. The word “abortion” was
not employed. Instead Democrats exploited the more attractive and less
offensive term “reproductive rights.” By making the issue a concern for
women’s freedom, the Obama campaign was able to secure the women’s
vote that named abortion as the most important issue in 12 swing states.21
The GOP, as an inherently pro-life party, was not able to break the perception that anti-abortion meant anti-women. The “War on Women” was
one of the cleverest moves the Democratic strategists came up with, one
the Republicans will fight against for years to come.
Another reason today’s women were not inclined to vote Republican
was that the GOP has not been successful at shedding its patriarchal outlook. The modern American woman is different from the women of the
1950s. Her objectives and priorities in life have transformed throughout the last few decades, and the Republican Party has failed to keep up
with this cultural and moral evolution. Ann Romney’s background as a
housewife and a stay-at-home mother highlighted the misperception that
a woman’s place is at home in front of the stove, while Michelle Obama’s
former career and activism made her look like an independent and strong
woman. Therefore, by failing to respond effectively to the claims outlined in “War on Women,” a Romney presidency became the nightmare
of today’s working and single women. The outcome was 57 percent of
women in 12 swing states describing abortion as the most important issue
and 56 percent of all unmarried registered voters supporting Obama.22
Lastly, even though unemployment was a concern, Romney’s competitive cutthroat capitalist background was much less attractive than
Obama’s “the government will take care of you” approach. Women tend
to favor big government. More women than men believe that government
should do more for the children, the elderly and the sick. Furthermore,
women advocate more regulations concerning health, environment, food
and safety.23 While Obama confirmed that under his care, all the underprivileged would be taken care off, Romney was not able to make the
case that increasing government aid and national debt was not financially
sustainable. Even though Ann Romney tried to reassure the female voter
that her husband’s policies would benefit all in the long run, Michelle
Obama’s case for government intervention and support of Obamacare was
more compelling.
In the end, Michelle Obama represented the ideal woman of the
Democratic Party: educated, smart, independent and elegant. She actively
campaigned for the legalization of partial birth abortion and stood behind
her husband when he declared that his views have evolved concerning
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gay marriage. She was an avid defender of the Affordable Healthcare Act,
arguing time and time again that the law made it possible for women
to be covered for contraception, prenatal care and preventative tests. She
worked to curb childhood obesity and championed regulations that made
schools to serve more vegetables and fruits for lunch. If the parents were
not responsible enough to teach their kids healthy habits, the government
would. She became more popular than her husband, and represented a
role model for many women with her views, past and outlook.
On the other hand, Ann Romney was portrayed as the deferential submissive wife, who dutifully stayed at home to take care of the kids and
to cook meals for her large family. She looked like a true Proverbs 31
woman that popped out of a painting from the nineteenth century. Even
though she made her husband look more appealing and human, she herself was not an inspiration to single or divorced women, whose numbers
are growing every day. The Romneys declared a clear pro-life position
and opposed Obamacare, both of which were effectively used against the
Republican Party under the “War on Women” campaign. Furthermore,
Mitt Romney vowed to cut spending, which would eventually mean narrowing the reach of welfare and Medicaid. For women, the free market
system Romney advocated was not reliable enough to provide for the children and the underprivileged, and narrowing the scope of welfare would
only benefit the fat cats on Wall Street.
One of the major consequences of Obama’s reelection that the Republican Party had been slowly and steadily losing the American women, and
in the 2012 Presidential Election this loss might have cost them the White
House. Democrats were able to successfully identify the needs and opinions of today’s women, and form their campaign accordingly. Whereas,
Republicans failed to address the issues that were important to female voters. Going forward, Republican Party is now left with the gigantic task of
convincing women that they would not be put back in the kitchen if they
vote for the GOP. To start with, Republicans should stop avoiding the
sensitive issues like abortion, and be more clear and detailed about their
approach. Since more people are becoming pro-life—in 1995 56 percent
identified as pro-choice and 33 percent identified as pro-life, where as in
2013 45 percent said they were pro-choice and 48 percent said pro-life,24
regardless of their party affiliation, a successful argument that divorces
abortion from women’s rights would at least remove the negative attention
pro-life candidates receive every election. Secondly, having more women
in the party’s higher ranks with credible backgrounds would help the
female voters to respect, appreciate and relate to the Republicans. Initiatives like the Project GROW—Growing Republican Opportunities for
Women—is certainly a beginning towards this endeavor. Thirdly, there
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should be clarity on where the GOP stands in terms of government assistance to make it unmistakable that social Darwinism is not acceptable.
Lastly, the case for smaller government should be stripped from technical jargon and be brought to a more personal and understandable level.
American women share a considerable portion of new businesses and this
involvement makes them intimately interested in tax laws and regulations.
By amplifying the Republican views regarding a simpler tax code and less
restrictive regulations, the GOP can appeal to women who own small to
medium size businesses.
In the end, the Democratic Party cleverly calculated that as long
as they won more female votes than they lost male votes, they would
stay ahead of Romney, especially because the majority of all voters were
women. The Democratic campaign was able to successfully assess the
context American women functioned in and shaped their policy accordingly. Michelle Obama’s strengths were brought out to emphasize that
only under Barack Obama, women would be able to work and be mothers at the same time; keep their reproductive rights and would always
have the social security net provided by the state in case life took a wrong
turn. On the other hand, Republicans failed to communicate their position that social security needed to be fixed, not abandoned; that women
did not belong in the kitchen; and abortion was not a reproductive right.
Having Ann Romney -the stay at home mother-, after Michelle Obama
-the elegant intellectual- as the first lady appeared to be a step back.
Notes
1. Jeffrey M. Jones, “Gender Gap in 2012 Vote is Largest in Gallup’s History,”
Gallup, November 9, 2012. Obama won the two-party vote among female
voters by 56 percent to 44 percent, over Romney. Meanwhile, Romney won
among men by an eight-point margin, 54 percent to 46 percent. That total
20-point gender gap is the largest Gallup has measured in a presidential
election since it began compiling the vote by major subgroups in 1952.
2. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Women in the Labor Force, 1970–2009,”
January 2011, accessed July 17, 2013, http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2011/
ted_20110105.htm.
3. Department of Labor, “Women in the Labor Force,” December 2010,
accessed January 21, 2013, http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook-2010.pdf.
4. Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks, “The Gender Gap in U.S. Presidential
Elections,” American Journal of Sociology, 1998, Volume103, p. 28.
5. Alice Rossi, “Beyond the Gender Gap: Women’s Bid for Political Power,”
Social Science Quarterly, 1983, Volume 64, pp. 718–733.
6. Casey E. Copen, Kimberly Daniels, Jonathan Vespa, and William
D. Mosher, “First Marriages in the Unites States: Data from the 2006–2010
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7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
59
National Survey of Family Growth,” National Health Statistics Reports,
March 22, 2012, Number 49.
Denese Ashbaugh Vlosky and Pamela Monroe, “The Effective Dates of NoFault Divorce Laws in the 50 States,” Families and the Law, October 2002,
Volume 51, Number 4, pp. 317–324.
Kathleen Frankovic, “Sex and Politics: New Alignments, Old Issues,” PS,
1982, Volume 15, pp. 439–448.
Amy Gershkoff, “The Marriage Gap,” in Beyond Red State and Blue State:
Electoral Gaps in the 21st Century American Electorate, ed. Laura R. Olson
and John C. Green (New York: Pearson, 2008), p. 24.
“Family Structure and Children’s Living Arrangements: Percentage of Children Ages 0–17 by Presence of Parents in Household and Race and Hispanic
Origin,” ChildStats.gov, accessed July 20, 2013, http://www.childstats.gov/
americaschildren/famsoc1.asp.
“Abortion Surveillance—United States, 2009,” Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, November 2012, accessed July 15, 2013, http://www.cdc.
gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6108a1.htm.
Thomas Gabe, “Welfare, Work, and Poverty Status of Female-Headed Families with Children: 1987–2009,” Congressional Research Service, July 15,
2011.
“Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama Most Admired in 2012,” Gallup,
December 31, 2012, accessed on July 20, 2013, http://www.gallup.com/
poll/159587/hillary-clinton-barack-obama-admired-2012.aspx.
“Americans See Christie, Ann Romney in Positive Light,” Gallup,
August 28, 2012, accessed July 18, 2013, http://www.gallup.com/poll/
156950/americans-christie-ann-romney-positive-light.aspx.
“Michelle Obama Favorable Rating Reaches Highest Level Ever,” Rasmussen
Reports, August 29, 2008.
“Letter Shows Michelle Obama Backing Partial-Birth Abortion,” TMP,
June 27, 2008.
Morales, “Michelle Obama Outshines All Others in Favorability Poll,”
Gallup Politics, July 22, 2010, http://www.gallup.com/poll/141524/
michelle-obama-outshines-others-favorability-poll.aspx.
Ashley Parker, “At Romney’s Side, a Determined Running Mate,” The
New York Times, June 16, 2012, A1.
David R Guarino, “Romney sees Wife Championing Causes, Not Government Policy,” Boston Herald, November 10, 2002.
Michelle Obama, “DNC Speech Transcript,” NPR, September 04, 2012,
accessed February 2, 2012, http://www.npr.org/2012/09/04/160578836/
transcript-michelle-obamas-convention-speech.
Andrew Dugan, “Women in Swing States Have Gender-Specific Priorities,”
Gallup, October 17, 2012, accessed on January 22, 2013, http://www.gallup.
com/poll/158069/women-swing-states-gender-specific-priorities.aspx.
“Married Voters Strongly Back Romney,” Gallup, September 14, 2012,
accessed July 18, 2013, http://www.gallup.com/poll/157469/marriedvoters-strongly-back-romney.aspx.
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23. Susan Carroll, “Voting Choices: The Politics of the Gender Gap,” in
Gender and Elections: Shaping the Future of American Politics, ed. Susan
J. Carroll and Richard L. Fox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2009), pp. 136–138.
24. “Abortion,” Gallup, accessed July 22, 2013, http://www.gallup.com/poll/
1576/abortion.aspx.
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Chapter
5
Data, America’s
Shifting Landscape,
and The Meaning
of 2012
Dante Chinni
With the 2012 presidential race behind us, the media has turned to
its quadrennial post-game analysis of “lessons learned.” How could we
do our jobs better? What did we know about the electorate now that we
didn’t know before? As a journalist, I know these questions well. They
are how we go about trying to improve our work and our understanding
and they are often useful for the craft. Often, however, we get the lessons
wrong—or slightly wrong—and in doing so we miss some of the biggest
“takeaways” from the vote.
By most accounts the news media took two big lessons away from the
2012 election.
Number 1: Data matters. You can have all the political wise men
in the world, with all their years of accumulated political experience,
but numbers are still numbers. Immutable and true regardless of what
anyone’s gut says.
Number 2: The electorate is changing—growing more diverse. The
old rules and understandings don’t apply anymore.
I’d submit that both these points are without question true, but they
have also been misunderstood. They’ve been made more complicated than
they should in some ways and more simple in others. Data and a changing electorate are big part of what happened in 2012, but to be properly
understood those topics need to be expanded upon and placed in the
proper context.
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DANTE CHINNI
To start with let’s look at the role data and numbers played in this
campaign.
One of the big stories the media played up going into election night
was the clash between the numbers people—often personified by Nate
Silver—and the old-school political analysts—personified by any number of talking heads. There were numerous back-and-forths online and
on-air—and some big and memorable ones as well.
During Fox News’s Election Night coverage, analyst Karl Rove memorably took exception to the work of the Fox News Decision Desk, which
had just called Ohio for President Barack Obama (that state swung the
election to Mr. Obama). Ultimately co-host Megyn Kelly walked back to
the Decision Desk with a camera to ask the team on on-air if they were
sure. They were, and of course the numbers proved them out.
The weekend before the election, conservative political commentator
Michael Barone predicted Republican nominee Mitt Romney would win
the election by a large margin—some 315 electoral votes—even though
battleground state polls gave little numeric support to his assertion. After
the final tally Baron noted in a column that, “I was wrong, please be
assured that I will be on a diet of crow for some time.”1
The take-away post election from moments like these was wow, those
numbers people were right. A new day is upon us! But that’s not really the
case. There is no bold, new numbers approach to political coverage that
has emerged post 2012.
Much was made of Nate Silver’s 538 projections in the New York Times.
I certainly read them with some interest. But I would argue their significance has been overstated. His final projection, just before election day,
was that there was a 92 percent chance that Barack Obama would win the
Electoral College.
As a journalist, let me say, first off, it’s really cool, in a fun sort of way,
to ascribe a single percentage as Silver does. But as cool as that number
is, I would argue it’s not very important. You could have done just as
well in 2012 by simply tracking state polls yourself using a site like Real
Clear Politics. In fact, I did. My final guess-jection was 303 and I have the
emails to prove it. I was only wrong on Florida.
So while Karl Rove’s on-air meltdown and Michael Barone’s odd preelection prediction (and other predictions, including those of conservative
analyst Dick Morris) were obviously poor and ignored the data available
to anyone with a computer at the time, I think both those failures were
really more the result of people’s hopes and wishes getting in the way of
their work.
And while Nate Silver’s projections are fun to talk about at the water
cooler, I believe that in my profession, you should always be careful
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63
about projecting anything. You should spend most of your time reporting
on what happened and—importantly—why, rather than making educated guesses about what will happen, no matter how educated those
guesses are.
The point is we are not yet in an age of high-end data analysis transforming political coverage, at least not yet. We’re still trooping through
local polls numbers and averages and often not reading them correctly or
ignoring them. We have a long ways to go. Case in point is the way we do
election analysis.
Here’s what would seem to be a pretty straightforward question,
“Who won the suburban vote in November, Mitt Romney or Barack
Obama?” Using the standard form pollsters use in measurement, there is a
pretty straightforward answer, Romney won the suburbs 50 percent—48
percent.
But that’s breaking America into three categories—urban, suburban
and rural—and I’d submit that simply is not enough to tell us much of
anything. The country is far too complicated to be packaged in three
boxes. Using the definitions I do for the electorate, from Our Patchwork Nation, Mr. Obama won the suburbs pretty comfortably. And while
demographic voter segments are important—such as Latinos and blacks
and women—I would argue the geographic group of suburban voters
are the most important thing for the GOP. They hold a lot of people.
They are changing and, for the time being, they are shifting toward the
Democrats for a lot of reasons that are currently baked into the American
political scene. The most important thing to do here is to separate the
suburbs from the exurbs.
(A brief aside here, I’ll be using the 12 county types I created with
Patchwork Nation for this section. Patchwork Nation was a typology that
used demographics to study differences in the country at the community level. I’m rebuilding a new national typology at American University,
the American Communities Project. The ACP groups take into account
demographic and economic shifts that have occurred on the last few
years and include a lot of new data we never had available to us. But
for this chapter, I think the Patchwork Nation numbers offer some
insights.)
Below here is the entire breakdown of the 2012 election using the
Patchwork Nation types (Figure 5.1).
Obama won the election because he won the most populous types—
and in some cases by large margins. But a few types in particular are worth
a tighter focus.
In Patchwork Nation, the suburbs are represented by the Monied
Burbs. These are counties that are generally located close to major cities.
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DANTE CHINNI
Community type
Obama
Romney
Difference
Monied burbs
53.3%
45%
+8.3D
Boom towns
44.9%
53.3%
+8.4 R
Minority central
50.4%
48.4%
+2D
Evangelical epicenters
30.2%
68.2%
+38 R
Tractor country
29.9%
67.6%
+37.7 R
Campus & careers
56.4%
41.7%
+14.7 D
Immigration nation
51.1%
46.9%
+4.2 D
Industrial metropolis
68.4%
30.1%
+38.3 D
44%
54%
+10R
Emptying nests
46.5%
52%
+5.5 R
Military bastions
47.7%
50.7%
+3R
Mormon outposts
16.6%
81.4%
+64.8 R
Service worker centers
Figure 5.1 Voting Percentages by Community Type
The exurbs are represented by the fast-growing counties form the beginning of the last decade, the Boom Towns. And the Romney and Obama
vote nationally are mirror images in these county groupings. Obama won
the suburban Monied Burbs by some 8.3 percentage points. Romney won
the exurban Boom Towns by 8.4 percentage points. And in there is the
story of the electorate in 2012 and moving forward.
There are some differences in these suburban and exurban places,
demographically speaking, and when you look at the numbers they don’t
fit with our common understanding of what happened in November.
The suburban places are the whiter of the two types—88 percent
white. But they are also less Hispanic, about 8 percent, and they are
wealthier—with a median HH income of about $51,000.
The exurban places, meanwhile are only 84 percent white. They are 10
percent Hispanic and their median HH income is about $44,000.
Think about those numbers for a second. When you compare the
suburbs to the exurbs President Obama won the places that are whiter,
wealthier and less Hispanic. It flies in the face of what we think we know
about 2012.
And it’s not just 2012. Democrats have won these suburban places in
each of the last four elections, even when the Republican won in 2000
and 2004—sometimes by a lot, sometimes by a little. But in a race like
2012, where you had a weak incumbent running with a weak economy,
the eight-point margin is significant.
How can this be?
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There are, I think, a few main drivers. Those inner ring suburbs have
become more urbanized in recent years and not in the ways that you
think—in terms of race and ethnicity and income, though indeed all those
things are happening—but in a broader sense. They are becoming more
urbanized in their views and outlooks.
Consider three important cultural issues—abortion, gay marriage and
global warming. In all three cases, polls show that the suburbs are not in
line with the most Democratic places (the counties holding the big cities),
but they are close.
We used 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to look at
Abortion in the cities and suburbs. Given the choice between “never permit” “permit only in cases of rape or incest” “permit if need is established”
or “always allow abortion,” 48 percent in the suburbs chose always allow,
that was only 3 percent less than the big cities at 51 percent and it was
7 percent more than the exurbs (Figure 5.2).
We used an October Pew Research Center question about Global
Warming asking whether it was “mostly because of human activities”
60.00 %
50.00 %
40.00 %
30.00 %
20.00 %
10.00 %
0.00 %
By law, never
permit
abortion
Abortion only
if rape, incest,
life in danger
Abortion only
if need
established
By law, always
allow abortion
Suburbs (Monied burbs)
Cities (Industrial metros)
Exurbs (Boom towns)
Figure 5.2 Abortion Attitudes in 2008—Cities, Suburbs, and Exurbs
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DANTE CHINNI
60 %
50 %
40 %
30 %
20 %
10 %
0%
Cities (Industrial
metros)
Suburbs (Monied
burbs)
Yes, mostly because
of human activities
Exurbs (Boom
towns)
Yes, mostly because
of natural patterns
Figure 5.3 Global Warming Attitudes in 2008—Cities, Suburbs, and Exurbs
or “mostly because of natural patterns” and we found that voters in the
suburbs again looked a lot like the urban big city counties. 48 percent
in the suburbs said it was due to human activities—even higher than
47 percent in the big cities. Only 36 percent said humans were mostly
responsible in the exurbs (Figure 5.3).
Gay Marriage is something we looked at in the weekly column I do
for the Wall Street Journal this fall. Once again, the number of samesex couples per 1,000 in the suburbs (Monied Burbs) is above the U.S.
average, though under the big cities. The exurbs (the Boom Towns) are
below the national average.2
In other words, there are some sharp differences here and in every
case the suburbs are closer to the big cities on these issues than they
are the exurbs. There’s a reason for that. Place matters. I know some
theorize that the Web means that places doesn’t matter anymore, but
I would argue the opposite is true. It matters more and these numbers
help explain why.
While it’s true that anyone, anywhere can read the New York Times
or watch E! or listen Rush Limbaugh, they don’t—at least not in large
numbers. This is something I’ve seen repeatedly in my work with the old
Patchwork Nation types. The people who use those various media tend to
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DATA , S H I F T I N G L A N D S C A P E , M E A N I N G O F 2012
cluster and that means people in those places tend to have similar views.
This phenomenon has been widely reported and discussed in books like
The Big Sort.
What’s happened in those close-in suburbs, thanks to that self-sorting
and niche-marketing, is the rise of more dense, more politically moderate
semi-urban landscape and culture.
These places don’t have the diversity or the urban problems of the big
cities, but on cultural issues in particular they’ve become more similar to
the big cities in their tastes and attitudes and that has pushed them toward
the Democrats.
From the 1980 presidential election until the 2000, the vote in the
suburbs, again represented by the Monied Burbs here, went with the
candidate who ultimately won the election. But after 2000 something
happened. They shifted to the Democratic column (Figure 5.4).
This spells trouble for the GOP on its current path.
What happened in 2012 was the Republican faithful in the primaries
took a moderate candidate and pulled him to the right on cultural issues.
There were points in the GOP presidential primaries where there were
discussions about the morality of birth control.
Overtime this suburban/exurban divide has grown and the positions of
the two parties have pushed it further apart. The exurbs are increasingly
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2012
2008
2004
2000
1996
Democrat %
1992
1988
1984
1980
1976
Republican %
Figure 5.4 Shifts in Voting Patterns in Monied Burbs 1976–2012
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DANTE CHINNI
filled with more conservative households that left for the exurbs in part
because they wanted to get away from the city. The suburbs, meanwhile,
and partially as a result, have shifted leftward.
So what are we saying here? I’m not saying that the all the post-election
comments about the GOP needing to do better with Hispanics are wrong
and I’m not arguing that the predicted growth among Hispanic voters is
inaccurate. Both those things are true and they are happening.
What I am saying is that is just one of the ways the electorate is
changing. There are a many others and a lot of them are visible at the
community level. And they may end up being just as important.
Notes
1. Michael Barone, Washington Examiner, November 2, 2012, http://
washingtonexaminer.com/barone-going-out-on-a-limb-romney-wins-handily/
article/2512470#.UJQ8jcXA901.
2. Dante Chinni, “Gay Marriage: Wedge Issue in Wealthy Suburbs?” May 11,
2012, 11:52 a.m., http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/05/11/gay-marriagewedge-issue-in-wealthy-suburbs/, accessed June 9, 2013.
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Part
II
Emerging Strategies
in the 2012 Campaign
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Chapter
6
Are Super PACs Arms
of Political Parties?
A Study of
Coordination
Dante J. Scala
In just two election cycles, “super PACs” have become vehicles for
the raising and spending of hundreds of millions of dollars for political
campaigns, thanks to a pair of 2010 decisions by the federal courts, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and SpeechNOW.org v. Federal
Election Commission. The federal courts have removed caps on donors’
contributions under the condition that super PACs would be “independent expenditure-only” committees, avoiding coordination of their
activities with potential allies such as candidates or political parties. This
change in campaign finance law raises the question of the nature of super
PAC independence: Are super PACs only independent in a narrowly
legal sense, or do they achieve functional independence as well? In other
words, are super PACs actually extended arms of political parties, or do
they work at cross-purposes with political parties a significant portion
of the time? If the latter, is this evidence of a threat to the traditional
role of political parties in campaigns and elections? This paper considers
these questions in light of expenditure data from 2012 U. S. Senate contests.1 The findings present a mixed picture: Coordination between super
PACs and the two major political parties is apparent, but much more so
among the Democratic Party and its super PAC allies. The Republican
Party and its super PAC associates show much more evidence of acting at
cross-purposes than functional coordination.
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Legal vs. Functional Coordination
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has issued a set of boundary
lines that delineate what counts as an independent expenditure, and what
should be tallied as a coordinated one. “When an individual or political
committee pays for a communication that is coordinated with a candidate
or party committee, the communication is considered an in-kind contribution to that candidate or party committee and is subject to the limits,
prohibitions and reporting requirements of the federal campaign finance
law,” according to the FEC. The regulation continues as follows:
In general, a payment for a communication is “coordinated” if it is made
in cooperation, consultation or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate, a candidate’s authorized committee or their agents,
or a political party committee or its agents. 11 CFR 109.21. To be an
“agent” of a candidate, candidate’s committee or political party committee
for the purposes of determining whether a communication is coordinated,
a person must have actual authorization, either express or implied, from
a specific principal to engage in specific activities, and then engage in
those activities on behalf of that specific principal. Such activities would
also result in a coordinated communication if carried out directly by the
candidate, authorized committee staff or a political party official. 11 CFR
109.3(a) and (b).2
The FEC has established a three-part test for determining whether a communication is coordinated, including payment and content. The third
part of the FEC coordination test concerns conduct. A “coordinated
expenditure” has taken place if a party or candidate
• suggests a particular communication to an independent expenditureonly committee;
• or becomes “materially involved” in decision-making regarding the
makeup of the advertisement;
• or participates in “substantial discussions” regarding the communication;
• or uses the same vendor to produce the advertisement;
• or if a former employee of the candidate or party conveys relevant
campaign information to the committee.
Satirists and scholars alike have noted that the FEC standards are not
without loopholes.3 In a paper on super PAC involvement in the recent
elections, Farrar-Myers and Skinner argue that super PAC expenditures
may meet the FEC’s standards for technical independence, yet still achieve
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“functional” coordination that serves to benefit the candidate with whom
the super PAC is allied.4 For instance, the scholars note a 2010 congressional race in Texas, in which independent groups supporting a particular
candidate ran advertisements that strongly resembled the candidate’s own.
In addition, the groups publicly stated their intention to run the ads,
and in apparent response, the candidate’s party committee (the National
Republican Campaign Committee) reallocated funding toward other contests. “Certainly, [the candidate] and the NRCC can be seen as receiving
a benefit by having outside groups incurring the costs to run these advertisements, thus enabling [the candidate] and the NRCC to use their funds
in other ways,” the scholars conclude. Given the transparency offered
both by FEC reports and by “public files” of advertising purchases maintained by television stations in accordance with FEC rules, opportunities
for functional coordination are plentiful.
This, in turn, raises a larger question about the place of super PACs
within the extended networks that comprise modern political parties.5
The example of Karl Rove, the Republican political operative who
guided George W. Bush’s climb to the presidency, is instructive. In 2010,
Rove and others started American Crossroads and its related 501(c)(4),6
Crossroads GPS, as a shadow Republican National Committee (RNC),
aiming to support the party at a time when the leadership of the RNC
was struggling. In the political media, American Crossroads became
emblematic of the dawning era of campaign finance regulations (or lack
thereof ). Crossroads, however, proved to be just one type of super PAC
in a diverse universe of new political committees, which were far less than
uniform in goals and methods.7 Republican candidates also were diverse
in ideology and quality, as the party became painfully aware during the
2012 cycle. The nomination of Congressman Todd Akin for the Missouri
Senate race, for example, was viewed as a lost opportunity to pick up a seat
in a Republican-leaning state after Akin became an object of ridicule for
his comments on rape. Looking forward to the 2014 cycle, Rove launched
the Conservative Victory Project, promising to take sides in Republican
primaries to ensure that the party did not nominate candidates who were
too conservative to win in the November general elections. In response,
a high-profile Tea Party organization began a new super PAC, the Tea
Party Patriots Citizens Fund, to ensure support for conservative candidates.8 Within a few years, Rove has transformed from party guru to
establishment mouthpiece in the eyes of some members of his party.
Rove’s struggles within his own party raise a larger question about
functional coordination: How compatible are the goals and methods
of political parties and super PACs? Obviously one should expect a
considerable amount of overlap between, say, the Democratic Party’s
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national congressional committee and a liberal super PAC. The devil,
however, may be in the strategic details of coordination. In congressional
elections, for instance, political action committees traditionally have pursued contribution strategies designed to maximize access to officeholders,
including funneling contributions toward incumbents. Political parties, in
contrast, have focused on gaining majority control of the legislative chamber, focusing their efforts on the support of quality contenders in the most
competitive races. Recently, however, PACs have changed their strategies
in response to a polarized political environment in which control of one
or both houses of Congress is contested on a biennial basis; presented
with an opportunity to move the entire congressional agenda toward their
preferred issue position, PACs have behaved in a more aggressive, partisan fashion.9 Political parties welcomed the efforts of allied PACs to gain
majority control. However, the advent of super PACs, combined with the
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act’s shutdown of the soft money spigot in
2002, raises an unhappy prospect for political parties: the loss of leverage over campaign strategy and tactics to a motley crew of independent
expenditure committees.
Data
In order to address these questions concerning super PAC coordination,
I examine independent expenditures made in U. S. Senate races during
the 2012 general election cycle. These expenditures include those made by
the national party committees (the National Republican Senatorial Committee [NRSC] and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
[DSCC]), as well as assorted super PACs which participated in multiple
contests.10 (This decision screened out super PACs that were dedicated
to one candidate only.) All data were downloaded directly from Federal
Election Commission files.11
Methodology
To draw conclusions about how well super PAC strategies coordinate with
those of party committees, I devised two measures designed to reveal these
groups’ concerns with two qualities of Senate candidates: viability and
ideology.
• Viability. To measure an organization’s concern with a candidate’s viability, I employed an inside-the-Beltway “tip sheet” heavily used by
political insiders. Stuart Rothenberg, lead author of the Rothenberg
Political Report, issues periodic ratings of various contests
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throughout an election cycle. Rothenberg’s ratings were converted
into a five-point scale of competitiveness, ranging from a safe seat
(given a value of one point on the five-point scale), a seat in which
one party is clearly favored (two points), a contest which leans toward
one party (three points), a contest with a slighter lean, or “tilt” (four
points), and finally a “pure toss-up” (a maximum of five points on the
five-point scale). To create an overall measure for the concern of the
super PAC or party committee with candidate viability, I multiplied
the rating of the race by the percentage of the group’s overall independent expenditures spent on that race, and then added together
each of the resulting products to create a summary score. The higher
the summary score, the greater the group’s allocation of spending on
contests in which its preferred candidates appeared most viable.
• Ideology. To measure a group’s concern with the conservatism or liberalism of a candidate, I employed a measure of ideology created
by Boris Shor of the University of Chicago.12 Using data gathered
by the nonpartisan organization Project Vote Smart, Shor generated
ideology scores for all the major-party U. S. Senate candidates in
2012; the higher the ideological score, the more conservative or liberal the candidate. Once again, to create an overall measure for the
group’s concern with ideology, I multiplied the ideological score of
the candidate by the percentage of the group’s overall independent
expenditures spent on that particular candidate, added together each
of the resulting products to create an overall summary score.13 The
higher the group’s score on ideology, the greater the group’s allocation of spending on candidates who were most pronounced in their
ideologies.
Through this process, each party committee and multistate/multicontest
super PAC was assigned scores on viability and ideology. As a result, these
groups can be compared to one another in order to determine whether
they had similar or contrasting concerns with the viability of a candidate,
versus that candidate’s ideology.
Overall Levels of Independent Expenditures
Combined, the DSCC and the NRSC spent approximately $84 million
on independent expenditures in various Senate contests; $52.1 million
was spent by the Democratic “Hill committee,” $31.7 million by its
Republican counterpart. Among multistate super PACs, Democratic
super PACs outspent their Republican counterparts, $53.6 million to
$42.9 million.
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Table 6.1 Expenditures of super PACs allied with the Democratic Party in 2012 Senate
campaigns
Super PAC
Expenditures
Viability score
Ideology score
Majority PAC
Women Vote!
Service Employees International
Union
Workers’ Voice
League of Conservation Voters
Planned Parenthood
National Education Association
Environment America
United Food and Commercial
Workers
Fair Share Action
Voices of the American Federation
of Government Employees
American Bridge
$33,998,436
$7,356,314
$4,881,773
3.96
4.39
4.03
.67
1.19
.85
$2,529,487
$1,260,827
$983,426
$874,338
$475,463
$412,695
3.30
4.00
4.24
4.87
3.94
3.23
.98
1.33
.56
1.07
1.10
.71
$375,561
$366,668
4.40
3.36
.90
.47
$128,295
2.55
.26
Twelve of the 27 super PACs that participated in more than one Senate contest were allied with Democratic candidates (Table 6.1). Among
these Democratic allies, Majority PAC towered over the rest, spending
almost $34 million—more than four times as much as the second-highest
Democratic super PAC and 63 percent of all Democratic-allied super
PAC expenditures. Majority PAC possessed strong ties with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada). Susan McCue, the founder of the
organization, was once Reid’s chief of staff; its treasurer was also a former Reid staffer.14 Women Vote!, a super PAC associated with Emily’s
List, an organization which typically backs pro-choice female Democratic
candidates, was the second-highest spender on the Democratic side at
$7.4 million.
In contrast with Democratic super PACs, Republicans’ independent
expenditures were more evenly distributed among the 15 that participated in more than one Senate contest (Table 6.2). Two shared the top
tier of expenditures, with American Crossroads at $15.3 million, followed closely by Freedom Works at $10.8 million. The expenditures of
American Crossroads comprised nearly 36 percent of all Republican-allied
super PAC funding—significant, to be sure, but not nearly as dominant
as Majority PAC’s standing among Democratic super PACs.
While American Crossroads possessed Karl Rove and Establishment
credentials from the outset, FreedomWorks has been a key player in
the Tea Party movement that aims to move the Republican Party in
a more conservative direction. During the 2012 Republican primary
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Table 6.2 Expenditures of super PACs allied with the Republican Party in 2012 Senate
campaigns
Super PAC
Expenditures
Viability score
Ideology score
American Crossroads
FreedomWorks
Club for Growth
Now or Never
Ending Spending
Cooperative of American
Physicians
Freedom Fund North America
Senate Conservatives Action
Faith Family Freedom
National Republican Victory
National Right to Life Victory
Trust in Small Business
Women Speak Out
It’s Now or Never
Catholic Vote
$15,336,601
$10,827,295
$4,836,039
$4,276,720
$3,544,459
$1,291,169
3.44
3.04
3.82
3.35
2.83
4.28
.56
.89
.90
1.03
1.26
.82
$990,000
$709,605
$471,274
$217,044
$147,109
$110,226
$79,268
$70,444
$11,000
4.50
3.71
2.97
4.13
3.17
4.55
4.67
4.01
3.82
.32
.94
1.39
1.11
.91
.90
1.27
.74
.85
season, FreedomWorks spent money with the aim of defeating veteran
GOP senators Orrin Hatch and Richard Lugar—in the latter case, successfully.15 Beneath American Crossroads and FreedomWorks, the super
PAC of Club for Growth, an organization devoted to fiscally conservative
policies on taxes and spending, made close to $5 million in independent expenditures. A fourth conservative super PAC, Now or Never, spent
$4.3 million on independent expenditures in Senate races.
Functional Coordination between GOP Super
PACs and the NRSC
As detailed earlier, the test of functional coordination between national
party committees and allied super PACs is their correspondence on priorities. Do super PACs, as national party committees typically have done,
concentrate their expenditures on viable candidates? Or are super PACs
more willing to spend money in support of candidates with more pronounced ideologies (conservative or liberal), rather than concentrating on
viability alone?
The national party committees’ concentration on viability versus ideology was roughly similar, according to their scoring in both categories
(Table 6.3).
As mentioned earlier, independent expenditures were significantly
more diversified among Republican super PACs than among their
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Table 6.3 Viability and ideology scores for national party Senate campaign committees
Viability
score
Ideology
score
Democratic Senatorial
Campaign Committee
National Republican
Senatorial Committee
$52,105,196
3.94
.74
$31,710,840
4.36
.84
1
2
3
4
NRSC
0
1
2
3
Viability
4
NRSC
0
Viability score
5
Independent
expenditures
5
Party committee
0
.25
.5
.75
1
1.25
1.5
0
.25
.5
.75
1
1.25
1.5
Ideology
5
Ideology score
3
2
0
1
Viability
4
NRSC
0
.25
.5
.75
1
1.25
1.5
Ideology
Graph 6.1 Republican super PACs and the National Republican Senatorial committee
Democratic contemporaries. In this section, I look at the universe of
super PACs in three parts: the largest of the independent-expenditure
committees, the medium-sized, and finally the smallest.
The two largest Republican super PACs, FreedomWorks and American
Crossroads, showed varying levels of functional coordination with the
NRSC (Graph 6.1, top left). American Crossroads supported more moderate, less viable candidates than the NRSC, while the expenditure
allocations of FreedomWorks tended toward slightly more conservative,
significantly less viable candidates. The range of ideology and viability
scores widens when one includes medium-sized super PACs, but the trend
of Republican independent expenditure-only committees supporting less
viable, more ideologically conservative candidates is evident (Graph 6.1,
top right). Finally, when the remainder of the 15 multistate GOP super
PACs is added to the picture, one sees a complicated mix of expenditure
strategies, in which a number of smaller super PACs focus on less viable
candidates (Graph 6.1, bottom left).
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Functional Coordination between Democratic
Super PACs and the DSCC
4
3
DSCC
0
0
1
2
2
3
Viability
DSCC
1
Viability
4
5
5
Compared to the Republican super PACs, spending by Democratic
independent expenditure groups was much more consolidated—and perhaps not coincidentally, much more coordinated with the national party
committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The one
super PAC that towered over its contemporaries, Majority PAC, closely
matched the expenditure allocations of the DSCC, both in terms of the
mix of candidate ideology and viability (Graph 6.2, top left).
When the remainder of the Democratic super PACs are added to the
mix, a somewhat different picture of functional coordination emerges,
compared to their Republican counterparts (Graphs 1.2, top right and
bottom left).
Among Republican super PACs, several different money centers
emerged, which often displayed strategies at variance with the priorities
of the NRSC. On the Democratic side, only one major independentexpenditure committee emerged, Majority PAC, and its expenditure
strategy closely emulated that of the DSCC. It is worthy of note that
several smaller Democratic-aligned super PACs did emphasize support of
candidates who expressed a more liberal ideology. Interestingly, many of
these candidates also were as viable, if not more so, than those supported
by the DSCC. This may have been because of a late break toward the
Democrats in the fall elections, and deserves further investigation.
0
.25
.5
.75
1
1.25
1.5
0
.25
.5
.75
1
1.25
1.5
Ideology
3
2
DSCC
0
1
Viability
4
5
Ideology
0
.25
.5
.75
1
1.25
1.5
Ideology
Graph 6.2 Democratic super PACs and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign committee
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Conclusions
This chapter attempts to define and measure functional coordination
between political parties and independent expenditure-only committees.
The author attempts to do so by measuring how much of a priority
each super PAC placed on the viability of Senate candidates, versus candidates’ ideological moderation or extremism, and then comparing the
super PAC’s expenditure strategy to that of the national party committee.
The following conclusions emerge:
Though not in all cases, larger super PACs, regardless of their party affiliation, tended to show a greater amount of functional coordination with
their allied national party committees than their smaller counterparts, as
measured by their expenditure strategies.
Overall, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and its allied
super PACs display much stronger functional coordination than their
Republican counterparts. That is in large part due to the concentration of
Democratic super PAC money within Majority Pac, which made almost
two-thirds of the expenditures of Democratic super PACs that participated in multiple contests. Given that the strategies of Majority Pac and
the DSCC were in near lockstep, it is not an exaggeration to state that
Majority Pac served as a mirror organization to the national party committee. Ironically, despite their vocal complaints about the outcome of the
Citizens United case, the Democrats made very effective use of the super
PAC as a campaign-finance device, at least in the case of the contest for
the U. S. Senate.
In contrast, among Republicans, super PAC monetary power was more
dispersed among several organizations. Expenditure strategies were far
from uniform, not only among smaller super PACs, but also among the
largest, such as FreedomWorks and American Crossroads. In particular,
some super PACs appeared to make candidate viability far less of a priority than the national party committee. Perhaps these more ideologically
concerned PACs were simply complementing the work of the NRSC by
aiding less viable candidates, and thus keeping the pressure on Democratic
candidates across the board. Another plausible explanation, however, is
that these lapses in coordination are in fact evidence of lack of agreement among party elites on party goals and values. Super PACs such
as FreedomWorks may have decided in favor of less viable candidates
whom they judged to be faithful representatives of conservatism. Such
disagreement among party elites could have ramifications throughout the
2014 political cycle, especially during party primaries in which rival super
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PACs might back opposing candidates for the GOP nomination in various contests. Even unsuccessful primary challengers might succeed in
driving center-right candidates farther to the right, if they are backed by
super PACs willing to spend large amounts of money in the pursuit of
the greater ideological purity of the Grand Old Party. In contrast, judging
by their super PAC expenditures, Democratic elites appeared much more
willing to unify and work together toward common electoral goals.
Notes
1. Research assistance by Bryan Merrill and Christina Patenaude, University of
New Hampshire. Thanks to the editors for their judicious comments, as well
as those of Richard Skinner, my discussant at a 2013 Midwestern Political
Science Association panel, on a draft of this chapter.
2. “Coordinated Communications and Independent Expenditures,” Federal
Election Commission, accessed April 6, 2013, http://www.fec.gov/pages/
brochures/indexp.shtml.
3. The comedian Stephen Colbert, for example, began his own super PAC to
highlight what he viewed as the absurdities of campaign finance law. See, for
example, this segment from “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” accessed
June 20, 2013, http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-17-2012/
colbert-super-pac---not-coordinating-with-stephen-colbert.
4. Victoria Farrar-Myers and Richard M. Skinner, “Super PACs and the 2012
Elections,” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political
Science Association, August 30-September 2, 2012.
5. For an overview of the literature on political party networks, see Seth
Masket’s article on “Party Networks,” accessed June 20, 2013, http://www.
oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756223/obo-97801
99756223-0091.xml.
6. 501(c)(4) organizations are named after the section of Internal Revenue
Service code which covers them. See http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-NonProfits/Other-Non-Profits/Types-of-Organizations-Exempt-under-Section501(c)(4), accessed August 19, 2013. Crossroads GPS qualified as a “social
welfare organization,” Such groups may take part in politics as long as their
spending on politics equals less than half of their funding. They also are
not required to disclose the identities of their donors, while super PACs
must do so. For a quick primer, see Sean Sullivan, “What is a 501(c)(4),
anyway?” accessed August 19, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/
the-fix/wp/2013/05/13/what-is-a-501c4-anyway/.
7. Dante Scala, “Toward a Typology of Super PACs.” Included in the Proceedings of Ethics & Reform Symposium on Illinois Government, Paul Simon
Public Policy Institute, September 27–28, 2012.
8. Alexandra Jaffe, “Tea Party Super-PAC Girds for Coming Primary Clashes
with Karl Rove Group,” Roll Call, February 11, 2013, accessed June 20,
2013, http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/282407-tea-party-pac-girdsfor-coming-primary-clashes-with-rove-group.
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9. Michael Franz, Choices and Changes: Interest Groups in the Electoral Process
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008).
10. Focusing on super PACs involved in multiple contests intentionally screens
out organizations that are solely involved in only one race, and might indeed
merely be an informal extension of a candidate’s campaign under a different
organizational guise.
11. The FEC webpage for independent expenditures during the 2012 election
cycle can be found at http://www.fec.gov/data/IndependentExpenditure.do?
format=html&election_yr=2012, accessed January 1, 2014.
12. “Individual 2012 Congressional Candidate Scores.” Accessed April 10, 2013,
http://hdl.handle.net/1902.1/21593 UNF:5:EvfmKqy4JCVP3U8X5b9/fQ
== V1[Version].
13. Finally, I took the absolute value of the ideology scores, correcting for the
fact that Shor used a scale in which progressive candidates earned negative
ideology scores, conservative candidates positive ones. By taking the absolute
value, one can compare an extremely liberal candidate to an extremely conservative one more easily. In the case of Maine’s Senate race, I used the rating
of Maine’s Democratic Party candidate, not that of independent Angus King;
the two scores were nearly identical. Shor did not score North Dakota Democratic candidate Heidi Heitkamp; in this case, I substituted Shor’s rating of
Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly, with whom she votes most often in the Senate, according to the website OpenCongress. (See http://www.opencongress.
org/people/show/412554_Heidi_Heitkamp, accessed February 3, 2014.)
14. For a summary of Majority Pac, see OpenSecrets.org, the website of the Center for Responsive Politics, http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/
detail.php?cmte=C00484642, accessed August 19, 2013.
15. For a summary of FreedomWorks for America, see http://www.factcheck.
org/2012/04/freedomworks-for-america/, accessed August 19, 2013.
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Chapter
AQ1
7
Economic Appeals
in Unequal
Communities: Stump
Speeches in the
2012 Presidential
Election1
Christopher B. Chapp
The 2012 presidential election was, like many elections before it, a
referendum on the incumbent administration’s economic stewardship.
Romney regularly argued that his own business experience would give
the national economy the management it needed, and blamed Obama
administration policies for a slow economic recovery. Obama countered
that his administration had done a good deal to stop the bleeding caused
by the Bush years, and would have done more had it not been for the
Republican party obstructing key reforms in congress. Front-and-center
in this exchange was the issue of class, both in terms of growing economic
disparities, and in the extent to which the candidates themselves embodied different ends of the economic spectrum. A leaked YouTube video of
Romney singling out the “47 percent who are with [Obama], who are
dependent upon government, [and] . . . who believe that government has
a responsibility to care for them” further focused attention on a national
conversation revolving around issues of class and the state of the U.S.
economy.2
While the economy is nearly always a central issue in presidential campaigns,3 in 2012 the campaign narratives dovetailed with a broader set
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of economic transformations. As has been well-documented, income and
wealth in the United States is becoming increasingly concentrated in the
top fraction of the top 1 percent of income earners.4 Economic differences
are not just evident between citizens, but also between communities. For
example, Dante Chinni and James Gimpel have documented substantial
socio-economic fragmentation along county lines.5 Likewise, a report for
the US 2010 Project found that in 2007 31 percent of Americans lived
in neighborhoods that could be unambiguously classified as either “poor”
or “affluent.” In 1970, this figure was 15 percent.6 This level of wealth
inequality not only raises a pressing set of public policy questions,7 it also
creates serious representational challenges. How are candidates to run a
national campaign when the nation itself is increasingly economically
“segmented”? How are national leaders to govern constituents who are
themselves economically divided? This chapter addresses these questions,
examining variations in candidate stump speeches during the 2012 campaign. Romney and Obama were keenly aware of economic differences
across and within the communities they frequented on the campaign trail,
and they tailored their economic rhetoric accordingly.
Economic Appeals in Presidential Campaigns
There is no shortage of research documenting how economic conditions influence the voting behavior of citizens. While debate exists over
precisely how constituents understand economic conditions and assign
credit or blame for the economy, there is little doubt that economic
conditions are at the top of voters’ minds.8,9 Election forecasters regularly use economic indices to accurately predict election results months
in advance of November.10 And, at the micro-level it is clear that voters are thinking about the national economy, albeit with varied levels of
sophistication.11,12
While voters clearly respond to economic conditions, less is known
about how candidates communicate about the economy, making the
aforementioned economic considerations salient in the electoral decisioncalculus. One notable exception to this gap is Lynn Vavreck’s work on
economic appeals in presidential campaigns. Vavreck argues that presidential candidates who are “helped” by good economic circumstances
(like incumbent presidents running in a good economy) will likely run
“clarifying” campaigns, which favorably link the candidate to good economic circumstances. Candidates who are “hurt” by economic issues will
run “insurgent” style campaigns, essentially changing the subject.13
Despite the ambitious scope of Vavreck’s work, its primary focus is on
the national campaign, not intimate and localized campaign appearances.
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Understanding the rhetorical dynamics of local appearances is important. Campaign rallies occupy a tremendous amount of candidates’ time,
and campaigns can be won and lost in a handful of battleground counties. This, combined with American communities’ increasingly diverse
range of economic circumstances, suggests that it is important to not
only understand what is said on the national stage, but also in the park
pavilions, high school auditoriums, and airport hangers where candidates
stump.
Priming Economic Considerations in Diverse
Communities
In presidential politics, communication strategies are not “one size fits
all,” and political science has uncovered a great deal of how such messages
are produced and disseminated. We know, for example, that candidates
use private polling to strategically prime advantageous considerations.14
Candidates opt for direct mail strategies when strategically microtargeting
“cross-pressured” voters.15 Candidates even strategically purchase advertising on specific television show genres in order to reach specific groups
of voters.16
Despite considerable evidence that candidates are centrally concerned
with who their audience is, we know relatively little about how presidential candidates’ messages are altered to address the varied economic
circumstances presidential candidates encounter as they traverse the country in the months preceding the election. One reason for this gap may be
that, on the surface, stump speeches don’t change much as candidates
travel from town to town. As journalist Neal Conan recently remarked in
a radio interview with presidential speechwriters, “If you’ve ever covered
a campaign, after the second week or so, you can recite the stump speech
as the presidential candidate goes on to do it.”17 A cursory glance at transcripts from Romney and Obama stumps might confirm this view—each
candidate’s stump speech contained stock refrains repeated in nearly every
community.
Repetition like this does some damage to the enterprise of looking for
variation in the stump speech from community to community. However,
there are several reasons to suspect that campaigns are thoughtful and
nuanced about both what they say and where they say it. First, evidence
suggests that stump speeches are their own distinct genre, rhetorically constructed with specific considerations in mind. Roderick Hart’s research on
nearly 50 years of presidential campaigns concludes that stump speeches
are characterized by a distinct energy and immediacy, high in tenacity
and low in ambivalence.18 Second, while little research has examined
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rhetorical variation across stump speeches, we do know that candidates are
calculating about where they choose to appear. Scott Althaus and his colleagues have found that candidates tend to schedule appearances in large
and densely populated media markets in battleground states.19 Third,
while stump speeches contain a good deal of repetition, they also contain subtle differences. Candidates will generally have anywhere from 10
to 20 issue-specific talking points, called “speech modules,” prepared well
in advance of any campaign stop, so that these modules can be inserted
into the stock speech to address specific characteristics of a given audience.20 Moreover, the repetition of stock elements in the speech can give
novel elements extra weight. Responding to Neal Conan’s comment about
stump speech repetition, Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson noted that
. . . this business about the repetitiveness of the stump speech, that actually, if a campaign is thinking things through . . . you use that, because you
put in the one paragraph that you’re almost going to force the press to put
up on the radio and on television that evening, because it’s the only paragraph that’s different from what the reporters have heard a hundred times
before . . .21
Expectations
Surprisingly little research to date examines geographic variation in
presidential campaign rhetoric. It is, of course, certainly possible that candidates run “national campaigns,” with little sensitivity to the unique
economic circumstances of a given community. It is also important
to test for systematic changes in rhetoric that have little to do with
location—“electoral timing” can clearly dictate changes in campaign
strategy.22
If candidates are changing their message to fit local economic circumstances, there are several possibly ways rhetoric can be crafted to
mesh with economic reality. The first hypothesis—which I term “constituent targeting”—suggests that candidates prime issues of greatest
importance to the constituents in a community.23 Candidates will talk
about Medicare in communities with seniors, the estate tax in wealthy
suburbs, and manufacturing in the rust belt. A second hypothesis—
which I term “identity construction”—is specific to economically diverse
communities. There is reason to suspect that amidst economic diversity,
candidates will evoke broad “superordinate identities” to bring a group of
voters (who may in fact have little in common) into a big tent. For example, candidates regularly invoke superordinate religious identities as a focal
point for common identification amidst denominational diversity.24 It is
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possible that in economically segmented communities rhetoric could be
crafted to construct a sense of shared identity. For example, terms like “the
middle class” could be strategically deployed to appeal to both wealthy
and poor voters.
Approach
To examine how candidates were rhetorically responding to the varied
economic circumstances they encountered, I first developed a comprehensive list of candidate speeches using Politico’s election calendar25 and
speech transcripts published by CQ Transcriptions and Federal News Service. I tracked speeches from August 12, 2012 (the day after Paul Ryan
was chosen as running mate) through November 5, 2012. For every campaign stop, I located the county in which the speech was delivered, and
then imported the American Community Survey (ACS) economic data
for that county. I only include campaign stops for which I was able to
obtain a complete audio feed of the candidate’s remarks from the rally
and avoided speeches directed at a national audience (such as presidential
speeches from the Rose garden). In all, I collected 145 campaign stump
speeches.
For every campaign stop I recoded the income of the county
(median household income), county income inequality (gini coefficient
and share of income held by the middle income quintile), and the
county’s demographic characteristics (percentage Latino and percentage African American).26 I also examined Chinni and Gimpel’s (2010)
Patchwork Nation classifications for each county. The authors’ countylevel classifications sort counties into one of 12 types, ranging from
“immigration nation” to “monied burbs.”27 These classifications, combined with income and inequality indicators, provide a robust picture
of the varied economic circumstances candidates were facing as they
stumped in different communities. I also coded every campaign stop
for Obama’s 2008 county vote share and the number of days before the
election.
Finally, I obtained stump speech transcripts for every speech from
CQ Transcriptions and Federal News Service and content analyzed every
speech for common economic terms. Content analysis was performed
by building custom dictionaries of economic terms and using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) to generate word frequency scores.28
I was particularly interested in coding for groups of words that would
have differing appeal across communities. Thus, I created dictionaries for economic class terms (poor, middle class, wealthy), as well as
terms that would prime different class based criteria (income, jobs, small
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business). LIWC computes the frequency with which terms in a particular
dictionary are used, divided by the total word count for the speech.
Where did Obama and Romney go?
In order to understand how candidates craft political rhetoric to address
local audiences, it is important to learn something about where they
traveled in the first place. Based on previous research, the expectation
here is that candidates had more similarities than differences with respect
to choosing locations for rallies. This expectation is largely confirmed.
Consistent with previous research, candidate appearances were concentrated in “battleground states” and large media markets.29 95.1 percent
of the stump speeches were delivered in one of eight states (Colorado,
Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin).
While candidates occasionally ventured into rural communities, the mean
county’s population was over 616,000 people.
Nor did Romney and Obama differ much with respect to the wealth
of the communities in which they appeared (see Table 7.1). Both traveled in to counties with relatively high median incomes. Obama spent
slightly more time in communities with higher percentages of minorities,
as well as communities that Patchwork Nation characterizes as “industrial
metropolises.”30 However, the take-home point here is that Romney and
Obama again appear to have more in common than not. Both spent
a majority of their time in three different types of communities: the
Table 7.1 Characteristics of target communities for the Obama and Romney campaigns
Wealth
Inequality
Demographics
Patchwork nation
Political
Median income
Gini coefficient
Share of wealth at 3rd
quintile
Percentage Latino
Percentage African American
Industrial metropolis
Monied burb
Boomtown
Percent voting Obama in
2008
Obama
Romney
p-value of
difference
$56,231
.451
15.19%
$57,839
.435
15.55%
.508
.007
.031
13.5%
12.7%
25.4%
19.7%
25.4%
58.55%
9.7%
10.5%
9.00%
30.8%
17.9%
49.43%
.080
.207
.008
.122
.272
.000
Note: Estimates for the counties in which presidential candidates conducted rallies, August 12—November 5,
2012. Multiple stops are in a single county are computed in these estimates, however substantive results do
not differ if repeat stops are eliminated. T-tests are used to test candidate differences for all variables except
Patchwork Nation community types, where Pearson chi-square tests were used.
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industrial metropolis, the monied burb, and the boomtowns. With the
exception of “industrial metropolis,” none of the other differences in
Patchwork Nation community type are statistically significant.31
In terms of campaign appearances, two key differences stand out.
First, Obama traveled to communities where he had captured relatively
narrow victories in 2008, while Romney, on average, ventured into counties that had been friendlier to McCain in 2008. This difference makes
sense. For Obama, the strategy was clearly to replicate his 2008 results,
not venture into new counties. He did so largely by traveling to counties that were blue, but where there was still some risk of turning red.
In contrast, Romney adopted a dual strategy—appearing in both Republican strongholds to mobilize core constituencies, as well as venture into
battleground counties to persuade swing voters.
The second key difference between the campaigns is that Obama ventured into counties characterized by higher economic inequality. While
both candidates appeared in relatively wealthy areas, for the Obama
campaign, targeted communities tended to be characterized by substantial gaps between rich and poor. This dynamic is expected to shape
communication strategies. In unequal communities, Obama’s economic
message would need to be focused on points of shared interest, deemphasizing divisive language when the county was economically diverse.
Romney, in contrast, had more flexibility to “narrowcast” his economic
message to suit specific constituencies.
What Did Obama and Romney Say?
Figure 7.1 displays the frequency with which the candidates invoked common terms and phrases related to the economy. Several results stand out.
First, the candidates attempted to prime different economic considerations. Every difference displayed in Figure 7.1 is statistically significant at
p < .05 except “jobs.” Second, Figure 7.1 displays a degree of role reversal with respect to issues typically “owned” by the parties. Obama talked
more about taxes, while Romney made more frequent references to the
poor and economic insecurity. These differences make sense in context.
Obama regularly attempted to reframe the issue of taxes, arguing that they
represented a stale approach to policy-making:
They want tax cuts . . . we’ll roll back some regulation, and then give you
more tax cuts. Tax cuts when times are bad, tax cuts when times are good.
Tax cuts during peacetime, and then some tax cuts during wartime. You
want to make a restaurant reservation or book a flight, you don’t need the
new iPhone; you just use a tax cut.
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Obama
bu
si
ne
ss
Sm
al
l
Ta
xe
s
e/
wa
ge
s
In
co
m
Jo
bs
Po
or
/p
ov
er
ty
W
ea
lth
y
M
id
dl
e
cl
as
s
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Romney
Figure 7.1 Content analysis scores computed by building custom dictionaries in Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Scores are the number of times a candidate used words in a
particular category, divided by the total words used (and multiplied by 100). All differences
significant at p < .05 except “jobs”-related words.
Likewise, Romney regularly used the issue of poverty to blame the Obama
administration for a slow economic recovery:
the problem with the Obama economy . . . is with the misguided policies that slowed the recovery, and caused millions of Americans to endure
lengthy unemployment and poverty. That is why 15 million more of our
fellow citizens are on food stamps than when President Obama was sworn
into office. That is why 3 million more women are now living in poverty.
That is why nearly 1 in 6 Americans today is poor.
Consistent with Vavreck’s research, Romney used the poverty issue to run
a “clarifying campaign,” attempting to suggest a link between a sluggish
economy and Obama’s performance as president.
Did Obama and Romney Craft Rhetoric to Appeal
to Local Economic Circumstances?
Tables 7.2 and 7.3 regress different types of economic communication
(middle class, poverty, wealth, and taxes) on several county-level economic
indices. I examine county-level median household income as a rough indicator of economic well-being, and the percentage of income held by the
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ECONOMIC APPEALS IN UNEQUAL COMMUNITIES
Table 7.2 Obama’s language choices and community characteristics
Middle class
Constant
Days before election
Public assistance
Middle quintile share
Median household income
R-square
.042
−.001∗∗∗
−.125
.010
.00000037
.24
Wealth
Poverty
.159
.121
.0000061 −.001∗∗
−1.046∗∗∗
.545∗∗
.013∗
.001
−.0000019∗ −.0000004
.287
.321
Taxes
.074
.003∗∗∗
−.630
.036∗
−.000004∗
.407
Note: Unstandardized regression coefficients predicting language choices in presidential stump speeches using
county economic indices. ∗ p < .05; ∗∗ p < .01, ∗∗∗ p < .001.
Table 7.3 Romney’s language choices and community characteristics
Constant
Days before election
Public assistance
Middle quintile share
Median household income
R-square
Middle class
Wealth
Poverty
Taxes
−.368∗∗
.0003
.519∗∗
.019∗∗
.00000094
.149
.074∗
−.0002∗∗
−.104
−.003
−.0000001
.129
.058
−.0002
.516
.002
.0000008
.025
.318
−.001
.492
−.007
−.0000001
.062
Note: Unstandardized regression coefficients predicting language choices in presidential stump speeches using
county economic indices. ∗ p < .05; ∗∗ p < .01, ∗∗∗ p < .001.
middle quintile of households as an indicator of inequality.32 I include
the percentage of the county receiving public assistance benefits as a rough
indicator of economic hardship. Finally, I control for the number of days
before the election, to test for the possibility that rhetorical changes could
be accounted for by political timing, not geographic differences.33
Support exists for both the electoral timing and targeted constituencies
hypotheses, particularly for Obama (Table 7.2). Looking first at the “days
before the election” variable, Obama mentioned both the middle class and
poverty more as the election neared. He talked about taxes significantly
less. As Election Day approached Obama turned to more familiar Democratic messages, and began to turn away from the theme of taxes he had
used with regularity earlier in the campaign. Table 7.2 also supports the
argument that Obama was priming considerations to suit the economic
characteristics of different constituencies. Looking first at districts with
high numbers of public assistance recipients, Obama was significantly
less likely to reference wealth, but significantly more likely to make references to the poor and poverty. Contrary to the assertions of many political
pundits, Obama’s rhetoric did not seek to initiate “class warfare.” He did
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not engender class resentment in poorer districts by drawing comparative
evaluations with the wealthy. Instead, he was more apt just to focus on
the conditions of economic hardship.
Surprisingly, district equality (middle quintile share) does not predict
middle class rhetoric. Instead, district equality was related to references
about wealth and taxes. Obama was also more likely to reference these
same terms when the district was less affluent. This pattern suggests that
rhetoric about taxes and wealth was tailored to less affluent voters living in
relatively equal districts. Supporting the targeted constituency hypothesis,
in wealthier counties Obama was considerably less likely to emphasize his
common refrain about asking the wealthy to pay their “fair share in taxes.”
He also avoided this pitch in poorer districts if they were also characterized
by economic division. For Obama, the only class-related term that does
not appear to be tailored to the specifics of the community is “middle
class.” Instead, the middle class message should be seen as part of a broader
national campaign, invoked with increasing frequency as Election Day
approached.
Romney and Class: The Case of Middle Class
and Middle Income
At first glance, Romney displayed considerably less sensitivity to the specific economic characteristics of the locations he visited. In contrast to
Obama, the only term Romney used that demonstrated voter targeting
was the term “middle class.” Romney used middle class rhetoric in a
manner more consistent with “constituent targeting” than “identity construction.” Specifically, as the percentage of wealth held by the middle
quintile of a county increased, Romney was increasingly likely to make
reference to the middle class.
While Table 7.3 indicates that Romney’s rhetoric was not particularly
responsive to local economic circumstances, one further wrinkle deserves
exploration. The “middle class” variable equally weights two similar terms:
“middle class” and “middle income.” Obama exclusively used the term
“middle class,” while Romney used both “middle class” and “middle
income” with regularity. It is important to explore whether “class” and
“income” were used interchangeably, or if these terms were part of a larger
strategic decision about how to communicate with different groups of
voters.
I used factor analysis to address this question, examining patterns of
word choices that tended to covary in speeches.34 If middle class and
middle income were used interchangeably, they should load on the same
underlying factor—operating as a turn of phrase used to appeal to voters
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united by a common economic outlook. The results of the factor analysis,
however, tell a different story. The term “middle class” was generally used
in speeches highlighting the poor and poverty, as well as jobs. The term
“middle income,” on the other hand, was generally used in speeches where
Romney also discussed small business and jobs.35 For Romney, “middle
class” and “middle income” were incorporated into distinct patterns of
language use, with the former linked to economic insecurity, and the latter
more business and investment oriented.
To examine how these patterns of word-use varied from county to
county, I created scales out of the class- and income-related terms and
compared the use of these terms with the Patchwork Nation county classifications. The use of these word clusters appears to be strategic. Middle
income terms were most strongly associated with campaign stops in the
monied burbs (r = .249, p < .05). The exact opposite is true of middle
class terms. For the monied burbs, Romney used middle class terms significantly less (r = −.271, p < .05). While Romney’s use of class-based
language did not significantly covary with any of the Patchwork Nation
variables, the largest positive coefficient was for the big city (r = .149,
p > .05). The “income” coefficient for “big city” is negative (and nonsignificant), at least suggesting that this difference in phraseology was
tailored to local economic circumstances.
A few examples help drive these differences home. Consider Delaware
County, OH, a “Monied Burb” north of Columbus, with a median
income of over $88,000 and relatively high equality. During his Delaware
County campaign stop, Romney’s term “middle income” is used to identify the primary beneficiaries of tax cuts: “I have a plan to cut taxes for
middle income taxpayers . . . There will be no tax on interest, dividends
or capital gains for middle income families in America.” In contrast,
the pitch in Cuyahoga County, OH—an “Industrial Metropolis” with
a median income of $43,000 and high inequality—was much closer to a
message of economic populism. The message is that the American middle
class are not so far away from being America’s poor: “One in six are poor
in America today, and the middle class, even those that have a job. The
middle class is being squeezed with lower take-home pay and higher costs
for insurance and gasoline and for food and clothes.”
There are several plausible explanations for this pattern. One possibility is that the Democratic Party is able to claim “issue ownership” on
matters of class leading Romney to avoid class-based rhetoric. Stephen
Nicholson and Gary Segura have found the “working class” to be strongly
identified with the Democratic Party, and it is possible that this extends
to discussions of class more generally.36 Moreover, class evokes much
more than income. Class is a social identity, connected to occupation,
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education, community, and wealth.37 As with other social identities,
membership in the ingroup can often implicate the identification of an
outgroup.38 Romney explicitly avoided class-based language in locations
like wealthy suburbs, where class-based antagonism might seem a threat
to group interests. Middle income, on the other hand, merely refers to
one’s income. Rhetorically, it allowed Romney to say “I have a plan to cut
taxes for middle income taxpayers” without making class per se salient.
Middle income is how much you make. Middle class is who you are.
Conclusions
Tocqueville famously characterized the social state of America as a “middling standard,” whereby individuals were “more nearer [to] equality
in wealth and mental endowments” than “any other country of the
world . . . in recorded history.”39 For Tocqueville, this social state was
closely connected to political equality and democracy. Today, the economic equality and middle class Tocqueville observed is shrinking, and
wealth is becoming more concentrated and confined to a smaller number of communities. This chapter struggled with the rhetorical—and
ultimately representational—consequences of these economic transformations. In the America Tocqueville described, the economic interests
of all Americans were closely aligned. Today they are not.
While the economic middle class may be disappearing, the rhetorical “middle class” is stronger than ever. It remains a politically potent
symbol, regularly referenced by candidates on both sides of the aisle.
For Romney, rhetoric referencing the middle was strictly confined to the
most Tocquevillian communities, and avoided in locations with a larger
income gap. While Obama’s use of “middle class” appeared to be part
of a broader national campaign, his rhetoric was nevertheless responsive to growing differences across American communities. All else being
equal, Obama generally avoided larger overtures about increasing taxes
on the wealthy as communities grew more unequal in their distribution
of wealth. Like Romney, part of Obama’s strategy was to craft different
appeals to different groups of voters.
In terms of how campaigns are won and lost, the larger story here is
that changing economic circumstances require greater attention to the
audience. For candidates running a national campaign, one option is to
develop a campaign that has appeal across constituencies—a common
denominator approach. An alternative is to say different things to different groups of voters. Of these two options, the latter was clearly the
preferred approach in 2012. This is problematic insofar as campaigns
play an important representational function. As communities continue to
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become more economically segmented, campaigns will face a crossroads
between making localized constituent-specific appeals, and appeals that
reflect a national policy agenda.
Notes
1. I am thankful to Peter B. Josephson and R. Ward Holder for their constructive feedback on this chapter. Any remaining errors or omissions are my
responsibility.
2. “Mitt Romney on Obama Voters,” published September 17, 2012, http://
www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_786897&feature=iv&
src_vid=XnB0NZzl5HA&v=MU9V6eOFO38.
3. Lynn Vavreck, The Message Matters: The Economy and Presidential Campaigns
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).
4. Benjamin I. Page and Lawrence R. Jacobs, Class War? What Americans
Really Think About Economic Inequality (Chicago: Chicago University Press,
2009).
5. Dante Chinni and James Gimpel, Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising
Truth About the “Real” America (New York: Gotham, 2011), pp. 156–158.
6. Sean F. Reardon and Kendra Bischoff, “Growth in the Residential Segregation of Families by Income, 1970–2009,” Report for the US 2010
Project, 2011. Downloaded at http://www.s4.brown.edu/us2010/Data/
Report/report111111.pdf.
7. Larry M. Bartels, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New
Gilded Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).
8. Morris P. Fiorina, Retrospective Voting in American National Elections (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1981).
9. Richard Nadeau and Michael S. Lewis-Beck, “National Economic Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections,” Journal of Politics, 2001, Volume 63,
pp. 159–181.
10. Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien, The Timeline of Presidential
Elections: How Campaigns Do (And Do Not) Matter (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2012).
11. Andrew Gelman and Gary King, “Why Are American Presidential Election
Campaign Polls so Variable When Votes Are so Predictable?” British Journal
of Political Science, 1993, Volume 23, pp. 409–451.
12. Nadeau and Lewis-Beck, “National Economic Voting in U.S. Presidential
Elections.”
13. Vavreck, The Message Matters, pp. 31–40.
14. James N. Druckman, Lawernce R. Jacobs and Eric Ostermeier, “Candidate
Strategies to Prime Issues and Image,” Journal of Politics, 2004, Volume 66,
pp. 1180–1202.
15. D. Sunshine Hillygus and Todd G. Shields, The Persuadable Voter: Wedge
Issues in Presidential Campaigns (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2008).
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CH R I S T O P H E R B. CH A P P
16. Travis N. Ridout, Michael Franz, Kenneth M. Goldstein and William
J. Feltus, “Separation by Television Program: Understanding the Targeting
of Political Advertising in Presidential Elections,” Political Communication,
2012, Volume 29, Number 1, pp. 1–23.
17. “Speechwriters Compare The 2012 Stump Speeches” published October 16,
2012, http://www.npr.org/2012/10/16/163018622/comparing-the-2012stump-speeches.
18. Roderick P. Hart, Campaign Talk: Why Elections Are Good For Us (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2000).
19. Scott L. Althaus, Peter F. Nardulli and Daron R. Shaw, “Candidate Appearances in Presidential Elections, 1972–2000,” Political Communication, 2002,
Volume 19, Number 1, pp. 49–72.
20. Judith S. Trent, Robert V. Friedenberg and Robert E. Denton Jr., Political
Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices (Lanham, MD: Rowman
and Littlefield, 2011).
21. “Speechwriters Compare The 2012 Stump Speeches” published October 16,
2012.
22. Erikson and Wlezien, The Timeline of Presidential Elections.
23. Paul S. Herrnson, Congressional Elections: Campaigning at Home and in
Washington (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2012).
24. Christopher B. Chapp, Religious Rhetoric and American Politics: The
Endurance of Civil Religion in Electoral Campaigns (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 2012).
25. See http://www.politico.com/2012-election/calendar/.
26. I used data summarized at the county level. All data are from the five year
summary file, 2007–2011.
27. Dante Chinni and James Gimpel, Our Patchwork Nation, pp. 219–236.
28. James Pennebaker, Roger J. Booth and Martha E. Francis, Linguistic Inquiry
and Word Count: LIWC [Computer software] (Austin, TX: LIWC.net.,
2007).
29. Nardulli Althaus and Shaw, “Candidate Appearances in Presidential Elections, 1972–2000.”
30. Dante Chinni and James Gimpel, Our Patchwork Nation.
31. I only include the most common community types in this analysis. Statistics
on other communities are available upon request.
32. One potential problem with regressing speech variables on county-level estimates is that when a candidate travels to the same county multiple times,
the observations included in the model are not independent. I addressed this
problem by only including the most recent candidate visit in all regression
analyses.
33. I also tested Obama’s county-level vote share in 2008 to examine whether the
political leanings of the county predicted speech patterns, however candidate
rhetoric did not covary with Obama vote share, and I dropped this variable
from the analysis.
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34. I used maximum likelihood extraction with varimax rotation, which yielded
a two factor solution. Factor analysis results available from author upon
request.
35. Terms referencing the wealthy did not strongly load on either factor.
36. Stephen P. Nicholson and Gary M. Segura, “Who’s the Party of the People?
Economic Populism and the U.S. Public’s Beliefs about Political Parties,”
Political Behavior, 2012, Volume 34, Number 2, pp. 369–389.
37. Michael Hout, “How Class Works: Objective and Subjective Aspects of Class
Since the 1970s,” in Social Class: How Does it Work? ed. Annette Lareau and
Dalton Conley (New York: Russell Sage).
38. Michael A. Hogg, “Social Identity Theory,” in Contemporary Social Psychological Theories, ed. Peter J. Burke (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
2006), pp. 111–136.
39. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence, ed.
J. P Mayer (New York: Harper Perennial, [1840] 2006), p. 56.
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QUERIES TO BE ANSWERED BY AUTHOR (SEE MARGINAL
MARKS)
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please mark your corrections and answer to
these queries directly onto the proof at the relevant place. Do NOT
mark your corrections on this query sheet.
Chapter 7
Query No.
Page No.
AQ1
83
Query
We have inserted initial "B." in Author name
as per TOC. Please check.
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Chapter
8
Casualties of the
Ground War:
Personal Contacting
and Its Discontents
Robert G. Boatright
The twenty-first century has been good for those who favor citizen
involvement in elections. Voter turnout has rebounded. Record numbers of citizens have contributed money to presidential candidates. New
groups such as MoveOn.org have recruited millions of new members.
Campaign operations have been decentralized—volunteers can now use
their own cell phones to make campaign calls, and supporters can also
talk up a campaign on political blogs and their Facebook pages. In sum,
we have seen a democratization of campaigns themselves.
At the turn of the century political scientists were bemoaning the
growing detachment of American citizens from the political process. This
turnabout is exciting, and it has justly been applauded by political scientists. The story regarding citizen engagement, however, is not all sweetness
and light. There have been few critical appraisals of what the effect of all of
this democracy actually is. In this chapter I wish to draw attention to some
of the harmful side effects of this type of campaigning, of what I shall term
“hypermobilization.” Does hypermobilization breed disappointment or
excessive partisanship? There are compelling reasons, I argue, that it may.
I first review the past decade’s critical and normative political science literature on voter mobilization, with an eye toward understanding how this
has shaped how American campaigns are waged. I then explore problems
with hypermobilization and I present a preliminary agenda for how we
might measure the consequences of voter mobilization.
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The Mobilization Story, as Told by Political
Scientists and Politicians
As the American National Election Studies (ANES) data in Figure 8.1
shows, American voters are substantially more likely to be contacted by
political parties or political candidates today than they were in previous
years. There are three common explanations for this increase:
Expected Election Outcomes
The past four presidential elections have been much closer than were
most elections in the preceding 40 years. Perhaps closer elections lead to
greater effort by parties and candidates to reach out to the voters. Political
30.0%
Percent
20.0%
10.0%
.0%
2008
2004
2002
2000
1998
1996
1994
1992
1990
1988
1986
1984
1982
1980
1978
1976
1974
1972
1968
1966
1964
1960
1956
Year of study
Contact during campaign: from which major party
2. Yes, contact: republican party
3. Yes, contact: both major parties
1. Yes, contact: democratic party
Figure 8.1 Voter contact during campaign: From which major party
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scientists have traditionally identified two types of strategies parties and
their candidates pursue in elections: they seek to persuade undecided voters to support them, and they seek to activate supporters who might not
turn out to vote.1 Persuasion requires conveying a broad message to voters, something that may be best done through television advertisements
and other techniques that reach large numbers of voters at the same time.
Alternately, if voters have drawn firm conclusions about the candidates,
the parties may opt to activate their supporters in key states rather than
to invest resources in an effort to change voters’ minds. This can be done
through face-to-face voter mobilization efforts.
There is ample evidence that the past four elections have been activation elections. The 2012 election was the least volatile election in terms
of voters’ evaluations of the candidates since the advent of public opinion polling.2 The 2012 election, like the 2000 and 2004 elections, was
characterized by an agreement between both candidates on which states
were competitive. Figure 8.1, however, shows that there is little support
for the notion that voter contacting is more common in close elections.
Voter contact went up between 1960 and 1964, despite the difference in
competitiveness. Similarly, the high water mark for the ANES time series’
first 20 years is the 1972 election, one of the most lopsided in recent history. Finally, there is no way to use claims about competitive elections
to explain the spikes in the graph for the 1978 and 1982 election years.
There is no reason to expect greater contact in midterm years than in presidential years, particularly midterms that do not stand out as being more
important than other midterm years before and after.
The New Experimental Political Science
Second, the political science literature on voter contacting has mushroomed in recent years, and political activists have been enthusiastic
consumers of this literature. The expected outcome story tells us something about when parties and candidates might wish to contact voters,
but it tells us little about the effectiveness of voter contact. This story
has, however, been told through the numerous voter mobilization experiments inspired by the work of Donald Green and Alan Gerber. Green and
Gerber provide a ringing endorsement of door-to-door work, and they
emphasize the fact that the message itself is less important than the contact, meaning that it is easy for virtually any group to apply the authors’
lessons.
As Sasha Issenberg has recently discussed, the Green and Gerber book
Get Out the Vote! fell into the right hands at the right time.3 At the
time of the 2000 election, internal studies by the many liberal groups
had concluded that efforts to make individual appeals to members or
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to well-defined nonmember target audiences were vastly more effective
than these groups’ advertising efforts. Furthermore, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) privileged group activities that did not rely
upon broadcast media. It is not clear that these groups understood the
methodology of voter contacting experiments, but they were willing to
allow researchers to test their appeals. The increased availability of data
on voters also made it easier to develop lists of potential contactees
than had ever before been the case. Some of the groups that engage in
these activities, however, have sought to link their emphasis on face-toface politicking to broader arguments about fostering a greater sense of
civic engagement. If, after all, personal contacting works, then it must
have a favorable impact on at least some voters. It is important to note,
however, that those who have actually conducted the research on voter
contact have sought to separate normative claims from claims regarding
efficiency.
On Line Mobilization
Third, advances in technology have reduced the cost of voter contacting. Many studies since the early 2000s have emphasized the role of the
internet in raising money for campaigns. The small donor model established by the Howard Dean campaign in 2004 and refined by the Obama
campaign in 2008 has yielded, according to these campaigns, a new type
of donor.4 While it is not clear how fundraising can be linked to other
types of voter contacts, the Obama campaign sought to emphasize the
link between contributing money and engaging in other types of volunteer activity. On line activism has been hailed by some activists and
researchers as a corrective to Americans’ declining engagement in other
types of activities. Gainous and Wagner, for instance, have argued that
the explosion of on line political activity is a corrective to Robert Putnam’s
predictions of widespread disengagement from politics.5 While we cannot
be sure that the people who are mobilized by political campaigns through
the internet would not have been mobilized through other means in past
years, we should at least be open to this possibility.
The Case Against Hypermobilization
Many proponents of Democratic Party voter mobilization efforts have
referred to Robert Putnam’s 2000 book Bowling Alone to contend that
personalized appeals can foster a greater sense of community.6 Putnam’s
broader argument, however, is that Americans are losing connection to
their communities, which has implications for our political knowledge,
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optimism, and trust in others.7 Putnam’s argument has been the subject
of rigorous testing over the past decade, and many of his claims have stood
up well. The biggest disagreement with Putnam has been the contention
that his argument, constructed as the internet was becoming a viable form
of social interaction, failed to take into account the different types of
engagement that were made available in the 2000s. This criticism does
not disprove Putnam’s normative claims; it merely takes aim at the predictive power of these claims. Putnam’s argument has also, however, come
under fire for its normative content. Putnam does distinguish between
what he calls “bridging” and “bonding” capital; he argues that some forms
of interaction can connect one to the broader public while other forms
can solidify one’s immediate group of contacts in opposition to others.
While bonding capital can be of use to oppositional social movements it
can also be used to push mainstream movements to political extremes.
Putnam does worry that contemporary political engagement runs the
risk of creating too much bonding capital and too little bridging capital.
In addition, Ben Berger contends that it is a mistake to equate political
engagement with the social and moral engagement Putnam discusses.8
Berger accepts that social engagement can have beneficial outcomes but
he does not see any obvious connection between social engagement and
participation in political campaigns. Whatever the merits of such claims,
they at least raise the possibility that we should not reflexively argue that
political activity is a good in and of itself without stopping to ask what its
side effects are.
What, then, is wrong with mobilization? Let us explore five potential
consequences:
First, campaigns seek to mobilize only those who will support them.
If there is agreement on who is likely to vote for a candidate if contacted,
then we can expect well-defined segments of the electorate to be saturated
in political information while others are ignored. As Schlozman, Brady,
and Verba demonstrate, this is a consequence of “rational prospecting”
by politicians, and can lead to two different scenarios.9 If the prospector does not know the prospects, he will seek out individuals of higher
socioeconomic status, for these people are more likely to engage in political activity. If the prospector is searching among her friends, she is likely
to seek out those who have engaged in political activity previously; such
people are not necessarily of high socioeconomic status, but we still would
see greater mobilization among those who are already politically active.
In either scenario, an increase in mobilization means that a small, already
active segment of the population becomes more active.
Second, mobilization messages will not necessarily educate. An effort
to persuade the broader public will at least potentially address issues of
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concern to large segments of the public. Even if a persuasive theme is
relatively contentless, it will at least establish a consensus about what
the candidates are saying, as opposed to a set of micro-targeted messages that generate little consensus that the election was about anything
in particular.
Third, mobilization can polarize political debate. Research on how
interest groups solicit money has highlighted the role that real or perceived
threats to the group play in fundraising appeals.10 While such research has
highlighted the value of these appeals for groups, the recipients of these
appeals are left with a heightened sense of animosity toward the group’s
enemies. Perhaps this animosity wanes over time, but the heightened nastiness here is real, at least for a time. In campaigns, similarly, having
the anger of core partisans frequently stoked does not seem conducive
to reasoned democratic discourse.
Fourth, repeated contacts from the campaign may leave supporters
accustomed to hearing from the candidates and may temporarily increase
their sense of political efficacy. And then, once the campaign ends, the
candidates make no further use of the connections they have made with
citizens (thus potentially contributing to a substantially decreased sense
of political efficacy). This arguably happened to the Obama campaign in
2008; by many accounts little was done to continue to mobilize Obama
supporters after the election, and in the months preceding the 2010 election the communications network from the Obama campaign was not
extensively utilized.11
Fifth, voters may simply become tired of the campaign. It is wellestablished that the politically active have a higher sense of efficacy, a
higher level of trust in politicians, and a higher level of approval for the
political system.12 Yet it is not clear whether these traits are a cause or
a consequence of participation. Schlozman, Verba, and Brady distinguish
between volunteering to participate in politics and being asked.13 It seems
evident that those who engage in politics without being solicited start
with a positive view of the political system. Yet there is also the possibility that some citizens tire of all of the activity and actually become
less favorably disposed toward politics. This could happen in a more
persuasion-oriented campaign as well, but the possibility seems higher
in one based on mobilization. Watching a campaign that concentrates its
resources on a small number of people hardly seems likely to improve
one’s attitude towards politics.
I am not asserting that all of these effects are widespread. Yet these
effects should at least seem plausible to anyone more than a little bit
involved with the 2012 election. We should ask ourselves how consequential these effects might be. Are they an inevitable part of any election?
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Do they last? Do they manifest themselves in ways that will impact public
beliefs about politics? And how might we measure these effects?
Consequences of Hypermobilization
Each of the hypotheses presented here would require a panel survey or an
experimental design—they require a comparison in voter attitudes across
time and between the mobilized and the unmobilized. To my knowledge,
no suitable panel surveys exist and most experiments do not include questions suitable for this purpose. As a poor substitute for these approaches,
then, in the remainder of this chapter I do two things. First, I outline how
one might measure these effects. Second, I present, as a substitute for this
approach, a comparison of mobilization patterns across time.
What we need to Know about Mobilization Effects
Causality: Cross-sectional election surveys such as the ANES provide
questions about political activities and attitudes. It is easy to take the
positive affect towards politics and the greater knowledge of political
matters on the part of those contacted as a consequence of the contact
itself. Yet parties are arguably more likely to mobilize people with a prior
record of political activity, as well. We cannot tell which came first in
a cross-sectional survey. In a year such as 2008 or 2012 when there was
clearly more mobilization taking place, it is hard to determine whether the
already active are simply becoming more active, or whether the formerly
inactive are becoming politicized. Consider, for instance, the scenarios
show in Figure 8.2. At the bottom of this figure, we see levels of mobilization in a previous election, according to income level, partisanship, or
some other characteristic of those mobilized. As one moves up the graph,
we see different consequences of increased mobilization. We may see an
increase in mobilization but with the same underlying pattern—that is,
mobilization efforts are felt equally among different subgroups, and no
new bias was introduced that was not there before. We may see mobilization efforts concentrated among the underprivileged—the less active,
the less wealthy, and so on—such that bias is introduced in a way that
arguably rectifies other disparities. We may see mobilization done in a way
that eliminates bias, reaching citizens regardless of preexisting inequalities.
Or we may see an increased emphasis on mobilizing those who already
were overrepresented; here, mobilization accentuates inequalities.
What the Mobilizers Know: Schlozman, Verba, and Brady distinguish
between mobilization by friends and by campaigns.14 Friends have information about those whom they are contacting, while campaigns must rely
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1.0
.8
.6
.4
.2
.0
Increased mobilization; bias
toward those more active at T-1
Increased mobilization; bias
toward those less active at T-1
Increased mobilization; no
change in bias
Mobilization pattern at T-1
Increased mobilization; no bias
Figure 8.2 Hypothetical consequences of increased mobilization
Source: Y axis = level of mobilization.
X axis = characteristic of those mobilized (education level, income level, etc.), low to high.
on circumstantial evidence. The increasingly data-driven nature of campaigns may break down the barrier between these two actors—while the
knowledge friends have is likely not easily measured, the metrics used by
campaigns to gauge mobilization targets seek to quantify this information. It seems possible that the data here are not easily cognizable but are
simply valid predictors of political activity, whether or not they appear to
have anything to do with politics.
Decay: The third, fourth, and fifth problems that I raised all concern
the time frame for studying mobilization. Although there are no data to
measure the decay of campaign effects, we can at least sketch out why
decay is important. There are differences between polarization over the
short term and the long term. It is customary for campaigns to heighten
the perception among supporters that there is great distance between the
candidates. If this perception does not outlast the election, it may not
be problematic. Yet we have no way of knowing if this is so or whether
hostility generated through mobilization persists.
Similarly, both cynicism and heightened expectations fostered by campaigns may not matter in the short run but may be consequential if they
linger past the election. These are concepts that have played a role in
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broader discussions of contemporary politics; increased cynicism about
politicians has been documented in many studies, but it is difficult to
connect cynicism to anything that goes on in campaigns.15 Similarly,
studies of the presidency have emphasized the connection between citizens’ dissatisfaction with politics and the “personal presidency” developed
as modern presidents have sought to create a personal appeal that transcends party.16 In both cases, political scientists have identified trends that
seem to be about more than one campaign. Yet both suggest a consensus
that there are long-term effects stemming from campaigns.
Some Very Circumstantial Evidence
Let us now consider changes in who is contacted. Figure 8.3 shows patterns according to income, education, and age. An increase in the mean
income, education level, or age (in comparison to the mean among those
not contacted) might suggest that parties are increasingly acting as rational
prospectors in Schlozman, Verba, and Brady’s first sense. It also would
3.4
Mean family income
3.2
3.0
2.8
2.6
2008
2004
2000
1998
1996
1994
1992
1990
1988
1986
1984
1982
1980
1978
1976
1974
1972
1968
1966
1964
1960
1956
Year of study
Cases weighted by type 0 weight - post-stratified pre
Contact during campaign: from any major party
1. Yes, contact by major party
2. No contact by major party
Figure 8.3 Average income, education, and age of contacted and uncontacted citizens
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3.0
Mean R education 4-category
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
2.0
1.8
2008
2004
2002
2000
1998
1996
1994
1992
1990
1988
1986
1984
1982
1980
1978
1976
1974
1972
1968
1966
1964
1960
1956
Year of study
Cases weighted by type 0 weight - post-stratified pre
Contact during campaign: from any major party
1. Yes, contact by major party
2. No contact by major party
Figure 8.3 (Continued)
mean that parties do not necessarily benefit from increased information about voters—that they are not clearly becoming more rational in
Schlozman, Verba, and Brady’s second sense. And it would also indicate a
bias in who is mobilized that would trouble many. This figure shows no
change in bias for income and education, but it does show that the average age of those contacted by the parties has steadily increased. This figure
does not show that increased mobilization is harmful, but it provides little
evidence that a different type of voter is mobilized.
Another way to address this issue is to measure the slope of the increase
in the proportion of citizens mobilized across income or educational
groups, following the logic of Figure 8.2. For ease of display, in Figure 8.4
I show here only elections from 1984 on. It is evident in these graphs
that campaigns in the 2000s are much more concerned about mobilizing voters than were previous years’ campaigns. However, it is also clear
that high-mobilization elections are little different than low-mobilization
elections in terms of who is mobilized; the slope of the lines is similar,
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indicating that the increase is spread roughly evenly across groups. The
most unusual feature here again is age.
Figure 8.5 shows patterns in contacting according to political information and affect. Here we see consistent differences in mobilization
according to political attentiveness, but no changes in who is mobilized
across time. Again, high mobilization elections do not notably change the
characteristics of the politically active. Those who are contacted clearly
do not feel any better about government than those who are not. Given
that these are questions asked after the contact has taken place, we cannot
show that contact has changed the attitudes of those who are contacted,
but the similarity between the contacted and uncontacted makes it seem
unlikely that contact has changed attitudes for the better or worse.
Finally, Figure 8.6 shows levels of partisanship (using the ANES
strength of partisanship variable) for the contacted and uncontacted.
The differences here are stark; the parties have become better at reaching their supporters than they were during the 1980s. This relationship
Mean contact during campaign: from any major party
.6
.5
.4
.3
.2
.1
1. Grade school or 2. High school (12 3. Some college 4. College or
les (0−8 grades) grades or fewer, (13 grades or advanced degree
incl. non-college
more but no (no cases 1948)
degree;
R Education 4-category
Cases weighted by type 0 weight - post-stratified pre
1984
2000
Year of study
1992
1988
2004
2008
1996
Figure 8.4 Percentage of citizens contacted by income, education, and age
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Mean contact during campaign: from any major party
.7
.6
.5
.4
.3
.2
.1
1.0 to 16
percentile
2.17 to 33 3.34 to 67 4.68 to 95 5.96 to 100
percentile percentile percentile percentile
Family income
Cases weighted by type 0 weight - post-stratified pre
1984
2000
Year of study
1992
1988
2004
2008
1996
Figure 8.4 (Continued)
simply did not exist in elections during the first three decades of the
ANES. Figure 8.6 also shows the partisanship of citizens contacted during the elections from 1956 through 1980. Parties clearly did not have
either the desire or the ability to focus only on contacting their strongest
supporters during these elections. There is a tilt in contacting by income
and education level during these elections (though not by age), perhaps
suggesting that parties have increased their intelligence about voters over
the past two decades. This suggests a tilt towards Schlozman, Verba, and
Brady’s second type of prospecting and away from the first. But it also
would suggest that this has been a gradual consequence of changes in
technology, not something that happened all at once.
What do these Data say about 2012?
While we do not yet have data on how many voters were contacted
in 2012, the data discussed here provide unambiguous evidence that
there has been more voter mobilization in the 2000s. Perhaps contrary
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2008
2004
Year of study
Cases weighted by type 0
weight - post-stratified pre
Cases weighted by type 0
weight - post-stratified pre
Contact during campaign: from any
major party
1. Yes, contact by major party
2. No contact by major party
Contact during campaign: from any
major party
1. Yes, contact by major party
2. No contact by major party
90
90
Mean government responsiveness
items - index
Mean external efficacy items - index
Year of study
2002
45
2008
2004
2002
2000
1998
1996
1992
1988
1980
50
50
2000
52
55
1998
54
1996
56
60
1992
58
65
1988
Mean thermometer: congress
60
1980
Mean thermometer: federal government
C A S U A LT I E S O F T H E G R O U N D WA R
80
70
60
50
40
30
80
70
60
50
40
30
2008
2004
2002
2000
1998
1996
1994
1992
1990
1988
1986
1984
1982
1980
1978
1976
1974
1972
1968
1966
1964
1960
1958
2008
2004
2002
2000
1998
1996
1994
1992
1990
1988
1986
1984
1982
1980
1978
1976
1974
1972
1968
1966
1964
Year of study
Cases weighted by type 0
weight - post-stratified pre
Cases weighted by type 0
weight - post-stratified pre
Contact during campaign: from any
major party
1. Yes, contact by major party
2. No contact by major party
Contact during campign: from any
major party
1. Yes, contact by major party
2. No contact by major party
Year of study
Figure 8.5 Campaign contact by various information and attitude levels
to campaign rhetoric, however, these data also show that there is little evidence that mobilization efforts involve outreach to those who are
disaffected with the political system. Perhaps this is too much to ask of
campaigns—in a close election, we should not expect campaigns to waste
time reaching out to people who are not likely to support them. Yet given
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Mean strength of R partisanship
RO B E R T G. BO AT R I G H T
3.2
3.1
3.0
2.9
2.8
2.7
2.6
2008
2004
2002
2000
1998
1996
1994
1992
1990
1988
1986
1984
1982
1980
1978
1976
1974
1972
1968
1966
1964
1960
1956
Year of study
Cases weighted by type 0 weight - post-stratified pre
Contact during campaign: from any
major party
1. Yes, contact by major party
2. No contact by major party
.35
Mean contact during compaign:
from any major party
Mean contact during compaign:
from any major party
.6
.5
.4
.3
.2
.1
.30
.25
.20
.15
.10
1. Independent 2. Leaning 3. Weak 4. Strong
or apolitical independent partisan partisan
1. Independent 2. Leaning 3. Weak
or apolitical independent partisan
Strength of R partisanship
Cases weighted by type 0
weight - post-stratified pre
Strength of R partisanship
Cases weighted by type 0
weight - post-stratified pre
Year of study
1984
2000
1988
2004
1992
2008
4. Strong
partisan
Year of study
1996
1956
1968
1960
1976
1964
1980
1972
Figure 8.6 Campaign contact by level of partisanship
some of the normative claims about voter mobilization, it seems that this
is something people have hoped to find in recent elections. We can, then,
dismiss some of the more extravagant claims that mobilization empowers new and different voters. We are not able, given the limitations of
the data here, to say what long-term effects mobilization has on those
contacted or on the electorate. These data may suggest not only that the
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more optimistic claims about voter outreach are overblown, but that my
more pessimistic claims are, as well.
Conclusions
There are two important conclusions that follow from the discussion in
this chapter. First, we should be careful to distinguish between arguments
that voter mobilization is more effective in winning elections and arguments that it is normatively better than other modes of campaigning.
There is a rich body of research on the effects of television advertising. The
argument that advertising is bad for democracy or for the American electorate has perhaps had the upper hand in this debate, although there have
been vigorous arguments to the contrary.17 There is no similar argument
regarding voter mobilization. There should be one.
Second, it is also important to think about measuring the consequences of mobilization techniques. Literature on persuasion has relied
on a variety of experimental settings and panel studies. We do not yet
have this ability to study other campaign communications. There is a
rich experimental literature on voter mobilization efforts, but it considers
only short term consequences. The data I provide here provide circumstantial evidence about mobilization. We need more nuanced data on
mobilization effects. I have sought to suggest some possible avenues for
this research here.
The two Obama presidential campaigns have generated high expectations about citizen involvement in campaigning and in governing. During
his first term, the president saw the limitations in transforming a campaign organization into one that would advance his legislative goals.
Perhaps the mobilization efforts of the Obama campaign and other recent
campaigns will yield a more politically engaged citizenry in the future. But
perhaps, as well, we should rein in our expectations and adopt a more
balanced view of the merits of modern campaigns’ voter mobilization
techniques.
Notes
1. D. Sunshine Hillygus and Todd Shields, The Persuadable Voter: Wedge Issues
in Presidential Campaigns (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008);
Thomas Holbrook and Scott D. McClurg, “Presidential Campaigns and
the Mobilization of Core Supporters,” American Journal of Political Science,
2005, Volume 49, pp. 689–703; Daron R. Shaw, “The Effect of TV Ads
and Candidate Appearances on Statewide Presidential Votes, 1988–1996,”
American Political Science Review, 1999, Volume 93, pp. 345–631.
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2. For a demonstration of this, see the Gallup interactive poll tracker, at http://
www.gallup.com/poll/154559/US-Presidential-Election-Center.aspx?ref=
interactive.
3. Sasha Issenberg, The Victory Lab (New York: Crown, 2012); Donald P. Green
and Alan Gerber, Get out the Vote! (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution,
2004).
4. Zephyr R. Teachout, “Powering up Internet Campaigns,” in Get this Party
Started, ed. Matthew Kerbel (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006),
pp. 151–164.
5. Jason Gainous and Kevin M. Wagner, Rebooting American Politics: The
Internet Revolution (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2011), p. 91.
6. Charles P. Henry, Robert L. Allen, and Robert Chrisman, eds, The Obama
Phenomenon: Toward a Multiracial Democracy (Champaign: University of
Illinois Press, 2011); Matthew R. Kerbel, Netroots: Online Progressives and the
Transformation of American Politics (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Press, 2009).
7. Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).
8. Ben Berger, Attention Deficit Democracy: The Paradox of Civic Engagement
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), p. 131.
9. Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Henry E. Brady, The Unheavenly
Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), p. 467.
10. Joanne M. Miller and Jon A. Krosnick, “Threat as a Motivator of Political Activism: A Field Experiment,” Political Psychology, 2004, Volume 25,
pp. 507–524.
11. George C. Edwards, Overreach: Leadership in the Obama Presidency
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), p. 66.
12. Steven J. Rosenstone and John Mark Hansen, Mobilization, Participation,
and Democracy in America (New York: Macmillan, 1993), pp. 150–160.
13. Schlozman, Verba, and Brady, The Unheavenly Chorus, p. 456.
14. Schlozman, Verba, and Brady, The Unheavenly Chorus, pp. 455–467.
15. Russell J. Dalton, The Apartisan American: Dealingment and Changing
Electoral Politics (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2013).
16. Jeffrey K. Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987).
17. Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar, Going Negative: How Political
Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate (New York: Free Press,
1995); John G. Geer, In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential
Campaigns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).
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Chapter
9
Unfriendly to
Women? Female
Politicians, Rape
Comments, and the
GOP in 2012
Jennifer C. Lucas and Tauna S. Sisco
Introduction
When Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock made
controversial comments about rape and abortion, Senator Kelly Ayotte
(R-NH) cancelled a scheduled campaign event with him. This was just
months after Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin also
made similarly provocative comments, reigniting a national media frenzy
regarding women’s issues. This chapter analyzes the public responses
by Republican male and female officials to these comments in light of
the theory of gendered partisanship, which suggests that congressional
women’s representational styles are intersectional; influenced by gender,
party and type of office. We analyze the extent to which Republican
women responded differently to this controversy than their male partisan
counterparts in the House and Senate. We argue that female Republican Senators used this as a platform to argue the absence of women
in the GOP undermined its credibility and indicated the importance
of better connecting with female voters. This lesson was in stark contrast to the voices of female congresswomen, which were comparatively
silent because representatives have less leeway in the more partisan House
than their counterparts in the more individualistic Senate. In sum, we
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discuss congressional reactions to the Akin/Mourdock comments and role
of gender in the politics of presence/silence in the 2012 election.
Surrogate Representation and Gendered
Partisanship
In surrogate representation, officials represent groups who do not directly
vote for them.1 Congressional women typically consider themselves surrogate representatives for women’s interests, whether it was their intention
upon being elected to Congress or not.2 Women legislators often act
as surrogates; they are more likely to commit their time and energy to
“women’s issues” or areas of traditional concern to women, including
sponsoring and co-sponsoring bills and amendments.3 Even up until the
early 1990s, women of both parties were more likely to vote for women’s
issue bills and feminist policies than their male counterparts, particularly abortion or family/children’s issues, although that may be changing.4
Regular participation in decision-making allows women to draw from
the shared experience as a member of a marginalized group to present
new alternatives and emphasize different agendas.5 Women legislators are
more likely to speak about women’s concerns on the floor than men,
incorporating women’s perspectives into key policy debates.6
Although there are a number of reasons gender might serve as a
centripetal force in Congress, partisanship serves as a bulwark against significant bipartisan collaboration among women. Parties serve as a major
organizing agent in the polarized post-reform Congress.7 Since 1994, a
growing number of socially conservative House Republicans, including
more anti-feminist women, resulted in Republican women being more
like Republican men in their priorities rather than their female Democratic counterparts.8 Fewer congressional women today are Republicans,
especially moderates, a trend driven by shifting party coalitions over the
last several decades.9 The parties have begun to increasingly distinguish
their policy positions on women’s issues, especially abortion, with the
Republican Party increasingly home to anti-feminist positions, as members of the Christian right and social conservatives have come to play a
prominent role in party politics.10
When it comes to surrogate representation in a two-party system, one
role of women might be to voice concerns of groups marginalized within
their party.11 With the recent evolution of the Republican Party towards
anti-feminist positions, this could be problematic for moderate Republican women.12 On the other hand, Republican women might shape their
party’s responses on women’s issues. For example, conservative women’s
groups work to frame conservative issue positions as relevant to women
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and see themselves as representing women’s interests from a conservative
standpoint. They also provide a counter-narrative to traditional feminist
frames, allowing them to criticize feminist perspectives while also claiming
to represent women’s interests.13
Therefore it is important to consider how representation by women
may be intersectional, reflecting the combination of gender, party, and
type of office held.14 Pearson has recently suggested that “gendered
partisanship,” women’s strategic responses to the way partisan polarization
shapes their districts and the institution, also influences women’s activity
differently by chamber.15 For example, in one minute speeches, Republican female members of the House were more likely to attack Democrats
than their male counterparts. This is because they have to work harder
to demonstrate their partisan loyalty in the majority-based House, and
because compromise is less costly and therefore easier in the more individualized Senate.16 Another recent study finds that minority party female
representatives have greater success building bipartisan coalitions, but are
less effective than their male partisan counterparts once in the majority.17
In sum, there appear to be three key potential forces that could shape
Republican women’s responses to controversial, anti-feminist remarks
made by other candidates: partisan loyalties, gender identity, and type
of office. Therefore, we use the case of controversial remarks made by
two male Republican Senate candidates in 2012 to try to uncover how
the responses by Republican women were shaped by gender, partisanship,
and office. We expect three possible responses by Republican women: gender silence, indicating either discomfort with speaking out on the topic or
outright dismissal of their surrogate roles, forced response, where representatives are speaking out only because the media or their opponent called
for a response, and may or may not speak in direct criticism of the controversial remarks, or a surrogate response, speaking out on behalf of women
to criticize these comments.
Given the national campaign context, we believe the most likely response
from Republicans will be gender silence. Women legislators may also have
competing surrogate concerns, therefore we hypothesize that Republican women are more likely to offer a surrogate response (speak out about
these issues) than their male Republican counterparts. Finally, individual
campaign contexts matters as well, so we expect candidates running in
competitive, swing districts will be more likely to speak publicly than those in
less competitive races, although for male representatives in competitive races
we expect more forced than surrogate responses.
Using Pearson’s gendered partisanship theory, we also expect the level
of office to be a factor. If women in the House have to work harder to
demonstrate their partisan loyalty, they may be more likely to respond
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with silence rather than to publicly critique their party. However, because
some of these House women are a natural constituency for the media to
target, we expect that some will speak out mainly in a forced response
due to media inquiries. Because the Senate relies more on bipartisanship,
represents broader, more diverse constituencies, and allows greater leeway for individual Senators, we expect that Senators will be more likely
than their House counterparts to issue a surrogate response. We expect House
Republican women will be more likely to respond with silence or a forced
response than Senate Republican women, from whom we expect surrogate responses. Overall, Senate Republican women will be more likely to
react with a surrogate response than House Republican women or Senate
Republican men.
Before we test these claims, we briefly discuss the Akin/Mourdock
comments and the 2012 electoral context. We then explain our methodology and data, followed by an analysis of the responses by Republican
men and women at various levels of office.
2012 Context: Akin, Mourdock, and the Makings
of a National Controversy
In early August, conservative Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) won the Senate
primary. On August 19th, in a television interview, Akin claimed that
according to doctors, a pregnancy resulting from rape is “really rare” since
“if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that whole
thing down.”18 He also claimed that rather than “attacking the child”
through abortion, that punishment for the crime should be on the rapist.
Later that day, in a statement, Rep. Akin claimed that he “misspoke”
in his “off-the-cuff remarks.”19 Public reaction was swift and outraged,
and a number of prominent Republicans called upon Akin to exit the
race, based on the supposition that he was now too weak a candidate to
defeat incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and a liability to the
national Republican campaigns. 20 The following day, the Romney campaign said that the comments were “insulting, inexcusable, and, frankly,
wrong” and that Romney has an “entirely different view.”21
Earlier that year, Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock defeated
the third-longest serving Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) in the Republican primary, after being supported by the Tea Party which rejected Lugar’s
perceived ideological moderation.22 On October 23rd, during a debate,
Mourdock was questioned about whether he would allow abortion in
cases of rape or incest. Mourdock stated “I struggled with it myself for
a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And,
I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that
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it is something that God intended to happen.”23 The reaction among
Republicans was split, with some, like then-Indiana gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mike Pence, saying he should apologize, while Senator John
Cornyn, head of the National Republican Senate Committee stating that
“Richard and I, along with millions of Americans—including even Joe
Donnelly—believe that life is a gift from God. To try and construe his
words as anything other than a restatement of that belief is irresponsible and ridiculous.”24 Presidential candidate Mitt Romney had already
endorsed Mourdock, and stood by that endorsement by continuing to
run a television ad lauding Mourdock, even though he stated he disagreed
with him. The Obama campaign said that the president believed that
Mourdock’s statement was “outrageous and demeaning to women” and
linked it to a broader narrative promoted by Democrats that the Republican Party would severely restrict women’s reproductive choices, waging
a “war on women” by claiming that it was “a reminder that a Republican Congress working with a Republican President Mitt Romney would
feel that women should not be able to make choices about their own
health care.”25 Democrats linked these comments to a larger narrative of
Republican extremism, both at the national level and in competitive Senate races, associating Republican candidates with a “war on women.”26
This included linking vice-presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
to Akin through his co-sponsorship of H.R.3 (No Taxpayer Funding
for Abortion Act) which they claimed tried to “redefine” rape (by using
the phrase “forcible rape”).27 All of this seemed to make a difference in
the presidential race, with a significant gender gap even larger than in
2008.28
Methodology
For this analysis, we focus on Republican women in the U.S. Senate and
U.S. House of Representatives. For a comparison, we also analyzed statements from all Republican male senators, and a sample of Republican
male representatives and national leaders. For each female GOP representative, we sampled Republican men from the same state. For the largest
states, we analyzed only Republican men from a similar region of the
state. For the Senate, we also examined Senate candidates, as we expected
them to be influenced by comments made in these two Senate races.
Public statements about the Akin/Mourdock comments were coded as
such if the media reported their response to a question specifically about
those comments, or if they issued a public statement. We employed a
variety of techniques to locate publicly stated comments on the rape
debate of 2012. Search phrases included the name of the legislator or
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governor and the term(s) “rape” “Akin” or “Mourdock” from August 1,
2012 to December 31, 2012.29 Our search included blogs, newspapers,
newswires, press releases, web-based publications, newsmagazines, news
journals, and social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Analysis
Members of the House of Representatives
Turning to the U.S. House of Representatives, the majority (64 percent)
of female Republicans were publicly silent on the Akin/Mourdock controversies. Further, only two of the 12 female cosponsors to H.R. three
responded publicly. Of those female Republicans that did comment
on the controversies the overwhelming response was negative, but the
timeliness and strength of the responses varied. Several were strongly
proactive in criticizing Akin, exampled by Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA)
on Twitter stating, “I was totally appalled by Todd Akin’s comments
about rape. They were offensive & demeaning.”30 Similarly, Rep. Judy
Biggert (R-IL) called Akin’s comments “uninformed” and “offensive” at
a National Sexual Assault Conference that took place in Chicago within
days of the controversy.31 Rep. Biggert vehemently attacked Rep. Akin’s
comments as detrimental to victims of sexual assault, stating “I don’t
believe Mr. Akin’s views are shared by any member of Congress” and
that she hoped it would lead to increased awareness of rape.32 Interestingly, Bono Mack and Biggert were in highly competitive races in heavily
Democratic states and both subsequently lost their re-election bids to
Congress.
Other women representative’s comments were more reactive, as for
several days their congressional opponents called on them to refute the
comments made by their GOP brethren. A poignant example was the
public dialogue between Akin’s fellow Missourian Rep. Vicky Hartzler
(R-MO) and her opponent, Cass County Prosecutor Teresa Hensley
(D-MO). In two public statements after the Akin comments on August
19th, Hensley implored Hartzler to condemn the comments on “legitimate rape.”33 Initially, Hartzler declined to disapprove, saying Akin had
“misspoke.”34 By late in day three of the controversy, Hartzler finally
publicly disavowed Akin and called for him to quit his Senate bid:
Like many Missourians, I found Congressman Akin’s comments baffling,
disturbing and misinformed. Over the last few days I have attempted to
communicate with him personally; however, my repeated attempts have
been unsuccessful. Due to the serious nature of this issue, I hope and
pray he will make the right decision for himself, his family and our
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country and follow the advice of Senators Blunt, Bond, Ashcroft, Talent
and Danforth.35
Other Republican Congresswomen were drawn into the “legitimate rape”
conversation through similar mechanisms, but most abstained from public response even when criticized for their silence, or offered only a
delayed response. Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-NY) was cited publicly on
two separate occasions by opponent Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) to
renounce both comments.36 Hayworth remained silent for some time,
eventually condemned Akin’s comments, but lost her race. Rep. Ann
Marie Buerkle (R-NY) was pressed to denounce Akin’s comments and
her co-sponsorship of H.R. 3.37 Rep. Buerkle also eventually called them
“offensive”38 stating “Rape is rape is rape. It is violent. It is violent against
any victim of rape.”39 She also lost in a tight race.
At the national level, damage control for the GOP drew prominent female Republicans into the conversation. In an article titled
“Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn becomes GOP’s go-to for damage control” Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) stated she was “deeply disappointed
in those remarks, and I was deeply disappointed for Todd [Akin].”40
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) publicly stated that Akin’s comments were “unacceptable” and that he should “step aside.”41 However,
her later statements shifted the message by suggesting that the continued focus on the rape/abortion comments was a tactical move employed
by Democrats to “distract us.”42 Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) publicly endorsed Rep. Akin’s primary run; however, she was evasive when
asked about continued support after the controversy.43 By late August,
Bachmann’s confounding response to Greta Van Susteren diverted away
from the Akin comments and instead focused on Akin’s opponent Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Missouri voters: “And I think that
the people of Missouri are starting through this race, they will make their
decision. And they’ll decide.”44 Bachmann had also previously endorsed
fellow Tea Party member and Senate candidate Richard Mourdock
(R-IN), but was silent about her continued endorsement after his October
comments. And finally, in her November debate, Bachmann digressed
from the question posed by the moderator about the controversial comments made by the two GOP candidates. Instead, Rep. Bachmann failed
to mention the comments or the word rape, and rather stated that her
“position is in line with the Catholic church. That’s been my position for
forty years, it hasn’t changed.”45
Male representatives were similarly silent on the Akin/Mourdock controversies. Only 26 percent of our sampled male GOP counterparts
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commented on the controversies. Those that did respond condemned the
comments through a gendered surrogate response. Rep. Bobby Shilling
(R-IL) implored Mourdock to apologize, stating “as a husband, father,
and grandfather, I find his comments totally contrary to our basic human
beliefs and values.”46 Only two of the 28 sampled congressmen in uncompetitive elections47 (Chuck Fleischman (R-TN) and Michael Conaway
(R-TX)) voluntarily responded on either the Akin or Mourdock comments. Similar to their female colleagues, many Republican congressmen
were drawn into the conversation and pressured to respond by their
Democratic opponents. For example, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) was featured in a television advertisement as “beating women.” Rep. West
condemned the advertisement and the rape comment by Akin as “simply
unacceptable.”48 Writing on his Facebook page, Rep. West stated that the
Ad is disgraceful and despicable. As a husband and father of two
daughters, I found Congressman Todd Akin’s comments about rape to
be in the same vein. These comments are simply unacceptable there is
no place in politics for these types of comments and attitudes toward
women.49
In sum, most representatives remained silent on the controversies.
Those who did respond were typically in more competitive races. Surprisingly, the trends of responses were similar for both men and women,
regardless of gender. For the most part, Republican women did not offer
surrogate responses, and when they did respond it was because they were
under pressure from their opponent or the media.
Senators and Senate Candidates
Male Republican Senators were more likely to speak out against Akin
than House members; 40 percent of male Republican Senators made
public statements critical of Akin.50 Significantly, all but two of the 11
Republican candidates in open seat races publicly responded negatively
to Akin’s comments (excluding Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Richard Mourdock
(R-IN)). Of the six Republican male incumbents running for re-election,
four responded publicly, including two candidates facing strong competition (Dean Heller (R-NV) and Scott Brown (R-MA)) but also two from
less competitive races (Orrin Hatch (UT) and Bob Corker (TN)). Like
some House members, male Republicans often linked their responses
to their roles as fathers, husbands, or grandfathers in a gendered way.
For example, Wisconsin Senate candidate Tommy Thompson noted,
“I’ve got a wife and two daughters and six granddaughters . . . Anything
dealing with rape against women is uncalled for. Period. No tolerance
whatsoever.”51
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Negative reactions were universal for female Republican Senators and
Senate candidates. Each of the female Republican Senators criticized
Akin’s comments to some extent. Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) received
significant media attention for her Twitter post that “Akin’s comments
are totally offensive. I agree with @JohnCornyn for cutting off $. Akin
should step aside now.”52 In later interviews she would reaffirm her position, but not discuss the issue further.53 Similarly, the media jumped on
her cancellation of a scheduled fundraiser for Mourdock just a few days
after his comments, but her statement was just that “she disagrees with
Mourdock’s comments, which don’t represent her views.”54
However, three Republican female senators took the opportunity to
criticize the state of their party. Moderates Susan Collins (R-ME) and
Olympia Snowe (R-ME) reacted negatively, calling Akin’s comments
“bizarre” and “outlandish.”55 However, they went beyond that to openly
criticize the Republican party’s message and outreach to women. In a
Newsweek article called “ ‘What the ∗ #@% Is Wrong With Republicans?!’:
How GOP Men Are Ruining the Party,” Collins expressed exasperation
that “the platform seems designed to alienate a lot of moderate women.”56
Snowe’s August Washington Post editorial, “The GOP has a problem with
women. Here’s how we can fix that” notes the party’s hard line on abortion
“alienate[s] a large segment of the female population.”57 In it, she argued
“the Republican Party faces a clear challenge: Will we rebuild our relationship with women, thereby placing us on the road to success in November,
or will we continue to isolate them and certainly lose this election?”
Only three days later, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s editorial, titled,
“Unfriendly to Women? Not My GOP” argued that the Republican Party
is not anti-women, and the party represents women’s interests.58 After the
election, Hutchison was more critical of treating women as a “throwaway”
which left women “feeling that Republicans don’t get it.”59 She focused
on rhetoric:
We need to talk about women’s issues in a way that women want to be
talked to. And I think that sometimes even though maybe their hearts are
in the right place, maybe what they’re saying is not being communicated
in the correct way and maybe they’re not talking about the right issues.60
It was not a “woman problem”; the party needed to convey their message better. It appears the main impetus for these editorials was strategic;
to focus the party’s energy on the right kinds of issues and to speak to
women as if their concerns are valuable. They did not address the broad,
underlying question of why some rapes might be considered “legitimate”
by some factions within the party. Rather than take the opportunity to
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include the perspectives of rape survivors, these op-eds were from the
perspective of Republican politicians discussing campaign strategies. This
is likely a byproduct of this occurring during the campaign season, but
from the vantage point of including women’s voices in the conversation,
a valuable opportunity was missed.
Discussion
Overall, it appears type of office (Senate/House) interacted with gender and the electoral context to shape responses to the Akin/Mourdock
comments, indicating that surrogate representation is constrained by electoral, partisan, and institutional factors, following other recent research.61
Although we expected gender to be the primary explanatory factor in
explaining responses to this controversy, instead the pattern differed along
chamber lines. Senators were more proactive than House members. While
all Republican female senators were critical, Senate men were also active,
with 40 percent speaking critically of Akin’s comments. However, the
modal House Republican response was silence since only 29 percent of
Republican representatives responded. Gender did not necessarily predict
a surrogate response from House women, as 64 percent remained silent
compared to almost 75 percent of their sampled male colleagues. Of those
that did comment, they were often induced to respond by the media
or their opponent. Finally, candidates in competitive races were more
likely to speak publicly than those in less competitive races. Most Senators in competitive races spoke out, and slightly less than half of House
Republicans in competitive elections responded, regardless of gender.
Gender did matter in some ways. Interestingly, 60 percent of the
female comments were forced responses compared to only 30 percent of
their male colleagues, suggesting women felt more pressure to respond.
Particularly, prominent female House members were drawn into the conversation to put a female face on the Republican response, as they are
often called to “bolster the party’s standing with voters.”62 Female Republican representatives in competitive swing districts were also more likely
to respond negatively and strongly to the comments. Female senators
were the most visible surrogate voices among Republicans, raising concerns over the party alienating female voters and cancelling events with
the candidates.
There are limitations to these conclusions; primarily, the pressure of
a national campaign likely influenced these responses, so future research
should consider cases outside of a presidential campaign to test the reliability of these conclusions. Also, this case study only focused on public
responses, rather than legislative ones, which skews the findings toward
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more strategic campaign concerns. Previous research has focused on types
of political scandals (Watergate, Iran-Contra, Lewinsky) and the negative impact on politicians and government.63 However, few studies exist
on political snafus, as opposed to scandals, but this study highlights the
fruitfulness of these incidents for future study.
This study also highlights the delicate balance navigated by Republican women, particularly moderates, in representing women’s issues and
the national party. Even the most forceful responses to this controversy
by Republican female senators aimed to persuade their fellow partisans
of the electoral peril of turning a blind eye to these statements, rather
than being a voice for victims of sexual assault. At the same time, these
responses were in the context of a broader controversy, so perhaps women
senators saw their statements as adding to the collective outcry pulling the
party towards the center. For this reason, future research should consider
lower profile cases, to discover whether Republican women more substantively represent women’s voices in the absence of an already vocal feminist
critique. Finally, in addition to appeals for greater sensitivity to women’s
perspectives, these findings might provide the foundation for arguments
by Republican women for greater representativeness in the party’s ranks
and recruiting of female candidates. Senator Hutchison explained her role
in educating fellow Texas state legislators during discussions of rape legislation to empathize with the concerns of victims, saying “I found that the
men in the legislature understood when you brought it up that there had
to be a fairness, that you had to treat rape victims as if they were victims
and not on trial.”64 Here, she asserts the importance of female legislators’
roles as surrogate representatives, which the Republican Party will require
more of to maintain its credibility with female voters.
Notes
1. J. Mansbridge, “Rethinking Representation,” American Political Science
Review, 2003, Volume 97, pp. 515–528.
2. S. Carroll, “Representing Women: Congresswomen’s Perceptions of their
Representational Roles,” in Women Transforming Congress, ed. C. Simon
Rosenthal (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma, 2002), pp. 50–68.
3. M. Swers, The Difference Women Make: The Policy Impact of Women in
Congress (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
4. Ibid.; B. Frederick, “Are Female House Members Still More Liberal in a
Polarized Era? The Conditional Nature of the Relationship between Descriptive and Substantive Representation,” Congress & the Presidency, 2009,
Volume 36, pp. 181–202.
5. M. S. Williams, Voice, Trust and Memory: Marginalized Groups and the
Failings of Liberal Representation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1998).
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6. T. Osborn and J. Morehouse Mendez, “Speaking as Women: Women
and Floor Speeches in the Senate,” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy,
2010, Volume 31, pp. 1–21; K. Pearson and L. Dancey, “Speaking for the
Underrepresented in the House of Representatives: Voicing Women’s Interests in a Partisan Era,” Politics & Gender, 2011, Volume 7, pp. 493–519;
D. L. Dodson, The Impact of Women in Congress (New York, NY: Oxford
University Press, 2006).
7. F. Lee, Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).
8. J. Jones Evans, Women, Partisanship and the Congress (New York, NY:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); B. Frederick, “Are Female House Members Still
More Liberal in a Polarized Era? The Conditional Nature of the Relationship between Descriptive and Substantive Representation,” Congress
& the Presidency, 2009, Volume 36, pp. 181–202; L. A. Schwindt-Bayer
and R. Corbetta, “Gender Turnover and Roll-Call Voting in the U.S.
House of Representatives,” Legislative Studies Quarterly, 2004, Volume 29,
pp. 215–229.
9. L. Elder, “The Partisan Gap among Women State Legislators,” Journal of
Women, Politics & Policy, 2012, Volume 33, pp. 65–85; R. E. Matland,
and D. C. King, “Women as Candidates in Congressional Elections,” in
Women Transforming Congress, ed. C. Simon Rosenthal (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 2002), pp. 119–145; K. Pearson, “Demographic Change
and the Future of Congress,” PS: Political Science and Politics, 2010, Volume
43, pp. 235–238.
10. C. Wolbrecht, The Politics of Women’s Rights: Parties, Positions and Change
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).
11. A. Phillips, The Politics of Presence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
12. K. Sanbonmatsu, Democrats, Republicans, and the Politics of Women’s Place
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2002); C. Wolbrecht, The Politics
of Women’s Rights: Parties, Positions and Change (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2000).
13. R. Schreiber, “Injecting a Women’s Voice: Conservative Women’s Organizations, Gender Consciousness, and Expression of Women’s Policy Preferences,” Sex Roles, 2012, Volume 47, pp. 331–342.
14. T. L. Osborn, How Women Represent Women: Political Parties, Gender and
Representation in the State Legislatures (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012).
15. K. Pearson, “Gendered Partisanship in the U.S. House and Senate,” Paper
presented at annual meeting for the Conference on Legislative Elections,
Process, and Policy: The Influence of Bicameralism. Vanderbilt University,
October 22–24, 2009.
16. K. Pearson, “Demographic Change and the Future of Congress,” PS: Political
Science and Politics, 2010, Volume 43, pp. 235–238.
17. C. Volden, A. Wiseman and D. Wittmer, “When Are Women More Effective
Lawmakers than Men?” American Journal of Political Science, 2013, Volume
57, pp. 326–341.
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18. Charles Jaco, “Jaco Report: Full Interview with Todd Akin.” KTVI Fox2now
St. Louis. August 19, 2012.
19. Associated Press, “Akin Says he ‘Misspoke’ about Rape in Interview.”
August 19, 2012.
20. Robillard, Politico, August 21, 2012.
21. Associated Press, “Romney: Candidate’s Comments on Rape ‘inexcusable’,”
August 20, 2012.
22. Good, ABC News, May 8, 2012.
23. Indiana Senate Debate. October 23, 2012. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/
program/308957-1.
24. Tom LoBianco, “Ind. Senate Candidate Criticized over Rape Comment,”
Associated Press, October 24, 2012.
25. Donna Cassata, “GOP Candidates in Close Races Disavow Rape Remark,”
Associated Press, October 25, 2012.
26. Twitter, @SenatorBarb, August 21, 2012.
27. Andrea Mitchell, “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” MSNBC, September 6, 2012.
28. http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/press_room/news/documents/PressRelease_1107-12-gendergap.pdf.
29. Our timeframe (August 1 to December 31, 2012) was selected as it
included the few weeks before Rep. Akin’s comments on “legitimate rape
(8/19/12), Indiana Secretary of State Richard Mourdock’s comment on
rape/abortion (10/23/12), and the fallout of the GOP losses in the national
election.”
30. Twitter, @MaryBonoMackF, August 20, 2012.
31. Chicago Daily Herald. “Biggert Splits with Party on Sex Assault Law.”
August 25, 2012.
32. Ibid.
33. “Hensley Renews Invitation to Hartzler to Speak Out against Akin Comments” www.showmeprogress.com August 20, 2012; Facebook, Teresa
Hensley August 22, 2012.
34. Rudi Keller, “Akin Blasted for ‘legitimate rape’ Comment,” Columbia Daily
Tribune, August 19, 2012, updated August 20, 2012.
35. Rudi Keller, “Hartzler Joins Call for Akin to Quit Senate Race,” Columbia
Daily Tribune, August 22, 2012.
36. Targeted News Service “Tea Party Rep. Hayworth STILL Refuses to Take
Stand for Women,” August 21, 2012.
37. The Lonely Conservative “Will Dan Maffei Denounce Obama and Biden?”
August 23, 2012.
38. The Post-Standard “Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle: Akin’s rape comments are
offensive,” August 23, 2012.
39. Politico.com “Dems Nationwide Run against Akin,” October 8, 2012.
40. Tennessean Washington Bureau “Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn becomes
GOP’s Go-to for Damage Control,” August 23, 2012.
41. Federal News Service “PBS NewsHour,” August 27, 2012.
42. The Providence Journal “Republican National Convention-RI Female Delegates Comfortable with Nominee,” August 30, 2012.
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43. The Hill. “Bachmann Stays Silent on Akin Despite Primary Endorsement,”
August 22, 2012.
44. Greta Van Susteren, “Fox on the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” August
29, 2012.
45. Nick Wing, “Michele Bachmann Dodges Specifics on Rape, Abortion,
Repeats Obamacare Claim,” The Huffington Post, November 2, 2012.
46. Alicia M. Cohn, The Hill on Facebook, http://thehillcom. October 24, 2012.
47. We coded less-competitive elections as when the winning candidate garnered
at least 60 percent of the vote.
48. Alicia M. Cohn, The Hill on Facebook, http://thehillcom. August 20, 2012.
49. Ibid.
50. MEET THE PRESS, August 26, 2012.
51. “Obama Slams Mourdock Rape Comments,” CBS News, October 24, 2012.
52. @KellyAyotte, August 21, 2012.
53. “All Things Considered,” National Public Radio, August 30, 2012.
54. NBC Nightly News, October 24, 2012.
55. Senator Susan Collins Press Release, “Maine Senator says Akin should Quit
Race,” Associated Press, August 21, 2012.
56. Kathleen Parker, “ ‘What the *#@% Is Wrong With Republicans?!’: How
GOP Men Are Ruining the Party,” Newsweek, September 3, 2012.
57. Olympia Snowe, “The GOP has a Problem with Women. Here’s How
We Can Fix That,” Washington Post, August 27, 2012.
58. Kay Bailey Hutchison, “Unfriendly to Women? Not My GOP,” CNN.com,
August 27, 2012.
59. Kay Bailey Hutchison, “Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien,” CNN,
November 8, 2012.
60. Kay Bailey Hutchison, “CNN Saturday Morning,” CNN, November 10,
2012.
61. K. Pearson, “Gendered Partisanship in the U.S. House and Senate,” Paper
presented at annual meeting for the Conference on Legislative Elections,
Process, and Policy: The Influence of Bicameralism. Vanderbilt University,
October 22–24, 2009; C. Volden, A. Wiseman and D. Wittmer, “When Are
Women More Effective Lawmakers than Men?” American Journal of Political
Science, 2013, Volume 57, pp. 326–341.
62. M. Swers, Women in the Club: Gender and Policy Making in the Senate
(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2013), p. 5.
63. S. Bowler and J. A. Karp, “Politicians, Scandals, and Trust in Government,”
Political Behavior, 2004, Volume 26, pp. 271–287; S. Brenton, “When the
Personal becomes Political: Mitigating Damage following Scandals,” Current
Research in Social Psychology, 2012, Volume 18, pp. 1–13.
64. Kay Bailey Hutchison, “CNN Saturday Morning,” CNN, November 10,
2012.
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Chapter
10
Weighing in or
Waiting: When,
Whether, and Whom
Republican
Officeholders
Endorsed in 2012
Kevin J. Parsneau and Christopher
J. Galdieri
While presidential nominating processes have become more open
and participatory in recent decades, elite party actors continue to play
a role in influencing the outcomes of nomination contests.1 This influence can include encouraging potential candidates to run (or not run),
fundraising, and endorsements. We examine the timing of endorsements by a set of elected Republican officeholders—governors, United
States Senators, and members of the House of Representatives—to determine how that party’s elites influenced the process that nominated Mitt
Romney in 2012. We look at the relative importance elites placed on supporting the candidate whose policies they most prefer, the candidate most
likely to win the general election, or the effect of public endorsements
upon their political futures. We find that beating Obama and preserving
their careers weighed heaviest on elites’ minds when making endorsements, while backing the ideologically closest Republican had less of an
effect.
We start with the assumption that these actors are strategic and used
their endorsements to advance their goals, including supporting the
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candidate whose policies they preferred, publicly backing the winning
candidate and timing the endorsement with an eye toward their own voter
base. Republican elites could make their endorsements early to boost the
candidacy of Romney or one of the alternatives because they preferred
his policy agenda or believed he represented the best opportunity to win
the general election. Or, they could keep their powder dry until voting
started, and then back the leader or boost a struggling candidate. Party
elites, especially those potentially facing primaries, might try to ward
off challengers or boost standing among primary voters by waiting or
by backing a candidate preferred by core Republicans; those considering
the general election might endorse a popular candidate to associate with
the top of their party’s ticket or avoid endorsing and, by extension, tying
themselves to a candidate unpopular in their district or state. We examine
the overall pattern of elected officials’ behavior to determine which factors
made them more or less likely to endorse different candidates at different
times during the competition.
We begin by placing Romney’s candidacy in context with the rest of
the field. Romney was at once a likely and unlikely Republican presidential nominee. He entered the race with high name recognition, formidable
financial resources, and the experience of his 2008 race. However, as a candidate in Massachusetts, he had taken positions—many of which he later
renounced or downplayed—in favor of abortion access, gay rights, and
the health care reform that served as a prototype for President Obama’s
reform in 2010. Many prominent Republicans chose not to run, including governors like Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Mitch Daniels, and Haley
Barbour, as well as Senator John Thune, Representative Paul Ryan, and
2008 figures like Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. Texas Governor Rick
Perry entered the race in the summer of 2011 with little preparation, but
strong appeal to core activists thanks to his red-meat rhetoric and references to secession early in Obama’s presidency. However, his star faded
after a series of gaffes and shambolic debate performances. Other candidates with less traditional credentials and excess baggage also ran. Former
Senator Rick Santorum had badly lost his 2006 campaign; former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich had left office in 1999 under an ethics scandal; Representative Ron Paul had little appeal beyond his vocal core of
supporters; and Representative Michele Bachmann had scant legislative
accomplishments and a history of extremist statements. Pizza magnate
and numerology enthusiast Herman Cain launched a campaign that
resembled performance art more than an actual presidential campaign.
Despite their unusual pedigree, each of these candidates enjoyed a
period atop surveys of likely primary voters. Sides and Vavreck describe
the race in the pre-Iowa period before voting started as one of “discovery,
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scrutiny, and decline”2 in which many of the non-Romney candidates
were, in turn, considered and rejected by the party’s rank and file, even as
Romney quietly built a lead in media attention, fund-raising, and other
measures including endorsements. Ironically, the candidates who did not
enjoy a moment atop the polls in 2011 were former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, the only
ones other than Romney and Perry with traditional credentials. Pawlenty
won two terms in blue Minnesota and had solid conservative credentials,
but dropped out after placing third in Iowa’s Ames Straw Poll. Huntsman
had a long record of state and federal service but his service as Obama’s
ambassador to China hurt him among primary voters and he withdrew
after placing third in New Hampshire. For Republican officeholders, their
options boiled down to Romney, Perry, a handful of flawed candidates,
and two former governors who had trouble articulating the underpinnings
of their candidacies and whose lack of elite support may have discouraged
other elites from publicly supporting them.
The 2010 midterm elections and the rise of the “Tea Party” are
also crucial to understanding the context for elected Republicans’ calculations about endorsements in 2012. Republicans won control of the
House of Representatives, thanks in large part to the vaguely defined,
newly emergent Tea Party. Republicans also failed to win back the Senate, thanks to the Tea Party’s support of inexperienced candidates who
went on to lose winnable general elections. Additionally, several more
moderate Republicans lost primaries to Tea Party-aligned challengers
while others lurched rightward to fend off serious challenges. Combined
with Tea Party distrust of more moderate candidates like Romney, this
increased the peril for elected officials contemplating whether, and whom,
to endorse.
Physicians and politicians follow the maxim “First, do no harm.”
Physicians seek to avoid harming their patients, while politicians seek
to avoid harming their careers. In making endorsements, the potential
for harm is clear. It could come from endorsing the wrong candidate:
Shortly after the 1988 presidential election, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott
remarked to columnist Mark Shields that the only people who still cared
about Lott’s early support for Jack Kemp’s presidential campaign were
Shields and then-President George H. W. Bush.3 Harm could also come
from failing to support a candidacy steamrolling its way to the nomination, as when George W. Bush gained the support of most Republican
governors4 and members of Congress5 long before voting began in 2000.
Harm need not come only from other elites; partisan supporters may take
issue with an endorsement to the extent that would provoke or boost a
primary challenge. As a result, we expect that risk-averse politicians will
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not endorse lightly, and will do so mindful of avoiding harm in the eyes
of either voters or the likely nominee and potential president.
Based on the unusual field of candidates, elected officials might have
been expected to take a wait-and-see attitude, similar to that taken by
Democratic elites during the 2004 primary.6 While Romney generally
met elites’ acceptability and viability criteria, many apparently felt little
incentive to risk backlash from rank-and-file party members by endorsing him early, particularly when a more conservative candidate might
catch fire when voting started. If Romney stumbled early, despite his
advantages, many officeholders preferred to keep the option to go with
an alternative candidate, which would be easier without an on-therecord support for Romney. Put another way, they may have preferred to
wait until after Romney demonstrated his electoral strength when their
endorsement would be seen as recognition of the inevitable. Anecdotal evidence supports this view. While Romney’s campaign announced
endorsements as they occurred, it did not make a public press for them
similar to Clinton in 2008. Factions within the GOP in favor of an alternative had trouble settling on one, and it was not until after Santorum’s
surprising showing in Iowa that evangelical leaders backed him.7 Meanwhile, Tea Party activists were divided, often rancorously, over which
candidate to support.8
We consider the role of several factors that may have influenced Republican officeholders’ decisions about whether and when to endorse Romney
or one of the alternatives. In our analysis, we assume that elites use their
endorsements with considerations for their policy goals, seeking to help
the candidate whose policies they prefer or hinder the candidate whose
policies they dislike; political goals, seeking to help the strongest candidate for the general election; and personal career goals, seeking to endorse
the preferred nominee while strategically considering the effect on their
own relationship with primary and general election voters. While these
calculations may result in deciding to wait or not make an endorsement,
we also assume that generally elites prefer to endorse as early as possible to help their candidate, unify the party behind one person or join
the winning team as soon as possible. Elites may use their endorsements
to advance their policy goals by supporting their party’s candidate whose
policy preferences are closet to their own, in hopes that once in office that
candidate will advance policies close to the elites’ goals. They may also use
endorsements toward the larger political goal of supporting their party’s
candidate who they believe has the best chance of winning the general
election in recognition that it is better to win the White House than to
lose with an ideologically closer Republican candidate. In either strategy,
elites would endorse their preferred candidate as early as possible, so we
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look at timing by, first, looking at the overall pattern of endorsements
during stages of the primary; second, specifically analyzing the pre-Iowa
decisions to endorse Romney, an alternative or wait; and third, further
analyzing endorsements made after Iowa and before the convention.
We employ several variables related to endorsement strategies. Support among likely primary voters and the proportion of pledged delegates
a candidate has indicates the likelihood that he will become the nominee and should influence the decision to back the candidate or try to
boost one of the alternatives, so we examine the strength of Romney’s
campaign in terms of poll support and percentage of pledged delegates at
time of the endorsements for Romney, and relative differences in polls and
percent of pledged delegates between endorsed alternatives and Romney
at the time of the endorsement for alternatives. Elites considering the
general election would keep an eye on Obama’s popularity. A strengthening Obama campaign increases the pressure for Republicans to unify
behind one candidate rather than potentially damaging the nominee
with a prolonged primary. We include Obama’s approval rating in our
analysis.
Finally, elected officials making endorsements would consider how it
might affect their own political futures. We include a measure of how
strongly Republican an officeholder’s district (representatives) or state
(senators and governors) because officeholders from moderate regions
might prefer Romney as the most competitive in the general election,
while those from deep red regions might have less concern about losing
their race while facing activist pressure to choose one of the alternatives.
Furthermore, an officeholder up for re-election or facing a competitive primary would face intensified concerns about the top of the ticket
or making a miscalculation in endorsements that angers primary voters. Thus, we include dichotomous variables for officeholders facing
election and facing a competitive primary.9 We examine endorsement
decisions and timing of three groups of elected Republicans: 30 governors,
248 representatives, and 43 senators. Endorsement announcements are
drawn from media accounts and campaign statements and press releases,
and we include only an officeholder’s first endorsement: If an official
endorsed Perry in 2011 and Romney in 2012, we count only the initial
endorsement of Perry.
We follow the lead of Steger10 in excluding endorsements from state
and local officials, because the universe of such officials is vast and
poorly covered by the media. While this excludes, for instance, Ohio
Attorney General Mike DeWine’s high-profile defection from Romney
to Santorum, it also avoids cherry-picking the most prominent state
and local officials’ endorsements while ignoring those of less well-known
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others. For similar reasons, we exclude the amorphous category of former
and retired elected officials.
An initial look at the timing of endorsements for the contenders suggests that elected officials paid attention to the state of the race and
the likelihood of Romney’s nomination or a potential upset. Table 10.1
breaks endorsements into four time periods: That prior to the Iowa caucuses on January 3; January 4 through the “Super Tuesday” primaries
on March 6; March 7 through April 24; and after April 24. The first
period encompasses the “invisible primary,” when candidates seek to
impress party actors prior to the start of balloting. The second is the
early, and most competitive period, of primary voting and includes the
tight Iowa caucus, Gingrich’s surprise victory in South Carolina, and
Santorum’s strong showings in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota, ending with Super Tuesday on March 6. The third represents the denouement
of the battle, when Santorum withdrew in advance of the Pennsylvania
primary. The fourth is after Romney clinched the nomination, and the
only remaining opponents were the quixotic campaigns of Gingrich
and Paul.
We find several suggestive patterns. First, some elected officials sought
to influence the race early with endorsements for their preferred candidate. This is clearest in the case of Romney, who entered 2012 with
more endorsements from our universe of officeholders than any of his
rivals—a lead that was large but not overwhelming, in comparison to the
lead in endorsements that George W. Bush had at a comparable point
in 2000.11 Also of note is the number of early endorsements for Perry.
While Perry is now remembered for his gaffes, he entered the race as a
heavyweight contender who could conceivably stop Romney. The somewhat large number of early endorsements for Perry indicates, to us, that
there was an appetite among some elites for an alternative to the right
of Romney. As the only candidate with both traditional credentials and
a more conservative record than Romney, Perry seemed the logical alternative. However, candidate quality clearly matters as well. Except for his
weak debate performances and gaffes on a host of topics, Perry may have
fared better with voters and elites alike. As it was, however, Perry received
no endorsements after a disastrous November debate; officeholders open
to an alternative to Romney were not so open as to put their reputations
behind a badly damaged candidate. Candidate quality also helps explain
the fates of Santorum and Gingrich. Santorum received no endorsements
before Iowa, and Gingrich had a handful almost entirely from Georgians
or former House colleagues. Few officeholders were willing to put their
reputations behind candidates with serious electoral or other liabilities
before voting began.
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Governors
Senators
Representatives
Governors
Senators
Representatives
Governors
Senators
Representatives
Governors
Senators
Representatives
Governors
Senators
Representatives
Romney
Perry
Santorum
Gingrich
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21
34
163
8
1
3
1
13
4
11
51
Pre-Iowa
15
28
140
2
4
6
6
15
January 4 through
Super Tuesday
7
14
108
2
1
7
14
29
Super Tuesday
through April 24
Table 10.1 Endorsements by elected officials throughout the nomination contest
3
8
62
4
6
46
April 25 through
RNC
2
1
34
1
7
28
Post-RNC
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The pattern of endorsements in the second period, when Santorum
and, to a lesser extent, Gingrich showed surprising strength, is particularly noteworthy. Despite the prospect of a genuinely competitive race,
this period saw the fewest number of endorsements. This rarity is surprising if we view endorsements as a means of influencing voters: Why
not make endorsements when they have the highest potential to influence attentive primary voters? The paucity of endorsements—particularly
for Santorum during his brief flirtation with viability—indicates that
something else was on elites’ minds. We suspect that it reflects a reluctance to weigh in on a contest whose most likely outcome—a Romney
nomination—remained highly likely but had been called into question.
While many of the officeholders who had not yet endorsed may have still
expected Romney to win, they may also have seen little benefit to supporting him while Santorum’s chances had improved from zero to (however
slightly) greater than zero. This was also a period when some elites may
have thought that Romney’s stumbles could lead to a new candidate’s late
entrance, or to a deadlocked, brokered convention.12 Under such circumstances, withholding an endorsement and staying out of the fray likely
appeared the better part of valor (or, at least self-preservation).
The number of endorsements picks up again in the third period,
when Romney recovered from Santorum’s scare and was on track to
win the nomination and defeat Santorum in Pennsylvania’s April 24
primary. Santorum surrendered to the delegate tally when he withdrew
on April 10. Once Romney’s inevitability was established, elected officials who had not yet endorsed faced a different decision than earlier.
Instead of worrying about the wrath of someone who may be the next
nominee or president, their political concern became ending the contest before it could harm the nominee and the party. Thus elected
officials at the start of this period endorsed Romney to encourage
Santorum’s exit and solidify Romney’s legitimacy. These concerns recall
the Democrats’ 1992 and 2004 contests, in which the party’s national
committee chair urged an end to the contest once its outcome was
clear.13
Finally, in the final period after Romney all but wrapped up the nomination on April 24, many officials finally came off the fence to endorse
Romney. This period includes those who made public endorsements on
April 25, those who allowed their names to be included on the steering
committees of groups such as “Farmers and Ranchers for Romney,”14 and
everyone in between, and so may overstate the extent of support expressed
for Romney immediately after April 24. It is also worth noting that a sizable number of officials (13.1 percent) did not bother to publicly support
Romney during the primary contest.
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Table 10.1 shows us that while there was much support for Romney
from elected officials, there also remained a potential for an alternative to
the right of Romney. However, that potential did not extend to public
support for Perry following his stumbles, or for the deeply flawed candidacies of Santorum and Gingrich. The overall pattern of endorsements
is intriguing, and we further examine how officeholders made strategic
calculations about endorsements with attention to policy, political and
personal career goals. We use logistic regression models to predict the
effect of a set of variables that we hypothesize should affect officeholders’
calculations on the likelihood of endorsing Romney during the whole
competition (Model 1), prior to the Iowa Caucus (Model 2), or after
the Iowa caucus for elites who had not already endorsed (Model 3); and
the likelihood of endorsing any alternative to Romney during the whole
competition (Model 4) and before the Iowa Caucus (Model 5). Thus
our dependent variables were dichotomous Endorse Romney (Models 1, 2
and 3) or Endorse Alternative (Models 4 and 5) while our independent
variables were Republican District Strength, Candidate for officeholders
up for election, Primary for officeholders facing primaries and Obama
Approval. The Romney models include Romney Percentage of Delegates,
and Romney Polling support among likely primary voters, while the
Alternative models include Relative Delegate Advantage (or disadvantage)
and Relative Polling Advantage (or disadvantage) between the endorsed
alternative and Romney. Table 10.2 presents the results.
We find little evidence for an effect of policy goals. As indicated in the
previous discussion and media accounts, there was a lack of enthusiasm
for Romney or the alternatives early, and none of the variables significantly predicts a greater likelihood of endorsing either Romney or an
alternative prior to the Iowa Caucus. Furthermore, GOP district strength
had no effect on endorsements, indicating that Republicans from redder
states or districts were not more likely to publicly back any candidate.15
The only evidence for the role of policy goals is that as Romney’s lead
in the percentage of delegates increased, officeholders were less likely
to endorse him overall and in post-Iowa (Models 1 and 3), suggesting that even as he came closer to becoming the outright winner they
remained unenthusiastic about his presidency. However, they were not
more likely to endorse an alternative, indicating a lack of enthusiasm for
any candidate’s policy agenda.
However, there is strong evidence that elites considered the political
goal of winning the general election when making endorsement calculations. The highly significant positive coefficients for the Obama Approval
variable in Models 1 and 3 and negative coefficient in Model 5 mean
that officeholders were more likely to endorse Romney and less likely
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−26.754***
(7.227)
.473
92.8%
5.372
(7.544)
.358
92.2%
−.027
(.034)
1.974
(1.249)
13.440
(101.689)
−.177
(.204)
−1.460
(67.304)
.130
(.126)
−.011
(.015)
−2.774***
(.457)
−.170
(.661)
.556**
(.168)
−.196***
(.029)
.296***
(.060)
−50.467***
(15.065)
.524
94.8%
.005
(.023)
−4.416***
(.695)
−1.363
(1.540)
1.156***
(.331)
−.387***
(.087)
.469***
(.103)
Endorse Romney
Post-Iowa (Model 3)
Note: Cells contain logistic regression coefficient estimates with the standard errors (in parentheses).
∗ p < .05 ∗∗ p < .01∗∗∗ p < .005.
R-squared
Percent predicted
Constant
Relative Polling advantage
Relative delegate advantage
Romney poll
Romney % Delegates
Obama approval
Primary
Candidate
GOP Strength
Endorse Romney
Pre-Iowa (Model 2)
Endorse Romney
Whole race (Model 1)
−.015
(.023)
−.109
(.062)
11.516
(6.986)
.109
97.2 %
.062
(.039)
−3.376**
(1.261)
−16.136
(525.392)
−.323*
(.161)
Endorse Alternative
Whole race (Model 4)
.002
(.032)
−.087
(.057)
13.476
(7.241)
.092
97.5%
.047
(.038)
−2.935**
(1.245)
−16.051
(534.489)
−.367**
(.167)
Endorse Alternative
Pre-Iowa (Model 5)
Table 10.2 Variable effects on the likelihood of endorsing Romney or Alternative candidate during different periods of the nomination competition
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to endorse an alternative when Obama’s approval ratings were higher,
especially during the post-Iowa period. Controlling for all other factors,
as Obama’s ratings improved, the need to have the strongest nominee
became a greater concern, and elites used their endorsements to help their
likely nominee.
Furthermore, there is evidence for the role of personal career goals in
officeholders’ endorsements. While many elites surely endorsed their preferred candidate for various reasons, our findings show that personal goals
had a negative effect on the likelihood of endorsing anyone. The statistically significant negative coefficients for the Candidate variable in Models
1, 3, 4 and 5 indicate that officeholders on the ballot were less likely to
make any endorsement, preferring to not publicly support Romney or
any alternative out of concern for harm to their campaign. This finding is
also consistent with our expectation that they consider electoral viability
more closely when it is tied to their own electoral futures.
However, the positive coefficient for the Romney Poll variable (Models
1 and 3) means that when Romney was more popular among rank-andfile Republicans, elites were more likely to endorse him. While the polls
only include Republican voters, this finding supports the importance of
electoral viability, at least to the extent that a winning candidate must
rally the base. Finally, despite the suspicion that threats of Tea Party challenges might motivate officeholders to support one of the alternatives,
officeholders facing primaries were not more likely to make any endorsements. Being up for general election affected officeholders’ calculations,
but insurgent Tea Party primaries did not.
Romney began the nomination campaign as its front-runner, thanks
to the many advantages he brought to the contest, but his nomination was not inevitable. Overall, elite officeholders’ endorsements suggest
a Republican Party that was receptive to a Romney nomination, but
wanted to consider its other options before committing. While Romney
had a substantial lead in endorsements prior to the Iowa caucus, for the
most part, Republican officeholders did little to help or hinder Romney’s
nomination with endorsements, and Perry picked up a fair number of
endorsements quickly after he entered the race. This suggests to us that
while Republicans in the end backed Romney, there was a clear opportunity for a serious challenge not just in some of the primaries, as Santorum
briefly threatened to do, but among the party’s elite leaders as well. Had
Perry been a better debater, or Santorum won his 2006 race, Romney
could well have had a harder time being nominated. As it is, Romney
benefitted from the unusual circumstances of the Republican Party in
2012: Its pool of potential candidates was defined less by the party’s successes in 2010 than by its losses in 2008 and 2006. There were simply
fewer candidates with traditional credentials available to challenge him
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for the nomination. And despite Republicans’ desire to replace Barack
Obama, many of those in a position to run in 2012 chose not to. This,
along with his name recognition and financial resources, may have been
one of Romney’s strongest assets as a candidate for the nomination. In the
absence of alternative choices who were both traditionally credentialed
and demonstrably electorally viable, Romney’s past heresies on abortion,
health care, and other issues were insufficient to disqualify him in the
eyes of elected Republicans as a class. Romney’s heresies were not without
cost; they made some of those Republican officeholders wary of openly
supporting him. However, from Romney’s perspective this was not necessarily problematic, so long as those reluctant officeholders remained silent
and did not endorse another candidate. That silence was in many ways
indicative of, if not support for Romney, then at least of a willingness
to give Romney a chance to prove himself with Republican primary voters. That silence also, crucially, represented support not being given for
Romney’s rivals for the nomination.
What do these findings suggest for 2016, when both parties are likely
to have wide-open nomination contests? At this writing, a large number
of Republican officeholders are being mentioned as candidates, and none
has yet emerged as the heir apparent for the nomination. Should former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decide not to run, the Democrats
will likewise have no clear front-runner. In unsettled nomination contests,
endorsements will be a key indicator of where elite opinion within each
party is moving., Whether party leaders are trying to promote one candidate over his or her rivals, or want to wait and see what the party’s voters
have to say, this could be a particularly valuable signal for observers of
the Republican primary. While an open race without President Obama,
who seems particularly disliked by Republicans, is likely to be different
in many ways from 2012’s contest, these findings argue that party elites
are likely to emphasize the political goal of winning the general election but that consideration for the effect of public endorsements on their
careers may dampen support. Likely candidates are already clashing publicly over an unusually large number of issues, including national security,
civil liberties, immigration, and federal budget policy; should these divisions continue into the campaign, elite endorsements will help observers
discern where the Republican Party may be moving on these issues.
Notes
1. Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller, The Party Decides:
Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2008).
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2. John Sides and Lynn Vavreck, The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the
2012 Presidential Election (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
2013), p. 7.
3. Mark Shields, “What Endorsements Can Tell Us,” Creators.com, February 18,
2012, http://www.creators.com/liberal/mark-shields/what-endorsementscan-tell-us.html (accessed June 27, 2012).
4. James W. Ceasar and Andrew Busch, The Perfect Tie: The True Story of the
2000 Presidential Election (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
2001), p. 68.
5. Timothy J. Burger, “Bush Corrals Bulk of GOP Reps,” New York Daily News,
May 27, 1999.
6. Jonathan Bernstein, “The Rise and Fall of Howard Dean and Other Notes
on the 2004 Democratic Presidential Nomination.” The Forum 2 (2004),
accessed June 11, 2013, doi: 10.2202/1540-8884.1029.
7. Erik Eckholm and Jeff Zeleny, “Evangelicals, Seeking Unity, Back
Santorum,” New York Times, January 15, 2012, A1.
8. Matt Bai, “The Tea Party’s not-so-Civil War,” New York Times, January 15,
2012, MM 34.
9. GOP Strength equals the average Republican presidential candidate’s general election vote percentage minus the Democratic candidates’ percentage
in 2004 and 2008 for the state (governors and senators) or district (representatives). Candidate is a dichotomous variable equal to one for officeholders
on the 2012 ballot. Primary is a dichotomous variable equal to one for
officeholders who faced a serious primary in 2012, as defined as receiving
less than 75 percent of the primary vote (Boatright). Obama Approval equals
Obama’s Gallup approval rating on most recent date prior to the endorsement. Romney Percent Delegates equals his number of delegates won as a
percentage of all delegates awarded by the date of the endorsement. Romney
Poll equals the percent of likely primary voters who prefer Romney in the
most recent previous poll. Relative Delegate Advantage equals the number
the endorsed alternative’s delegates as a percentage of all delegates awarded
by the date of the endorsement minus Romney’s percentage. Relative Polling
Advantage equals percent of likely primary voters who prefer the endorsed
alternative minus Romney’s percentage (Note these last two variables were
usually negative). We also used a dichotomous variable for gender which was
insignificant in all models.
10. Wayne Steger, “Who Wins Nominations and Why? An Updated Forecast of
the Presidential Primary Vote,” Political Research Quarterly, 2007, Volume
60, pp. 91–99.
11. According to contemporaneous data compiled by the George Washington
University’s Democracy in Action project, Bush began 2000 with the public backing of 24 governors, 25 United States Senators, and at least 175
House members, 114 of whom endorsed Bush en masse on May 26,
1999. See http://www.gwu.edu/∼action/natendorse.html, http://www.gwu.
edu/∼action/natendorse2.html, and http://www.gwu.edu/∼action/natendo
rse3.html for full lists of endorsements.
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12. Eric Ostermeier, “Brokered Convention Media Chatter More Than Doubles
from 2008,” Smart Politics, March 16, 2012, http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/
smartpolitics/2012/03/brokered_convention_media_chat.php.
13. Bernstein (2004).
14. P. Scott Shearer, “Romney Names Farmers & Ranchers Coalition,” National
Hog Farmer, August 20, 2012.
15. We also employed DW-Nominate scores as a measure of officeholders’ ideology to investigate ideology’s effect on endorsements but it was not significant,
although measures were only available for members of Congress.
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Part
III
Implications of
the 2012 Election:
Domestic and Foreign
Policies
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Chapter
11
The Past as
Prologue: Obama,
Health Care,
and the Election
of 2012
Anne Marie Cammisa
What role did health care play in the election of 2012? Precious
little, to look at the polls. Though most Americans appeared to be less
than thrilled with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), health care was not the
most important electoral influence. There were clear differences between
Democratic President Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney on
health care, but most Americans paid more attention to economic issues
than health care in 2012. Only 10 percent of the public ranked health care
as their number one concern in 2012 (see Table 11.1). In a sense, a vote
for Obama was a mandate for health care (given that Republicans vowed
to repeal the ACA), and yet, that doesn’t appear to be why people voted for
him. Perhaps the better question is, “What role did the election of 2012
play in health care?” In contrast to our initial question, the answer to this
one is “a great deal.” In fact, the elections of 2008, 2010 and 2012 were
all critical ones for the future of health care reform. The 2012 election,
especially with regard to health care, can only be understood within the
broader context of the previous two elections. Before we can understand
the consequences of the 2012 election then, let us establish the context,
and examine the 2008 elections.
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Table 11.1 Percentage of public rating various issues
as the Number 1 determinant of their vote in 2012∗
Issue
%
The economy
Social issues and values
Social security and medicare
Health care
The federal deficit
Foreign policy and the Middle East
Terrorism
None/other (vol.)
Unsure
46
15
12
10
7
6
1
1
1
Source: NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, September 26–30,
2012. http://www.pollingreport.com/prioriti.htm.
The Election of 2008 and Health Care
Elections matter in politics. They establish the context for policymaking
in at least two ways. They not only determine the “who” of the political
structure (the elected officials), they also play a large part in determining
the “what” of the political agenda (the policies that will be considered).
Each individual running for office brings a set of strengths and weaknesses, baggage from the past, and his or her own personality and style,
and has areas where he or she is more or less skilled. These personal qualities and attributes put a stamp on how things might get done. But each
person also brings his or her own pet issues, and thus an election can focus
the public on a particular problem area as well as particular policies that
might solve that problem. The election might also serve as the focal point
for a public that is upset about an issue and is looking for the right person to help solve a political problem. Agenda-setting in an election can be
top-down (candidates focus the public’s attention on an issue) or bottomup (public opinion forces a candidate to focus his or her attention on an
issue). In either case, elections are important in setting the policy agenda.1
Hillary Clinton: the Legacy of 2008
It was clear from the earliest campaigning in 2008 that health care would
be an important issue in the Democratic primary. The top contender
from the beginning was Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY); Senator Barack
Obama (D-IL) was a long shot. Hillary Clinton had been the point person
for her husband’s (President William Clinton’s) failed health care policy.
Obviously, health care was important to her, and she had an axe to grind as
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well. She had been widely criticized for being the cause of health reform’s
failure in 1994, though she had resuscitated herself as a politician in her
own right with her successful Senate campaigns in 2000 and 2006. By
2008, she was a party favorite both as an accomplished sitting senator and
because she and her husband were agile and prolific fundraisers. As the
primary campaign kicked up in the summer of 2007, Hillary Clinton
looked like the candidate to beat. And her candidacy, combined with economic pressures, ensured that health care would move to the top of the
political agenda, setting the stage for a political drama that would have
ramifications in the next two elections.
Health care had also been a perennial issue for Senator Edward (Ted)
Kennedy (D-MA), who had been pushing for a nationalized health care
plan since the 1970s. He had worked with Hillary Clinton on health care
in the 1990s, and was sure to be an ally in her plans for health care reform
as President. In fact, Democratic leadership in Congress was excited about
the possibilities of the 2008 election, which looked to be an opportunity
to end eight years of a Republican in the White House, and give the
Democrats the chance to work on pet policies that had been put on the
back burner for eight years. Kennedy’s legacy was to last far beyond his
2010 death.
Enter, Stage Right
Hillary Clinton’s plans for the presidency were rudely interrupted by the
emergence of a young, energetic and charismatic candidate for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. Although he had
served in the Senate for less than three years, he had given a well-recieved
keynote address at the Democratic convention in 2004, and was widely
seen as a potential presidential candidate—at some future point. When
he decided to throw his hat in the ring in early 2007, it looked like a test
run. He could get his feet wet, build up a fundraising apparatus, make a
name for himself, and then return to the Senate to get some more policymaking experience before running again in 2012 or 2016, when he
might have a realistic chance at becoming president (or at least, that’s
what conservatives hoped).2
But Barack Obama defied everyone’s expectations. His charismatic
personality, youthful appearance and attractive young family were reminiscent of John F. Kennedy. And the fact that he would be the first African
American president added further excitement to his candidacy. (The irony
that the first viable African American candidate was pushing out the first
viable woman candidate was not lost on Hillary Clinton’s supporters).
Barack Obama, too, ran on health care as an issue. And here, he had less
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ANNE MARIE CAMMISA
baggage than Hillary. He hadn’t been the person responsible for losing the
Democrats’ previous chance at health care reform, though his health care
plan was much the same as Clinton’s. His speeches were inspiring, and
he gave an aura of competence and intellectual prowess, which made him
all the more desirable as a candidate. When Ted Kennedy, a long time
Clinton supporter, decided to back Barack Obama, suddenly it looked
as if Obama just might get the nomination. He won the Iowa caucuses,
and was momentarily stopped in New Hampshire, where Hillary Clinton
won the primary after having been moved to tears by a reporter’s question
about how she handled the stress of campaigning. That moment seemed
to humanize her (though same claimed it was staged), and she, like her
husband, made a comeback.
Hillary’s good fortune did not last long, however, and Obama went on
to win the Democratic nomination, and, eventually, the Presidency. But
health care reform in the Obama presidency has to be seen at least somewhat as Hillary Clinton’s legacy. She focused attention on the issue with
her detailed plan. In addition, though she was pushing for health care,
her past failure in the area may have held her back and given Obama an
edge on that issue.3 In any case, Hillary Clinton’s presence in the race was
an added boost to health care reform being placed on the governmental
agenda.
Health care wasn’t only a Democratic issue. The rising costs of health
care made it a “pocketbook” issue that Republicans needed to deal with as
well.4 Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney could claim responsibility for that state’s health care plan (though such credit-claiming
actually would harm his candidacy among conservatives). Senator John
McCain (R-AZ), the eventual Republican candidate, also proposed to
reform health care, though his reform, true to his conservative leanings,
would be more market- based, requiring less government spending and
involvement5 So, as voters went to the booth in November of 2008, they
were faced with the choice of a Democratic candidate who supported
broad reform of the health care system, or a Republican candidate who
proposed more modest changes. The Democrat won. Thus, the election
of 2008 had a direct effect on the placement of health care reform on the
governmental agenda, and in particular, on the type of reform that would
be pursued.
The Congressional Election of 2008
Of course, the presidency wasn’t the only office on the ballot in
2008. What was perhaps as important for health care reform was the
congressional election in 2008. If the Democrats wanted health care
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policy, Congress was the place where it would pass. It was necessary to
get a majority in both the House and Senate, and having at least 60
Democrats would be helpful in the Senate. In 2008 Democratic political
strategist Rahm Emanuel looked to the swing districts—districts in which
the winning candidate won by a narrow margin, and which were likely
to “swing” from one party to the other in any given election. Emanuel
focused his energy on these districts, raising funds for the Democratic
candidates and recruiting anyone who could win. This meant moderate
“blue dog” Democratics were elected in these swing districts.6
It wasn’t a difficult job for Emanuel; the public was growing weary
of fighting two wars (in Afghanistan and Iraq) and President Bush had
historic low approval ratings. The economy was starting to sour, and the
country was ready for a change. The blue dog Democrats in the swing
districts swept in on Obama’s coattails. The 2008 election was significant
for at least two reasons. It was the first time an African American had
been elected President of the United States. It was also a “wave” election
in which Republicans were swept out as Democrats were swept in. For
the purpose of health care reform, the 2008 election (1) brought in a
Democratic president committed to reforming the health care system,
(2) gave him the majorities he needed in Congress to pass such legislation,
including, in the Senate, 60 Democratic votes: a filibuster-proof majority
and (3) set the stage for the 2010 elections, by putting so many Democrats
in vulnerable seats. If there had ever been a “mandate” for health care
reform, President Obama had it as he entered office in 2009.
Health Care Reform: Act One, The legacy of
the 2008 election
Despite this mandate, however, the passage of health care reform was long,
arduous and not very pretty. The 2008 election also reflected a deepening
polarization in the country that would have ramifications for the 2010
and 2012 elections: voters in red states were dead set against health care
reform, big federal programs and increasing taxes; voters in blue states saw
the charismatic President as the symbol of hope and change, and were
themselves hopeful of a new beginning, a new era of government activity
for the good of society. Voters in the so-called “purple” (swing) states were
divided between the camps. As the President was inaugurated in 2009,
however, the mood of the country was upbeat, and even his opponents
saw the change in administration as a hopeful new beginning.
Hoping to continue to distance himself from Hillary Clinton’s failures, President Obama refused to get involved in the nuts and bolts of
the legislative process.7 Though the blue dog Democrats had been pivotal
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in giving President Obama his Democratic sweep, they were on the conservative end of the party’s spectrum, and were concerned about cost, the
single-payer system and federal funding of abortion (prohibited under the
Hyde amendment).8 Republicans, for their part, were leery of any kind
of national health care system, and worried about creating a vast new program in an era of skyrocketing debt. It eventually became clear that (1) the
President was not going to weigh in on the legislation in any significant
way and (2) Republicans were going to be, as a Politico article alleged (and
the Democrats liked to repeat), “the party of no.”9 This strategy continued to play out, causing headaches for the President after both the 2010
and 2012 elections.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) set about creating the coalitions necessary
to pass the bill—coalitions that each leader had to build within the Democratic Party. Language appeasing pro-life Democrats was added in the
House, and in the Senate special deals (the “cornhusker kickback,” the
“Louisiana Purchase”) were made to entice recalcitrant Democrats to vote
for the legislation. As 2009 was drawing to a close, health care was moving towards passage. The House and Senate were each voting on different
versions of the bill; these versions would eventually need to be combined and reconciled in a conference committee bill that would itself
come to a vote in each chamber before going to the President for his
signature.
Special Elections matter, too
And then, the unthinkable happened. Senator Ted Kennedy, a long time
champion of health care reform whose early support of Obama had given
the young senator the gravitas to pursue the presidency, died of brain
cancer. Kennedy’s career-long dream to create national health care in the
United States was about to be realized, and at the cusp of its realization,
he died. This was the stuff of novels.
And then, the unbelievable happened. In a special election to
replace Senator Kennedy, Republican Scott Brown—a staunch opponent of health care reform—beat Massachusetts Attorney General Martha
Coakley to take the Senate seat. It was unbelievable, both because liberal
bastion Massachusetts had not elected a Republican Senator since 1978,
and because suddenly the “filibuster proof majority” that the Democrats
held in the Senate disappeared. It was also a warning shot to Democrats
in the House and Senate running for reelection.
Democrats were left scrambling. The bill had almost made it home,
and now it was about to die before it even got to conference committee.
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In order to become law, legislation must pass in exactly the same form in
both houses of Congress. The purpose of a conference committee is to
take competing House and Senate bills and make them into one. That
would still be possible, of course, but the next step, which required the
Senate (as well as the House) to vote for the revised legislation, would be
out of the question. In order to pass, the bill would need 60 votes in the
Senate, and the Democrats, having lost the lion of the Senate, now had
only 59.
Health Care Reform: Act Two, the legacy of
the 2010 special election
Any good novel has twists and turns before the final denouement. The
hero seems to have no way out, and then, perhaps, a scrap of fabric materializes, and Jean Valjean is able to make up with his beloved Cosette
before he dies. While in this polarized political environment, it is probably dangerous to assign heroes and villains, there was one final plot twist
in the passage of health care reform. In the Senate, one type of legislation
does not need 60 votes to pass: a reconciliation bill. Reconciliation bills
are not supposed to contain substantive legislation, but rather contain
legislative changes to reconcile existing law to changes in budget. A plot
was hatched by Presidential Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and implemented by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The House of Representatives
would vote for the Senate legislation as is, with the understanding that
changes would be made to it within the reconciliation bill. This in itself
was risky business (nothing is guaranteed in the legislative process), and
Pelosi had a steep hill to climb, convincing rank and file Democrats to
vote for legislation that they did not like. Then, the House would vote on
changes to the legislation as part of the budget reconciliation bill, which
would then go to the Senate for a vote—a vote that required only a simple
majority (51 of 100 Senators) rather than 60 votes.10
The plot worked. On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed
the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. Five days
later, he signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of
2010, putting into law the compromises required by the House of
Representatives. “Obamacare” had become the law of the land.
Within eight months, Republicans would regain their majority in the
House.
The Massachusetts special election of 2010 was important in that it
almost stopped health care reform in its tracks. Perhaps more importantly,
it necessitated a legislative maneuver that added to an impression that the
bill was being forced. It passed without any Republican votes in the House
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or the Senate. Though one could say that the election didn’t matter, given
that health care reform passed even with the election of a Republican
Senator from Massachusetts, the opposite could be said to be true. The
very facts that health care was passed (a) without a single Republican vote
and (b) by virtue of legislative manipulation, fed the anger of conservative
Republicans and led to the Tea Party movement. Though the outcome
might have been the same either way, the bill had less legitimacy in the
eyes of a large segment of the American public. This lack of legitimacy
was an important part of the context within which health care would be
implemented.
The Election of 2010
If the health care reform story was a novel, it would have ended with
the President’s signature. But a sequel would have to be added, and a
new novel begun. The election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts was not
an anomoly. In fact, large pockets of the population were opposed to
health care, and Representatives and Senators heard from them in Town
Hall meetings in the summer of 2010. The Tea Party, a loosely organized
movement of individuals dissatisfied with government, was beginning to
stir up trouble for the Democrats and health care reform. The Tea Party’s
name refers to the Boston Tea Party, where patriots threw tea into the
Boston Harbor in protest over unfair taxes. This Tea Party too was upset
with taxes and expanding government power.
The election of 2008 had been a wave election, throwing out the
(Republican) bums. The election of 2010 was another wave election,
again throwing out the bums—only this time the bums were the
Democrats. Red and blue states were not inclined to change, so this left
the purple states: the swing districts that Rahm Emanuel had so assiduously courted in 2008. The swing districts which had swept in blue dog
Democrats in 2008 now swept them out and replaced them with Tea
Party Republicans. Had the results in the swing districts been more mixed
in 2008, the results of the wave election of 2010 would not have been
so amplified. As it was, the overall result was that moderate Democrats
were replaced by conservative Republicans, and the Congress became
even more polarized than it had been. And the Senate, less subject to the
vagaries of public opinion changes, maintained its Democratic majority,
even though the Republicans did gain seats. Midterm elections generally
result in losses for the President’s party, but in this case, the party did take
a “shellacking,” as the President so aptly put it. The 2008 elections created
the context for this shellacking to happen.
What did this mean for health care? Two things: the fight was not over,
as House Republicans vowed to “repeal and replace” the legislation, and
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conversely, health care would remain law, since the Democratic Senate
would not take the House’s bait and vote on repeal.
The election of 2010, then, illustrated the public’s frustration with
health care, at the same time that it solidified health care’s legislative
status.
The 2012 Election: Let the Battle End?
This brings us to 2012. One would hope that the election of 2012
could be the deciding factor in health care reform. Either the public
accepts that the national health care plan is a good and proper pursuit
for the government, or the public communicates that it is unwilling to
accept the Affordable Care Act, and the government needs to repeal it.
Indeed, there were stark differences between the two presidential candidates. Republican Mitt Romney vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act
and eliminate the individual mandate (which requires that each person
buy a health insurance plan). Though his proposals were less specific,
Romney’s plan, like McCain’s, would focus more on the private sector.
“Given the starkness of the choice, historians and policy makers believe
this election could be the most significant referendum on a piece of social
legislation since 1936, when the Republican Alf M. Landon ran against
Franklin D. Roosevelt.”11 Romney’s anti-ACA position was hampered,
however, by his having signed health care reform in Massachusetts—
a reform which was remarkably similar to the ACA. Were Romney to
have won in 2012, and had the Republicans taken control of the Senate, the Affordable Care Act would have been repealed, though it is
not certain what would have replaced it. As is evident from the Table
11.2, there were clear differences between Obama and Romney on health
care. For Obama, the emphasis would be on universal coverage in a government run program and an individual mandate to buy insurance or
face a tax penalty. For Romney, the emphasis would be on cutting costs
and reducing government involvement, and encouraging private sector
solutions.
As asserted at the beginning of the chapter, the 2012 election was
itself ambivalent. While a clear majority of the public opposed health
care reform, when faced with an election that could lead the country on the road to repealing it, the electorate punted. They re-elected
President Obama, giving him an unspoken mandate to continue health
care reform, and sent a Republican majority back to the House. The
ambivalence of the electorate was not lost on the Obama administration,
which announced in July 2013 that the unpopular “employer mandate”
would not go into effect until after the 2014 elections. If the 2012 election
was a referundm on “Obamacare,” there were mixed results.
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Table 11.2 Differences between Obama and Romney on health care 201212
Mandate for coverage
Main goal
Medicare/medicaid
Affordable Care Act
Emphasis
Obama
Romney
Yes
Universal coverage
Expanded
Remains
Government
No
Cutting costs
Privatized to some degree
Repealed
Market
Of course, one must not forget the Supreme Court’s role in this. Their
five-four decision to uphold the health care reform’s insurance mandate as
a tax conferred legitimacy on the bill, and may have had an impact on the
election. In any case, it was clear as the 113th Congress convened in January 2013 that the Affordable Care Act, though reviled by many, would
remain the law of the land. The effects of the law, however, would only
be felt later, in its implementation at the state level. Red states and blue
states, important in determining the ideological makeup of Congress, will
also to distance themselves from each other with respect to their health
insurance systems. The Supreme Court case allowed states to opt out of
the “health care exchanges” set up under the law. Red states are more
inclined to do so, necessitating the creation of a federal health exchange,
and further angering opponents.13
The Role of Health Care in the Election, or the
Role of Elections in Health Care?
This brings us back to our two initial questions, and leads us to a chicken
and egg dilemma: was health care important in the election of 2012, or
was the election of 2012 important for health care? In 2012, Obama was
reelected. In effect, the public said “yes” to the Affordable Care Act. But,
the public also reelected a Republican majority to the House, saying, in
effect: continue the battle on health care. This dichotomy reflects both
the ambivalence of the public, and the political polarization within the
country, which is only amplified in the Congress. The end result, though,
is that health care is here to stay, at least for the time being (Table 11.3).
The election of 2008 brought health care to the top of the agenda,
ensuring that health care would be considered in the 111th Congress. The
ensuing debate about Obamacare paved the way for the more polarizing
2010 election. The special election of 2010 sent a shock wave through
the political world, warning that opponents would not go down without
a fight. It also necessitated a legislative maneuver that may have tarnished
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Table 11.3 Public opinion on health care and vote for president in 2012
(Realclear average 5/27-624)14
Opinion on “Obamacare”:
Vote in 2012:
Percent
Percent
41.4 (approve)
51 (for Obama)
52 (disapprove)
47 (for Romney)
Source: RealClear Politics http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_
democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html
Table 11.4 Timeline
Election of 2008
Special Election of 2010
2010 midterm elections
6/28/2012
2012 election
Obama elected President
Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress
Blue dog Democrats elected in swing districts
Republican Scott Brown elected in Massachusetts (replacing
Democrat Ted Kennedy); Democrats lose their filibuster
proof majority
Democrats lose their majority in the House, swept out by Tea
Party Activists, but maintain their Senate majority
Supreme Court ruling upholds constitutionality of health
care reform
Solidifies health care’s standing as the law of the land
the reform effort, and ensured that health care would be a Democratic,
rather than bipartisan, initiative.
The 2010 election allowed for an unhappy segment of the public to
have its say, but Republican gains were not sufficient to overturn the law.
The 2012 election swung the other way, and combined with the Supreme
Court decision, gave health care a sense of legitimacy. The consequences
of the 2012 election on health care are twofold: health care will remain
law of the land, and Republicans will continue to fight its implementation
in the states. To understand why, one must look to the context of the
preceding elections.
All this to say: elections are consequential in policy formation in the
United States (Table 11.4).
Notes
1. For a more thorough discussion of the agenda-setting process, see John
Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, Update Edition, with an
Epilogue on Health Care (New York: Longman Classics in Political Science,
2010).
2. See Philip Klein, “The Charismatic Freshman Senator May Just Be the
Democrat Who Can Beat Hillary—and Make Liberalism a Winning
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3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
ANNE MARIE CAMMISA
Philosophy Again,” The American Spectator, July–August HYPERLINK
“C:\\Users\\wholder\\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\Windows\\
Temporary
Internet
Files\\Content.Outlook\\AppData\\Local\\
Microsoft\\Windows\\Temporary Internet Files\\Content.IE5\\BQGG5
R8C\\For” also John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, Game Change: Obama
and the Clintons, McCain and Palin and the Race of a Lifetime (New
YorkHYPERLINK “C:\\Users\\wholder\\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\
Windows\\Temporary Internet Files\\Content.Outlook\\AppData\\
Local\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Temporary Internet Files\\Content.IE5\\
BQGG5R8C\\HarperCollins.”)
Care Reform in the 2008 US Presidential Election, International Journal,
2009, Volume 64, pp. 135–144 (accessed June 30, 2013).
Maioni.
Shawn Tully, “Why McCain Has the Best Health Care Plan,” CNNMoney,
March 11, 2008, http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/10/news/economy/tully_
healthcare.fortune/.
See John E. Owens, “A ‘Post-Partisan’ President in a Partisan Context,” in
Obama in Office, ed. Chapter 7 in James Thurber (Boulder, CO: Paradigm
Publishers).
See Owens, “Post-Partisan President,” p. 112 and David Maraniss, op-ed in
Washington Post, Sunday, March 25, 2012.
Adriel Bettelheim, “Overhaul HaHYPERLINK ‘C:\\Users\\wholder\\App
Data\\Local\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Temporary Internet Files\\Content.
Outlook\\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Temporary Internet
Files\\Content.IE5\\BQGG5R8C\\to’/cqweekly/document.php?id=
weekly report111-000003189437&t.”
See Charles Mahtesian and Patrick O’Connor, “GOP at Risk of Becoming Party in the No,” Politico, February 26, 2009, http://www.politico.
com/news/storieHYPERLINK C:\\Users\\wholder\\AppData\\Local\\
Microsoft\\Windows\\Temporary Internet Files\\Content.Outlook\\App
Data\\Local\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Temporary Internet Files\\Content.
IE5\\BQGG5R8C\\
See Carrie Budoff Brown and Patrick O’Connor, “Fallout: Dems
Rethinking Health Bill,” Politico, January 21, 2010; and Kerry Young,
“Health Care Bill Could Hinge on Byrd Rule,” CQ Weekly, September
14, 2009, p. 2014, http://library.cqpress.com/cqweekly/document.php?id=
weekly report111-000003200762&t.
Abby Goodnough and Robert Pear, “This Election, a Stark Choice in Health
Care,” New York Times, October 10, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/
10/11/health/policy/this-election-two-profoundly-different-visions-forhealth-care.html?pagewanted=all.
Abby Goodnough and Robert Pear, “This Election, a Stark Choice in Health
Care,” New York Times, October 10, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/
10/11/health/policy/this-election-two-profoundly-different-visions-forhealth-care.html?pagewanted=all.
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13. Robert Pear, “Brawling Over Health Care Moves to Rules on Exchanges,”
New York Times, July 7, 2012.
14. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_
health_care_plan-1130.html; and http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/
2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html.
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Chapter
12
Healthcare Spending
and Prevention
within the
Affordable Care Act:
Contrasting the
Public Health and
Medical Models of
Prevention
T. Lucas Hollar
Introduction
During the 2012 election season, some saw the election as a referendum
on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) as much as it
was an election between presidential candidates.1 The resultant reelection
of President Barack Obama essentially ensured the survival of the Act.
However, in addition to the controversy surrounding the ACA is the contentious role prevention plays within the law. It is common knowledge
that the Act seeks to improve access to care, enhance the quality of care
provided in the US, and reduce healthcare spending, but one of the ACA’s
important and contested methods for reducing healthcare spending is the
use of preventive interventions.
Despite a cultural value expressed by, “an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure,” there are noteworthy disagreements surrounding
potential healthcare cost savings associated with prevention, let alone
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what activities constitute prevention. These disagreements involve alternative models within the prevention policy community: the public health
model and the medical model. Therefore, the role of prevention within
the ACA provides substantive examples of the differences between the
public health and medical models of prevention and of the financial consequences resulting from the models’ policy approaches. It also
demonstrates the ways competing models of thought amongst members of a policy community impact policy discussions, decisions, and
responses.
An important component of the ACA is the integration of public health and high-quality medical prevention. Both public health and
medical models of prevention have the opportunity to make significant
contributions to improved quality of health outcomes but with different consequences for healthcare spending. Policymakers, administrators,
and researchers can improve the way the nation designs and manages
healthcare policy by acknowledging the differences between the alternative models of prevention and by synthesizing them into optimally
effective and efficient approaches to health and health policy.
Healthcare Spending and Prevention
Despite spending far more on healthcare than any other nation, both in
total and per capita,2 the US achieves health outcomes, including morbidity and mortality, inferior to other developed countries.3 In 2006,
US healthcare spending exceeded $2 trillion,4 and by 2013, it is projected
to reach $2.9 trillion.5 Roughly 60 percent of the growth in spending is
attributable to individuals’ worsening health habits.6 As such, 84 percent
of the nation’s healthcare spending goes toward treating individuals with
chronic diseases.7
In 2009, almost one out of every two adults, 18 or over, had at least one
of six reported chronic illnesses.8 Chronic diseases, such as heart disease,
cancer, stroke, and diabetes, are a very important component within the
mix of healthcare issues facing America because they account for seven
out of ten deaths among Americans every year.9 As part of the nation’s
response to worsening health and health habits, the vast majority of the
nation’s health resources are allocated to medical services. Meanwhile,
even though “nine preventable conditions are responsible for more than
50% of all deaths in the United States,”10 only three cents of every dollar
are spent on public health and prevention.11 The US spends more money
on administrative overhead within the healthcare system than it does on
public health activities aimed at addressing individuals’ health habits and
preventing chronic disease.12
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Argument Surrounding Prevention as a Means of Producing
Healthcare Cost Savings
In the midst of the nation’s health status, healthcare cost predicament,
and subsequent efforts to respond, there is ongoing debate as to whether
or not preventive interventions actually produce savings. The works of
Russell13 and Cohen et al.14 discuss how screenings for cancers, diabetes
management, asthma management, hypertension medication, and cholesterol medication actually increase healthcare spending. Such increases
stem from the fact that screenings require money to be spent on individuals who might not have, and might never have, the condition for
which they are screened; the cumulative costs of disease management
can reach a point where they exceed what would have been the costs of
treating severe incidents resulting from the conditions; and, only certain
individuals with specific risk factors result in cost-savings from medical
prevention and management. However, Maciosek et al. and others point
out how “preventive services are often lumped into one large, undifferentiated group.”15 Therefore, one simply cannot brush aside all preventative
services in one swoop. Others point to the fact that not all prevention is
medical. Public health prevention is another viable approach.
The Constitution of Prevention
In addition to the debate over potential healthcare savings, there is also
ongoing debate and confusion as to what constitutes prevention of disease versus attempts to detect disease early on.16 Goetzel points to this as
a problem for lawmakers and citizens trying to understand the nature of
prevention. He argues, “in their minds, prevention means getting mammograms, colonoscopies, Pap tests, prostate screens, and full body scans.
Although these are called preventive services, they are actually screenings
for disease in early stages of development.”17 Although the screenings
allow detected disease to be treated sooner than later, they do nothing
to actually prevent disease. “So, when lawmakers discuss providing access
to and funding for prevention, they usually mean reimbursing for clinical
screenings performed in a doctor’s office.”18 Therefore, a distinction must
be made between public health and medical models of prevention.
Medical Model of Prevention
The medical model of prevention is based on a biomedical, pathophysiologic approach to health focused on the detection, treatment,
and eradication of illness. This reductionist approach to conceptualizing
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health is the dominant American understanding. Within this model,
interventions target specific risk factors and/or pathophysiologic causes.19
Accordingly, the medical model of prevention is reactive to disease and
illness and includes expensive personnel, prescription medications, expensive technology, and one-person-at-a-time interventions. Although the
medical model does little to avoid the onset of risk factors and disease, it is
effective in providing expedient treatment to individuals once individuals
are identified as at risk or ill. Therefore, although it results in additional
healthcare spending, those who are already ill can benefit from this type
of prevention.
Public Health Model of Prevention
In public health, the definitive issue of prevention is the actual avoidance of disease. The public health model is based on a socio-ecological
approach to health. Accordingly, this model of prevention targets individuals’ behaviors (such as diet, exercise, and risk behaviors, like smoking),
the environment in which people live (such as pollution, safety, and
opportunities for physical activity), and social determinants of health
(such as education, housing, and income). This is due to the fact that the
burden of disease stems from the combination of individuals’ behaviors,
physical environments, and social determinants of health, not from the
extent to which individuals have inadequate access to care.20 As such, the
public health model of prevention proactively avoids disease and illness
and includes less expensive personnel, education programming, policy
change, and communities-at-a-time interventions. This model effectively
helps populations avoid the onset of risk factors and disease, but its ability
to help those who are already ill depends on the severity of illness and the
availability of sufficient time to ameliorate the conditions.
Models of Prevention and the Role of Government
In addition to their differing epistemologies and technologies, the public
health and medical models of prevention also differ in the ways they fit
into understandings about the role of government. A challenge facing the
public health model of prevention, which is not the case with the medical
model, is the extent to which public health interventions are perceived
to occasionally clash with American societal norms and values, including
arguments about the role of government and health as a public or private
good. Such clashes can result from the public health model’s typical policy
tools, the nature of its interventions, and the topics it addresses.
Public health prevention involves policy changes at various levels of
government. The policy tools used to implement prevention policies
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range from varying degrees of coercion, like regulations and sanctions, to
varying degrees of non-coercion, like benefits, inducements, and hortatory tools.21 Critics of the public health model complain about both ends
of the coercion/non-coercion continuum for reasons ranging from questioning the role of government to involve itself in individuals’ lifestyle
decisions to using public funds to make physical environments safe for
physical activity.
Since public health prevention targets individuals’ behaviors, environmental change, and the social determinants of health, it is inherently
linked to politically sensitive topics. The nature of public health prevention disrupts societal and institutional inertia, at times confronts and
conflicts with individual choice, and can be criticized by opponents as
expansions of the “nanny state.” The topics addressed by public health
prevention also can prick social norms and values, like needle exchange
programs for drug users22 and a number of safe sex/sex education
initiatives for teens and adolescents.
A political argument that serves as an umbrella for these issues is to
what extent health is a private or public issue. If one were to use Stone’s
market and polis models,23 one would find that the economic rational decision-making market individual sees health as the consequence
of individuals’ decisions and behaviors. Meanwhile, from the political
decision-making polis, health is the consequence of history, culture, geography, education, economics, policy, and opportunity. However, even the
libertarian market individuals’ health becomes a collective, public issue
when individuals’ poor health and health choices result in accumulative harms, such as the meteoric rise in preventable chronic disease and
chronic diseases’ impacts on healthcare spending; structural harms, such
as increased system-wide costs for medical care due to paying for indigent
care; and harm to a group that results from harm to individuals, as evidenced by the opportunity costs borne by specific groups who experience
significant health disparities.24
However, these arguments are not foundational to the prevention
models themselves. They have more to do with the strategies and rhetoric
policy actors use within the policy subsystem for advocating their particular points-of-view and interests. These arguments are also helpful for
winning over policy actors and policymakers who lack the expertise to
understand the technicalities of the subsystem discourse.
The Models of Prevention and Healthcare
Spending
Having established the competing understandings of preventive interventions, this section discusses the opportunities for healthcare savings
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associated with the different models of prevention. Both the public health
and medical models have opportunities for significant contributions to
improved health outcomes. The principal issue is that policymakers
and administrators make the necessary distinctions between the alternative models of prevention in order to best fit resources and policies to
problems.
The Medical Model’s Approach to Prevention Most Often
Does Not Produce Cost Savings
Cohen et al. warn that, “although some preventive measures do save
money, the vast majority reviewed in the health economics literature do
not.”25 Russell found that hundreds of cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA)
studies have shown that clinical medical preventive services actually add
to medical spending, rather than produce cost savings.26 For example,
CEA data show how accumulated medical preventive costs for hypertension are higher over time than the cost savings resulting from avoided
heart disease and strokes that would have otherwise occurred. This stems
from the fact that hypertensive patients require medication for several
years. As such the common perception that prevention saves money by
avoiding more serious interventions later is simply most often a myth.
Similarly, based on their studies of medical preventive screenings,
Cohen et al. point out that “screening costs will exceed the savings from
avoided treatment in cases in which only a very small fraction of the population would have become ill in the absence of preventive measures.”27
Russell agrees. Screening for colorectal, cervical, and breast cancer result
in higher medical spending compared to savings.28 Even the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded that for most medical preventive
services, “expanded use leads to higher, not lower, overall medical spending.”29 In fact, fewer than 20 percent of medical preventive interventions
reduce costs.30
The Public Health Model’s Approach to Prevention
Produces Cost Savings
Public health prevention differs from medical prevention by focusing on
the avoidance of disease and illness through interventions that target the
multiple social and environmental determinants of health and disease.
A study conducted by the Trust for America’s Health found that the
nation could save more than $16 billion a year within five years by investing $10 per person per year in evidence-based community-level programs
that increase physical activity, improve nutrition, and prevent tobacco
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use.31 The report’s estimates of resultant savings “do not include the significant gains that could be achieved in worker productivity and enhanced
quality of life.”32
A 2011 Urban Institute study concluded that evidence-based, public
health programs are in the nation’s best interest for health and economic
reasons.33 The study stated that people who suffer from chronic disease
have higher medical care costs than those who do not; one can conceptualize the difference in the cost of care as the excess costs associated
with treating chronic disease.34 Looking only at the annual excess medical care cost of four diseases associated with obesity and smoking in
seniors (65+ years) and those between 45 and 64 years, the study estimated that evidence-based public health programs could save Medicare
and Medicaid $5.5 billion per year by 2030 by reducing the rate of
chronic disease by 5 percent and $26.2 billion per year by reducing the
rate by 25 percent.35
Adding Public Health Prevention to Medical Prevention Can
Produce Cost Savings
Despite the evidence that population-level public health interventions
alone can reduce healthcare spending and improve the wellbeing of
individuals and communities, something must be done to address the preventable chronic and life-threatening diseases that already exist within the
population. Therefore, integrating the public health and medical models
of prevention is likely the most effective approach for addressing complex,
multifactorial diseases.36 To put this idea to the test, Milstein et al. used a
dynamic simulation model of the US health system, based on a previously
published mathematical model of the US health system model developed
by the CDC, to compare the cost-effectiveness of three approaches to
improving health and reducing costs: expanding health insurance coverage, delivering better clinical preventive interventions, and funding public
health prevention (what the authors called “protection”) “by enabling
healthier behavior and safer environments.”37
Based on their work, all three strategies saved lives, but expanding
coverage and delivering better medical prevention services resulted in
increased healthcare spending.38 When added to the mix, public health
prevention “could save 90 percent more lives and reduce costs by 30
percent in year 10; by year 25, that same investment in protection could
save about 140 percent more lives and reduce costs by 62 percent.”39
Milstein et al. noted that increasing public health prevention interventions would reduce the prevalence of avoidable diseases and, in turn,
reduce the demand on healthcare services.
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Policy Implications for Prevention Initiatives
within the ACA
Distinguishing between the public health and medical models of prevention is a timely topic, considering how public health and prevention
are important components of the ACA. By reallocating public health
priorities and activities through the lens of the public health model of
prevention, policymakers and administrators can maximize resources on
preventive interventions that result in substantive population improvements and healthcare savings. The priorities and activities left over from
the medical model of prevention can be left to the medical sector. The
expansions in coverage and increases in access to clinical preventive
care resulting from the ACA support such a change. Examples of such
reallocations of public health priorities, activities, and resources can be
seen within the ACA’s Prevention and Public Health Fund, Community
Transformation Grants, and health in all policies initiative.
Prevention and Public Health Fund
Of the policy topics associated with potential healthcare savings resulting
from the public health model of prevention, the inclusion and funding
of the Prevention and Public Health Fund (PPHF) is certainly the most
substantive and relevant. Although some critics of the ACA claim that
the Act does very little, if anything, to actually reduce healthcare costs,
the PPHF illustrates an investment in population-level public health prevention interventions that seek to contribute to decreases in healthcare
spending. According the ACA, the purpose of the PPHF is “to provide
for expanded and sustained national investment in prevention and public
health programs to improve health and help restrain the rate of growth
in private and public sector healthcare costs.”40 The PPHF funds activities aimed at community prevention, clinical prevention, public health
infrastructure and training, and research and surveillance.41
Community Transformation Grants
A component of the PPHF that integrates the public health and medical
models of prevention in order to help reduce healthcare spending, while
improving health, is the Community Transformation Grants (CTGs).
The CTGs help states and localities implement, evaluate, and disseminate evidence-based community-level health activities designed to reduce
chronic disease, reduce health disparities, and control healthcare spending.42 CTGs concentrate on the causes of chronic disease by targeting
tobacco-free living, active living and healthy eating, social and emotional
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wellness, and safe physical environments. Concurrently, the grants focus
on high-impact medical preventative services to help control high blood
pressure and high cholesterol by helping state and local healthcare centers and hospitals improve panel management activities and make the
transition into patient-centered medical homes.43
Health in All Policies
In addition to the CTGs, and the PPHF that funds them, manifestations of integrating the public health and medical models of prevention
are present in the creation and execution of the National Prevention
Council, the National Prevention Strategy, and the Prevention Advisory
Group. Each of these is an example of attempts to create a synthesis of
public health prevention and medical clinical prevention within the roll
out of the ACA. A key component of this integrative work is the health in
all policies approach. This integrative approach understands that all policies have consequences for health; therefore, all government policies, not
just health polices, should be considered and designed with an appreciation for the ways they could affect and improve the health of citizens.
Conclusion
The passage and implementation of the ACA provides an illustrative
opportunity to discuss the ways competing models of thought within policy subsystems impact policy discussions, decisions, and responses. This
is particularly true regarding the role of public health within the ACA in
general and the opportunity for public health prevention to help control
healthcare spending while improving health outcomes specifically.
Having compared the opportunities to help control healthcare spending through the prevention interventions offered by the public health
and medical models, the value of employing prevention from the public
health approach becomes apparent. The value of this model’s understanding of prevention is important for health policy aimed at cost, quality,
and accessibility. The public health model of prevention allows for lowercost interventions to result in quality health outcomes that help reduce
systemic healthcare spending while remaining accessible to entire communities. Within the context of the ACA, the trick becomes making
sure policy effectively reallocates public health priorities and activities
within the framework of the public health model of prevention. Therefore, in the wake of the ACA’s increase in health insurance coverage and
clinical preventive services, policymakers, administrators, and researchers
can reallocate and re-prioritize public health activities in ways that help
to improve health and control healthcare spending by distinguishing
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between the public health and medical models of prevention and by synthesizing them into optimally effective and efficient approaches to health
and health policy. Considering the number of past and planned efforts
to either strike down or defund aspects of the ACA, like the PPHF and
the CTGs, such work is and will be the subject of much political debate
during the ongoing implementation of the ACA.
Notes
1. Jeffrey Anderson, “This Election Just Became About Obamacare,” The
Weekly Standard, The Blog, June 28, 2012, http://www.weeklystandard.com/
blogs/election-just-became-about-obamacare_647928.html (accessed June
2013).
2. Jeffrey Levi, Laura Segal, and Chrissie Juliano, “Prevention for a Healthier America: Investments in Disease Prevention Yield Significant Savings, Stronger Communities,” Trust for America’s Health, February 2009,
http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/3355.32711.tfahfinalreport.pdf (accessed
April 8, 2012); and Kaiser Family Foundation, “Health Care Spending in
the United States and Selected OECD Countries,” Snapshots: Health Care
Costs, April 28, 2011, http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/oecd042111.
cfm (accessed August 27, 2012).
3. Jack Meyer and Lori Weiselberg, “County and City Health Departments:
The Need for Sustainable Funding and the Potential Effect of Health Care
Reform on their Operations,” Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the
National Association of County & City Health Officials, December 2009,
http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/52569hmareport.pdf (accessed April 10,
2012).
4. Ron Goetzel, “Do Prevention Or Treatment Services Save Money? The
Wrong Debate,” Health Affairs, 2009, Volume 28, Number 1, pp. 37–41.
5. Sean Keehan, Gigi Cuckler, Andrea Sisko, Andrew Madison, Sheila Smith,
Joseph Lizonitz, John Poisal, and Christian Wolfe, “National Health Expenditure Projections: Modest Annual Growth Until Coverage Expands And
Economic Growth Accelerates,” Health Affairs, 2012, Volume 3, Number 7,
pp. 1600–1612.
6. Goetzel, “Do Prevention Or Treatment Services Save Money? The Wrong
Debate”; Kenneth Thorpe, Curtis Florence, David Howard, and Peter Joski,
“The Impact of Obesity on Rising Medical Spending,” Health Affairs, 2004,
Volume 23, pp. w480–w486; and Kenneth Thorpe, “The Rise in Health
Care Spending and What to Do about it,” Health Affairs, 2005, Volume 24,
Number 6, pp. 1436–1445.
7. G. Anderson, “Chronic Care: Making the Case for Ongoing Care,” Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation, February 1, 2010, http://www.rwjf.org/content/
dam/farm/reports/reports/2010/rwjf54583 (accessed April 16, 2013).
8. United States Department of Health and Human Services, “Building Healthier Communities by Investing in Prevention.” February 9,
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9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
169
2011, http://www.hhs.gov/aca/prevention/building-healthier-communities.
html (accessed May 2013).
United States Department of Health and Human Services, “The Affordable
Care Act’s Prevention and Public Health Fund in Your State,” February 14,
2012, http://www.hhs.gov/aca/prevention/ppht-map.html (accessed May
2013).
Lawrence Gostin, Peter Jacobson, Katherine Record, and Lorian Hardcastle,
“Restoring Health to Health Reform: Integrating Medicine and Public
Health to Advance the Population’s Wellbeing,” University of Pennsylvania
Law Review, 2011, Volume 159, p. 20.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “The Nation’s Health Dollar ($2.7 Trillion), Calendar Year 2011: Where It Went,” CMS, January,
2013, http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/StatisticsTrends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/Downloads/PieChartSour
cesExpenditures2011.pdf (accessed June 2013).
Jack Meyer and Lori Weiselberg, “County and City Health Departments:
The Need for Sustainable Funding and the Potential Effect of Health Care
Reform on their Operations”; and Glen Mays and Sharla Smith, “Evidence Links Increases in Public Health Spending to Declines in Preventable
Deaths,” Health Affairs, 2011, Volume 30, Number 8, pp. 1585–1593.
Louise Russell, “Preventing Chronic Disease: An Important Investment, But
Don’t Count on Cost Savings,” Health Affairs, 2009, Volume28, Number 1,
pp. 42–45.
Joshua Cohen, Peter Neumann, and Milton Weinstein, “Does Preventive
Care Save Money? Health Economics and the Presidential Candidates,” New
England Journal of Medicine, 2008, Volume 358, pp. 661–663.
Michael Maciosek, Ashley Coffield, Thomas Flottemesch, Nichol Edwards,
and Leif Solberg, “Greater Use of Preventive Services in US Health Care
Could Save Lives at Little or No Cost,” Health Affairs, 2010, Volume 29,
Number 9, p. 1660.
Jennifer Haberkorn, “Health Policy Brief: The Prevention and Public
Health Fund—A $15 billion Effort to Improve Health by Preventing Disease has been cut Amid Debate over whether it’s Really needed,” Health
Affairs, February 23, 2012, http://healthaffairs.org/healthpolicybriefs/brief_
pdfs/healthpolicybrief_63.pdf (accessed May 29, 2012).
Goetzel, “Do Prevention Or Treatment Services Save Money? The Wrong
Debate,” p. 38.
Ibid.
Jonathan Fielding, Steven Teutsch, and Lester Breslow, “A Framework for
Public Health in the United States,” Public Health Reviews, 2010, Volume
32, pp. 174–189.
Gostin et al., “Restoring Health to Health Reform.”
James Anderson, Public Policymaking, 5th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
2002); and Anne Larson and Helen Ingram, Policy Design for Democracy
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997).
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22. Mayes, Rick, and Thomas Oliver. “Chronic Disease and the Shifting Focus
of Public Health: Is Prevention Still a Political Lightweight,” Journal of
Health Politics, Policy, and Law, 2012, Volume 37, Number 2, pp. 181–200.
23. Deborah Stone, Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making (New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997).
24. Ibid., pp. 115–120.
25. Cohen et al., “Does Preventive Care Save Money? Health Economics and the
Presidential Candidates,” p. 662.
26. Russell, “Preventing Chronic Disease.”
27. Cohen et al., “Does Preventive Care Save Money? Health Economics and the
Presidential Candidates,” p. 661.
28. Russell, “Preventing Chronic Disease.”
29. Jennifer Haberkorn, “Health Policy Brief: The Prevention and Public Health
Fund—A $15 billion Effort to Improve Health by Preventing Disease has
been cut Amid Debate over whether it’s Really Needed,” p. 5.
30. Russell, “Preventing Chronic Disease.”
31. Levi et al., “Prevention for a Healthier America.”
32. Ibid., p. 3.
33. Timothy Waidmann, Barbara Ormond and Randall Bovbjerg, “The Role
of Prevention in Bending the Cost Curve,” Urban Institute: Health Policy Center, October 2011, http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/412429The-Role-of-Prevention-in-Bending-the-Cost-Curve.pdf (accessed April 10,
2012).
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Gostin et al., “Restoring Health to Health Reform.”
37. Bobby Milstein, Jack Homer, Peter Briss, Deron Burton, and Terry Pechacek,
“Why Behavioral and Environmental Interventions are Needed to Improve
Health at Lower Cost,” Health Affairs, 2011, Volume 30, Number 5, p. 832.
38. Milstein et al., “Why Behavioral And Environmental Interventions are
Needed to Improve Health at Lower Cost.”
39. Ibid., p. 832.
40. U.S. Public Law 111–148, Sec 4002, March 23, 2010, p. 466.
41. United States Department of Health and Human Services, “The Affordable
Care Act’s Prevention and Public Health Fund in Your State,” February 14,
2012, http://www.hhs.gov/aca/prevention/ppht-map.html (accessed May
2013).
42. U.S. Public Law 111–148, Sec 4201, March 23, 2010.
43. United States Department of Health and Human Services, “Community Transformation Grants: Addressing Health Disparities and Improving
Opportunities for Health,” September 27, 2011, http://www.healthcare.gov/
news/factsheets/2011/09/disparities09272011a.html (accessed May 2013).
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Chapter
13
Natural Uncertainty:
Reconciling the
Contrasting
Environmental Goals
of America’s First
Natural Security
President—Barack
Obama
Mark O’Gorman
In his September 2012 re-nomination acceptance speech at the
Democratic National Convention (DNC), President Barack Obama
unexpectedly inserted environmental security issues into his campaign.
He stated:
And yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and
floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future.
And in this election, you can do something about it.1
[emphasis added]
Political analysts opined on Obama’s well-timed rhetorical counterpunch
to Republican presidential opponent Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech
dismissal of global climate change (GCC), mocking the issue as a hoax.2
Democrats were pleased Obama was prominently placing environmental
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protection issues into the fall general election.3 Conservative critics
painted Obama as a fossil-fuel foe, squandering taxpayer money on illconceived renewable energy projects dealing with a false crisis.4 Criticism
of Obama also came from the left and from the environmental community, unsatisfied with Obama’s lack of commitment to reducing GCC. Al
Gore charged that Obama “has thus far failed to use the bully pulpit to
make the case for bold action on climate change.”5
On environmental issues, Barack Obama is complex. How could a
President state grave concern about fossil fuel pollutants accelerating climate change, while simultaneously supporting the US economic boon
from water-draining and air polluting hydraulic fracturing (fracking)
shale gas extraction? How could a president committed to reducing pollution by increasing the US automobile fleet’s gas mileage continue to
approve oil and gas leases and unapologetically embrace a coal industry
he assured could be made “clean?” Was Obama, once again, out of his
depth on environmental issues, feeding into broader concerns about his
acumen?6 What drives Obama’s thinking on environmental issues?
Obama’s rhetoric and his administration’s actions suggest that climatological dangers from carbon energy greenhouse gas (GHG) pollutants
are not just ecological crises, but are formally among the small list of his
administration’s most urgent US national security threats.
Growing numbers of environmental policy and international security
scholars give credence to the natural security school of international politics. Its adherents argue that conflicts over access to energy and twenty
first century precious minerals, the increased global dependence on fossil
fuels, and rising political instability due to ecosystem harm combine to
authenticate global climate change as a valid, potent US national security
policy threat.7
Examination of Obama’s campaign and presidential rhetoric, his legislative work, and his administrative/executive successes, will show how he
prioritizes GCC issues within the US national security portfolio. While
recent US presidents have embraced components of such a worldview,
the breadth and depth of environmental security rhetoric and policy suggest Barack Obama is striving to become America’s first natural security
president.
Natural Security: How Resource Competition,
US Energy Dependence, And Ecosystem Decline
Reframes American Threat Assessment
Environmental scarcity and competitive access to finite natural resources
frame nature-based national security threat assessment. Environmental
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173
scholars have long warned of social and ecological costs of unregulated
access to limited natural resources, while critics dismissed these writings
as naïve rejections of free market capitalism.8 Climate change scholars
pointed to increasing ecological harm caused by increased human use
of fossil fuels for transportation, power generation, homes and manufacturing.9 Record temperatures in the US and historic atmospheric
carbon dioxide (CO2) pollutant levels of 400 parts per million (ppm)
are indicators that, further validate climate change’s threat.10
OPEC’s 1973–74 oil embargo, and the first gas rationing since World
War II, provided Americans a vivid example of how geopolitics and natural resource access collide. Ullman asked post-Cold War readers to reject
the assumption that “defining national security merely (or even primarily)
in military terms conveys a profoundly false image of reality . . . ignoring
even more harmful dangers.”11
Matthew details multiple dimensions of the natural security worldview.
One view links scarcity of environmental resources (water, food, oil) to
conflict over access to such resources.12 A second view analyzes economic
overreliance and corruption endemic in nation-states solely propelled by
one high value natural resources (oil, diamonds, REEs).13 Environmental
security also evaluates the ecological impacts of making war (radioactive
pollution from US atomic bomb plants, massive air pollution caused by
retreating Iraqis blowing up Kuwaiti old fields).14 Two final subsets call
for greater access to military information to monitor environmental issues
(e.g., desertification images from military satellites), or reemphasis on how
nature can draw actors towards peaceful conclusion of conflicts.15
US realist national security advocates, focusing on sovereignty, state
versus state conflict and the projection of power, find stark contrasts when
attempting to embrace natural security thinking. Realpolitik advocates of
economic and military power projection struggle to embrace sustainable
development and/or Agenda 21 principles, with their community-based
ethic of sharing resources, embracing nature, and assisting all “major
groups” (women, children and indigenous peoples).16
Another criticism of natural security scholarship results from its call
to embrace abstract, long-term threats. Nature-based threats rarely are
included among those humanity-threatening events national security jargon identifies as existential threats. Nuclear, biological and chemical
weapons use, a meteor striking Earth, or pandemic diseases are examples
of such extreme global and terminal threats.17 More study and committed statecraft is needed to fold climate change threats into a security world
focused on militarized force projection.
Lloyd and other Copenhagen School scholars suggest a rhetorical
bridge between natural and national security. Securitization theory argues
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that security issues become threats as part of a speech act. If a “powerful
securitizing actor argues that something constitutes an existential threat”
needing immediate action for a nation to survive, continual use of that
actor’s speech act validates the threat, making it more real.18 Lloyd argues
that rhetoric by key national security actors is an essential first step, permits new existential threats to gain traction in national security policy
circles, and validates further government action.19
Obama’s first term environmental rhetoric suggests application of the
natural security speech act construct, with Obama as the “powerful
securitizing actor.”
Natural Security in the US Government
1991–2013
Obama’s natural security appointment continues pockets of government
activity over the past 20 years to infuse environmental security into the
federal government. In 1991, President George H. W. Bush’s administration included the word environment in that year’s National Security
Strategy (NSS) of the United States. The first term of the William J. (Bill)
Clinton administration declared that environmental degradation foments
natural resource scarcity in many regions of the world, furthering global
political and economic instability, actually making changes in the global
environment a national security threat. In 1996, Clinton’s US Secretary of
State Warren Christopher stated “the environment has a profound impact
on our national interests.”20
In 1993, the US Department of Defense named Sherri Wasserman
Goodman to the newly-created position of Deputy Undersecretary of
Defense for Environmental Security (ODUSD-ES). She, with key staffer
Gary Vest, crafted the first US government documents outlining environmental security. Successes included a mission statement, funding
recommendations and a dedicated environmental quality budget line in
the DOD’s annual budget, and a 1998 DOD Directive, stating that
“conservation of natural resources and the military mission need not
and shall not be mutually exclusive.”21 By the late 1990s, the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) was
one of a growing number of interagency US bureaucratic environmental security organizations focusing on energy, water and climate change,
environmental conservation and restoration.22
Environmental security analysts agree that “reliable access to critical
minerals” (both fuel and non-fuel) is essential for long term US economic
and geopolitical stability.23 Debate focuses on how the need to shift to
GHG-reducing renewable energies may destabilize mineral-laden energy
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suppliers.24 America’s electronic economy demands access to minerals
such as gallium and lithium for computer circuits and high-capacity
energy storage batteries, and Rare Earth Elements (REEs) for building
“laser-guidance systems for weapons, refining petroleum and building
wind turbines.”25 China’s prime supplier role and its control of 95 percent
of REE production insures US environmental security monitoring of the
long term impacts of such minerals dependence.26
Obama’s Climate Change Rhetoric
Low voter saliency on climate change minimized its political value in
both the 2008 or 2012 presidential elections. Although the pro-fossilfuel, anti-environmental regulation campaigns of Republican presidential
candidates John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012 provided an
easy contrast to be made by the Obama campaign team that helped turn
out the Democratic base, climate change did not turn out the American
electorate. Energy policy was a salient issue for only nine percent of 2008
voters. Economic issues were most salient for 63 percent of voters in exit
polls.27 The saliency of energy policy or climate change was ignored in
2012 Election exit polls.28
America’s environmental disinterest is not surprising. American environmental beliefs are, “likely to be more mystifying than enlightening.”29
Americans express individual concern about the environment through
greater recycling, and embracing energy efficiency. However, this individually focused “light green” environmentalism has yet to lead citizens to
demand larger social, economic or political changes leading to long-term
sustainability.30
Obama’s early political career mirrored that indifference. Obama’s
Illinois Senate career was sparse on environmental legislation. Only 20
of the over 800 pieces of legislation State Senator Obama sponsored
were environmental (ranking 10th of 14 issues), with Health Care (233
bills), Poverty (125) and Crime (120) far outdistancing other topics.31
In Washington DC, less than a handful of the over 130 bills he sponsored or co-sponsored were on issues of energy or the environment.32
Content analysis of Obama’s pre-nomination book The Audacity of Hope
(2006) also reveals little interest in environmental issues per se. Terms
like climate, climate change, conservation, energy efficiency, or pollution
have no entries in the index of Hope. In contrast, issues like immigration,
health care and economics receive mention on 14, 39 and greater than 50
pages in Hope’s index.
Obama’s oratory, however, suggests he believed GCC was a valid security threat to America, as he stated consistently on the campaign trail
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in 2008 and 2012. In The Audacity of Hope, when Obama discussed
environmental issues, his focus was on energy security, saying that our
overdependence on oil “undermines our national security.”33 Obama
rarely wavered in bundling climate change and threat jargon in the
same sentence or phrase. Obama began his climate-change-as-threat focus
when announcing his presidential candidacy in February 2007:
All of us know what those challenges are today—a war with no end, a
dependence on oil that threatens our future, schools . . .
[W]e’ve been told that climate change is a hoax, and that tough talk and
an ill-conceived war can replace diplomacy, and strategy, and foresight.
And when all else fails, when Katrina happens, or the death toll in Iraq
mounts, we’ve been told that our crises are somebody else’s fault . . .
We can turn this crisis of global warming into a moment of
opportunity . . .34
[emphasis added]
At the November 2008 Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Des Moines IA,
an early milestone in Obama’s nomination battle with Hillary Rodham
Clinton before the Iowa caucus, Obama repeated the climate-change-asthreat theme:
We are in a defining moment in our history. Our nation is at war. The
planet is in peril. The dream that so many generations fought for feels as
if it’s slowly slipping away . . .
And I will lead the world to combat the common threats of the 21st
century—nuclear weapons and terrorism; climate change and poverty;
genocide and disease . . . .
I don’t want to see that the oceans have risen a few more inches. The planet
has reached a point of no return . . .35
Obama consistently used phrases like peril, threat and crisis in the same
phrase as climate change. Obama’s 2008 Iowa Caucus victory speech
echoed his Jefferson-Jackson threat assessment, adding how his climate
change policies would result in a time “when Malia and Sasha and your
children inherit a planet that’s a little cleaner and safer . . . ”36
Obama’s 2008 campaign stump speech frequently described climate
change as a larger existential national security threat. In his May 2008
North Carolina primary victory speech, informally securing the Democratic Party’s nomination, Obama stated that:
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The man I met in Pennsylvania who lost his job but can’t even afford the
gas to drive around and look for a new one—he can’t afford four more years
of an energy policy written by the oil companies and for the oil companies;
a policy that’s not only keeping gas at record prices, but funding both sides
of the war on terror and destroying our planet in the process . . .37
In Obama’s Democratic Party’s nomination acceptance speech in August
2008:
And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our
planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end
our dependence on oil from the Middle East . . .38
In the second 2008 presidential debate, an audience member asked a global
warming question. Obama’s responded that “we’re not going to be able to
deal with the climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels
that create global warming.”39
[Emphasis Added]
Obama’s 2009 Inaugural speech continued the natural security rhetoric,
with the new president stating that “each day brings further evidence that
the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our
planet. These are the indicators of crisis . . . ”40
Responses to critics of such analysis, believing polling-fueled campaign speech writers led to empty election-year rhetoric, can begin with
review of Obama’s December 2009 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, a
speech he actively participated in writing, including an all-nighter re-write
by Obama three days before delivering it, as a truer measure of his natural
security beliefs:41
It’s also why the world must come together to confront climate change.
There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more
drought, more famine, more mass displacement—all of which will fuel
more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists
and environmental activists who call for swift and forceful action—it’s
military leaders in my own country and others who understand our
common security hangs in the balance.42 .
[Emphasis Added]
Critics accurately show how Obama’s climate-change-as-threat rhetoric
fell away as he began the 2012 campaign.43 But it reemerged at Obama’s
re-nomination speech, and again in his 2013 Inaugural Speech, where he
stated that, “We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans
are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the
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threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray
our children and future generations.”44
Obama’s Inconclusive Environmental Record
Barack Obama’s environmental record in the White House has been perceived as one of modest achievement. Intense political partisanship, severe
economic headwinds from the Great Recession which began in December 2007, and political choices by the Obama administration to commit
significant political capital to pass health care reform, all deprioritized
environmental policy. 45
Obama used the 2009 Stimulus Bill, the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to advance elements of his administration’s
environmental policy by funding renewable energy, energy grid modernization and green energy R&D programs.46 Passage in the US House
of Representatives of the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES)
Act in June 2009 became Obama’s biggest, and sole, energy and environment legislative success. Also known as the Waxman-Markey Bill,
ACES mandated 17 percent reductions in US emissions from 2005 levels by 2020, that electric utilities meet 20% of their electricity demand
via renewables, required renewable electricity standards (RES) for larger
utilities, and funded tens of billions in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.47 Lack of US Senate action prevented ACES from
becoming law.
The uneven perceptions of Obama’s environmental record are made
vivid when looking at administration explanations of the President’s
energy policy. Increased automobile fuel efficiency is considered to be
Obama’s greatest first-term environmental policy achievement. A July
2011 Obama Administration and auto industry agreement permitted the
US Department of Transportation (DOT) to increase US corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFÉ) to 54.5 miles per gallon (mpg) for cars and
light duty trucks.48 Obama’s fuel efficiency program doubles the average US vehicle fuel efficiency, saving two billion gallons of gasoline while
preventing 900 million tons of GHG emissions.49
Obama’s explained the fuel standards as “the single most important
step we’ve ever taken to reduce our dependence on foreign oil . . . to
save families money at the pump and cut our oil consumption.”50
Environmentalists agreed, stating that the standards “will save consumers
$1.7 trillion at the gas pump and cut our oil imports by one-third.
They also represent the biggest step America has taken to reduce carbon
pollution and combat climate change.”51
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This joy among environmentalists quickly faded, given Obama’s
unwillingness to commit political capital to slow down US domestic
petroleum exploration. Obama’s tacit approval of myriad fracking permits to reopen, or drill anew, oil and natural gas drilling sites in the
US has created howls of criticism from ecological activists worried about
water overconsumption and groundwater pollution at the drill sites, and
from community members unhappy with the increased crime, drug use,
stress on city services and poverty seen in fracking boom towns.52 The
Bakken Shale Formation in North Dakota and Montana has seen a 150fold increase in oil production since 2006, almost all based upon fracking
technology. Estimates suggest over 40,000 new US fracking wells could
be drilled between 2009–17.53
Such exploration is validated as a way to insure US fossil fuel needs
“theoretically could come entirely from the Western Hemisphere” by
2020.54 Petroleum-centered geopolitics exposes the US to vulnerabilities
most acutely in the transportation sector, which is “95 percent powered by
petroleum products.”55 The Obama White House brings together both
energy efficiency and cleaner natural gas use via fracking exploration as
two policies driving significant declines in American dependence on foreign oil from 2009–13, with US oil imports falling to the lowest level in
over a decade.56
Obama’s Executive Branch efforts, using executive orders and bureaucratic rule-making paths, were more successful in implementing Obama’s
environmental agenda. Two regulatory actions tightened mercury, toxic
and GHG emissions from power plants.57 Obama’s January 2011
Executive Order (EO) 13563 mandated using “the best available science,” to assess environmental policies, scaling back over-politicized
eco-policymaking of the Bush-43 years.58
In June 2010, Sharon Burke was selected Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Operational Energy Plans and Programs.59 Burke, formerly of the
security think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS),
authored CNAS’ June 2009 Natural Security report. Natural Security
listed six topic areas needing greater federal government efforts in order to
insure a sound natural security posture, including energy, minerals, water,
land, climate change and biodiversity.60
Obama’s June 2013 climate change speech at Georgetown University echoes his juggling of environmental and natural security themes as
he presented his “strategy for a secure energy future.”61 He called for
decreased coal use through mandating lower CO2 emissions at power
points, and more public advocacy to convince laggard politicians to
increase renewable energy development and use.62 Obama also endorsed
increased natural gas use as a cleaner bridge fuel until greater renewable
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energy platforms could come online.63 Natural gas found primarily via
fracking wells.
Obama’s Environmental Security
Presidency—More Than Words?
Environmental scholars describe a need to reframe the language of climate
change, in order to reengage communication on this important issue.64
Obama, with frequent public comments stating how climate change
threatens America’s security, is attempting to do just that. As US executive agency review continues, eco-observers await Obama’s decision on
the Keystone XL oil pipeline project, hoping he rejects the project, or links
its approval to further reductions in climate pollutants. Natural security
observers await the decision, to gain greater clarity of linkages between
Obama’s rhetoric and his climate security strategy.
The socio-political reality of mid 2010s America suggests that US
citizens are resistant of government mandated behavioral change. Such
obstacles are magnified when attempting to encourage changing individual life and work habits to mitigate negative impacts from complex global
public threats such as global climate change,.65 However, as connections increase between GCC reductions and healthier living, clean planet,
sustainability and eco-consumer choice strategies, American citizen-voters
have access to more information and tools, and increasingly seem capable
of making needed changes to improve their lives, and by extension, the
planet’s health.66
Anthropogenic climate change makes our nation, and the planet, more
vulnerable. Few other issues will determine whether the nation will continue its historic leadership role in responding to the mortal security
threats of the next half-century. Obama is trying to convince Americans
to make deeper commitments to its natural security. Will Americans
decide that their security is linked to climate peril? Looking back decades
from now to determine if they helped their nation and planet be more
healthy and secure, will America’s answer match that given by Barack
Obama, when asking a similar question to the nation during the climate
change portion of his 2014 State of the Union address?67 Will they—will
we—say yes, we did?
Notes
1. Suzanne Goldenberg, “Barack Obama Swipes at Mitt Romney over Climate
Change Jibe,” The Guardian, September 7, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.
uk/environment/2012/sep/07/barack-obama-mitt-romney-climate (accessed
March 7, 2013).
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2. “Obama Counterpunches on Climate Change,” New York Times, September
2012, http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/ (accessed June 11, 2013).
3. Lisa Hymas, “Obama: Climate Change is not a Joke, Mitt,” Grist,
September 6, 2012, http://grist.org/ (accessed June 11, 2013).
4. Heartland Institute: Ideas that Empower People, 2013, http://heartland.org/
(accessed March 7, 2013).
5. Al Gore, “Climate of Denial: Can Science and the Truth Withstand the Merchants of Poison?” Rolling Stone, June 22, 2011, http://www.rollingstone.
com/politics/news/climate-of-denial- (accessed June 11, 2013).
6. James Fallows, “Obama Explained: Chess Master or Pawn?” The Atlantic,
March 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com (accessed June 14, 2013).
7. “Natural Security,” Center for a New National Security (CNAS), 2008–13,
http://www.cnas.org/node/2712 (accessed March 7, 2013). Rita Floyd, Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security Policy (Cambridge, UK: University of Warwick, Cambridge University
Press, 2010).
8. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press, 1949). Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science,
vol. 162, 1968, pp. 1243–1248. Donella Meadows and Dennis Meadows,
The Limits To Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books, 1972). Daniel Yergin, The
Prize (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991).
9. “IPCC Third Assessment Report,” IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, 2001, https://www.ipcc.ch/ (accessed June 11, 2013). “Reports:
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4),” IPCC:
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007, http://www.ipcc.ch/
(accessed June 14, 2013).
10. Catherine Brahic, “Climate Change’s Psychological Milestone: Turning 400
is a Lot Worse than Turning 40,” Slate, June 2, 2013, http://www.slate.com
(accessed June 14, 2013).
11. Richard Ullman, “Redefining Security,” International Security, vol. 8, 1983,
pp. 129–153, 129.
12. Matthew, in Vig and Kraft, pp. 347–348. See also Homer-Dixon (1999) and
Meadows (1972).
13. Matthew, in Vig and Kraft, p. 349. See also Collier (2003).
14. Matthew, in Vig and Kraft, pp. 350–351.
15. Matthew, in Vig and Kraft, p. 351. See also Gartzke (2012).
16. “Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development,”
United Nations General Assembly, December 11, 1987. http://www.un.org/
documents/ (accessed June 11, 2013).
17. “Existential Threats,” Science Wonk: Federation of American Scientists,
February 22, 2012, http://blogs.fas.org/sciencewonk/ (accessed June 13,
2013).
18. Floyd, Security and the Environment, p. 1.
19. Floyd, Security and the Environment, pp. 1–9.
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20. Richard A. Matthew, “Environmental Security,” in Environmental Policy:
New Directions for the 21st Century, ed. Norman J. Vig and Michael E. Kraft
(Los Angeles: Sage/CQ Press, 2013), pp, 355–356.
21. Floyd, Security and the Environment, p. 94. Robert F. Durant, The Greening of
the U.S. Military: Environmental Policy, National Security, and Organizational
Change (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2007).
22. Floyd, Security and the Environment, p. 105. About SERDP. n.d. http://www.
serdp.org/ (accessed June 17, 2013).
23. Christine Parthemore, “Elements of Security: Mitigating the Risks of U.S.
Dependence on Critical Minerals,” Center for a New American Security
(CNAS), June 2011, p. 5.
24. Parthemore, “Elements of Security,” p. 6. Stacy Vandeveer, “Still Digging:
Extractive Industries, Resources Curses and Transnational Governance in
the Anthropocene,” Transatlantic Academy, January 15, 2013, http://www.
transatlanticacademy.org/ (accessed March 13, 2013).
25. Parthemore, “Elements of Security,” p. 17.
26. “U.S. Department of Energy,” Critical Materials Strategy 2011, December
2011, http://www.hsdl.org (accessed June 17, 2013). Martin LaMonica,
“MIT Technology Review,” DOE Opens Innovation Hub for Critical Materials, January 16, 2013, http://www.technologyreview.com (accessed June 17,
2013).
27. “President National Exit Poll: Election Center 2008,” CNN, November
2008, http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/ (accessed June 8, 2013).
28. “Exit Polls,” CNN, November 2012, http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/
(accessed June 8, 2013).
29. David P. Daniels and Jon A. Krosnick, Michael P. Tichy, and Trevor
Tompson, “Public Opinion on Environmental Policy in the United States,”
Stanford University—Communication Department, 2011, https://www.
stanford.edu/dept/communication/faculty/krosnick/docs/2011/ (accessed
June 8, 2013).
30. Alex Steffan, “Bright Green, Light Green, Dark Green, Gray: The New
Environmental Spectrum,” WorldChanging, February 27, 2009, http://www.
worldchanging.com/ (accessed June 11, 2013).
31. “Obama’s Record in the Illinois Senate,” New York Times, July 29, 2009,
http://www.nytimes.com/ (accessed March 14, 2013).
32. Josh Clark, “How Barack Obama Works: Voting Record of Barack
Obama: Environment and Legal,” How Stuff Works, 2013, http://
history.howstuffworks.com/ (accessed March 14, 2013). “President Barack
Obama,” GovTrack, June 2013, http://www.govtrack.us/ (accessed June 18,
2013).
33. Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American
Dream (New York: Crown 2006), p. 168.
34. “Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s Announcement Speech,” Washington Post,
February 10, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ (accessed June 10,
2013).
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35. Lynn Sweet, “Sweet Blog Extra: Text of Obama Iowa State Party Jefferson
Jackson dinner speech,” Chicago Sun Times, November 12, 2007, http://
blogs.suntimes.com/ (accessed March 10, 2013).
36. “Barack Obama’s Caucus Speech,” New York Times, January 3, 2008, http://
www.nytimes.com/ (accessed June 14, 2013).
37. “North Carolina Primary Night,” Obama Speeches, May 6, 2008, http://
obamaspeeches.com/ (accessed June 14, 2013).
38. “The American Promise,” Obama Speeches, August 28, 2008, http://
obamaspeeches.com (accessed June 14, 2013).
39. Kate Sheppard, “Obama and McCain asked Directly about Climate Change
at Debate,” Grist, October 8, 2008, http://grist.org/ (accessed June 18,
2013).
40. “Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address,” New York Times, January 20, 2009,
http://www.nytimes.com (accessed June 18, 2013).
41. Michael Lewis, “Obama’s Way,” Vanity Fair, October 2012, pp. 210–217,
259–264.
42. Barack H. Obama, “Nobel Lecture: A Just and Lasting Peace,” Nobel
Prize, December 10, 2009, http://www.nobelprize.org/ (accessed June 18,
2013).
43. Brad Plumer, “How Climate Change Disappeared from the Debates,”
Washington Post, October 18, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/
(accessed June 18, 2013).
44. “Inaugural Address by President Barack Obama,” White House, January 21,
2013, http://www.whitehouse.gov/. (accessed June 8, 2013).
45. Vig, in Kraft, pp. 98–99. Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, “Obama
Years: Trends in American Values 1987–2012,” Pew Research Center for People
and the Press, June 4, 2012, http://www.people-press.org/ (accessed March 9,
2013).
46. Vig, in Kraft, p. 99. EPA Information Related to the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). February 21, 2012, http://www.epa.
gov/recovery/ (accessed June 17, 2013).
47. ACEEE: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. American
Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, 2013, http://aceee.org/topics/aces
(accessed June 17, 2013). Vig, in Kraft, p. 99.
48. Philip Bump, “Obama Administration Finalizes 54.5 mpg Standard for
Automobiles,” Grist, August 28, 2012, http://grist.org/news/ (accessed June
17, 2013).
49. Mike Allen and Eamon Javers, Obama Announces New Fuel Standards,
November 9, 2009, http://www.politico.com/ (accessed June 9, 2013).
50. Neela Banerjee, “New Fuel Economy Standards would Boost Average Car to
54.5 mpg,” Los Angeles Times, August 28, 2012 (accessed August 8, 2013).
51. Frances Beinecke, “Obama Administration Makes History by Raising
Fuel Standards to 54.5 MPG,” Natural Resources Defense Council, http://
switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/fbeinecke/obama_administration_makes_his.
html, August 28, 2012 (accessed August 8, 2013).
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52. Gasland: The Movie. A Film By Josh Fox, http://www.gaslandthemovie.
com/ 2013 (accessed August 8, 2013).
53. Edwin Dobb, “The New Oil Landscape: America Strikes New Oil,” National
Geographic, March 2013, vol. 223, Number 3, p. 36.
54. Charles Mann, “What if we Never Run Out of Oil?” The Atlantic, May
2013, pp. 48–63. Maugeri Leonardo, “ ‘Oil: The Next Revolution.’ Discussion Paper 2012–10,” Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs,
Harvard Kennedy School, June 2012.
55. Mark BettingerBernard I. Finel, Ann Mesnikoff, Jesse Prentice-Dunn, and
Lindsey Ross., “Ending Our Dependence on Oil,” Sierra Club: American
Security Project, May 27, 2010, http://americansecurityproject.org/ (accessed
June 9, 2013).
56. Megan Slack, Our Dependence on Foreign Oil Is Declining, March 1, 2012,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/ (accessed June 15, 2013). U.S. Energy
Information Association (EIA). How Dependent are We on Foreign Oil?
May 10, 2013, http://www.eia.gov/energy_in_brief/ (accessed June 17,
2013).
57. Bill Sweet, “Obama’s EPA Issues Rules Limiting Mercury Pollution,”
December 23, 2011, http://spectrum.ieee.org//. (accessed June 8, 2013).
John M. Broder, “E.P.A. Issues Limits on Mercury Emissions,” December 21,
2011, http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/ (accessed June 8, 2013).
Daniel Farber, “Mercury Pollution in Coal: An Example of Why the Election Matters,” October 25, 2012, http://ivn.us/clean-money-clean-energy/
(accessed June 8, 2013).
58. Vig, in Kraft, pp. 94, 101. “Fineman: ObamaCare Obama’s Biggest Political Mistake,” Real Clear Politics Video, September 4, 2011, http://www.
realclearpolitics.com/video/. (accessed March 9, 2013). “Mr. Obama’s Green
Team,” New York Times, December 13, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/
2008/12/13/opinion/ (accessed March 9, 2013). “Presidential Documents:
Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review,” Federal Register, January 21,
2011, http://exchange.regulations.gov/ (accessed June 17, 2013).
59. “Sharon E. Burke Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy
Plans and Programs,” U.S. Department of Defense. n.d. http://www.defense.
gov/bios/ (accessed March 14, 2013).
60. “Natural Security.”
61. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on Climate Change,”
The White House, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/25/
remarks-president-climate-change 25 June 2013 (accessed August 18, 2013).
62. Ibid.
63. Philip Bump, “Obama’s Climate Change Speech in Just Three Words: Less
Coal. Finally,” The Atlantic, http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/
06/obamas-climate-change-speech-three-words-less-coal-finally/66565/.25
June 2013 (accessed August 8, 2013).
64. Matthew C. Nisbet, “Communicating Climate Change: Why Frames Matter for Public Engagement,” Environment, 2009, Volume 51, Number 2,
pp. 12–23.
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65. William D. Nordhaus, “Global Public Goods and the Problem of Global
Warming,” June 14, 1999, Annual Lecture to The Institut d’Economie
Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse, France. (accessed August 8, 2013).
66. LOHAS—Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. About LOHAS. http://
www.lohas.com/about. 2013. (accessed August 8, 2013).
67. “State of the Union: Energy & Environment.” Washington Post January 29,
2014, page A10.
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Chapter
14
Federal Judicial
Vacancies: Obama’s
Record and Prospects
Susan Siggelakis
President Obama is the only recent president to end the last year
of his first term of office with more federal judicial vacancies than when
he began.1 Partisan debate about the causes of these continued vacancies
brought the issue into the 2012 campaign.2 Obama himself raised the
issue as early as April 2012. Republicans debated Mitt Romney’s appointment record as governor of Massachusetts during the primary season, and
by the fall both conservatives and liberals were chafing over the prospect
that the election would determine future appointments to the federal
judiciary.3
The vacancy problem in our nation’s courts is not abating, though the
possibility exists for filling more in the president’s second term. Political
junkies may attribute this problem solely to the hyper-partisan atmosphere in Washington. One explanation is that Senate Republicans cause
this problem by filibustering Obama’s nominees, political payback for
things such as his recess appointment of Nation Labor Relations Board
members, withholding of documents relating to “Fast and Furious,” the
Benghazi raid and the like. Another explanation is that Obama chooses
those with activist, liberal philosophies, daring Republicans to filibuster.
The reality falls somewhere in between. Where President Obama has
nominated an individual to the federal district court or to the United
States Courts of Appeal, he/she has been approved, albeit after undergoing longer delay than those nominated under the two Bushes or Clinton.
The White House website, indeed, proclaims that 94 percent of his picks
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have received bipartisan support.4 Despite several notorious rejections
to the courts of appeal, Obama’s first-term success rate in gaining the
advice and consent of the Senate was about 75 percent. While lower
than President Bush’s and Clinton’s, the record is solid. Even some conservatives agree that most were in the judicial mainstream.5 One major
source of the vacancy problem, then, is not primarily Senate defeat of
nominees, but delay by each of the two institutional actors. Clearly, Senate delay exists—the filibuster, “holds,” difficulty scheduling floor debate
and tardy return by individual senators of “blue slips.” Yet, Obama’s first
term was also characterized by tardiness in naming suitable prospects,
or pre-Senate delay. This contributed substantially as well. Three reasons
account for this pre-advice and consent delay—identity and focus of his
top advisers, pre-nomination American Bar Association assessment and
competition from two United States Supreme Court nominations. To the
extent that these three factors vary during the second term, prospects for
filling the federal bench may also vary. Yet, for the understaffed federal
judiciary, only marginal change is likely. The President is yoked constitutionally to the Senate on Article III appointments. The President can
only change himself, not his partner. Yet, even that seems unlikely in the
second term.
The US Constitution establishes a three-step process for filling the
federal bench—the President nominates, the Senate advises and consents, and the President appoints.6 Judicial vacancies can be created either
by the resignation or retirement of sitting judges or statutory expansion of the federal judiciary. During Obama’s first term Congress created
no new judgeships. Thus, his vacancies consisted of inherited and new
ones. Given the number of current federal judicial positions7 and that
filling them takes considerable time, every President experiences “structural” vacancies. Additionally, vacancy rate increase occurs because of an
individual President’s and/or Senate’s performance. Reasons may include:
presidential delays in nomination, low-quality or controversial nominees
who receive unfavorable committee votes, withdrawal of nominations,
hearing delays, delays in scheduling floor votes, and defeats of nomination on the floor. In the latter half of the twentieth century the structural
vacancy rate has hovered at about 5 percent.8 One must add to that the
non-structural vacancies.
Between 1984 and 1990, new vacancies slightly outstripped confirmations (48 to 45) which resulted in a gradual “upcreep” in the vacancy rate.9
Obama took office with 42 district court seats vacant; by the summer of
2012 that number had grown to 57.10 June 2012 saw the federal court
system with 13 appeals court vacancies, the same number as when he
took office.11 The vacancy rate during his Presidential tenure has hovered
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between 10 and 12 percent, despite 16 appeals court and 44 district court
confirmations in the 111th Congress, and 14 appeals and 99 district court
confirmations in the 112th Congress. In a speech at the Ninth Circuit
Judicial Conference in 2010 a frustrated Christopher Schroeder of the
Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy (OLP) asserted that the judicial vacancy problem was intensifying. “[We are] entering a decade in
which the historical average of 48 vacancies is going to be exceeded.”12
Drawing on the demographic profiles made at OLP, Schroeder predicted
that, “we are going to run closer to 60 per year . . . a vacancy gap which
will . . . explode.”13 With low replacement rates and an aging judicial population, he estimated that, by 2020, 30 percent of the total seats (about
300) would be vacant. In a 2010 speech, Chief Justice Roberts, who
sees the vacancy problem from an insider’s perspective, highlighted the
problem as well, citing the high caseloads it posed for certain judicial districts as well as the use of retired senior judges as a stop-gap measure.14
As Roberts knows well, federal judicial vacancies have negative impacts.
One estimate put the costs of unfilled bench seats in the Obama Administration’s first term as 275 lost years of work, and $160 million in wasted
resources.15
Failed or withdrawn judicial nominations, although they occur, are
not major causes of delays in filling vacancies. One contributor to nonstructural vacancies is Senate delay, either purposeful or unintentional.
McMillion studied the length of the process undergone by noncontroversial nominees16 and found that average and median waiting times to
confirmation have increased with each presidency for both circuit and
district court nominees, from Reagan to Obama.17 Political scientists
have studied Senate delay,18 finding that many factors contribute. Among
these are divided government, the President’s institutional strength, judicial position (circuit/district), nominee-specific variables, interest group
involvement, and the timing of the nomination in the Presidential term
and Senate calendar. Obama nominees had longer average wait times at
almost all phases—from nomination to committee hearing, and from
committee reporting to Senate vote.
Schroeder attributes delay in the first Obama term to maneuverings on
the floor of the Senate, observing that “floor time is the scarcest commodity.”19 He criticizes especially Rule XXII which, until amended recently
to exempt district court nominees, allows 30 hours of post-cloture debate
on judicial nominations. Thus, even when Democrats were able to invoke
cloture with a 60-vote majority, presumptively leading to a floor vote,
rules require the next 30 hours be devoted to discussing the nomination.
Sometimes the Majority Leader is able to gain unanimous consent from
the membership, which results in withdrawing the motion for cloture,
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and moving on to a floor vote. This happened in March 2012, when
17 nominees were released from limbo by an up-or-down vote. Between
March and the end of June, each was confirmed handily, most with lopsided votes.20 Yet, when the majority leader lacks unanimous consent,
nominations stall. The minority gains control because it can refuse unanimous consent on nominees, no matter how uncontroversial, and rely on
a rule that punishes the majority for a successful cloture vote. Another tactic is the “secret hold,” a Senator’s informal request to leadership to delay
action on a nomination. Ostensibly, it provides more time for members
to review nominations. Yet, holds can be used to obstruct merely because
Senators object politically to the nominee. They, too, can “kill” a nomination by preventing floor votes. Another reason for Senate delay during
Obama’s first term, some assert, was the “lack of cooperation” by homestate senators in returning “blue slips” to the Judiciary Committee, an
official notification to the Committee to proceed.21 Others charge Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) with
postponing committee votes through procedural maneuverings.22 Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) attributes the delay to the Republicans’
indiscriminate use of the filibuster, unrelated to the fitness of any specific nominee.23 However, the GOP filibustered only one district court
nominee during Obama’s first term.24 Grassley defended the Republicans’
record:
[W]ith regard to the total number of confirmations we confirmed 171
district and circuit nominations . . . the highest percentage of circuit confirmations over the past four presidential terms . . . so those who say that
this President is being treated differently either fail to recognize history or
want to ignore the facts, or both.25
Despite these numerous obstruction points, Obama’s undoubted advantage is to hold office during a period of Democratic majorities in
the United States Senate and, consequently, its Judiciary Committee.
Despite slight personnel changes, committee membership has been stable.
As Schroeder acknowledged, any stalling tactics in Committee in the firstterm were overcome by the “dedicated chair,” Senator Leahy, and most of
President Obama’s nominees proceeded at a “sensible pace” through the
Committee.26 Nevertheless, the recurring, powerful accusation that the
Republican minority in the full Senate bears significant responsibility for
slowing the confirmation process is entitled to great weight.
Yet, the President’s behavior bears scrutiny as well. Regardless of the
Senate’s “advice and consent” behavior, presidents initiate the nomination process for lower federal court judges. That process begins with the
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President’s White House Counsel, usually a deputy, and the Office of
Legal Policy (OLP) within the Department of Justice.27 Frequent, cooperative interactions between both staffs get new nominees in the pipeline
swiftly. Goldman et al. assert that the Obama judicial selection machinery
suffered organizationally and that judicial selection was not an Administration priority.28 Obama’s internal White House team, headed by White
House Counsel Gregory Craig and later, Robert Bauer, disregarded the
need for frequent meetings and diminished OLP’s involvement.29 Craig
was “eased out” of the White House in November 2010 for allegedly
mishandling “closing Gitmo.” Cassandra Butts, one of Craig’s deputies,
was very involved in the vetting of Sonia Sotomayor. Yet, according to
Johnson, Butts was much involved in other business.30 Butts resigned
suddenly in November 2009, leaving Christopher Kang, Senior Counsel
for Legislative Affairs, to cope. In January 2009, Associate Counsel Susan
Davies appeared, leaving in July 2011. During her tenure she focused,
perhaps too much, on Obama’s two US Supreme Court nominees,
attending regularly hearings for Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Staff dynamics, whether resulting from incompetence, turnover, or distraction, undoubtedly had an effect. Yet, the President also modified a key
step in the nomination process which contributed to delay in transmitting
names to the Judiciary Committee. Upon taking office Obama pledged to
nominate only those with “qualified” ratings from the American Bar Association. In 2009, Obama sent the ABA his prospects before nominating
them, deviating from the earlier practice of his predecessor. This added
an additional 30–45 days to the professional association’s vetting process
and, hence, the pre-nomination phase.31 Further problems ensued. The
Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that, in his first
term, Obama exceeded his predecessors in sending to the ABA candidates
subsequently rated as unqualified.32 The “unqualified” rate for each of
his two predecessors was 2 percent, with Obama’s at 7.5 percent with 14
rated as unqualified.33 Kang and OLP’s Schroeder actually met personally with the chair of the Bar Association panel in 2011, raising concerns
over negative ratings for Obama’s choices.34 Although two ratings were
ultimately upgraded, a number of potential judges were eliminated from
consideration. This, too, retarded the President’s part of the process. New
prospects had to be found. Having pledged to only nominate “qualified”
prospects while at the same time adopting a purposeful, highly publicized strategy of recruiting “non-traditional” (black, Hispanic, Asian and
Pacific Islander, female and GBLT) would-be judges, the Administration
found itself with a problem. Fewer such candidates are found in the top
tiers of the legal profession, the training ground historically for those who
serve on federal courts and those most likely to earn good ABA ratings.
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Investigating the lower rungs takes time. Having to “redo” these searches
for legal talent further slowed the President’s part in the process.
Still another reason for Obama’s delay in making nominations to the
lower courts was the competition posed by US Supreme Court vacancies. In his first term, Obama welcomed the opportunity to place two
justices on the High Court. Supreme Court nominations demonstrate
very visibly executive power. Presidents rationally prioritize them over the
less visible, lower court nominations. Little incentive exists to pursue new
nominations or push for ones already in the pipeline during these periods.
When these vacancies happen early in Presidential terms, as happened
with Obama’s two, lower courts are neglected doubly, both at the presidential level and in the Senate. Senator Grassley points out that, when
Supreme Court nominations are in committee, work on all other nominations stops.35 Further, because many of Obama’s nominations came
later rather than earlier in his first term, his choices were disadvantaged.
Early lower court nominees are treated more favorably and expeditiously
by the Senate than those later in the four- year term, with little movement in the Senate during the six-month period prior to the presidential
election.36
On average, President Obama took 399 days to nominate persons
for district court vacancies in the first three years, compared with 366
for Clinton and 272 for President G.W. Bush.37 Obama’s supporters
acknowledge disappointment. They point to that fact that, in his first
three years, he made only 173 nominations to district court positions,
compared to Bush’s 215.38 By the fourth month of G.W. Bush’s firstterm, he had announced 11 nominees for the appeals courts. Obama
didn’t nominate his 11th appeals court judge until ten months into
office. 39 Although the liberal interest group People for the American Way
blamed the Senate Republicans, Vice President Marge Baker lamented
the “slow start in making nominations.” 40 Another Obama supporter
rued, “It’s a missed opportunity . . . I don’t know how committed he is to
it.”41 In February 2010, 12 law school professors pleaded with Obama to
“act with far more energy and dispatch” in filling judicial vacancies.42 The
opposition made a similar assessment. Republican Grassley stated that the
Senate’s consideration was affected by “the pace at which the President has
submitted nominations to the Senate. We have so many vacancies [which]
he has not submitted to the Senate for consideration.” 43
Immediately after the 2012 election, the Obama Administration
stepped up the pace of judicial nominations, transmitting to the Senate
11 names in two weeks, including three of those for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania, a court with numerous, persistent vacancies.44 Ricker notes
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that the President’s pace in submitting names to the 113th Congress likely
indicates “a significant departure from the sluggish pace of appointments”
in the first term.45 This lends weight to outgoing Deputy White House
Chief of Staff Nancy DeParle’s prediction that the President would be
more assertive in his second term.46 Second-term Presidents know that
this is their last opportunity to leave this important legacy. A new face in
the White House Counsel’s Office, Kathryn Ruemmler, may account for
the invigorated process. “[Those nominations] were very intentional,” she
stated, “We wanted to do it right when the Senate came back.”47 A team
buoyed by the election seemed to be sharpening its focus on the issue
and cultivating better relations with OLP staff, including Elana Tyrangiel,
Acting Assistant Attorney General. Could Obama’s increased attention to
the courts have stimulated corresponding activity and a more cooperative
spirit in the Senate? Perhaps. By mid-March, 2013, the Senate had confirmed three Court of Appeals and three district court judges.48 On the
other hand, also in March, Senate Republicans, after blocking this nomination for two years, filibustered successfully D.C. Circuit Court nominee
Caitlin Halligan by a vote of 51–41.49
Over the remainder of his second term, the opportunity exists for
Obama to build on this early effort and increase the pace at which he puts
forth names. Certainly, the vacancies are there for the filing. As of March
2013 the Federal Judicial Center showed 17 vacancies on the United
States Courts of Appeal, with eight nominations pending.50 On the district courts, 68 vacancies await filling, with 22 nominations pending.51
Several factors militate against it, however. First, Obama’s second-term
legislative agenda is at least as ambitious as the first. Climate change,
gun control, universal preschool, and immigration reform top the list.
Some of this agenda continues to involve the Senate Judiciary Committee, which erodes further its focus on judicial nominees. Second, the
spring 2013 eruptions of the Internal Revenue Service, Benghazi and the
Justice Department press investigation scandals distract further the key
players responsible for filling the federal bench, most notably the DOJ
and President’s Counsel. Third, the potential of a US Supreme Court
vacancy distraction during Obama’s second term is high. Justices Scalia
and Kennedy are both 77. Retirement rumors abound concerning Justice Ginsburg due to her age and health issues, although in 2009 the 80
year-old stated that she planned to say on the bench as long as possible.52
Speculation also surrounds Chief Justice John Roberts’ health after a 2007
seizure and fall. At least one vacancy is likely. Should that occur, particularly in the first two years when opportunities for lower court movement
are greatest, once again the Administration’s focus will not be on the lower
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courts. Last, finding non-traditional potential judicial nominees may be
increasingly difficult in light of the Administration’s aggressive mining of
a limited pool during the first term. Rather than put forth more traditional nominees or, alternately, nontraditional ones who are liable to earn
an unqualified rating from the ABA, the Administration may simply sit
on its hands.
Even were the President to continue to make nominations a high
priority, he must still contend with his partner in the legislature. Prior
to the next Senate election in 2014, neither the existing judicial selection dynamics of the full body nor of the Committee should change
appreciably. However, Democrats may lose seats in the 2014 elections,
conceding control of the body to the GOP by as much as a 53–47 margin.53 Even if Republicans don’t fare as well, they will likely gain several
seats. Hence, once a nomination is reported out of committee, whatever
delaying tactics employed by the minority party will likely persist. Not
only will this worsen the President’s fractious relationship with Senate
Republicans, but it will continue to impede the process of filling lower
court vacancies. As the second half of Presidential terms is associated
with less speedy success in judicial nominations, this bodes ill for future
nominees. Ed Whelan, President of the Ethics and Policy Center, opines,
“I wouldn’t expect anything to change . . . The conservative base is now
mobilized on judicial nominations in a way that the liberal base has long
been.”54 Curt Levey of the conservative Committee for Justice, however,
is more sanguine about the Senate: “[N]ominees with bipartisan support
are sure to get confirmed eventually . . . . Republicans are not in any hurry
to make it happen, but at the end of the day they are not going to stop
non-controversial nominees.”55
Whether Obama’s initial energy on lower court nominations will
continue throughout his second term is unknown, although strong indications exist that it is unlikely. Granted, as we have seen, even quicker
naming by the president will not reduce the time it takes for the divided
Senate to fulfill its advise and consent function. However, the necessary,
albeit not sufficient first step to achieving meaningful reduction in the
vacancy rate is a sustained commitment on the part of the President to
nominate more swiftly his choices for the federal bench. The theoretical possibility exists for President Obama to meet this executive branch
commitment, although reality may well prevent it.
Notes
1. US Congressional Research Service, Nominations to the United States Circuit
Courts of Appeal and District Courts by President Obama during the 111th and
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
195
112th Congresses (R42556; June 1, 2012), by Barry J. McMillion, summary
page.
Most of the attention focused on the Supreme Court. See Tony Mauro,
“Why Top Court is a Key 2012 Issue,” http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/
news/opinion/forum/story/2012-06-06/supreme-court-justices-obamaromney-2012/55430080/1, accessed August 2, 2013; Sheryl Gay Stolberg,
“Future of an Aging Court Raises Stakes of Presidential Vote,” http://www.
nytimes.com/2012/06/28/us/presidential-election-could-reshape-an-agingsupreme-court.html, accessed August 2, 2013; E. R. Shipp, “2012 Election:
Why SCOTUS Matters,” http://www.theroot.com/views/2012-electionswhy-scotus-matters accessed August 1, 2013.
Tom Curry, “Conservatives Warily Ponder Prospect of an ‘Obama Court,’ ”
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/25/14098358-conservativ
es-warily-ponder-prospect-of-an-obama-court?lite, accessed August 2, 2013;
Joel Gehrke, “Obama: Supreme Court at Stake in 2012 Election,” http://
washingtonexaminer.com/obama-supreme-court-at-stake-in-2012-election/
article/1260541, accessed August 2, 2013.
“Historic Successes, Historic Delays,” accessed January 25, 2013, whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/infographic/judicial_2013_may2.pdf.
See Christopher Eisgruber, “Conservatives Right about Nominees,” Politico,
June 23, 2009, accessed February 12, 2013, http://politico.com/news/
stories/0609/24033.html.
US Const., Art. II, Section 2, Cl. 2.
At this writing, 179 on the Courts of Appeal, and 677 district court
judgeships.
Christopher H. Schroeder (paper presented at Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference, Maui, Hawaii, August 18, 2010), p. 5.
Ibid.
Congressional Research Service, Nominations, pp. 8–9.
Ibid.
Schroeder, pp. 6–7.
Ibid., p. 7.
John Roberts, 2010 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary (Washington,
D.C: The United States Supreme Court, December 31, 2010), p. 8.
Nedra Pickler, Associated Press, “Obama Attempting to Change Face of the
Judiciary,” February 15, 2103, accessed February 16, 2013, http://bigstory.
ap.org/article/obama-attempting-to-change-face-judiciary.
Defined by McMillion specifically as those whose nominations were reported
out of Committee favorably either by voice vote or by a unanimous roll call
vote and their nominations were approved by the full Senate by voice vote
or, if a roll call vote was held, approved with five or fewer nay votes. Congressional Research Service, Length of Time from Nomination to Confirmation for
“Uncontroversial” US Circuit and District Court Nominees: Detailed Analysis
(R42732: September 18, 2012), by Barry J. McMillion.
Ibid., summary page.
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18. See Sarah A. Binder, “The Senate as Black Hole: Lessons from the Judicial
Appointment Process,” The Brookings Review, 2001, Volume 19, pp. 37–40;
Lauren Cohen Bell, “Senatorial Discourtesy, The Senate’s Use of Delay to
Shape the Federal Judiciary,” Political Research Quarterly, September 2002,
Volume 55, pp. 589–608.
19. Schroeder, p. 3.
20. United States Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Senator Patrick Leahy,
“Judicial Nominations and Confirmations,” news release, “Leahy Applauds
Move to Bring Long-Pending Judicial Nominations to a Vote,” March 12,
2012, accessed March 13, 2013, http://www.leahy.senate.gov/press/leahyapplauds-move-to-bring-long-pending-judicial-nominations-to-a-vote.
21. Jennifer Bendey, “Judicial Vacancies Skyrocket During President Obama’s
First Term,” Huffington Post Politics, December 2, 2012, accessed
January 2, 2103, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/02/judicialvacancies-Obama n 2228978.html.
22. People for the American Way, “Empty Courtrooms in Obama’s
First Term,” news release, January 2, 2013, accessed February 22,
2013, http://pfaw.org/press-releases/2013/01/empty-courtrooms-Obamasfirst-term-slow-start-judicial-nominations-magnified.
23. United States Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, “On the Nomination
of Judge Robert Bachrach of Oklahoma, United States Court of Appeals,
10th Circuit,” statement of Senator Patrick Leahy, Chair, February 25,
2013, accessed February 27, 2013, http://leahy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/
7-30-12%20Bachrach%20stmt.pdf.
24. “Filibuster Survives; Hillary Clinton Wrong,” Committee on Justice, blog
entry by Curt Levey, January 24, 2013, accessed January 27, 2013, http://
committeeforjustice.blogspot.com/2013 01 01 archive.html.
25. United States Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Senator Charles Grassley,
“President’s Judicial Nominees Being Treated More than Fairly,” press release,
February 25, 2013, accessed February 26, 2013, http://www.grassley.senate.
gov/news/Article.cfm.
26. Schroeder, p. 2.
27. See Baum, American Courts Process and Policy, 7th ed. (Boston, MA.:
Wadsworth, 2013), p. 98.
28. Ibid.
29. Sheldon Goldman, Elliot Slotnick and Sara Schiavoni, “Obama’s Judiciary at
Midterm,” Judicature, April/May 2011, Volume 94, pp. 262–301.
30. Charles Johnson, “The Vetting: Cassandra Butts, Bell Devotee, Obama
Adviser, Judicial Scout,” brietbart.com, March 14, 2012, accessed January 15,
2013, http://breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012.03/14/CassandraButts%
20Obama%20Advisor%20.
31. Russell Wheeler, “Judicial Nominations in the First Fourteenth Months of
the Obama and Bush Administrations,” Governance Studies at Brookings,
April 15, 2010, p. 2.
32. Collin Levy, “Who’s Afraid of the ABA?” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2013,
accessed March 3, 2013, http:// online.wsj.com/article/SB10000142405297
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33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
197
02040120; Charlie Savage, “Ratings Shrink President’s List for Judgeships,”
New York Times, November 23, 2011, accessed December 20, 2012, http://
nytimes.com/2011/11/23/us/politics/screeening/panel/rejects/many/obama/
picks/for/federal/judgeships.html.
Savage, p. 3. Reasons included issues relating to competence, temperament,
ethics and experience.
Savage, “Ratings Shrink.”
US Senate, Grassley, “President’s Choices.”
Congressional Research Service, “Confirmation of United States Circuit and
District Court Nominations in Presidential Years,” (R42600; July 12, 2012),
by Denis Steven Rutkus and Barry J. McMillion.
Congressional Research Service, Nominations, p. 14.
James Oliphant, “Obama Losing his Chance to Shape Judiciary,” Los Angeles
Times, March 15, 2010, accessed January 4, 2013, http://articles.latimes.
com/2010/mar/15/nation/la-na-Obama-judges-15-2010mar15.
Ibid.
People for the American Way, “Empty Courtrooms.”
Oliphant, “Obama Losing Chance.”
Ibid.
158 Cong. Rec. S6037 (daily ed. September 10, 2012) (remarks of Senator
Charles Grassley).
Richard Wolf, “Obama Determined to Fill Federal Judgeships,” USA Today,
November 28, 2012, accessed December 11, 2012, http://www.usatoday.
com/story/news/politics/2012/11/28/Obama-republicans-judges-senate.
Philip Rucker, “Obama Pushing GOP to Diversify Judiciary Amid Delays,”
Washington Post, March 4, 2013, date accessed March 5, 2013, http://
washingtonpost.com/2013-03-03/politics/37418000_1_president-obamahouse-counsel-kathryn-ruemmler-judicial-confirmation-votes/2.
Steve Holland, “Departing Aide Expecting a more Assertive President
Obama,” Union Leader, January 18, 2013, B6.
Ibid.
The appeals court judges confirmed are Richard G. Taranto, Robert
E. Bachrach, William Kayatta, Judges for the Courts of Appeals for the Federal, 10th Circuit and the 1st Circuit (respectively) with votes of 91–0, 93–0
and 88–2. Judges Andrew Gordon (Nevada District), Katherine Polk Failla
(Southern District, NY) and Pamela Ki Mai Chen (Eastern District, NY)
were confirmed by voice vote, 91–0 and voice vote, respectively.
Carl Hulse, “Democrats Cry Foul Over Wednesday’s Other Filibuster,”
The Caucus (blog) New York Times, March 8, 2013, accessed March 9,
2013, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/democrats-cry-foulover-wednesdays-other-filibuster.
Website of Federal Judicial Center, date accessed March 3, 2013, http://www.
uscourts.gov/JudgesandJudgeships/judicialvacancies.aspx.
Ibid.
Joan Biskupic, “Justice Ginsburg: A Clean Bill of Health,” USA Today,
November 3, 2011, accessed December 5, 2012, http://content.usatoday.
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com/communities/the/oval/post/2011/11/justice-ginsburg-a-clean-bill-ofhealth.
53. Nate Silver, “Can the Republicans Win the Senate in 2014?” Five
Thirty Eight (blog), New York Times, February 20, 2013, accessed
March 1, 2013, http://fivethirtyeight.blogs/nytimes.com.2013/02/20/canrepublicans-win-the-senate-in-2014.
54. Wolf, “Obama Determined,” p. 2.
55. Ibid.
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Chapter
15
The Politics of
Presidential Foreign
Policy Unilateral
Authority and the
Role of Congress
Bryan W. Marshall and
Brandon C. Prins
Introduction
Presidents understand that reelection, reputation, and ultimately their
place in history are intimately tied to their ability to get policy initiatives
through Congress. Given the vital role Congress plays in the legislative process, presidents must carefully cultivate their relationship with
members of the House and Senate to achieve policy successes. Roosevelt
is remembered for social security and the GI Bill (among many other
things), while Johnson successfully passed both the 1964 Civil Rights Act
and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Bush 43 managed to pass the Tax Relief
Act of 2001 as well as implement a new prescription drug program for
seniors. President Obama will likely be remembered for the passage and
upholding by the Supreme Court of his signature healthcare legislation—
the Affordable Care Act. Compared to tenures of the other branches, the
president’s window for policy movement is short so they are naturally in a
greater hurry to accumulate a policy record. Such legislative victories ultimately cement a place in history for presidents, but they also help fashion
a reputation for political effectiveness that can strengthen a president’s
influence in Congress.
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B R Y A N W. M A R S H A L L A N D B R A N D O N C . P R I N S
At the same time, constitutional ambiguity as well as political and institutional advantages can afford presidents greater unilateral authority in
the area of international affairs. The need to speak with one voice, as
well as Commander in Chief responsibilities, enable presidents to affect
policy in foreign affairs without congressional support. Such unilateral
power is especially advantageous when members of the House and Senate
oppose and actively resist a president’s domestic policy initiatives. A president can then shift attention away from domestic legislative priorities
to critical security concerns occurring overseas to build political capital
that can help achieve future policy successes. Although it’s too early to
tell, President Obama’s actions on the Syrian crisis may serve as a case
in point. Indeed, Representative Peter King made such a claim suggesting the White House leaked that President Obama signed a secret order
to provide support (nonlethal) to the Syrian rebels. Interviewed on Fox
News, Representative King forcefully asserted “The only thing I can think
of is this is an attempt to rehabilitate the president going into an election
year to show that he’s a tough guy.”1
In this chapter, we empirically assess the relationship between a president’s political support in Congress and his or her attention to foreign
policy. In doing so, we test two competing arguments for presidential action that are based on an executive’s political relationship with
Congress. While policy availability anticipates the increasing use of the
Constitution’s Article II authority by presidents as congressional opposition strengthens, Howell and Pevehouse’s party cover model expects
presidents only to engage in risky foreign policy ventures when they possess sufficient support in Congress to diffuse responsibility.2 We find, like
others have, that the role of Congress is vital to understanding presidential
foreign policy decisions. However, the relationship appears conditional
on the risk involved in the deployment of forces abroad. For example,
on the one hand we find the president’s ability to legislate significantly
decreases the likelihood of humanitarian (or lower risk) interventions.
On the other hand, we find that as the president’s legislative relationship with Congress becomes more productive, presidents are significantly
more likely to engage in higher risk military interventions. We infer from
these findings that both policy availability and party cover provide insight
into a president’s decision to intervene militarily abroad.
We proceed as follows. The first section briefly reviews the institutional
relationship between the president and Congress and then specifies two
competing models of foreign policy decision-making, namely policy availability and party cover. Next we describe our data and research methods
used to test the relationship between a president, Congress, and foreign
policy activism. Finally, we discuss our statistical model results, apply our
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201
model and findings to Obama’s second term, and offer suggestions for
future research.
Congress & Presidential Decision-Making
Politics does not stop at the water’s edge and for modern presidents this
can be both blessing and curse. For President Obama, the public’s perception of his foreign policy in opinion polls has been characterized
more by the former than the latter. But such a seeming advantage has
not been a political panacea nor has it dampened political challenges,
especially from within the halls of Congress. During the recent 112th
Congress, for example, the House of Representatives was able to stand
on its constitutional principles by refusing authorization for the president
to use force in the Libyan campaign while also protecting its political
flank by rejecting a resolution to defund the same campaign.3 This kind
of dynamic in foreign policy tends to underscore the collective action
problem faced by Congress. As an institution, Congress has been willing to trade away its collective constitutional prerogatives to the executive
branch so that it can maximize the opportunity to claim credit if military ventures are successful or minimize blame for ventures that turn out
poorly.4
Partly in response to Congress wanting to have it both ways, modern presidents have aggressively employed unilateral tools to achieve
policy ends and sharpen their powers vis-à-vis Congress. A showdown
between President Obama and Congress over the FY 2012 National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) illustrates how presidents can exploit
their unilateral powers, such as constitutional signing statements, to seize
power from a resistant Congress. The signing of the NDAA reflected
the culmination of several weeks of intense back-and-fourth negotiation
that ultimately cemented and strengthened the president’s hand with
respect to counter-terrorism policy, especially the president’s detention
powers.5 Several weeks prior to the signing, the president issued a statement of administration policy (SAP) that clearly signaled his intention
of vetoing the legislation if Congress didn’t sufficiently address his concerns (see OMB, Statement of Administration Policy: S1867 National
Defense Authorization Act for FY 2012, November 17, 2011).6 The
president dropped his veto threat when the bill’s final version emerged
from a House-Senate conference committee that alleviated some White
House concerns by substantially adding to the president’s detention
powers beyond those set out under the 2001 Authorization for Use of
Military Force. The president announced in his signing statement that
Congress had “revised provisions that otherwise would have jeopardized
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the safety, security, and liberty of the American people” (NDAA signing statement). But although improved, the president’s signing statement
also outlined serious policy and constitutional concerns about some of
the remaining detention-related sections. So, under the guise of preventing constitutional conflict with Congress, the president’s signing
statement in effect made it possible to interpret out of existence the
remaining detainee-related concerns the White House had. Following
his signing statement, President Obama issued implementing regulations that contained such broad waivers that they would in the words of
one observer, “render the mandatory military detention provision mostly
moot.”7
If research once distinguished foreign and domestic policy-making (the
so-called politics stops at the water’s edge premise), few scholars subscribe
to such a distinction today.8 It is not that international and domestic
affairs don’t differ in significant ways, but that politics is not suspended
when addressing foreign policy. Foreign policy like domestic policy is
inherently political. Policy actions taken by presidents, regardless of the
issue area, reflect electoral and partisan demands. Virtually every decision modern presidents make has some (intended or unintended) political
ramifications. This does not necessarily mean political leaders base policy
decisions solely on political terms with no regard for their substantive
impact. It does mean, though, that political leaders are well aware that
actions taken in one arena can and likely will affect other arenas, and
moving policy to address one issue will likely help or hinder moving policy
that addresses a different issue.9
Research by Howell and Pevehouse has offered important insight into
the effects of Congress on the president’s decision to use military force
abroad.10 Their work developed the idea that unified party control of
Congress provides the president with greater political cover lessening the
political risk of employing force. Party control can mute congressional
criticisms and reprisals designed to punish the president if a conflict goes
badly. So, unified control gives presidents more discretion in pursuing
military action while divided control increases the risk of political costs
thereby limiting such discretionary actions. The evidence they find largely
supports their party cover thesis. They find that variation in the president’s
level of partisan control of Congress significantly increases the likelihood
of major uses of force.
Kriner also maintains that the partisan composition of Congress is a
key factor in the president’s calculation of political and strategic costs associated with military ventures.11 Kriner’s findings support and extend the
party cover thesis in important ways. For one, he demonstrates the ex ante
influence of Congress by using duration and selection models to show
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that the percentage of the president’s party seats is the dominant domestic
political factor affecting both the initiation and duration of major military ventures. Further, he finds that the president’s party strength in
Congress was the key factor explaining legislative responses by Congress
that challenged major military deployment decisions in the post-World
War II period.
We agree with the basic premise of the party cover thesis by Howell
and Pevehouse and with Kriner’s important extensions. Congress is a key
component in the domestic environment that shapes the president’s calculation in taking military actions. Party cover may shield the president
from costly legislative challenges and congressional criticism. These types
of congressional actions no doubt carry costs for the president’s electoral
fortunes and those of his party. However in the end, a president’s historical legacy is built around the long-term impact of his policies.12 This
is not to underestimate electoral incentives. Presidents of course prefer
election to two terms instead of just one, but their tenures in office are
relatively short no matter. So presidential incentives tend toward moving their policy priorities, and their relationship with Congress is critical
in this regard. Thus, we argue that the president’s ability to pass policy
priorities in Congress remains key to understanding the cost/benefit calculation determining not only military ventures but also other low risk
foreign policy actions.
Indeed, policy availability suggests that the effect of Congress comes
from how presidents anticipate foreign policy actions will affect the
congressional environment they will inevitably operate in.13 That is,
presidents remain concerned about how their foreign policy actions will
prevent or foster their ability to achieve legislative priorities. To be clear,
unilateral actions in foreign policy do not preclude the president from
deal making on Capitol Hill. Importantly, though, the president’s political capital and time horizon are finite, so spending capital in one area
necessarily lessens resources the president can use in other policy areas.
Therefore, the policy availability framework emphasizes the importance
of the policymaking relationship a president enjoys with Congress. Policy availability then suggests that presidents carefully weigh (anticipate)
how foreign policy actions can cost (or benefit) their policy success in
Congress.
This discussion suggests a key testable implication of the policy availability argument. Specifically, we anticipate a president to increasingly
turn to unilateral policy options, such as humanitarian deployments, as
congressional opposition to a president’s legislative agenda increases. Next
we move to the research design to assess the competing claims of policy
availability and the party cover arguments.
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Research Design and Measurement
We expect presidents to turn to unilateral foreign policy when the legislative arena presents obstacles to enacting a president’s policy agenda. To test
this basic expectation, we construct a dyad-year dataset from 1950–2000.
Given our focus on the U.S. and presidential decision-making, countrycode A is always the United States and it is paired against every other
state in the international system over this time frame.14 Theoretically this
provides us with 7,802 observations, but missing data on certain righthand-side variables reduces our working sample to 6,446. Our dependent
variable is a one if the U.S. initiates such an operation against the country
in the specific dyad in a given year and zero if not. We employ a standard
logit statistical estimator to model the initiation of an intervention.
Our primary conjecture relates a president’s legislative productivity
to unilateral foreign policy actions. We measure legislative productivity using Mayhew’s list of major pieces of legislation enacted each year.
While Mayhew distinguishes foreign policy and domestic policy legislation and includes a separate count for each, we begin by using his
overall count.15 This measure ranges from 1 to 16, with a mean of six
and standard deviation of three (see Figure 15.1). For our measure of foreign policy, we use the International Military Intervention (IMI) dataset
of Pearson and Baumann, updated by Kisangani and Pickering.16 The
18
Mayhew’s total legislation
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Year
Figure 15.1 Mayhew’s Count of Total Major Legislation Passed by Year
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IMI dataset focuses on decisions by leaders to dispatch armed forces
abroad. According to Pickering and Kisangani military interventions refer
to “episodes when national military personnel are purposefully dispatched
into other sovereign states.”17 This coding rule distinguishes the IMI data
project from others such as the Correlates of War that focus exclusively on
the use of military force. IMI establishes a broad interpretation of what
amounts to a military action. Hostile action across the demarcation line in
Kashmir, violations of sovereign airspace, naval incursions into a country’s
maritime zones, as well as cruise missile attacks by the United States are
obvious uses of military force and are included in the IMI dataset.18 However, IMI also records coercive as well as supportive military interventions
or what Kisangani and Pickering refer to as socio-economic interventions
(SEIs) and politico-strategic military interventions (PSIs).19 In this way,
the U.S. invasions of Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq are included alongside famine relief provided to Somalia in 1992.20 Figure 15.2 illustrates
the frequency of IMI humanitarian and strategic interventions, as well as
MIPS interventions by the US from 1950–2000.
We include several controls to account for the dyadic context, strategic
decision-making, and spatial and temporal dynamics. First, we control
for geographic distance with a measure of miles between capital cities,
controlling for the curvature of the Earth (great circle distance). Second,
we include measures of alliance ties (defense pact from the Correlates of
War Alliance dataset) and regime type (joint democracy based on six or
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1945
1955
1965
Strategic Interventions (IMI)
1975
1985
1995
2002
Humanitarian Interventions (IMI)
Military Interventions (MIPS)
Figure 15.2 Interventions by Year
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higher on the Polity IV’s democracy indicator). We also measure the relative power between the two states in the dyad. We use the Correlates
of War Composite Indicator of National Capabilities (CINC) to operationalize power. We take the stronger side’s capabilities (the stronger
side is always the U.S.) and divide it by the weaker side’s capabilities.21
In this way we create a measure that goes from one (perfect balance) to
infinity (or imbalance). This measure allows us to test whether equality
or inequality in capabilities increases the risk of conflict and or military
intervention. Lastly, we include a measure of economic weakness in the
U.S. We use the misery index, which is a combination of unemployment and inflation averaged annually. To control for spatial and temporal
autocorrelation, we follow Carter and Signorino by using a cubic polynomial approximation (peace years, peace years squared, and peace years
cubed).22 We also cluster errors on dyad to better address cross-sectional
non-independence.
Empirical Results
The results of our empirical models are presented in Table 15.1. Models 1 and 2 from Table 15.1 present findings using the IMI strategic and
humanitarian interventions data and our evidence clearly demonstrates
support for our Policy Availability argument. The variable capturing
Mayhew’s total annual significant legislation is negative and statistically significant (Model 1). This suggests that decreases in a president’s
ability to legislate leads to more humanitarian interventions abroad,
exactly what we would expect according to Policy Availability. As presidents witness their legislative agenda thwarted by a recalcitrant Congress,
they go abroad to demonstrate leadership and build political capital.
We do not observe similar support for Party Cover when we examine
strategic-military interventions. The variable is positive as one would
expect but not statistically significant. Still, if one examines the empirical results from Model 3 in Table 15.1 we find evidence in support
of the Party Cover conjecture. Here we observe that a president experiencing success in passing significant legislation also engages in risky
and potentially costly military interventions. We think this indicates that
support in Congress is an essential objective of presidents when engaging in large coercive military operations abroad. Support in Congress
enables a president to diffuse and deflect criticism if the intervention goes
badly.
Our results also offer insight on orthodox diversionary theory. If presidents are expected to shift attention to international affairs when the
economy is performing poorly as diversionary theory predicts, two of the
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Table 15.1 Logistic models of interventions by the United States, 1950–2000
Model 1:
Humanitarian
interventions
Mayhew’s total legislation
Ln (Relative ower)
Joint democracy
Defense pact
Misery index
Distance (000 of miles)
Constant
–.087**
(.044)
.168
(.150)
–.817**
(.506)
–.334
(.506)
.052
(.047)
–.012
(.084)
–5.72***
(1.48)
6446
Wald χ2 (9) = 15.33
Prob < 0.082
Pseudo R2 = 0.028
Model 2:
Strategic
interventions
.032
(.038)
–.131**
(.076)
–1.71***
(.444)
1.18***
(.303)
–.101***
(.038)
.138**
(.067)
–2.98***
(.720)
6446
Wald χ2 (9) = 65.48
Prob < 0.0000
Pseudo R2 = 0.082
Model 3: Military
interventions by
powerful states
(only US)
.128***
(.046)
–.209**
(.105)
–1.78***
(.585)
.626*
(.383)
–.098**
(.053)
.043
(.088)
–2.87***
(1.23)
6446
Wald χ2 (9) = 45.23
Prob < 0.0000
Pseudo R2 = 0.084
Note: ∗∗∗ < .01; ∗∗ < .05; ∗ < .10 one-tailed tests. Errors are clustered on dyad. Cubic polynomial
approximations are also included in each model to address temporal non-independence, but are not shown in
the table.
three empirical models we present actually show a negative and significant
relationship between the misery index and interventions abroad. This
is opposite of what we should observe if diversionary theory is correct.
That is, decreases in misery (unemployment plus inflation) correlate with
an increase in the likelihood of intervening abroad. This result applies
both to the strategic interventions recorded by the IMI (Model 2 in Table
15.1) project as well as the coercive military interventions coded by the
MIPS project (Model 3 in Table 15.1). It appears that presidents are not
looking to divert attention from domestic political and economic weakness but likely seek such large-scale operations overseas only when backed
by sufficient support at home. Since high misery typically means political opposition at home, presidents do not then have the political cover
to engage in such risky and dangerous actions abroad. Interestingly, we
observe a positive relationship between the misery index and humanitarian interventions, suggesting presidents may look abroad for non-coercive
style military actions to move attention to foreign policy and something
other than the economy. We hesitate to place much emphasis on this
relationship as it is not statistically significant.
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Most of our control variables perform as one would expect. All three
models show a negative relationship between joint democracy and interventions abroad. The U.S. clearly is less likely to intervene against other
democracies and most of the humanitarian crises that might require
U.S. aid occur in poor, under-developed countries without democratic
governing institutions. Relative capabilities affect strategic and humanitarian interventions differently as one would expect given the targets
involved. When the U.S. is using military force coercively, the relative power measure is negative and significant. That is, moving towards
power parity increases the chances of a coercive military operation by the
United States. Moving towards power asymmetry increases the probability of a humanitarian intervention. These results support considerable
evidence showing violent conflict occurring among states with more
equal material capabilities. But again, humanitarian interventions are typically directed at much weaker states (at least compared to the United
States).
Our measure of distance is not what is typically found in dyadic models of violent conflict. In fact, contiguity is one of the strongest correlates
of military conflict between two states. The U.S., however, is unlike most
states. It is surrounded by oceans and friendly or weak countries. U.S.
interventions, at least since WWII, have occurred far from its own territory. Further, the United States is one of the few countries today that can
project its military power any place in the world given its naval capabilities. The results in the three models either show no relationship between
interventions abroad and geographic location or a positive relationship
(with strategic interventions). Prins and Souva conclude that “given its
large military budgets and technological advantages, the U.S. shows a
greater capability than even other major powers to project force over
distance.”23 In fact, they observe that the
the average distance between countries with fatal MIDs is approximately
650 miles. For the four UN Security Council members, excluding the
United States, the average distance between countries with fatal MIDs is
over 1800 miles. The average distance for the U.S. is over 5000 miles,
telling evidence about the power projection capacity of the U.S.
Finally, the relationship between the U.S. and its allies is somewhat
unexpected. One anticipates that the U.S. will be unlikely to intervene
coercively against an ally. However, our results indicate just the opposite.
Defense pacts increase the likelihood of both a major coercive military
intervention (MIPS) and a strategic/political intervention (IMI). These
results merit further investigation.
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Conclusion
On New Year’s Day 2013, after lengthy and contentious negotiations
over the federal budget, the crack of the House Speaker’s gavel officially brought an end to the 112th Congress. Although second sessions
are usually more productive, the 2012 election year witnessed a downturn in the passage of public laws not seen in over a decade. In fact,
President Obama signed fewer new laws last year than any president
in the last six decades.24 To the extent legislating is a viable indicator of a legislature’s status, it would seem the 112th Congress earned
its label, “worst Congress ever” given by long-time Congress watcher,
Norman J. Ornstein. Voting in the 112th Congress seemed to serve
party posturing much more than the passage of public policy. For an
election year, Congress took a near-record number of votes in 2012,
but partisanship frustrated policymaking. In the House, nearly 73 percent of the roll calls were party-unity votes, the highest percentage ever
in a presidential election year.25 Moreover, the president’s reelection
year success rate on bills he took a position on was only 53.6 percent, the second-lowest since Congressional Quarterly started recording
in 1953.26
Certainly the 112th Congress was one of the most highly polarized
and legislatively deficient congresses in recent memory. We have argued
that presidents strategically employ their unilateral tools to achieve policy
success in foreign policy in the face of a Congress unwilling or unable
to pass domestic priorities. Given the policy availability argument, it’s
revealing that President Obama’s significant pivot in counter-terrorism
policy was born in the context of the 112th Congress where opportunities for legislative compromise were exceedingly sparse at best. Indeed, in
a speech at the National Defense University President Obama unveiled
the new parameters of U.S. counter-terrorism policy and what he hopes
will be a major pillar of his presidential legacy.27 With the partisan
distribution of Congress changing only at the margins, we see little reason to expect the 113th Congress to differ much from the 112th.28
The policy availability argument suggests that a president will turn to
unilateral powers, especially in the realm of foreign policy, when confronting political opposition in Congress. For President Obama, this
will likely mean fewer treaties and more executive agreements as the
president seeks to circumvent Republican resistance. We have already witnessed the effects of such ideological and political opposition. President
George W. Bush signed 44 treaties during his first term in office. President Obama, in contrast, signed only nine and only two after the 2010
midterm elections.
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Whether analyzing Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon or President
Obama’s recent drawdown in Afghanistan, one lesson that seems clear
is the existence of an intricate connection between foreign and domestic
policy.29 The puzzle we begin to examine is how the president’s legislative
relationship with Congress can shape incentives to engage in different
forms of low and high-risk foreign policy ventures. Our findings suggest the importance of both policy availability and party cover in shaping
executive incentives to engage in low and high-risk foreign policy operations. For example, we show that presidents become less likely to initiate
humanitarian interventions as their legislative productivity with Congress
increases. This suggests that presidents have little to gain by changing the
political agenda with humanitarian-type foreign policy missions. In contrast, using the MIPS data we find that legislative productivity increases
the likelihood presidents engage in relatively higher risk military operations. It would seem the support of Congress in passing policy is crucial
in both decision contexts. As presidents are able to pass more major legislative initiatives, they are less inclined to divert attention to less critical
foreign policy operations. But in the context of larger-scale coercive military interventions, the president’s legislative productivity with Congress
seemingly makes him more risk-acceptant.
Presidents are political animals. Both reelection and policy success are
instrumental in shaping a president’s historical legacy as well as critical
to enhancing the power of the presidency. The structure of the U.S.
political system provides modern presidents with inherent advantages
in shaping the legislative agenda. When a president’s domestic policy
objectives are being stymied by a hostile legislature, international affairs
offers an arena to affect change unilaterally and demonstrate political
leadership. The foundation of President Obama’s foreign policy—the
Renewal Agenda—was explicitly built upon connections to, and constraints from, domestic politics. Domestic rejuvenation at home would
be the engine powering U.S. foreign policy abroad.30 And even here,
one could argue the Obama Administration grossly underestimated the
important linkage between domestic and foreign policy. For example,
the House passage of the Cap and Trade bill early in President Obama’s
tenure provided him with some much-needed credibility on the world
stage in Copenhagen while simultaneously draining political capital from
his domestic agenda.
Troop deployments remain only one unilateral policy option available to presidents when confronting political opposition in Congress.
We anticipate future research endeavors exploring the resilience of the
policy availability framework by analyzing other tools and options presidents have to demonstrate leadership and establish a record of policy
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achievement. Executive orders, international agreements, and travel overseas might correlate with legislative gridlock in Washington. In our view,
assessing these kinds of presidential decisions will help us understand better the linkage between foreign and domestic policy, but such analyses will
have to wait for another day.
Notes
1. Tomer Ovadia, “Peter King: White House Leaked Syrian Rebel Aid News,”
Politico, August 3, 2012, http://www.politico.com.
2. William G. Howell and Jon C. Pevehouse, While Dangers Gather: Congressional Checks on Presidential War Powers (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2007).
3. Eugene Mulero and Emily Cadei, “House Rejects Defunding Libya Efforts,”
Congressional Quarterly Weekly, June 27, 2011, p. 1380.
4. Barbara Hinckley, Less than Meets the Eye: Foreign Policy Making and the Myth
of an Assertive Congress (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). Also
see Bryan W. Marshall and Patrick J. Haney, “Aiding and Abetting: Congressional Complicity in the Rise of the Unitary Executive,” in The Unitary
Executive and the Modern Presidency, ed. Ryan J. Barilleaux and Christopher
S. Kelley (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2010).
5. Charlie Savage, “Obama Drops Veto Threat over Military Authorization Bill
After Revisions,” N.Y. Times, December 15, 2011, p. A26.
6. Although the NDAA’s counter-terrorism provisions account for only a fraction of the total provisions in the legislation, the majority of the president’s
SAP dealt with detainee concerns, which drew the explicit veto threat.
7. Sari Horwitz and Peter Finn, “Obama Orders Waivers to New Rules on
Detaining Terrorism Suspects,” Washington Post, February 28, 2012, p. A28.
8. Edwin S. Corwin, The President: Office and Powers, 1787–1984: History
and Analysis of Practice and Opinion, 5th Revised ed. (New York: New York
University Press, 1984).
9. Neustadt, Richard E., Presidential Power (New York: John Wiley & Sons,
1960).
10. Howell and Pevehouse, While Dangers Gather. Also see William Howell and
Jon Pevehouse, “Presidents, Congress, and the Use of Force,” International
Organization, 2005, Volume 59, pp. 209–232.
11. Douglas L. Kriner, After the Rubicon: Congress, Presidents, and the Politics of
Waging War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).
12. Terry Moe, “The Politicized Presidency,” in The New Direction in American
Politics, ed. John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson (Washington, D.C.:
The Brookings Institution, 1984). Reprinted in James P. Pfiffner, ed., The
Managerial Presidency (Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks-Cole, 1991).
13. David Brulé, “Congressional Opposition, the Economy, and U.S. Dispute Initiation, 1946–2000,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2006, Volume
50, pp. 463–483. Also see David Brulé, Bryan W. Marshall and Brandon
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14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
B R Y A N W. M A R S H A L L A N D B R A N D O N C . P R I N S
C. Prins, “Opportunities and Presidential Uses of Force: A Selection Model
of Crisis Decision-Making,” Conflict Management and Peace Science, 2010,
Volume 27, Number 5, pp. 486–510.
The basic dataset was built using the EUGene data generation software
program. See D. Scott Bennett and Alan Stam, “EUGene: A Conceptual
Manual,” International Interactions, 2000, Volume 26, pp. 179–204.
David R. Mayhew, Congress: The Electoral Connection (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1974).
See Frederic S. Pearson and Robert A. Baumann, “International Military
Intervention, 1946–1988,” Inter-university Consortium for Political and
Social Research. Data Collection 6035, University of Michigan (1993).
Also see Emizet F. Kisangani and Jeffrey Pickering, “International Military
Intervention, 1989–2005,” Kansas State University. First ICPSR Release,
November 2007. Deposit 5462. Inter-University Consortium for Political
and Social Research (2008).
Jeffrey Pickering and Emizet Kisangani, “Democracy and Diversionary Military Intervention: Reassessing Regime Type and the Diversionary Hypothesis,” International Studies Quarterly, 2005, Volume 49, Number 1, p. 29.
Jeffrey Pickering and Mark Peceny, “Forging Democracy at Gunpoint,”
International Studies Quarterly, 2006, Volume 50, pp. 539–559.
Emizet F. Kisangani and Jeffrey Pickering, “Diverting with Benevolent
Military Force: Reducing Risks and Rising Above Strategic Behavior,”
International Studies Quarterly, 2007, Volume 51, pp. 277–299. Also see
Emizet F. Kisangani and Jeffrey Pickering, “Democratic Accountability
and Diversionary Force: Regime Types and the Use of Benevolent and
Hostile Military Force,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2007, Volume 55,
pp. 1021–1046.
In addition to IMI, we also test our argument using the Military
Interventions by Powerful States (MIPS) dataset collected by Patricia Sullivan
and Michael Koch. These data record military uses of force that involve
the “official deployment of at least 500 regular military personnel (ground,
air, or naval) to attain immediate-term political objectives through action
against a foreign adversary.” We use these data as an additional assessment of
Party Cover using interventions that are more clearly coercive in nature and
politically risky. Figure 15.2 illustrates the frequency of IMI humanitarian
and strategic interventions, as well as MIPS interventions by the U.S. from
1950–2000. See Patricia L. Sullivan and Michael T. Koch, “Military Interventions by Powerful States,” Journal of Peace Research, 2009, Volume 46,
pp. 707–718.
We also take the natural log of the fraction to reduce variability in the time
series.
David B. Carter and Curtis S. Signorino, “Back to the Future: Modeling
Time Dependence in Binary Data,” Political Analysis, 2010, Volume 18, pp.
271–292.
Brandon C. Prins and Mark Souva, “The Use of U.S. Military Force,” in
The Handbook of American Foreign Policy, ed. Steven Hook and Christopher
Jones (New York: Routledge Press, 2011).
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24. Shawn Zeller, “2012 Vote Studies: Presidential Support,” CQ Weekly Report,
January 21, 2013, pp. 120–127.
25. Humberto Sanchez, “2012 Vote Studies: Party Unity,” CQ Weekly January
21, 2013, pp.132–140.
26. President George Bush’s average legislative success rate of 43 percent marks
the lowest during a reelection year (1992).
27. In his speech, President Obama mapped out his new vision for U.S. counterterrorism policy. The U.S. would scale back the use of drone strikes, narrow
the scope of targets, and give greater control and discretion to the Pentagon
as opposed to the C.I.A. See Peter Baker, “In Terror Shift, Obama Took a
Long Path,” New York Times, May 28, 2013, pp. 1–5.
28. Paul Krugman agrees. In a speech given in New York in January of 2013
Krugman told MSNBC host Chris Hayes that “barring a spectacular upset
in the 2014 midterms, Obama won’t be able to pass any major legislation” (Kavoussi, 2013). See Bonnie Kavoussi, “Paul Krugman: Obama
Won’t be Able to Pass Major Legislation in his Second Term,” January 28,
2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/28/paul-krugman-obama_
n_2565992.html, accessed March 14, 2013.
29. Kriner, After the Rubicon.
30. The basic idea behind the Renewal Agenda was to embed U.S. goals more
broadly in the international system and advance U.S. standing in the international community. To do so, the Renewal Agenda would seek to rely more on
non-military solutions to foreign policy problems and place greater emphasis
on transnational issues like energy, immigration, non-proliferation, and terrorism. Importantly, Obama’s decision to surge in Afghanistan was affected
by his domestic policy priorities. While Obama promised during the 2008
presidential campaign to refocus U.S. foreign policy efforts on the Afghan
campaign, the cost of the troop deployment threatened investments Obama
hoped to make domestically.
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Chapter
16
Decline or Not:
America’s Continued
Primacy in the
Persian Gulf
Wesley Renfro and Marc O’Reilly
In January 2001, when George W. Bush took the oath of office, the
United States was the undisputed global leader. Madeleine Albright nicely
summed up the state of global affairs in 1998 when she noted that,
“We [the United States] are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we
see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here
to all of us.”1 Her assessment accurately described the Clinton era and
also seemed true at the start of George W. Bush’s presidency. The Clinton
years saw the post-Cold War dividend, the digitization of the economy,
and a growth in U.S. influence. The lack of economic, military, and
political rival combined with robust economic growth cemented the postCold War order as a Pax Americana. While some states, e.g., the Islamic
Republic of Iran, objected to American hegemony, most members of the
international community, at least tacitly, accepted American leadership
because it provided global public goods and a measure of stability.
The revisionist powers that did object, e.g., Iran and North Korea,
were largely unable to challenge American leadership. This lack of a
credible option created a novel situation in international relations—a
unipolar system. This concentration of power in the hands of a single
state, even one that favored the status quo and was sometimes benevolent, alarmed some, reassured others, and sparked debates over American
Empire. George W. Bush’s feckless foreign policy and structural changes
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in global affairs undermined Washington’s position, and debates of U.S.
decline have largely replaced talk of American empire.
While Washington has grappled with contentious problems—
including economic malaise, the burdens of counterterrorism, conflicts
in Iraq and Afghanistan, political gridlock, and the rise of potential
competitors (e.g., Brazil, Russia, India, and China, the so-called BRIC
countries)—the actual extent of American decline is ambiguous. While
many contemporary analyses spotlight U.S. weaknesses, few give equal
attention to Washington’s strengths.2 Despite cloaking their predictions
in the language of realism, many of these appraisals ignore or minimize the
concept of relative power and downplay the political, economic, demographic, and social challenges that would-be competitors, including the
BRIC countries, face. Because of these kinds of omissions, declinist predictions have, thus far, been incorrect. This chapter argues that while
many states object to specific American policies, most do not desire a
wholesale reordering of global politics. To illustrate these claims about
the United States and the rest of the world, this chapter relies on a case
study of the U.S. in the Persian Gulf—a critically important region in
international relations.
The Recurrent Narrative of U.S. Decline
Despite its success as a Great Power, the United States cannot avoid having
critics doubt its ability to recover from setbacks. Whenever the country experiences defeat, e.g., during the Vietnam War, seems irresponsibly
overcommitted, e.g., at the end of the Cold War, or blunders geopolitically and fiscally, e.g., post-9/11, naysayers spotlight shortcomings,
pronounce the situation irreparable, and prophesize imminent demise.
In the Vietnam era, William Appleman Williams and other so-called
New Left scholars denounced the United States as a predatory state eager
to exploit the economic weakness of “Third World” countries.3 Like
their ideological predecessors, socialists and communists who continuously predicted the death knell of an American economic model doomed
to perpetual recession and incapable of overcoming the Great Depression,
New Left critics condemned the U.S. variant of empire and expected
the country’s power and influence abroad to cease. As the Johnson and
Nixon administrations mired Washington in a quixotic war that belied
the nation’s bedrock political values, opponents of American policy highlighted U.S. hypocrisy and foresaw an empire felled by a self-defeating
strategy. America’s post-Vietnam War malaise seemed to confirm the
country’s permanent decline.
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New Left ideology gave way to a conservative backlash in the 1980s.
Ronald Reagan’s ability to shift the national discourse away from “endof-empire” pessimism coincided with a recovery. This reversal could not
fully rehabilitate the country’s reputation, however. Japan seemed poised
to overtake the United States as the world’s economic leader. Washington’s
“deficit spending,” in combination with the stalemated Cold War, convinced many critics that the United States would not recover.4 No work
articulated decline better than Paul Kennedy’s bestseller, The Rise and
Fall of the Great Powers, which argued that the country had succumbed
to “imperial overstretch.”5 His pessimistic assessment prompted scholars
such as Joseph Nye to argue that the United States’ overall comparative
advantage dwarfed that of competitors.6 The Cold War’s abrupt end and
America’s subsequent triumphalism vindicated the optimists during the
Clinton years.
The 9/11 attacks confirmed U.S. hegemony but produced an unsustainable foreign policy that undermined American influence. These conflicts in Muslim lands engendered virulent anti-Americanism in much
of the Middle East. As the U.S. military effort floundered, both liberal
and conservative critics excoriated U.S. policy. Scholar Andrew Bacevich
deplored his country’s overreliance on military solutions, which permanently weakened the U.S. global position.7 Similarly, Chalmers Johnson,
a former CIA analyst, wrote a series of books on the nefarious consequences of American empire.8 Barack Obama’s election ephemerally
lessened worldwide antipathy for the United States, but his Greater Middle East policy seemed to confirm American decline. The “Made in
America” Great Recession only compounded the country’s woes and constrained its policy choices. Scholar Christopher Layne consequently bid
adieu to the Pax Americana.9 As he did two decades earlier, Joseph Nye
objected to this conclusion,10 as did Robert Kagan.11
When it comes to U.S. decline, the matter hinges on relative versus
absolute power. American influence waxes and wanes based on a confluence of systemic, domestic, and individual variables. Relative decline
invariably occurs. Inevitably, as Nye has pointed out, the United States
could not keep up its startling 1945-level advantages. Relying on intervals, however, makes sense and provides a more honest accounting of
great power capabilities. An analysis of Washington’s position, for example, should consider U.S. strengths and weaknesses relative to other Great
Powers over a prolonged period of time, i.e., decades. Examining a Great
Power based on a briefer period, e.g., a few years, might present a misleading assessment that undervalues longer-term trends and overvalues recent
gains or setbacks. Once a country qualifies as a Great Power, it will likely
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occupy various points between apex and nadir. When a Great Power can
no longer meet the minimum threshold, it forfeits its status and enters
absolute decline. Note, however, that short-term declines may not presage
lasting contraction. Despite the parsimony of this definition, determining with precision what does or does not constitute an acceptable interval
often eludes scholars.12 Hence, scholars can adopt varying, and often contradictory, editorial preferences when assessing American hegemony. In all
likelihood, only a seminal event can invalidate their respective assertions.
Notwithstanding this methodological confusion, the United States seems
in yet another cycle of relative decline that, while indicative of meaningful
loss of power, does not foreshadow inexorable demise.
BRICs and the Prospects for Contested
American Hegemony
By any measure, the dozen years since 9/11 have not been kind to the
United States. The mismanagement of Middle Eastern policy, including a disastrous occupation of Iraq, a difficult and inconclusive mission
in Afghanistan, and the Great Recession have diminished U.S. power in
absolute terms. Washington is therefore more constrained and less capable that at any other point in at least a generation. The rise of the BRIC
countries, as well as regional actors such as Turkey, further complicates
the U.S. predicament. This confluence has led many analysts to claim
that multipolarity has replaced unipolarity.13 While there is truth in these
conclusions, they are probably premature.
In the past 30 years, China has leveraged its explosive economic growth
into newfound international prominence. It now boasts the world’s second largest GDP in both nominal and purchasing power parity (PPP)
terms.14 Despite somewhat slower growth recently,15 China’s economy
remains enviably robust. Beijing, according to International Monetary
Fund (IMF) estimates, may have the world’s largest economy by 2017.
China’s success affects the global economy. The country, in a bid to
minimize inflation, invests some capital domestically, including a military modernization program, but sends much abroad through foreign
direct investment and the purchase of U.S. government debt and other
assets. By purchasing large quantities of American debt, Beijing forms a
symbiotic relationship with Washington. Although this alarms some in
the United States, both countries benefit from this arrangement. Thus,
this condominium incentivizes peace, as upsetting this mutually beneficial arrangement would be painful for both. While this narrative of an
increasingly mighty China is ubiquitous, Beijing’s liabilities receive far less
attention.16
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China’s population, owing to its one child policy, is imbalanced.
Although the majority of China’s population is still working age, this
will soon give way to a much older China. Beijing, moreover, has not
yet developed a set of social programs that will provide for the coming wave of seniors. China has long been advantaged by a large and low
wage labor pool. However, this advantage has declined because of rising
wages. Rising wages and a shrinking workforce are likely to exacerbate
this trend. Already some manufacturers have relocated from China to the
United States because it no longer makes economic sense to manufacture
in China given high labor costs.17 In short, with an aging, and eventually
shrinking, workforce, Beijing cannot rely on cheap labor to provide full
employment and continued growth.
Inflation poses a serious long-term problem and Beijing has only had
partial success in combating inflationary pressures. It finds itself with two
unpalatable options: the government can accept higher inflation or take
steps to slow economic growth.18 Yet, any change to this “prosperity for
stability” formula is unpalatable to Chinese leaders, as it might undermine
their position.
Finally, while Chinese influence is growing, especially in Asia and
Africa,19 there is little evidence that China is seeking to compete with
the United States in the Persian Gulf. There is little need, moreover, for
the Chinese to challenge America in that region. While China does need
access to energy, as witnessed by a spate of new contracts in Iraq,20 U.S.
hegemony in the Gulf allows Chinese access to oil and gas supplies without asking the Chinese to help pay for the geopolitical order that enables
Middle Eastern hydrocarbons to reach world markets.
Although most analyses of decline spotlight China as America’s most
serious rival, some focus on others, including Russia. Some 20 years
after the Soviet implosion, Kremlin rhetoric indicates that Moscow is
still a world power, but its domestic problems suggest that its influence is regional rather than global. In basic terms, Russia has not yet
recovered from Soviet collapse, and much of the country is underdeveloped.21 Energy is a bright spot in the economy, but hydrocarbons alone
cannot guarantee prosperity to 143 million citizens nor make Moscow
a truly global power. Sudden fluctuations in energy prices, moreover,
cause considerable economic frustration. Crude oil, for example, was selling for $132 in 2008, but prices collapsed to $41 the following year.22
This volatility compromises Russia’s ability to finance effectively government expenditures. With a combination of economic, demographic,
and political liabilities, Russia is unlikely to establish significant influence in the Persian Gulf. Moscow does provide assistance, including
weapons and diplomatic cover to revisionist states in the Middle East,
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however. Instability and neglect have seriously eroded Russian military
prowess, and while Moscow looms large in parts of Eastern Europe and
Central Asia, it no longer has the material capability to directly influence Great Power politics further afield. Russia does attempt to indirectly
influence political outcomes in other regions, however. This often means
arms transfers, furnishing military and technical assistance, or wielding its
Security Council veto to protect its allies. The Kremlin’s involvement in
the Syrian Civil War is a recent example of Moscow’s willingness to use
these tactics to advance its Middle Eastern agenda.23
India and Brazil are rapidly emerging economic and political powers. The IMF estimates that Brazil has a $2.5 trillion economy.24 India,
in spite of global recession, has been growing quickly and is poised for
sustained economic expansion. Both, however, appear to have regional
agendas. Brazil, in particular, is geographically far removed from the
Persian Gulf and seems mostly content with building influence in South
America.25 Blessed with ample natural resources, Brazil has no need of
Gulf energy. Nor does Brasilia stand to benefit from upending the status quo. India is generally supportive of American hegemony in the Gulf.
Given its relative proximity to the region and its longstanding disputes
with both Pakistan and China, India increasingly tilts towards the United
States.26 India and Brazil, like China and Russia, must contend with serious domestic problems, including poverty, demographic imbalances, and
income inequality.
Persian Gulf Actors and the American Order
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirate states are the primary beneficiaries of
the current order. While they often feel some pressure from their own
citizens to distance themselves from the United States, they have firmly
cast their lot with Washington. Others are less supportive of the American
position in the Gulf, however. Iran, for example, is heir to a long imperial history that informs Tehran’s regional ambitions. Under the Shah
and his successors, Iran has sought to revive its past grandeur. While
the Pahlavis and the ayatollahs found some success in growing Iranian
might, they did not establish Iranian hegemony. Following the 1978–79
Iranian Revolution, Iraq, and others, including Saudi Arabia, worked to
undermine Iran’s position because they feared an irredentist Tehran. Since
1990, Washington’s expanded presence in the Persian Gulf has proved
the biggest obstacle to Persian ambition. Despite a large population, educated labor force, and ample hydrocarbons, Iran has serious problems.
Some stem from the systematic mismanagement of the economy and the
co-option of Iranian powerbrokers; others from international sanctions.27
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Iran’s population boom of the 1980s and 1990s further compounds this
economic pain because the central government is unable to provide many
Iranians, especially the young, with jobs.
In spite of these travails, Tehran has found some successes. Much of
this is an inadvertent byproduct of poorly conceived American strategy.
The invasion and bungled occupation of Iraq, for example, was a boon
for Iran. Washington’s toppling of the Hussein regime created a power
vacuum, especially in the Shia-dominated areas of eastern Iraq. Tehran
happily filled that vacuum by backing Nouri al-Maliki’s government. Iran
has also made progress with its nuclear program. While Washington has
decried Iran’s nuclear ambitions for years, these protests did not mask
America’s inability to roll back the program. Given its economic problems and war weary population, the United States had no choice but
to rely on non-conventional means to thwart Iran. American and Israeli
cooperation most likely produced the Stuxnet computer virus aimed at
slowing Iran’s nuclear program.28 This, like other efforts, including sanctions, made pursuing nuclear weapons slow and painful but it did not
change Iran’s trajectory. Yet despite its newfound position in Iraq and
gains in its nuclear program, Iran is not in a position to revise the status quo in the Persian Gulf. This is not to suggest that Iran lacks the
capability to cause the Americans considerable headaches in the region,
however. Iran’s support for radical groups opposed to Washington’s preferred policy agenda is very real. The Islamic Republic claims, moreover,
that, if provoked, it has the means to close the Straits of Hormuz to vital
shipping traffic. Nonetheless, on balance, Iran is not in a position to alter
significantly the power dynamics of the Persian Gulf because its moribund economy and sclerotic politics undermine its capability vis-à-vis
rivals.
Iraq also once aspired to regional prominence. Under Saddam Hussein,
Baghdad considered itself a premier military power and used its assets to
invade Iran disastrously in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990. The de facto civil
war that wracked the country in the wake of the American-led invasion
has left the country divided, weak, and incapable of aspiring to regional
hegemony. Once one of Washington’s most implacable enemies and one
of the biggest threats to the American-centric order of the Persian Gulf,
Iraq is no longer a serious rival. Baghdad’s instability could wreak havoc
on U.S. plans in other ways, however. Renewed civil war, for example,
might invite machinations from others (Iran most obviously) and would
further destabilize a critical region.
After downplaying its regional presence for decades, Turkey has pivoted toward the Middle East recently. With a growing economy and the
skillful, and sometimes controversial, leadership of Prime Minister Recep
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Erdogan, Ankara has emerged as a significant power.29 In the past decade,
Ankara, a staunch NATO ally, has exhibited an independent streak. This
included the rejection of an American request to use Turkish territory in
its invasion of Iraq. Nonetheless, Turkey’s higher profile is not a signal
that Ankara seeks to contest Washington’s hegemony. Turkey’s refusal to
participate in the invasion of Iraq, for example, was motivated by the fear
that the invasion might lead to an independent Kurdish state. In spite
of the occasional policy differences (e.g., Ankara’s criticism of Israel), the
United States and Turkey have the same basic goals. Neither Washington
nor Ankara, for example, has any desire to see an ascendant Iran or Iraq.
While its economic fortunes have steadily improved, the Turkish government is still concerned with issues of domestic development and the
intrigues and upheaval of its more immediate neighbors (e.g., Syria, Israel,
and the Kurdish populated areas of Iraq and to a lesser extent Iran). In
sum, while Turkey is in less of a lock-step with the United States than it
was in previous eras, it is unlikely that Ankara, despite its growing power,
seeks to undo American hegemony.
The American Position in the Persian Gulf
and Beyond
Despite its decade-long misadventure in Iraq, the United States remains
hegemonic on the west side of the Persian Gulf. Given its ties to Gulf
rulers, Washington retains privileged access to the emirate countries and
Saudi Arabia. As important, America’s air-naval supremacy enables it
to operate effectively without having to station permanently hundreds
of thousands of soldiers in the area. Washington’s prolonged success in
the Gulf is partly due to its willingness to sacrifice its pro-democracy
rhetoric for sometimes Machiavellian policies that help it secure its
regional interests. These utilitarian calculations sometimes produce unsavory and hypocritical results, but this sort of decision-making has helped
guide American foreign policy for decades. Like his predecessors, Obama
has selectively applied pro-democracy policies, blessing the popular overthrow of Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak while quietly,
but powerfully, defending the status quo in the emirate countries of
the Arab Gulf—most obviously in Bahrain. From a strategic standpoint,
Washington’s illiberal policy in that region makes sense because it provides a bulwark against Iranian expansion and ensures the flow of Gulf
energy.30
Washington’s advantageous military and geopolitical position serves as
a stabilizing force in a turbulent area. The Obama administration is wary
of the volatile events playing out nearby. As the Syrian civil war rages
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on, drawing in neighbors Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, the United
States must anticipate what spillover may ensue. With Baghdad’s continued tilt toward Iran, with Israel ever vigilant to an Iranian threat, with
Islamists still bent on destroying the Jewish state, and with the IsraeliPalestinian “peace process” moribund, Washington will likely continue its
perimeter defense of the Arab side of the Gulf. This means that power
politics will trump ideological preferences, even for a Great Power that, at
least rhetorically, prides itself on being a bastion and advocate of liberal
democracy.
Although its global position is less certain than it was a decade ago, the
United States remains the indispensable nation in the Persian Gulf and
beyond. For much of its history, a robust declinist school has suggested
that the country was past its prime. While the rise of emerging powers,
especially China, may challenge the existing global order, there is not yet
much evidence that this is happening in the Persian Gulf. It is important
to remember, moreover, that even the most rapidly emerging powers face
their own issues.
These conclusions are not intended, however, to suggest that U.S. relative decline is exaggerated. Nor do these conclusions vindicate notions
of American Exceptionalism. Predictions of U.S. decline should be based
on careful empirical analyses and must be framed within the context of
relative gains and losses. Perhaps most importantly, this chapter strongly
suggests that it is probably most appropriate to consider the trajectory of
ascent or decline over a medium- or long-term time horizon. Absent systemic war, empires rarely spontaneously collapse. As Susan Strange noted
in 1987:
In its extreme form, the myth that the United States today is just a little
old country much like any other and has, in some sudden and miraculous
way, lost its hegemonic power may seem more plausible than do some of
these other myths. But when it is subjected to close and searching scrutiny,
it is just as far from truth. And unless cool and rational analysis undermines its power to move minds and shape attitudes, it can be every bit as
dangerous.31
Barack Obama’s administration coincides with relative American decline
and the rise of emerging actors. Although alarming to those who wish to
see continued American hegemony, this scenario is historically banal—it
has happened with regularity. Periods of relative decline do not guarantee absolute decline, moreover. In the aftermath of the 2012 election,
it seems clear that President Obama must grapple with some very serious challenges during his second term. While Obama is a popular figure
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on the global stage and this helps make Washington’s policies marginally
more palatable, at least in some quarters, the problems he faces in
the Middle East and elsewhere are fundamentally structural and not
unique to his tenure. Counterfactually, it is difficult to fathom Mitt
Romney having to tackle significantly different issues or enjoying additional advantages. Although Romney’s foreign policy would have likely
differed somewhat from Obama’s, and the Republican’s crisis management might have diverged from his opponent, he would have had to adopt
policies that ensured Washington achieved its longstanding regional goals
and preserved the current order.
In the Persian Gulf and Greater Middle East, Obama must reassure
energy exporting allies that Washington will protect them against internal
and regional threats despite America’s rhetorical preference for democratization. The president must also contend with the changes wrought
by the Arab Spring. This means developing ties with new regimes and
encouraging democratic trends in key states, such as Egypt, while simultaneously dealing with the perennial issues (e.g., the Arab-Israeli conflict
and Iranian hostility) that bedevil the international politics of the region.
Obama must also address the negative consequences of the Arab Spring,
such as the Syrian civil war, which has exacerbated the region’s Sunni-Shia
sectarian rivalry and drawn in the world’s great powers.
In order to reverse its relative decline, Washington must recover from
the Great Recession and help restore credibility to the post-World War
II liberal order that, while somewhat tarnished, represents the best chance
for global peace and prosperity. This means helping the Europeans and
Japanese, and others, continue their own economic recoveries. It also
means normalizing relations with rising powers, e.g., China, in an attempt
to bind them into the thick web of institutions that incentivize prosperity
and make war or conflict less attractive.
Yet even the most prudent policy plans may not guarantee American
hegemony. After all, outcomes hinge on domestic politics in faraway
lands that Obama, or any U.S. president, cannot easily influence (e.g.,
Beijing’s ability to cope with its turbulent demographics). While this may
sound dire, the United States retains formidable assets and has previously rebounded from similar situations. It remains a dynamic country
with immense cultural appeal, a varied and flexible economy, pronounced
advantages in hi-technology and manufacturing, and boasts the world’s
premier military. As powerful as it may be, it is like every other state: it
has both strengths and weaknesses. A careful comparison of its relative
position and that of other powerful actors suggests, however, that with
careful planning and smart policies, the current administration can help
shepherd America out of a period of relative decline.
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Notes
1. Madeleine K. Albright, “Interview on NBC-TV,” United States Department of State Archive, February 2, 1998, http://secretary.state.gov/www/
statements/1998/980219a.html.
2. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “The Twenty-First Century Will Not Be a ‘Post-American’
World,” International Studies Quarterly, 2012, Volume 56, pp. 215–217;
and William C. Wohlforth, “How Not to Evaluate Theories,” International
Studies Quarterly, 2012, Volume 56, pp. 219–222.
3. William Appleman Williams, Empire As A Way of Life (Brooklyn, NY: Ig
Publishing, 2007).
4. Claims of crippling debt are again resurgent, see Roger C. Altman and
Richard N. Haass, “American Profligacy and American Power: The Consequences of Fiscal Irresponsibility,” Foreign Affairs, 2010, Volume 89,
pp. 25–34.
5. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and
Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (London: Fontana Press, 1989).
6. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power
(New York: Basic Books, 1990).
7. Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
(New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008); and Andrew J. Bacevich, The New
American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005).
8. Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End
of the Republic (New York: Owl Books, 2004). For an overview of the U.S.
empire debate, see Marc J. O’Reilly, Unexceptional: America’s Empire in the
Persian Gulf, 1941–2007 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008).
9. Christopher Layne, “This Time It’s Real: The End of Unipolarity and the Pax
Americana,” International Studies Quarterly, 2012, Volume 56, pp. 203–213.
See also Niall Ferguson, “Complexity and Collapse: Empires on the Edge of
Chaos,” Foreign Affairs, 2010, Volume 89, pp. 18–32.
10. Nye, “The Twenty-First Century Will Not Be a ‘Post-American’ World.”
11. Robert Kagan, “Not Fade Away,” The New Republic, February 2, 2012,
pp. 19–25.
12. Wohlforth, “How Not to Evaluate Theories.”
13. Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World: Release 2.0 (New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, 2012).
14. “World Economic Outlook Database 2012,” The International Monetary Fund, accessed on June 9, 2013, http://www.imf.org/external/data.
htm#data.
15. Annie Lowrey, “I.M.F. Tells China of Urgent Need for Economic Change,”
The New York Times, July 17, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/
business/global/imf-tells-china-of-urgent-need-for-economic-change.html?
ref=global-home.
16. For an optimistic appraisal of China’s capabilities, see Juan Pablo Cardenal
and Heriberto Araujo, China’s Silent Army: The Pioneers, Traders, Fixers and
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17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
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Workers Who are Remaking the World in Beijing’s Image (New York: Crown,
2012).
David Conrads, “As Chinese Wages Rise, US Manufacturers Head Back
Home,” The Christian Science Monitor, May 10, 2012, http://www.
csmonitor.com/Business/new-economy/2012/0510/As-Chinese-wages-riseUS-manufacturers-head-back-home.
Prabha Natarajan, “China’s Economic Growth Bringing Back Inflation Pressures,” The Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2013, http://online.wsj.com/
article/BT-CO-20130327-702768.html; and Keith Bradsher, “China Again
is Growing, More Slowly,” The New York Times, January 13, 2013, http://
www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/business/global/as-chinas-economy-revivesso-do-fears-of-inflation.html.
Deborah Brautigam, The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Tim Arango and Clifford Krauss, “China is Reaping the Biggest Benefits
of Iraq Oil Boom,” The New York Times, June 2, 2013, http://www.nytimes.
com/2013/06/03/world/middleeast/china-reaps-biggest-benefits-of-iraq-oilboom.html?pagewanted=all.
Julian Cooper, “The Russian Economy Twenty Years After the End of the
Socialist Economic System,” The Journal of Eurasian Studies, 2013, Volume
4, pp. 55–64.
“World Economic Outlook Database 2012,” The International Monetary Fund, accessed on June 9, 2013, http://www.imf.org/external/data.
htm#data.
David Kenner, “What Russia Gave Syria,” Foreign Policy, June 21, 2012,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/21/what_russia_gave_syria.
“World Economic Outlook Database 2012,” The International Monetary Fund, accessed on June 9, 2013, http://www.imf.org/external/data.
htm#data.
Andres Malamud, “A Leader Without Followers? The Growing Divergence
between the Regional and Global Performance of Brazilian Foreign Policy,”
Latin American Politics and Society, 2011, Volume 53, pp. 1–24.
Evan A. Feigenbaum, “India’s Rise, America’s Interest: The Fate of the US—
Indian Partnership,” Foreign Affairs, 2010, Volume 89, pp. 76–91.
Adrian Bomfield, “Iran Sanctions Having Devastating Effect,” The Telegraph, September 27, 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/
middleeast/iran/9571502/Iran-sanctions-having-devastating-effect.html.
Rick Gladstone, “Iran Suggests Attacks on Computer Systems Came From
the U.S. and Israel,” The New York Times, December 25, 2012, http://www.
nytimes.com/2012/12/26/world/middleeast/iran-says-hackers-targeted-pow
er-plant-and-culture-ministry.html?ref=stuxnet.
Anthony Shadid, “Resurgent Turkey Flexes Its Muscles Around Iraq,”
The New York Times, January 4, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/
01/05/world/middleeast/05turkey.html?pagewanted=all. See also Ahmet
Davutoglu, “Turkey’s Zero-Problems Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy, May 20,
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2010,
http://jft-newspaper.aub.edu.lb/reserve/data/s11244/s11244.pdf.
Finally, for a more mixed estimate of Turkey; see Hugh Pope, “Pax
Ottomana? The Mixed Success of Turkey’s New Foreign Policy,” Foreign
Affairs, 2010, Volume 89, pp. 161–173.
30. See Marc J. O’Reilly and Wesley B. Renfro, “More Nudging, Less Pushing: U.S. Foreign Policy vis-à-vis the Middle East in Obama’s Second Term”
(unpublished manuscript). Available from authors upon request.
31. Susan Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” International
Organization, 1987, Volume 41, p. 551.
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Part
IV
Faith and Politics:
2012 and Beyond
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Chapter
17
Courting the
Catholic Vote: Obama,
Romney, and the
US Catholic Bishops
in the 2012
Presidential
Election
Richard J. Powell and
Mark D. Brewer
Perhaps no religious group received more attention during the
2012 presidential campaign than Roman Catholics. Both the Obama and
Romney campaigns viewed this group as crucially important to victory,
and went hard after their support. In this chapter we examine the place
of Roman Catholicism in the 2012 presidential contest. After reviewing
the historical role of Catholic voters in American elections, we discuss
the involvement of the American Catholic bishops in US elections, with
particular attention to their highly visible actions during the 2012 campaign. Finally, we discuss the numerous ways the Obama and Romney
campaigns tailored their appeals to this critical group of American voters.
Our analyses find that as a group American Catholics are quintessential
swing voters, and as such are highly attractive to both major parties. At the
same time, American Catholics are a highly variegated constituency, with
significant internal divisions related to religiosity, ideology, ethnicity, and
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social class. These internal divisions make it unlikely that either party will
be able to corner the market on the Catholic vote, and also make it difficult for the American bishops to shape the voting behavior of their flock
to the degree that they might wish.
Catholic Voters in US Elections
There are a number of reasons why Catholics are such a critical constituency group in contemporary American politics. First, Catholics are by
far the single largest religious denomination in the US, a fact that has been
true since 1850.1 As of October 2012 Catholics made up 22 percent of
the American adult population, meaning that they potentially account for
almost a quarter of the electorate in a presidential race.2 In fact, Catholics
voters have accounted for a just over a quarter of those casting ballots in
presidential elections from 2000–12.3 In addition, Catholics have become
an important swing vote in recent years. Indeed, Catholics have favored
the winner in the last three presidential elections, George W. Bush in 2004
and Obama in both 2008 and 2012. The last time a plurality of Catholics
voted for a losing presidential candidate was 2000 when they went for
Al Gore over Bush by a narrow 49–47 percent margin. Whenever such
a large group—no matter of what variety—is so closely divided and so
clearly up for grabs in American politics, both parties and their candidates
are bound to devote attention and resources to voters in that group.
Catholics have not always been such a swing group in American
politics. As increasing numbers of Catholics began to arrive in the
US in 1820s and 1830s many were attracted by the championing of the
common man put forth by Andrew Jackson and his wing of the Democratic Party.4 Increasing class differences between the Democrats and the
Whigs (the other major party of the 1830s and 1840s) pushed Catholics
further into the Democratic fold,5 as did the anti-immigrant and antiCatholic elements of the American (Know-Nothing) Party and then the
Republican Party in the 1850s and 1860s.6 As Catholics’ Democratic
affiliation increased, so too did their numbers as more and more Catholic
immigrants arrived on American shores.
Catholic support for the Democrats weakened a fair amount in
the 1890s as the party’s fusion with the Populist Party temporarily
moved the Democrats in a rural/agrarian direction that did not appeal
to many urban Catholics. American Catholics of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries in many ways resembled Catholic voters
of today, open to appeals from both parties in presidential elections.7
But Catholics gradually came back to the Democratic fold, and the
Democrats’ nomination of Al Smith for president in 1928 (the first
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Catholic to receive a major party nomination for president) and the heavy
courting of Catholic voters by successful Democratic candidate Franklin
Delano Roosevelt in 1932 locked Catholics into the Democratic Party,
making them a crucial element of the famed New Deal Coalition.8 Strong
Catholic support of the Democrats continued throughout the 1940s and
1950s, and reached record levels in the first two presidential elections of
the 1960s. According to data from the American National Election Studies, 82 percent of Catholics voted for Democrat John Kennedy in 1960,
helping to make him the first (and to this point, only) Catholic president in American history, and they followed up by giving 79 percent of
their vote to Kennedy’s successor Lyndon Johnson in 1964.9 However,
Catholic support for Democrats began to show strains in late 1960s, and
in 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern received
only 39 percent of the Catholic vote. From the 1970s forward, it is fair
to say that American Catholics as a whole have been a swing constituency
in American politics, with Catholics splitting their presidential support
relatively evenly between the two parties. Once a Democratic lock, the
Catholic vote has now been in play for and hotly contested by both parties
for over 40 years.
It is important to note that the Catholic vote is not monolithic. In
fact, we will see how the Obama and Romney campaigns tailored their
campaign appeals to highly targeted sub-groups of American Catholics.
Although Catholics collectively represent a closely divided segment of
the electorate, different sub-groups of Catholics display voting tendencies that are quite different from one another. As reported by the Pew
Forum on Religion and Public Life (2012), an analysis of the 2008 exit
polls shows that Hispanic Catholics voted for Obama by a margin of
72–26 percent. White Catholics were more evenly divided, voting 52–47
percent for McCain, but delving more deeply into the data shows that
White liberal Catholics supported Obama by a wide margin, 88–12
percent, and that White conservative Catholics supported McCain by
84–15 percent. White moderates represent the true swing voters among
American Catholics, supporting Obama 58–41 percent in 2008. Therefore, the campaign appeals, discussed more fully below, were targeted in
different ways to different Catholic sub-groups. Obama sought to mobilize liberal Catholics based on appeals to social justice by going over the
heads the US Catholic Bishops, while Romney sought to energize conservative Catholics with appeals rooted in religious liberty and opposition to
abortion. Both campaigns worked tirelessly to attract moderate Catholics
with appeals that were quite similar to those directed at moderate voters
as a whole. The role of the US Bishops was central to the way all of this
played out.
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The US Catholic Bishops and American Politics
Historical Development
The institutional roots of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) extend back to the World War I era when US bishops created the National Catholic War Council (NCWC) to minister to soldiers
fighting in the war. As that war wound down, US Catholic bishops sought
to continue their involvement in societal affairs in an organized way, creating a successor to the National Catholic War Council called the National
Catholic Welfare Council in 1919 (later renamed the National Catholic
Welfare Conference). This new organization was heavily influenced by
Pope Leo XIII’s worldwide call to promote reform in the area of labor
relations, education, and social justice in his encyclical Rerum Novarum.
Over the course of the next several decades, the NCWC played an active
role in national debates over social justice issues, especially through its
Social Action Department under the leadership of Father John A. Ryan,
known to many as the “Right Reverend New Dealer.”10 Nevertheless,
national organizations of Catholic bishops held an uncertain place under
Canon Law. According to tradition, each individual bishop—as successors
to the Apostles—held broad authority to teach within his own diocese.
The relationship of bishops to the Vatican hierarchy was clearly recognized, but there were disputes about the extent to which national bishops
conferences could exercise power in any sort of intermediary way.11
The role of national bishops conferences was not fully clarified until
the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Following the death of Pope
John XXIII, Pope Paul VI clearly established the place of these conferences
within the Church hierarchy. It was in response to Vatican II that the
US Bishops created the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1966,
along with its partner organization the United States Catholic Conference. The existence of the two closely related organizations continued to
cause confusion about their respective roles, oftentimes even amongst the
bishops themselves, and were thus combined into the USCCB in 2001.
The 1976 presidential campaign marked one of the bishops’ organization’s first, if unintentional, forays into presidential politics when
Archbishop Joseph Bernardin criticized Democratic candidate Jimmy
Carter for “inconsistency” in his stances on abortion and then spoke
favorably about the Republican platform for “clearly and forthrightly”
supporting a constitutional amendment to allow the banning of the practice. The entire episode was widely interpreted, incorrectly, as a political
endorsement of the Republican ticket.12
The incidents in the 1976 campaign were deeply troubling to
Bernardin because he did not appreciate the public perception that he
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supported the Republican campaign. As a result of this the bishops sought
to expound Catholic teachings on a wider range of issues that cut across
partisan and ideological lines in the American context. Bernardin became
especially well known for his development of the “consistent ethic of life.”
According to Bernardin, Catholic teachings needed to be applied in a consistent way across a wide range of issues concerning the right to life and
human dignity. This “seamless garment,” as it was often called, coalesced
Catholic teachings on abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty, as well
as a broad range of “specific political and economic positions.”13 During this time, the NCCB was highly successful at distancing itself from
the perceived support of any particular political party, and more clearly
developed its teachings in way that stood outside of a partisan framework.
In recent years, the USCCB has been taking an increasingly public
role in American politics. This was especially true in 2012 due to an
unusual confluence of events. Most notably, American Catholic leaders
were drawn into a pitched political battle with the Obama administration in early 2012 over the proposed mandate to compel employers to
provide free coverage for artificial birth control under their employee
health insurance plans. These newly proposed rules were grounded in
the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known
as Obamacare, that required employers to provide certain forms of free
preventative care medical services.
Not only did this political controversy hit during an election year, it
took place with New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, a staunch conservative on issues of sexuality and reproductive rights, serving as president
of the USCCB. The dispute first emerged in August 2011 when US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced the
Obama administration would recommend an interim rule containing a
narrow definition of religious groups that would be granted a waiver from
the new law requiring employers to provide coverage for contraception
as part of their employee health insurance plans. Although there was
an exemption for clerical groups, and other narrowly defined religious
entities, the mandate was interpreted to cover religiously affiliated organizations such as schools, universities, charities, and hospitals. The USCCB
vehemently argued for a broader exemption.
The issue really exploded onto the public agenda on January 20, 2012
when Sebelius announced the administration was rejecting the appeals
from Catholic groups to change the newly proposed rules, but did say
that religiously affiliated organizations would be given a 12-month grace
period to adapt to the new rule. The USCCB, as well as the Republican presidential candidates and conservative commentators, immediately
reacted with strong opposition. The USCCB released a statement calling
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the administration’s policy “literally unconscionable.” Cardinal Dolan
said, “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how
to violate our consciences.”14 Catholic groups, Republicans, and conservative groups talked widely about the new rules as Obama’s “assault on
religious liberty.”
The public debate surrounding the issue became intense over following months and took a number of turns. For example, Rush Limbaugh
ignited a firestorm of controversy in calling Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown
University Law Center student, highly offensive names in response to
her support for the Obama administration’s new mandate. The issue also
became highly politicized in the Republican presidential debates as some
of the candidates, especially Rick Santorum, repeatedly accused Obama
of infringing upon religious liberty.
Responding to widespread public criticism, the Obama administration
announced on March 16, 2012 that it would issue a revised policy that
sought to extend an “accommodation” to religious groups with objections to the contraception mandate. This new accommodation allowed
religious groups to avoid paying for contraception directly by contracting with a “third-party” or “independent agency” that would provide the
coverage with funds raised from other sources. The USCCB announced
that it viewed the revised policy as a continued threat to religious liberty
and that it would oppose the rule. Over the next few months, numerous Catholic organizations filed lawsuits in federal courts challenging the
contraception mandate as an infringement upon their First Amendment
rights of religious liberty.
The contraception issue was one of just several disputes the USCCB
had with the Obama administration. The bishops were also upset about
Obama’s attempts to sideline them in their cooperative efforts with
the US government to fight international human trafficking, as well as
Obama’s announcement on May 9, 2012 that he now supported the right
of same-sex couples to marry under state laws. In response to all of these
controversies, the USCCB announced its “Fortnight for Freedom” initiative. According to a USCCB press release, this initiative was a “great
hymn of prayer for our country” that encouraged dioceses and parishes to
schedule “special events that support a great national campaign of teaching and witness for religious liberty.” The statement continued in saying
“our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who remained
faithful in the face of persecution by political power . . . Through prayer,
study, catechesis and peaceful public action . . . we remind ourselves and
others all throughout the United States about the importance of preserving the fundamental right of religious freedom.”15 Coming in a
presidential election year, many observers interpreted this effort, rightly or
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wrongly, as a clear statement of opposition from the USCCB to Obama’s
reelection.
Cardinal Dolan’s actions during the late summer 2012 were also
taken by some as an indirect expression of support for Mitt Romney
when Dolan appeared at the Republican National Convention in Tampa,
Florida to deliver a benediction. Benedictions are common at political
conventions, but it was unusual for the leader of the USCCB to appear
in such a capacity. Ultimately, Dolan agreed to appear in a similar capacity at the Democratic National Convention, although that appearance
was scheduled at a later time after public concerns were raised about his
political neutrality.16
Guiding Catholics in Political Life
One of the primary means the USCCB uses to guide Catholics in their
political behavior is through its teaching document, Forming Consciences
for Faithful Citizenship: A Call to Political Responsibility from the Catholic
Bishops of the United States. This was updated with a new “Introductory
Note” for the 2012 campaign and given a great deal of press attention.
The document itself is very careful to refrain from explicitly endorsing any
particular political candidate or party. Doing so would not only contradict
the long-standing tradition of the Church of non-partisanship, but would
almost certainly risk jeopardizing the USCCB’s tax-exempt status. In the
words of the bishops, Forming Consciences
. . . is widely used to share Catholic teaching on the role of faith and conscience in political life . . . It does not offer a voters guide, scorecard of
issues, or direction on how to vote. It applies Catholic moral principles to
a range of important issues and warns against misguided appeals to “conscience” to ignore fundamental moral claims, to reduce Catholic moral
concerns to one or two matters, or to justify choices simply to advance
partisan, ideological, or personal interests.17
Nevertheless, many observers viewed the statements of the USCCB as a
de facto endorsement of the Republican ticket. To understand why, one
needs to examine the substance and structure of the USCCB’s guidance
to Catholic voters.
As we discuss elsewhere in this chapter, a significant reason that
Catholic voters have been such a crucial swing group in recent American
elections is that “Catholic” positions on issues of public policy do not easily graft onto the partisan divisions in US politics. On one hand, the
Catholic hierarchy has consistently taken stands on issues of personal
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and sexual morality—abortion, gay rights, contraception, euthanasia,
stem cell research—that tend to match with those of Republicans. However, even some Catholic “sanctity of life” positions, such as the death
penalty and what constitutes a “just” war, have tended to fall closer to the
Democrats. On many social justice issues, such as a preferential option
for the poor and disadvantaged in society and immigration, Catholic
teachings are clearly more consistent with Democratic positions.
Forming Consciences affirms there are diverse issues voters need to take
into account when making their vote choices, but it also makes clear that
those issues should not all be given equal weight. According to the bishops, some actions can be categorized as “intrinsically evil,” meaning that
“They must always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported
or condoned. A prime example is the intentional taking of innocent
human life, as in abortion and euthanasia . . . [which] have become preeminent threats to human dignity.”18 Later they add, “The direct and
intentional destruction of innocent human life from the moment of conception until natural death is always wrong and is not just one issue
among many. It must always be opposed.”19 The bishops walk a fine line
in discussing whether or not support for abortion, for example, disqualifies a candidate from being considered, observing “As Catholics we are
not single-issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee voter’s support. Yet a candidate’s position on a single
issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or
the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a
candidate from receiving support.”20
These teachings served as the basis for a number of public statements
by individual bishops. Speaking during the campaign, Wisconsin Bishop
(Diocese of Madison) Robert Morlino offered his view that a Catholic
cannot vote for a candidate who promotes an intrinsic evil. However, in
some instances competing candidates may each support positions that
are considered intrinsic evils, perhaps in different issue areas. In those
cases a Catholic voter should attempt to decide which candidate poses
the lesser evil.21 Importantly, the bishops explicitly rejected the concept of proportionality, which would be used to justify voting for a
candidate who supported an intrinsic evil because a voter believed his
or her other positions, such as care for the poor, to be of such great
benefit as to outweigh the intrinsic evil. Still, following the guidelines
could present some complications for Catholics attempting to weigh the
issues.
Taken together, the public pronouncements of many of the nation’s
bishops sounded to many voters like thinly veiled endorsements of
Romney, or at least opposition to Obama. For example, Illinois Bishop
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(Diocese of Peoria) Daniel Jenky spoke openly about Obama’s “assault
on our religious freedom” and suggested that Catholics who voted for
pro-choice Democrats were analogous to those who condemned Jesus to
death. Wisconsin Bishop (Diocese of Green Bay) David Ricken attracted
considerable national attention when he said that voters who supported
pro-choice, pro-same-sex marriage candidates were putting their souls at
risk. And, Alaskan Bishop (Diocese of Juneau) Edward J. Burns openly
questioned Vice President Biden’s Catholic faith and said his pro-choice
position was similar to supporting slavery.22 This was similar to statements from the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference in the week before the
election in which they expressed concerns about candidates who opposed
their positions on abortion, marriage, school choice, and religious liberty
in religious health care institutions—all areas in which the Church was
largely in agreement with Romney and the Republicans.23
Although certainly prominent in the 2012 campaign, one must be
careful not to overstate the importance of the Catholic hierarchy and
the USCCB in affecting election outcomes. After all, Catholics continue
to divide very closely in their voting choices at the presidential level.
According to a poll conducted by the New York Times in February 2013,
53 percent of American Catholics said they believed the Church was “out
of touch” with the needs of Catholics. Similarly, a plurality of American
Catholics said bishops in the US were out of touch with their needs.24
In many ways the 2012 presidential campaigns took place against the
backdrop of these internal divisions among US Catholics. Whereas the
Romney campaign made extensive appeals to traditional Catholics and
the Church hierarchy, the Obama campaign was quite successful at going
“over the heads” of the bishops to court more secular Catholics on a wide
range of issues.
The Obama Campaign and Catholics
Obama did very well among Catholic voters in 2008, achieving 54
percent of the vote among this group. Since 1984 only Clinton in 1996
has done better. But the Obama campaign certainly had reason to believe
that it would be hard-pressed to match this level of success in 2012. As discussed above, the American Catholic bishops collectively and individually
had come out very strongly in direct opposition to some of Obama’s
signature policies, and at least indirectly in opposition to Obama himself. The intensity of the opposition from the American hierarchy only
intensified as the campaign wore on. In addition, Obama had done very
little as president to appeal to Catholic voters as Catholics per se. Aside
from delivering the 2009 Commencement Address (to mixed reviews
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at best) at the University of Notre Dame,25 Obama had done virtually
no high profile events with Catholic dignitaries or Catholic audiences.
Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that the Obama campaign
chose not to offer the President himself as the primary communicator to
Catholics. In the search for an attractive surrogate to appeal to Catholic
voters, Obama did not have to go far. The obvious choice for this role
was Obama’s running mate, Vice President Joe Biden. As Biden himself pointed out numerous times during the 2012 campaign, he was a
“lifelong, practicing Catholic.” This fact, along with his working class
Catholic upbringing in Scranton, PA and sterling reputation as a husband and father clearly established Biden’s “street cred” as a Catholic, to
use the terminology of one of our students. Put simply, Biden could, at
least in theory, speak to Catholic voters in a way that neither Obama nor
any other high profile surrogate could not.
Even with his Catholic credentials, Biden was limited by reality in
terms of the Catholic-specific appeals that he could make to his coreligionists. As the American hierarchy had made abundantly clear, Obama
(and Biden as well) stood on the wrong side of Catholic teaching on the
“intrinsically evil”-related issues of abortion and same-sex marriage. The
contraception elements of the Affordable Care Act also fit in here, in addition to representing a severe threat to religious freedom in the eyes of the
American bishops. Assessing the landscape, Biden did what any successful politician would do: Determined where his opportunities were and
drove forward in that direction. For Biden and the Obama campaign, the
primary opportunity to appeal to American Catholics as Catholics was
to beat the drum of social justice, a theme long at the center of Roman
Catholic social thought.
The concept of social justice—defined differently by various entities
but at the very least encompassing some degree of equality of treatment and the dignity of all human beings—has been a favorite theme
of American liberals since the days of the FDR and New Deal. It has
been utilized to justify the creation of a whole host of social programs
aimed at assisting those occupying the lower socio-economic rungs of the
American societal ladder. The ideal of social justice also has a long history
in Christian thought. The necessity of helping the weakest and most vulnerable members of society is central in many of the sayings attributed
to Jesus in the four canonical gospels. Social justice is also a prominent theme in Roman Catholic doctrine and thinking. Michael Schuck
found that theme of social concern was common in papal encyclicals
(letters by the Pope to the bishops and by extension to all Catholics)
dating from 1740.26 Central elements of the idea of social justice—
paying special attention to providing for the weakest members of society
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and respecting the dignity of all human beings—were brought front and
center in Catholic social thought by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum
Novarum (On the Condition of Labor, 1891). Here Leo clearly placed the
Catholic Church on the side of the poor, a position it staunchly maintains today. Pope Pius XI upped the ante with his encyclical Quadragesimo
Anno (After Forty Years, 1931), issued on the 40th anniversary of Rerum
Novarum. The themes of social justice, the common good, preferential
treatment for the poor and weak, and the absolute requirement of respect
for the dignity of all humankind are forcefully stated in this document.
Other important encyclicals such as Pope John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris
(Peace on Earth, 1963) and John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus (On the Hundredth Year, 1991) issued on the 100th anniversary of Rerum Novarum
served to further strengthen the place of social justice in Catholic social
thought.27
Animating ideals of the Catholic view of social justice—assistance to
the poor, protection of the weak and vulnerable, equality of opportunity
and treatment, and basic dignity of all people—should sound familiar in
the context of the central themes raised by Joe Biden in the 2012 presidential campaign. If they do not, consider the following transcript (in full)
of Biden in the ad “Catholics for Obama,”
As a practicing Catholic like many of you, I was raised in a household
where there was absolutely no distinction between the values my mom
and dad drilled into us and what I learned from the nuns and priests who
educated me.
We call it Catholic social doctrine: Whatever you do to the least of these
you do for me.
I’m here to tell you that President Obama shares those values. You heard
him say it time and again, “We are our brother’s keeper. We are our sister’s
keeper.” And he means it.
My dad used to say it in a slightly different way. He used to say it’s about
recognizing dignity in every man and woman.
So if you take a look at what we’ve done, at its root it comes down to
providing people with opportunity—a dignified opportunity to care for
themselves and their families. And that’s why we spent the last four years
fighting to make sure the middle class has a fair shot again. That’s why
he fought to expand access to affordable care, quality health care for all
Americans.
And while we’re fighting so hard to improve the education system and
expand access to college. That’s why we’re fighting so hard to build the
economy from the middle out, because that’s the only way the working
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poor have a ladder up. That’s why our administration took action to lift
the cloud of deportation over one million children of immigrant parents
who didn’t choose to come to America, but have chosen to do right by
America.
And that’s why we’re asking the wealthy to pay a little more while pushing
to make permanent the middle class tax cut.
Folks: The choice in this election couldn’t be clearer. We can stand with
the President or sit back and see someone in office who really does believe
47 percent of the American people are not prepared to take responsibility
for themselves, who says he would veto the Dream Act, who encourages
“self deportation.” Someone who would leave a million people without
access to healthcare and education.
He would transform Medicare into a voucher system.
Look, the President and I, we know Americans aren’t asking for a handout.
They’re just asking for a chance. So if you’re ready to stand with President
Obama, go to Catholics.BarackObama.com to learn more about how to
get involved. Thank you for your support.28
In this ad Biden manages to hit virtually every greatest hit in the Catholic
social justice catalogue. The essential dignity of all human beings, the
need to pay special care to the poor and otherwise vulnerable individuals,
the need for society to provide opportunity for all, and the responsibility of those who have to provide for those who have less. These themes
were also central in the American Bishops previously mentioned Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, and received heavy and repeated
attention from Biden on the campaign trail.29 By choosing to focus on
social justice in their appeals to Catholics, Biden and the Obama campaign followed the time-proven technique advocated by famed Tammany
Hall official George Washington Plunkitt: “I seen my opportunities and
I took ‘em.”30
The Romney Campaign and Catholics
The Romney campaign also made extensive appeals to Catholics, viewing them as an electoral swing group central to its electoral strategy. The
Romney campaign’s Catholic outreach consisted of three main prongs:
(a) the use of high-profile Catholic surrogates, (b) warnings aimed at
Catholics (and Protestant Evangelicals, simultaneously) about Obama’s
attempts to subvert religious liberty, especially through the contraception
mandate discussed above, and (c) appeals on social issues, aimed primarily
at conservative Catholics.
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The most visible appeals to Catholics made by Romney were through
the use of high profile Catholic surrogates. Without a doubt, Romney’s
decision to pick Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, like Biden a lifelong
Catholic, as his vice presidential running mate was central to this strategy. The 2012 campaign marked the first time in history that both the
Republican and Democratic tickets had a Catholic candidate, a fact that
signified both the importance of the Catholics in contemporary electoral
politics and the extent to which they have clearly entered the mainstream of American politics after a long history of marginalization. Ryan
also embodied the divided nature of Catholic voters on many issues in
American politics. Ryan’s positions on issues of personal and sexual morality were largely consistent with those supported by the Church hierarchy,
but his highly conservative budgetary proposals seemed at odds with the
hierarchy on social justice issues.
Ryan made frequent references to his Catholicism throughout the campaign. For example, near the end of the campaign, he visited a truck stop
in Colorado where he happened to meet a Catholic priest. Spontaneously,
Ryan pulled out a rosary from his jacket and asked for a blessing.31
His campaign appearance in early October in Dubuque, IA, a heavily
Catholic city in a key swing state, was also typical of these efforts. Visiting Loras College—a Catholic institution—Ryan attacked Obama for
his support of same-sex marriage and the contraception mandate. Speaking to a largely Catholic audience, he said Obama was seeking to “dictate
to us how we [emphasis added] exercise our rights.” He continued, “As a
Catholic, and I can tell you’re a Catholic too, this isn’t just a Catholic
thing. This is an American thing. This is our rights [sic]. This is our
religious freedom.” This speech shadowed Ryan’s frequent attacks against
Obama’s comments in the 2008 campaign that rural voters “cling” to their
“guns and religion” as a misguided response to economic hardship. Two
female voters, interviewed after Ryan’s campaign appearance, epitomized
the ways different Catholics view contemporary American politics. One
voter commented that the Democrats were forcing churches to violate
their own consciences and seeking to “destroy religion in a way.” However, another voter criticized Ryan’s economic conservatism, saying, “Jesus
took care of the poor and the middle class. He didn’t come here to take
care of the wealthy.”32
The Vice Presidential debate, at Centre College in Kentucky, also contained an exchange that encapsulated the different types of appeals made
to Catholics by the Republican and Democratic campaigns. In response to
a question from moderator Martha Raddatz about the impact of their religion on their own political views, Ryan and Biden gave two very different
responses. Talking about his view that life begins at conception, Ryan said
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You know I think about ten and a half years ago, my wife Jan and I went
to Mercy Hospital in Janesville (Wis.) where I was born for our 7-week
ultrasound for our firstborn child. We saw that heartbeat. Our little baby
was in the shape of a bean and to this day we have nicknamed our firstborn
child Liza, “bean.”
He continued to state that the Republicans opposed abortion in all cases
except rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother, while criticizing Democrats for their support of abortion “without restriction, and
with taxpayer funding.” Biden’s response to the same question was very
different. He said
My religion defines who I am. Life begins at conception. That’s the church’s
position. I accept it in my personal life. But, I refuse to impose it on equally
devout Christians, and Muslims, and Jews. I just refuse to impose that on
others unlike my friend here, the congressman. I do not believe that we
have a right to tell other people, women, that they can’t control their body.
It’s a decision between them and their doctor, in my view and the Supreme
Court. I’m not going to interfere with that.33
This exchange, along with earlier ones on the issue of the contraception mandate, clearly underscored the very divergent views that Ryan
and Biden had about the links between their personal faiths and political positions—a dichotomy that echoes those found among American
Catholics in general.
The Romney campaign produced several advertisements during the
campaign that were targeted specifically at Catholic voters. For example,
in a television ad run in several key swing states during the final week of
the campaign, a narrator says
The Obama administration dictated that every Catholic school, hospital and charity must include services that many Catholics consider
immoral . . . After President Obama’s mandate, Catholic schools, charities
and hospitals are left with three choices. They could pay for services
and violate their beliefs, they could pay fines of $100 per employee per
day, leading many to shut down, or they could strip care from everyone
they serve and limit the good they did to Catholics only . . . The Catholic
Church provides an education to over 2 million American children every
year. The Catholic hospital network is one of our nation’s finest. In fact,
one out of every six hospitalized Americans is being cared for in a Catholic
hospital. And the Catholic Church makes serving the poor a cornerstone
of its good work. Over 7 million men, women and children receive food
services from Catholic charities every year. It is critical that we vote for the
candidate who is going to protect these religious institutions.34
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The themes from this ad were representative of most of the Romney ads
targeted to Catholics. Of course, outside groups ran similar ads on behalf
of Romney as well. For example, during the final week of the campaign
CatholicVote.org produced an ad that sharply criticized Obama for the
contraception mandate as a threat to religious freedom and an attack on
“our soup kitchens, hospitals, and schools.”35
In the end, Catholics did indeed turn out to be a critical swing vote
on Election Day. The fault lines among Catholic voters closely paralleled
those of the larger American electorate and this fact played a significant role in the appeals made by the Obama and Romney campaigns to
Catholic groups. The Romney campaign repeatedly attempted to highlight its solidarity with the US bishops and more traditional Catholics
on the issues of religious liberty, abortion, and, to a lesser extent, samesex marriage. For their part, the Catholic bishops came very close to
implicitly endorsing the Republican ticket through their numerous public statements. This threatened to upend a carefully developed tradition
of rising above partisan politics for the USCCB. Although Forming Consciences made it clear that Catholic teaching transcended partisan lines,
the issues that were stressed in the overwhelming proportion of their public statements were those on which the bishops were in agreement with
Romney. Areas of agreement with Obama, especially immigration and
social justice issues, were clearly relegated to secondary status.
It is important to note that both the Romney and Obama campaigns viewed Catholics, and religiously motivated voters in general, in
ways that cut across their appeals to other segments of the electorate.
For example, Hispanic voters were central to the electoral strategies of
both campaigns. Given the predominance of Catholicism within this
group, there was meaningful overlap between their appeals to Hispanics
and Catholics. More importantly, however, Romney and Obama clearly
understood the increased importance of depth of religious commitment,
or religiosity, in explaining voter choices in American elections. As has
been widely documented, conservative Catholics now bear more similarity to conservative Protestants in their political behavior than they
do to liberal Catholics.36 As a result, one can view Romney’s religious
based appeals to Catholics as being targeted to those with more conservative and traditional perspectives, while Obama’s appeals tended to court
secularized Catholics along with their cohorts among mainline Protestants. Moderate Catholics received appeals from both campaigns that
bore strong resemblance to those messages directed at moderate voters
in general.
Despite the appearance of support from the Catholic hierarchy for
Romney, the Obama campaign clearly understood that a significant
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portion of American Catholics were perfectly willing to ignore the teachings of the bishops. In essence, Obama was successful in “going over the
heads” of the bishops to make direct appeals to more secular Catholics.
In so doing, the results of the 2012 presidential election once again
demonstrated the bifurcated nature of American Catholicism, a division
that mirrors the larger environment of political polarization in contemporary US politics. This promises to keep Catholics front and center in
American politics for the foreseeable future.
Notes
1. Patrick W. Carey, The Roman Catholics (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
1993).
2. Pew Research Center, “ ‘Nones’ on the Rise: One-in-Five Adults Have
No Religious Affiliation,” October 9, 2012.
3. All data for 2004–12 are taken from the National Exit Poll conducted by
Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for the National Election
Pool (a consortium of ABC News, The Associated Press, CBS News, CNN,
Fox News, and NBC News). Data for 2000 are taken from the exit polling
conducted by the Voter News Service (a consortium of ABC News, The
Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC News).
4. A. James Reichley, Religion in American Public Life (Washington, DC: The
Brookings Institution, 1985).
5. Richard Jensen, The Winning of the Midwest (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1971); Paul Kleppner, The Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of
Midwestern Politics, 1850–1900 (New York: The Free Press, 1970); Everett
Carll Ladd, Jr., with Charles D. Hadley, Transformations of the American Party
System (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975).
6. Lee Bensen, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961); Vincent P. De Santis,
“Catholicism and Presidential Elections, 1865–1900,” Mid-America, April
1960, Volume 42, pp. 67–79; Andrew M. Greeley, The American Catholic:
A Social Portrait (New York: Basic Books, 1977); John M. Allswang, A House
for All Peoples: Ethnic Politics in Chicago, 1890–1936 (Lexington, KY:
University of Kentucky Press); David Burner, The Politics of Provincialism
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968); Ladd with Hadley, Transformations of
the American Party System; Paul Lopatto, Religion and the Presidential Election
(New York: Praeger, 1985); Thomas T. McAvoy, A History of the Catholic
Church in the United States (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1969).
7. Burner, The Politics of Provincialism; Walter Dean Burnham, “The Changing
Shape of the American Political Universe,” American Political Science Review,
March 1965, Volume 59, pp. 7–28; Paul Kleppner, Continuity and Change
in Electoral Politics, 1893–1928 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987);
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8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
247
Reichley, Religion in American Public Life; James L. Sundquist, Dynamics
of the Party System, Revised Edition (Washington, DC: The Brookings
Institution, 1983).
John M. Allswang, A House for All Peoples: Ethnic Politics in Chicago, 1890–
1936 (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press); David Burner, The
Politics of Provincialism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968); Ladd with
Hadley, Transformations of the American Party System; Lopatto, Religion and
the Presidential Election.
Mark D. Brewer, Relevant No More? The Catholic/Protestant Divide in
American Electoral Politics (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003).
Michael Warner, Changing Witness: Catholic Bishops and Public Policy, 1917–
1994 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995).
Thomas J. Reese, S. J., A Flock of Shepherds: The National Conference of
Catholic Bishops (Franklin, WI: Sheed and Ward Publishing, 1992).
Reese, A Flock of Shepherds; Warner, Changing Witness.
Warner, Changing Witness, p. 148.
N. C. Aizenman, “Obama Administration Gives Groups More Time to
Comply with Birth Control Rule,” Washington Post, January 20, 2012.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Fortnight for Freedom: Take
Action, 2012.” Accessed on the Internet at http://www.usccb.org/issues-andaction/religious-liberty/fortnight-for-freedom/fortnight-freedom-takeaction.cfm.
Jaweed Kaleem, “Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s Benedictions at RNC and
DNC,” Huffington Post, September 6, 2012.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “The Challenge of Forming
Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” 2012.
Ibid., 8.
Ibid., 9.
Ibid., 13.
Doug Erickson, “In the Spirit: Catholic Vote a Moral Calculation,”
Wisconsin State Journal, September 16, 2012.
David Gibson, “Catholic Bishops Make Last-Minute Pitch for Romney,”
Washington Post, November 1, 2012.
Salena Zito, “Pennsylvania Bishops Urge Votes to Guided by Faith,”
Pittsburgh Tribune Review, November 1, 2012.
Laurie Goldstein and Megan Thee-Brenan, “US Catholics in Poll See a
Church Out of Touch,” New York Times, March 5, 2013.
Tim Evans, “Mixed Reception at Notre Dame for Obama,” USA Today,
May 19, 2009.
Michael J. Schuck, That They Be One: The Social Teaching of the Papal
Encyclicals, 1740–1989 (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press,
1991).
Brewer, Relevant No More?
Transcript obtained from: Doug Mainwaring, “Lunch Bucket Joe is
not ‘Joe Catholic,’ ” American Thinker, October 30, 2012, http://www.
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29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
RI C H A R D J. PO W E L L A N D MA R K D. BR E W E R
americanthinker.com/blog/2012/10/lunch_bucket_joe_is_not_joe_catholic.
html#ixzz2MmqHfZuP edited for accuracy by authors.
Mitchell Landsberg, “Biden-Ryan Debate Highlights Nation’s Catholic
Political Divide,” Los Angeles Times, October 9, 2012.
William L. Riordon, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks
on Very Practical Politics (New York: Penguin).
Samuel P. Jacobs, “Ryan Ends Campaign with a Blessing and a Visit Home,”
Chicago Tribune, November 6, 2012.
Jason Noble, “Ryan Courts Catholics During Dubuque Stop,” Des Moines
Register, October 2, 2012.
Lillian Kwon, “VP Debate: Biden, Ryan Talk Catholic Faith, Abortion,
Religious Liberties,” Christian Post, October 12, 2012.
Catholic News Agency, “New Romney Ad Reaches Out to Catholic Voters,”
November 6, 2012.
Sacramento Bee, “New Ad: Catholics Should Defend Religious Freedom by
Voting for Romney-Ryan,” October 31, 2012.
Brewer, Relevant No More?
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Chapter
18
Catholic Vice
Presidential
Candidates and the
Politics of Abortion:
The 2012 Debate
in Context
Angela Senander
During the 2012 vice presidential debate, the two Catholic
candidates, Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, were asked an unexpected and
loaded question. The debate moderator, Martha Raddatz, asked them to
describe the role of their religion in their personal views about abortion.1
Not surprisingly, they were much more prepared to talk about their public
policy positions on abortion than this. The moderator’s question inverted
the feminist claim that the personal is political and asked politicians about
their personal perspectives about abortion. She asked them to first talk
about how they arrived at their positions on abortion and then what role
their religion played in that. The candidates inverted the topics of abortion and religion by first addressing the role of religion in their lives and
then talking about when human life begins. The candidates’ answers each
in their own way challenged assumptions within the moderator’s question.
The candidates broadened the conversation to focus on faith and public life. Neither candidate let abortion limit the way he talked about the
significance of faith or religion in his life. Both affirmed that faith or
religion affected the whole of their lives. In particular, they highlighted
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the role of their faith in drawing their attention to the vulnerable. The
candidates offered contrasting views of the relationship between faith and
reason in their reflections on abortion. Ryan’s perspective on abortion
sounded much like the U.S. Catholic bishops whereas Biden could expect
the same criticism from the U.S. Catholic bishops that he received in
2008.2 Each candidate emphasized his public policy position on abortion and called into question his opponent’s fidelity to his religion in
political life.
In order to place the candidates’ responses in context, we will note
the differing experiences of the Second Vatican Council and of the Roe
v. Wade decision for each candidate. We will also place them in the context
of Catholic vice presidential candidates since the Second Vatican Council,
noting in particular the way in which Geraldine Ferraro’s campaign set
the terms in which Biden engaged the question. We will then consider
briefly the contexts of the 2012 campaigns and Catholic teaching about
conscience for shaping their responses.
Different Generations of Catholics and Americans
Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, while both Catholic, had two very different
formative experiences of the Catholic Church in their youth. Joe Biden’s
occurred before the Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962–65.
At this council, the Catholic bishops of the world called for renewal of
the Catholic Church and its engagement in the world. Biden was also
raised in a time before states began to liberalize their abortion laws in
the 1960s. In contrast, Paul Ryan was born a few years after the Second Vatican Council and a couple years before the U. S. Supreme Court’s
1973 Roe v. Wade decision.3 Ryan did not experience the Catholic Church
before the Second Vatican Council and would not remember the United
States before the Roe v. Wade decision. The candidates’ responses reflect
both the common influence of Vatican II and differences in religious formation before and after the Second Vatican Council. In addition, they
suggest generational differences in experiencing the politics of abortion in
the United States.
Of all the documents of the Second Vatican Council, the one that is
most helpful for interpreting their responses to this debate question is
Gaudium et spes.4 This Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World provides a theological vision of the human person, Christ and
the church. With this foundation, the document highlights the church’s
mission in the world, echoing themes from prior documents of modern
Catholic social teaching. Biden specifically referred to these documents
of Catholic social teaching, and Ryan echoed themes from them in his
response.
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251
The initial responses of both Ryan and Biden sound like an affirmation
of Gaudium et Spes’ s call for integrity in living one’s faith. Gaudium et spes
challenges the follower of Christ not to separate one’s faith from one’s
engagement in the world (#43). Fundamentally, faith is one’s response
to God who has chosen to reveal God’s self to us.5 The whole of one’s
life is to be lived in response to God, who is love. Human beings are
social by nature, and their experience of God and response to God often
occur in community. A particular form of community, communities of
faith, helps people name how God is calling them to live. The Catholic
community’s expressions of faith take a variety of forms ranging from
liturgy to magisterial teaching.
While both candidates emphasized integrity, they differed in the degree
to which their answers reflected the personalist language of Vatican II.
Ryan’s response placed greater emphasis on this as he spoke repeatedly of
faith. Ryan chose to change the language of the question from religion
to faith, and his use of the term “faith” connotes the personal dimension
that the question emphasized. In contrast, the language of religion used
in the question tends to express the perspective of one that is external to
the faith community, and in popular discourse the term often reduces the
richness of the lived experience of a community of faith to an institution.
Biden’s response was less personalist and more explicitly focused on
religion as an institution, an emphasis more characteristic of the Catholic
Church before the Second Vatican Council. The particular aspect of
religion that Biden highlighted was church teaching. He illustrated the
impact of particular aspects of Catholic social teaching on his public service, particularly service to the poor. He then moved to Catholic teaching
about abortion. He indicated that he accepted this teaching and explained
his acceptance based on the type of teaching. Interestingly, he chose to
claim that the teaching is de fide, a technical term referring to dogma.6
This is a term that was used in the manuals of theology before the Second Vatican Council, and clearly not widely known by the U.S. audience
he was addressing. In fact, a transcript of the debate did not include the
term but rather the word “inaudible.”7 His use of the term de fide suggested that Catholic teaching about abortion is inaccessible beyond the
faith community. When Biden made a similar claim during the 2008
campaign, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote to the contrary
in response to his comments.8 They point the reader to embryology textbooks for a scientific understanding that human life begins at conception,
and then they argue that all human beings deserve to be treated as persons
with human rights.
When Ryan spoke about his pro-life perspective in personal terms, he
shared the story of seeing the ultrasound of his oldest child in utero. He
witnessed her heart beat. Based on the fetal image, he nicknamed her
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“Bean.” He highlighted the role of science and reason in informing his
understanding of the beginning of human life. Biden did not reference
such an experience or appeal to these sources. Perhaps the lack of reference
to seeing his children as fetuses in utero is not surprising. They would have
born before Bernard Nathanson’s 1984 movie The Silent Scream, which
drew attention to the experiences of fetuses in utero. The power of these
images propelled the pro-life movement to advocate for parents having
the opportunity to see the ultrasound of their child in utero.
Biden became a senator days before the Roe v. Wade decision. The
argument for abortion rights rooted in a woman’s privacy right from
that decision characterized his response in the debate, even as his party’s
2012 platform expanded the circle of involvement in an abortion decision.9 During Biden’s youth the rights of human beings in utero had
been widely protected while women’s social and economic rights were too
often neglected. In contrast, during Ryan’s youth, women’s educational
and employment rights were dramatically improved in the United States,
and the rights of human beings in utero were at much greater risk. Like
influential segments of social movements from their youth, each candidate attended to the needs of one life while neglecting to reflect on the
needs of another. Ryan focused on the rights of the human being in utero
whereas Biden focused on the privacy rights of a pregnant woman as he
spoke about the decision of a pregnant woman and her doctor.
These two candidates entered the history of the Catholic Church and
the history of the United States at different points in time. They are of different ecclesial and societal generations. They both experienced the effects
of the Second Vatican Council but at different points in their own life
journeys. Both Catholic candidates echoed Gaudium et Spes as they spoke
of the impact of their faith or religion on their lives in holistic terms.
Ryan’s response reflects the Catholic intellectual tradition’s understanding
of the compatibility of faith and reason. In contrast, Biden appeals to a
Latin term for faith used before the Second Vatican Council to evaluate a
level of teaching. His use of the term suggests that his basis for acceptance
of the teaching is ecclesial authority. He does not appear to consider the
position to be one compatible with reason or science given his concern
about imposing his religious belief on others. Ryan, however, appeals to
the experience of scientific technology and reason revealing the humanity of the fetus in utero. Because of the generational difference between
the candidates, they would have had different experiences of the availability of fetal ultrasounds, legal protection of the unborn and respect for
women’s social and economic rights at comparable moments in their life
journeys. Their stories fit into a larger context of Catholic vice presidential
candidates, to which we now turn.
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Looking Back: Catholic Vice Presidential
Candidates and the Politics of Abortion
In 1984 Geraldine Ferraro was the first Catholic to run as a vice presidential candidate following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
Prior to that, between the election of the first Catholic U.S. president
and the Roe v. Wade decision, four Catholic vice presidential candidates
(one Republican and three Democrats) ran for office. These campaigns
occurred during and after the Second Vatican Council, a council that
encouraged Catholics’ engagement in the world, and specifically in political life. When William Miller ran as the Republican vice presidential
candidate in 1964, state law generally prohibited abortion except to save
the life of the mother. When Edmund Muskie ran as the Democratic
vice presidential candidate in 1968, a few states had expanded the circumstances under which abortion was legal, the National Organization of
Women was beginning to align with the abortion rights movement, and
the Democratic party platform said nothing about abortion. When first
John Eagleton and then Sargent Shriver ran as the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1972, the Supreme Court was just months away from
issuing its Roe v. Wade decision. Commenting on the McGovern nomination, an anonymous member of Congress identified him with amnesty,
abortion, and the legalization of marijuana and predicted he would lose
“Catholic Middle America.”10 McGovern lost more than that during the
last presidential election before Roe v. Wade, and surprisingly Eagleton
was the one who made this comment prior to being McGovern’s running
mate. When Ferraro ran as the Democratic vice presidential candidate
in 1984, the law of the land allowed for abortion throughout pregnancy
for virtually any reason, and the feminist movement advocated abortion
rights as a means to women’s liberation.11 Having briefly situated Ferraro
in relationship to prior Catholic vice presidential candidates since the
beginning of the Second Vatican Council, we turn to highlights from
the U.S. Catholic bishops’ activity regarding changing abortion laws.12
Following the Second Vatican Council’s call to read the signs of the
times in light of the Gospel, the U.S. Catholic bishops were attentive to
changing abortion laws as a sign of the times.13 A religious community
with a commitment to the vulnerable and to working for justice as an
expression of faith responded to state-sanctioned destruction of innocent
human life. Neither the Supreme Court nor the U.S. Catholic bishops
made definitive statements about when personhood begins. Yet they took
quite different positions on when human life should be treated as a person. The U.S. Catholic bishops used scientific data about fertilization
to identify the beginning of human life and conclude that from that
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beginning a human life should be treated as a person. In contrast, the
Supreme Court used birth as the beginning of personhood, though it recognized a state interest in protecting fetal life during the third trimester.
The U.S. Catholic bishops evaluated this legal right to abort an embryo
or fetus as allowing for a morally irresponsible action resulting in the
destruction of human life. This led them to advocate for a human life
amendment. During the 1976 election after Joseph Bernardin, general
secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, met with President Gerald Ford and Governor Jimmy Carter, the media portrayed the
U.S. Catholic bishops as supporting Ford over Carter because of the candidates’ respective positions on a human life amendment. Both the earlier
statement from the bishops’ conference, “The Church in the ’76 Election,” and Bernardin’s articulation of a consistent ethic of life during the
1980s reflect that the bishops’ conference desired to provide criteria for
moral evaluation of public policy but did not desire to tell people to vote
for particular candidates or to vote based on a single issue.14
During the 1984 campaign, Cardinal John O’Connor of New York
focused particular attention on permissive abortion laws when he
responded to a reporter’s question about pro-choice Catholic politicians.15 Governor Mario Cuomo provided an extensive response in a
speech at Notre Dame.16 In the speech, he argued that he was personally opposed to abortion but that when it came to public policy
he was pro-choice because he could not impose his religious beliefs on
others in a religiously pluralistic society. Cuomo’s response has been
echoed for decades by many Catholic pro-choice politicians, most notably
Geraldine Ferraro, John Kerry, Rudolph Giuliani and Joe Biden. Cardinal
O’Connor remained critical of Ferraro’s pro-choice position. Two decades
later, when John Kerry used Cuomo’s line of reasoning, some Catholic
bishops like Raymond Burke indicated that Catholic politicians holding
such a position would be denied communion. The next election revealed
that this was not a partisan move; Burke indicated that Rudolph Giuliani,
a pro-choice Catholic Republican running for the nomination, would be
denied communion.17
When Joe Biden echoed the Cuomo argument in 2008, the U.S.
Catholic bishops were again critical of the argument. They challenged the
claim that public policy on abortion amounted to imposing one’s religious
beliefs on others. For decades the Catholic Church had worked collaboratively with people of other religious traditions, or no tradition, to restrict
abortion in order to protect human rights. This activity was not based on
a uniquely Christian belief (like the Trinity) that was dependent on faith
and inaccessible to people of other traditions. Reasonable people could
debate legal protections for human life in its earliest stages. Just as Martin
Luther King, Jr. drew on both the U.S. Constitutional tradition and the
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Christian tradition to advance civil rights, the U.S. Catholic bishops have
drawn on both in defense of the lives of the unborn.
This history of U.S. Catholic bishops’ engagement in the politics of
abortion invited the question that the moderator asked. This was not
the first time that Catholic candidates had to address a concern about
the influence of the Catholic hierarchy on a Catholic officeholder. John
F. Kennedy had calmed fears about his religion by indicating to Baptist
ministers in Houston that his religion was private and that church authorities would not affect the way he governed. Five years after Kennedy
was elected, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty indicated that the Catholic Church did not seek state support any
longer.18 Nonetheless, pro-choice Catholic candidates have continued to
appeal to his argument in response to criticism they have received from
Catholic bishops about abortion. Speaking of the 1984 campaign, Ferraro
wrote, “I never wanted religion—anyone’s religion, including my own—
to be an issue in this campaign. Personal religious convictions have no
place in political campaigns or in dictating public policy . . . . I have never
gotten over my sensitivity about having my religious faith questioned.
I have always accepted the teachings of the Catholic Church.”19 When it
came to speaking about abortion, Biden’s response also echoed Kennedy’s
perspective.
Campaigns and Catholicism as Context
The debate moderator could have approached the issue of abortion from a
public policy perspective. The candidates were ready for a question about
the appointment of Supreme Court justices. Biden knew that members of
the audience would be interested in his perspective on abortifacients since
right before the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade Health and Human Services announced a mandate which requires employers to provide health
insurance with free contraceptive coverage. In light of Republican politicians’ comments regarding rape, conception, and public policy about
abortion, Ryan knew to be ready for a question about public policy on
abortion in cases of rape. Their answers to the question about personal
views on abortion reflected their preparation for and desire to address
public policy issues about abortion.
Instead, they were asked to speak in a way that few Catholic politicians
speak well. They were asked to speak about religious experience. Both
Catholics responded, in effect, that if you want to understand their religious experience look at the way they live their lives because faith affects
the whole of their lives. They did not say much about the formative role of
liturgy or scripture in their lives, but they echoed the theme of biblical justice, that has inspired Catholic social teaching, as they talked about their
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concern for the needy and vulnerable. Each candidate could be challenged
to widen his view of who is needy, as each eventually pointed out to the
other.
Had the moderator adopted the language and categories of their faith
tradition, she could have asked them about their experience of conscience
formation with regard to abortion. This would have acknowledged the
compatibility between faith and reason that is so characteristic of Catholic
thought. Paul Ryan’s response highlighted the significance of the interplay between scientific technology and personal experience for him when
he saw his daughter on an ultrasound. He did not elaborate on the role
of faith in the way that he might have had he been asked about conscience formation. A question about conscience formation would have
allowed Biden to say more than simply that he obeys church teaching,
even as he misunderstands the type of teaching that it is. Conscience formation engages church teaching as a source of wisdom from which to
learn. A focus on obedience both distorts the nature of church teaching
and reduces the sources informing conscience. Candidates would do well
to reflect on the sources that inform their consciences regarding the full
range of issues that they address in political life.
While the candidates desired to talk about public policy on abortion, the moderator chose to focus on the influence of their Catholicism
on their views about abortion given the historic nature of the debate.
At first glance these candidates might appear simply to reflect their
party platforms, or even take stronger positions to appeal to their parties’ base. Their answers, though, reflect differences in their experiences
of Catholicism and their appropriation of the Second Vatican Council.
While they did not seem to anticipate the question, the history of the
interaction between some U.S. Catholic bishops and pro-choice Catholic
politicians has kept alive a form of the question that Kennedy addressed
more than half a century ago and that Cuomo addressed in regard to
abortion in 1984. Biden, like many other pro-choice Catholic politicians,
continues to echo Cuomo’s argument. Catholic politicians would do well
to reflect anew on the relationship between their faith and political life in
order to be able to give a more articulate account.
Looking Forward: Theological Reflection from
Catholic Politicians
Catholic candidates can anticipate that the Catholic Church’s countercultural stance on a number of controversial moral issues will invite questions
about their faith. These questions challenge politicians to engage in
theology—to seek deeper understanding of their faith and develop their
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257
ability to articulate that understanding. As Catholic political candidates
anticipate future campaigns, they would do well to consider the way in
which the Second Vatican Council has influenced their engagement in
public life, the way in which the consistent ethic of life has influenced
the scope of their attention to the vulnerable, and the role that faith and
reason play in their conscience formation on the many moral issues that
they will face in public office.
Notes
1. October 11, 2012 Debate Transcript, Commission on Presidential Debates,
http://www.debates.org/index.php?page=october-11-2012-the-bidenromney-vice-presidential-debate.
2. USCCB News Release, “Bishops Respond to Senator Biden’s Statements
regarding Church Teaching on Abortion,” September 9, 2008, http://old.
usccb.org/comm/archives/2008/08-129.shtml.
3. Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
4. Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes), December 7, 1965, in Vatican Council II:
Volume 1, The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. Austin Flannery,
OP, new rev. ed. (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Company, 1996),
pp. 903–1001.
5. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation
(Dei Verbum), November 18, 1965, in Vatican Council II: Volume 1, The
Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. Austin Flannery, OP, new rev.
ed. pp. 750–765 (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Company, 1996), #5,
#17, p. 752 and p. 760.
6. For more on de fide, see Francis A. Sullivan, S.J., Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the Magisterium (New York: Paulist Press,
1996), pp. 98, 101.
7. October 11, 2012 Debate Transcript, Commission on Presidential Debates,
http://www.debates.org/index.php?page=october-11-2012-the-biden-romneyvice-presidential-debate.
8. USCCB News Release, “Bishops Respond to Senator Biden’s Statements
regarding Church Teaching on Abortion,” September 9, 2008, http://old.
usccb.org/comm/archives/2008/08-129.shtml.
9. On a woman’s right to privacy, see Sarah Ragle Weddington, “The Woman’s
Right of Privacy,” in Abortion, ed. Lloyd Steffen (Cleveland: Pilgrim
Press, 1996), pp. 25–34. See also Mary Ann Glendon, Rights Talk: The
Impoverishment of Political Discourse (New York: The Free Press, 1991),
pp. 47–75. Regarding an expanded circle of involvement for an abortion decision, see 2012 Democratic Party Platform, September 3, 2012,
The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=
101962.
10. Meet the Press Transcript for July 15, 2007, http://www.nbcnews.com/id/
19694666/ns/meet_the_press/t/meet-press-transcript-july/#.UdXdseD_sUU.
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11. Regarding abortion and women’s liberation, see Margaret A. Farley, “Liberation, Abortion and Responsibility,” in On Moral Medicine: Theological
Perspectives in Medical Ethics, ed. Stephen E. Lammers and Allen Verhey,
2nd edition, pp. 633–638 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998).
12. For more on this topic, see Timothy A. Byrnes, “The Politics of Abortion:
The Catholic Bishops,” in The Catholic Church and the Politics of Abortion:
A View from the States, ed. Timothy A. Byrnes and Mary C. Segers (Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 1992), pp. 14–26; and J. Bryan Hehir, “The Church
and Abortion in the 1990s: The Role of Institutional Leadership,” in Abortion and Public Policy: An Interdisciplinary Investigation within the Catholic
Tradition, ed. R. Randall Rainey, S. J. and Gerard Magill (Omaha: Creighton
University Press, 1996), pp. 203–228.
13. Gaudium et Spes #4.
14. Administrative Board of the United States Catholic Conference, “The
Church in the ’76 Election,” Origins, February 26, 1976, pp. 565, 567–570.
For more on subsequent statements, see Angela Senander, “Catholic Identity, Faithful Citizenship, and the Laity,” in Catholic Identity and the Laity, ed.
Timothy P. Muldoon, Annual Publication of the College Theology Society,
vol. 54 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), pp. 169–181. For the consistent ethic of life, see Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, Consistent Ethic of Life,
ed. Thomas G. Fuechtmann (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1988); Joseph
Cardinal Bernardin, A Moral Vision for America, ed. John P. Langan, S.J.
(Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1998). For commentary
on Bernardin, see Angela Senander, “Toward Catholic Common Ground
at Election Time: A Tribute to Cardinal Joseph Bernardin,” New Theology Review, August 2006, pp. 14–23; and Christine E. Gudorf, “To Make
a Seamless Garment, Use a Single Piece of Cloth,” Cross Currents, Winter
1984, Volume 34, pp. 473–491.
15. Richard P. McBrien, Caesar’s Coin: Religion and Politics in America
(New York: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 155–157.
16. Mario Cuomo, “Religious Belief and Public Morality,” Origins, September 27,
1984, Volume 14, pp. 234–240.
17. Michael W. Chapman, “Vatican Official Who Says No Communion for
Pro-Abortion Politicians to Speak at National Catholic Prayer Breakfast,”
Catholic News Service, March 30, 2009, http://cnsnews.com/news/article/
vatican-official-who-says-no-communion-pro-abortion-politicians-speaknational-catholic.
18. Second Vatican Council, Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis
Humanae), December 7, 1965, in Vatican Council II: Volume 1, The
Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. Austin Flannery, OP, new rev.
ed. pp. 799–812 (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Company, 1996).
19. Geraldine Ferraro, “A Catholic Woman Politician’s Saga, 1985,” in Gender
Identities in American Catholicism, ed. James Kenneally and Karen Kennelly,
C.S.J. American Catholic Identities: A Documentary History, ed. Christopher
J. Kauffman (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001), pp. 201–205.
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Chapter
19
What Romney’s
Nomination Means
for Mormons and
the Presidency
Luke Perry
Both presidential nominees in 2012 came from groups that were
historically persecuted. Barack Obama was the first African-American
president seeking re-election. Mitt Romney was the first Latter Day
Saint to earn a presidential nomination from a major political party.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS or Mormon)
was created by Joseph Smith in 1830s. Mormons were heavily persecuted throughout the nineteenth century. This included being harassed,
threatened, beaten, tarred and feathered, arrested, and ultimately expelled
westward from central New York during the 14 years of Smith’s life as the
prophet. The low point of Mormon persecution was the 1838 executive
order issued by Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs that expelled Mormons
under the threat of extermination. Smith was assassinated by an angry
mob in 1844 while imprisoned in Illinois, a rarity for American religious
leaders. Brigham Young led the main contingent of Mormons westward
to the Utah territory. The federal government used extraordinary power
to coerce the end of plural marriage, the practice of righteous males being
sealed in eternity to multiple wives. Congress imposed family laws on
the Utah territory that were typical in other states resulting in thousands of prosecutions. Mormons formally ended plural marriage in 1890
after Congress instructed the Attorney General to seize Mormon property, including temples, which are sacred places of worship for Mormons.
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This change was implemented through prophetic revelation and enabled
Utah to become a state a few years later. Persistent apprehension was
evident in 1902 when Reed Smoot was elected by Utahans to the U.S.
Senate. Smoot was an Apostle, a senior leadership position in the LDS
Church. The Senate conducted hearings and deliberated for four years
before ultimately allowing Smoot to take office. A century later, Harry
Reid, became the first Senate Majority Leader who was Mormon. This
was indicative of a gradual assimilation of twentieth century Mormons
into American society, religion, and politics.
Numerous public opinion studies in 2008 and 2012 illuminated how
national acceptance of Mormons remains incomplete. For 68 percent of
Americans being Mormon made no difference in terms of voting for a
presidential candidate.1 Mormonism did matter to a sizeable minority of
Americans. Over 30 percent of Americans were less likely to vote for a
Mormon presidential candidate.2 Nearly 20 percent of Americans would
not vote for a well-qualified presidential candidate who was Mormon.3
American voters were much less comfortable with a Mormon presidential candidate compared to all other religious groups except Muslims. 19
percent of voters were “somewhat uncomfortable” with Mormonism as
a faith of a presidential candidate and 17 percent were “entirely uncomfortable.” Only 35 percent were “entirely comfortable” with a presidential
candidate who is a Mormon. This was much lower than comfort levels
with Catholics and Jews, and slightly higher than Atheists and Muslims.4
Romney’s candidacy unfolded in a unique social and religious context
that created questions and obstacles that non-Mormon candidates did not
experience. Romney had to address his faith cautiously on the campaign
trail.
Project Vote Smart is a non-profit organization that compiles all public statements of national candidates. This database was used to identify
and examine all public statements Romney made during the 2012 campaign that mentioned “Mormon” and “faith.” Romney used the term
“Mormon” on just four occasions. Romney’s Mormon background was
raised in two Republican primary debates. The first instance was in Ames,
Iowa on August 11, 2011. Herman Cain was asked about his comments
regarding Romney’s faith. Cain had stated “It doesn’t bother me, but I do
know it’s an issue with a lot of Southerners.” Cain was asked what it
is about Mormonism Southerners found objectionable. Cain responded
that Southerners were “not real clear about how his Mormon religion
relates to the majority of the people’s Protestant, Christian religion in the
South.” Cain emphasized that this remark “was not a dispersion whatsoever of his religion.” His statement concerned “what others have told me
about not being clear in understanding his religion.”5 Romney was not
asked about Cain’s comments and did not interject.
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This was not the case in the second instance with Rick Perry on
October 18, 2011 in Las Vegas. The moderator, Anderson Cooper,
shared an e-mailed question that asked: “with the controversy surrounding Robert Jeffress, is it acceptable to let the issue of a candidate’s faith
shape the debate?” This was in reference to the Baptist pastor who introduced Rick Perry at the Values Voter Summit and in doing so, stated that
“Mitt Romney is not a Christian” and “Mormonism is a cult.” Cooper
asked Perry if he would repudiate the comments. Perry expressed disagreement with the characterization in question, lauded freedom of religion
and expression in America, and redirected the notion of lost or misguided
faith toward the shortcomings of the Obama presidency. Romney was
asked if he found Perry’s response acceptable. Romney stated that “with
regards to disparaging comments about my faith, I’ve heard worse, so
I’m not going to lose sleep over that.” This astute use of humor made
the audience laugh and deflected the supposed peculiarity of Romney’s
religion.
Romney expressed what he found most troubling about the comments,
the assertion made by Pastor Jeffress that citizens should inspect one’s
religion in choosing a nominee and this selection should be based on
certain religious beliefs rather than good morality. This was troubling
given the constitutional mandate developed by the Framers that government leaders would not be selected on the basis of religious faith.
America “would be a nation that recognized and respected other faiths,
where there’s a plurality of faiths, where there was tolerance for other
people and faiths.” This is a “bedrock principle” that Romney hoped
Perry would have addressed, rather than stating “boy, that introduction
knocked the ball out of the park.”6 Perry meagerly made amends and
Romney accepted. This exchange illuminated how Romney was careful
not to become a spokesperson for Mormonism during the campaign. This
would have been disadvantageous politically. Mormon history and doctrine has certain elements that are unorthodox by conventional standards.
Romney sought to avoid having to address specific questions and concerns
regarding his religion.
Romney’s Mormonism was explicitly raised in interviews with Chris
Wallace in January of 2012 and David Gregory in September of 2012.
Romney also used the term once himself as part of his acceptance
speech at the Republican National Convention. In a Fox News interview Wallace stated that “you seem to be hurt, Governor, by the idea
that you are a moderate and the fact that you are a Mormon.” Romney
did not address Mormonism and instead spoke briefly about how most
Americans choose the president on the basis of perceived qualifications,
not a shared faith. When pressed Romney stated that he did not think
that religion was ultimately going to be a major factor in the primary.
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Romney’s Mormon reference during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention was similar in sentiment, but more scripted.
“We were Mormons and growing up in Michigan,” Romney recalled,
“that might have seemed unusual or out of place but I really don’t remember it that way.” Romney’s friends “cared more about what sports teams
we followed than what church we went to.”7 In these instances Romney
sought to downplay the perceived negative effect of being a Mormon.
This was done by suggesting that Mormonism was not at the forefront of
people’s minds when he was being evaluated, politically and personally.
On Meet the Press Gregory observed that Romney was guarded about
his faith, but talked more about it during the convention. Gregory cited
a quote by George Romney that described the Mormon religion as the
most persecuted religion in American history. “Here you are,” Gregory
said to Romney, “the first Mormon to be the nominee of the Republican Party; you could be the first Mormon president.” Gregory asked how
much pride that gave Romney, how Mormons view his nomination, and
the extent to which his situation could be compared to Catholics and President Kennedy’s nomination. Romney suspected many Mormons were
proud of his nomination, but he was focused on the impact he could have
on the American electorate, not the Church. Romney was “convinced that
my background and my heritage and my faith has made me the person
I am to a great degree.”8 Romney’s faith was presented in terms of JudeoChristian ethics of obligation to fellowman and the conviction that all
people are sons and daughters of the same God. This ethic of obligation
and service motivated him to run for governor and president. Romney
sought to connect the values of his religion to core values of Christianity
in order to emphasize the commonality between the two. Mormons are
typically baffled by the suggestion their religion is not Christian and LDS
leaders have actively sought to publically emphasize the centrality of Jesus
Christ in their faith. Favorability ratings of Romney were lower among
those who believed that Mormonism was not a form of Christianity.
Romney much more frequently used the term “faith” than “Mormon.”
How Romney addressed his faith on the campaign trial can be separated
into six dominant themes. First, Romney situated his faith in the context
of religious pluralism in America. Religious tolerance was identified as
an important founding principle.9 When asked about how faith would
inform his decision making as president, Romney responded that “the
Judeo-Christian principles of my faith and my upbringing cause me to
favor total honesty, service for others, love of country, and the recognition
of America’s exceptional role in the world.”10 Romney expressed his belief
that America’s nationhood and laws were based on Judeo-Christian values
and ethics. The authors of the Declaration of Independence wrote about a
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timeless relationship between God and man, which is something Romney
thought “a president would carry in his heart.”11 Protection of natural
rights was put forth as an example of how a president would apply these
principles in governing.
Second, Romney used his religious participation as partial evidence
of consistency in defending himself from attacks of switching positions
out of political motivation. “I have been in the same church my entire
life,” Romney stated in the Michigan primary debate. “I worked at one
company, Bain, for 25 years and I left that to go off and help save the
Olympic Games.” Romney found it outrageous that “the Obama campaign continues to push this idea,” considering the administration is “the
most political presidency we have seen in modern history.”12 Romney
explained that his path to conservatism came from his family, faith, and
life’s work.13 Romney contrasted himself to those who simply study conservatism. “I have actually lived conservatism,” Romney stated, “in my
life, in my home, in my family, in my faith and also in business.”14 When
asked about how he would handle life and death decisions as president
Romney described himself as a “highly analytical guy” and “a person of
faith,” who relies on prayer and looks for inspiration in making difficult decisions. “I remember seeing President George W. Bush,” Romney
recalled, “and he showed me a room in the White House where he said
he looked at the paintings of other presidents who made tough decisions.
And then with all that God has endowed with your mind and values, you
make that decision.”15
Third, Romney spoke of a religious component to American
exceptionalism. Romney observed that Christian values are not always the
object of public admiration. “In fact,” Romney stated, “the more one lives
by Christian beliefs, the more one will endure the censure of the world,”
because, “Christianity is not the faith of the complacent, the comfortable
or of the timid.” Civilizations and economies of the world are unequal.
“Central to America’s rise to global leadership is our Judeo-Christian tradition, with its vision of the goodness and possibilities of every life.” More
specifically, “American culture promotes personal responsibility, the dignity of work, the value of education, the merit of service, devotion to a
purpose greater than self, and, at the foundation, the pre-eminence of the
family.”16 In sum, trusting in God and his purpose makes for a good life
both socially and individually.
A fourth way that faith was incorporated into Romney’s campaign
rhetoric was in defense of religious liberty. “We have to allow people to
practice their faith.”17 This value goes back to the founding in which
religious dissenters played a role and religious freedom was incorporated
into the Bill of Rights. America “was founded on a principal of religious
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tolerance,” which is “why some of the early patriots came to this country
and we treat people with respect regardless of their religious persuasion.”18
Romney stated that “religious liberty is at the heart of the American
experiment” and echoed James Madison’s belief that “conscience is the
most sacred of all property.” “Only religious liberty,” Romney explained,
“could ensure tranquility in a new land composed of men and women
of differing faiths.” Romney argued that “religious liberty is facing the
most serious assault in generations.” The implementation of Obamacare
is “forcing religious institutions to choose between violating their conscience or dropping health care coverage for their employees, effectively
destroying their ability to carry on their work.”19 Romney sought to positively link the defense of religious liberty with the past and to emphasize
the preservation of this tradition in the face of new threats undertaken by
his opponent.
A fifth way Romney used faith was as a general rhetorical tool. Romney
stated that Obama put his faith in government while he put his faith in
America, American workers, businesses, people and the military. Faith
in government carved a path toward more spending, debt, regulation,
bureaucracy and control over the economy. Romney’s faith in workers and businesses carved a more desirable path toward the embrace of
market-orientated solutions, the empowerment of the private sector, and
harnessing the free enterprise system to “create a recovery as sharp as the
recession was deep.”20 The following phrase was a common one on the
campaign trail: “This President puts his faith in government. We put our
faith in the American people.”21 This was a remarkably secular use of the
word “faith” from a very religious person representing a party with strong
support from the religiously active. This likely would not have been the
case if Romney belonged to a more accepted religious tradition.
Four main conclusions can be drawn regarding the role of faith in
Romney’s 2012 campaign. First, the 2012 election was a contrast to 2008
where Romney’s faith was a bigger obstacle in the Republican primary.
In 2008 Romney had a difficult time convincing conservative Republicans of the legitimacy of Mormonism and could not prove himself worthy
of support from the social conservatives. 2012 was different. Economic
recovery was the dominant issue. The election was primarily a referendum on President Obama’s management of the economy. Romney ran as
a pragmatic fiscal conservative with the ability and experience to accelerate the pace of recovery. Faith was portrayed by Romney as personally
important but much less relevant politically. This persona was similar to
the one Romney adopted as governor of Massachusetts.22
A second, and related conclusion, is that Romney successfully
maneuvered past challenges posed by white evangelical Christians, who
constituted half of Republican primary voters in 2012.23 The growing
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influence of evangelicals bolstered the candidacies of Mike Huckabee in
2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012. Huckabee, the conservative Southern Baptist minister, defeated Romney in the Iowa Primary in 2008.
Santorum narrowly defeated Romney in Iowa in 2012 and won several other Bible belt states, including Tennessee, Louisiana, and Alabama.
White evangelicals who were Republican or leaned Republican were much
less comfortable voting for a Mormon presidential candidate than Republicans and Republican leaners at large. In 2012 Romney was competitive
in the South where many white evangelicals reside and won several
Southern states. White evangelical Republicans were heavily opposed to
President Obama, which benefitted Romney in the general election. Nine
out of ten white evangelical Republican voters expressed willingness to
vote for Romney over Obama, and nearly eight of ten expressed strong
support for Romney. White evangelicals may have liked other nominees
in the primary more than Romney but strongly preferred any Republican
to Obama being re-elected.
Third, the two Mormon presidential candidates in 2012 were challenged by non-faith related concerns to an equal or greater degree than
faith related concerns. Both held particular stances on issues that did not
fit with widely held party beliefs, which was problematic with more ideological primary voters. Jon Huntsman may have been the more formidable
challenger of the two in the general election, given his more moderate
political views and less contentious political and professional background.
Unfortunately for Huntsman however, his campaign was poorly run, his
commitment to the campaign was questioned, and his more liberal views
on same-sex marriage and global climate change did not resonate with
primary voters. Remarkably, Republicans nominated a candidate who
as governor took great pride in expanding healthcare coverage through
an individual mandate, among other things. Several of these ideas were
incorporated into The Affordable Care Act (2010) that Republicans had
uniformly opposed and sought to repeal since passage. Over one third of
Republicans held a diminished view of Romney as a presidential candidate because of the similarities of healthcare reform in Massachusetts to
Obamacare.24 Republican enthusiasm in opposition to healthcare reform
stalled under Romney.
Fourth, Mormon politicians are not religiously or politically monolithic. Romney is an active and devout Mormon. Huntsman acknowledged he was “not overtly religious” and got “satisfaction from many
different types of religions and philosophies.”25 This fit with the growing pattern of sensitivity in the religious marketplace and a conception
of individual faith that draws from multiple sources, rather than granting ultimate truth to one faith. The existence of two Mormon candidates
was in some ways reassuring to the American electorate because it helped
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illuminate that the political behavior of Mormons is not uniform. One
of the more memorable exchanges of the campaign was between Romney
and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, also a Mormon. Reid expressed
disappointment that Romney was hiding from his religion publically,
endorsed the view that Romney was not the face of Mormonism, and
asserted that he sullied the LDS faith.26 Romney largely downplayed
these criticisms, though Romney assertively challenged Reid’s false accusation that he had not paid income tax for several years. Reid’s comments
were largely a political tactic to generate attention about Romney’s faith.
Reid’s faith uniquely enabled him to question Romney’s depiction of
Mormonism without fear of major reprisal.
The transformation of Mormons from heavily persecuted to having
one of their own seriously compete for the presidency is extraordinary.
A significant religious barrier was broken for Mormons, but not entirely
removed. Romney’s faith did not appear to hinder him significantly in the
outcome of the primary election or general election, but it was a factor.
America’s tradition of civil religion provides a social context for national
politicians to potentially connect with the electorate. Romney clearly limited public discussion of his faith, in part out of concern it would hurt him
electorally. Romney loosened some during the Republican National Convention, when fellow Mormons discussed in detail how Romney helped
them in times of need. This was too little, too late. The fact that Romney
often prayed for the suffering, comforted the grieving, helped those in
need, taught scripture, annually tithed over 10 percent of his income, and
volunteered significant time in holding Church leadership positions was
largely overlooked. This type of narrative would have helped to reframe
public perceptions of Romney as a heartless capitalist who enjoyed firing
people and making money. Romney could have been more competitive if
he more actively used his religious service and leadership to better humanize himself in response to attacks from the Obama campaign over the
summer before the election. This was suggested to Romney by some of
his advisers, but speaking in these terms was not common practice for
Romney in business or politics. Obama successfully took Romney’s perceived strength, as an economic manager, and turned this into a liability.
Romney’s presidential ambitions ended with his defeat, but undoubtedly
the path of the next Mormon presidential candidate will be easier because
of his efforts.
Notes
1. Carroll Doherty, “The Polls Show Trouble,” The New York Times,
July 4, 2011, accessed December 5, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
267
roomfordebate/2011/07/04/are-republicans-ready-now-for-a-mormon-presi
dent/the-polls-show-trouble-for-huntsman-and-romney.
Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta, “Race, Gender Less Relevant in
’08,” The Washington Post, February 27, 2007, accessed December
17, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/
02/27/AR2007022700283.html.
Lydia Saad, “Percentage Unwilling to Vote for a Mormon Holds Steady,”
Gallup, December 11, 2007, accessed December 10, 2012, http://www.
gallup.com/poll/103150/Percentage-Unwilling-Vote-Mormon-Holds-Stea
dy.aspx.
Quinnipiac University Press Release, “Romney Leads GOP Pack,
Runs Best Against Obama, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds;
Mormons Near Bottom of Voter Comfort Scale,” June 8, 2011,
accessed December 5, 2012, http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-andcenters/polling-institute/national/ release-detail?ReleaseID=1608.
Text of the Iowa Republican primary debate can be accessed at: http://
votesmart.org/public-statement/633186/iowa-republican-debate/?search=
Mormon#.USfLmVLfWSo.
Text of this debate can be accessed at: https://votesmart.org/publicstatement/645034/cnn-western-republican-presidential-debate/?search=Mor
mon#.UbtcxVe8-So.
Text of the Romney’s acceptance speech can be accessed at: http://votesmart.
org/public-statement/737572/mitt-romney-remarks-to-the-republican-natio
nal-committee/?search=Mormon#.UTJr61ewWSo.
Text of the David Gregory interview on Meet the Press can be
accessed at: http://votesmart.org/public-statement/739091/nbc-meet-thepress-transcript/?search=Mormon#.UTJu0VewWSo.
Text of this debate can be accessed at: http://votesmart.org/public-statement/
616299/cnn-republican-debate-transcript/?search=faith#.UTY2kFewWSo.
A summary of this interview with the Des Moines Register can be accessed
at: http://votesmart.org/public-statement/646265/des-moines-register-mittromney-says-iowa-would-be-winnable-in-election/?search=faith#.UTY7h
VewWSo.
Text of this debate can be accessed at: http://votesmart.org/ publicstatement/663939/ cnn-florida-republican-presidential-debate/?search=faith
#.UTZJ31ewWSo.
Text of this debate can be accessed at: http://votesmart.org/ publicstatement/650240/cnbc-republican-presidential-debate-transcript/?search=
faith#.UTY-elewWSo.
Text of Romney’s remarks at CPAC provided by Project Vote Smart can be
accessed at: http://votesmart.org /public-statement/667476/mitt-romneydelivers-remarks-at-cpac/?search=faith#.UTZR31ewWSo.
Text of Sean Hannity’s interview with Mitt Romney can be accessed at:
http://votesmart.org/public-statement/ 669769/fox-news-hannity-transcript/
?search=I%20have%20actually%20lived%20conservatism#.UTj7u1ewWSo.
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15. Text of this debate can be accessed at: http://votesmart. org/publicstatement/638961/gop-presidential-forum/?search=faith#.UTj401ewWSo.
16. All quotations from Romney’s speech at Liberty University. Text of the
Romney’s commencement address at Liberty University can be accessed
at: http://votesmart.org/ public-statement/692686/mitt-romney-deliverscommencement-address-at-liberty-university/?search=faith#.UTj_klewWSo.
17. Text of the GOP Presidential Forum can be accessed at: http://votesmart.org/
public-statement/638961/gop-presidential-forum/?search=faith#.UTY3r1e
wWSo.
18. Text of this debate can be accessed at: http://votesmart. org/publicstatement/629233/cnn-republican-debate-transcript/?search=faiths#.UTj2gl
ewWSo.
19. Mitt Romney, “President Obama Versus Religious Liberty,” The Washington
Examiner, February 3, 2012, accessed December 17, 2012, http://
washingtonexaminer.com/president-obama-versus-religious-liberty/article/
224461.
20. Text of the full statement by Mitt Romney can be accessed at: http://
votesmart.org/public-statement/636410/ president-obamas-failure/?search=
faith#.UTY43 FewWSo.
21. This phrase was used several times throughout 2012, including January 10,
January 24, August 24, and August 30.
22. Russell Arben Fox, “Huntsman’s Advantage,” The New York Times,
July 4, 2011, accessed December 5, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/
roomfordebate/2011/07/04/are-republicans-ready-now-for-a-mormon-presi
dent/huntsmans-advantage-over-romney.
23. Phil Hirschkorn and Jennifer DePinto, “White Evangelicals are half
of GOP Primary Voters,” CBS News, March 15, 2012, accessed
March 13, 2013, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57398385503544/white-evangelicals-are-half-of-gop-primary-voters/.
24. Dan Schnur, “Policies, Not Religion,” The New York Times, August 24,
2012, accessed December 5, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/roomfor debate
/2011/07/04/are-republicans-ready-now-for-a-mormon-president/policiesnot-religion.
25. Kathleen Flake, “Believer of Conscience,” The New York Times,
July 4, 2011, accessed December 5, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/
roomfordebate/2011/07/04/are-republicans-ready-now-for-a-mormon-presi
dent/believer-of-convenience.
26. Thomas Burr, “Harry Reid: Mitt Romney is Not the Face of
Mormonism,” The Salt Lake Tribune, March 13, 2013, accessed December
13, 2012, http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/54958981-90/romney-reidmormonism-prince.html.csp.
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Chapter
20
The Liberal State
and the Gay Marriage
Debate: Lessons from
American Catholic
Thought
Aaron Taylor
The 2012 election cycle marked the first time that any state had
approved a measure to permit same-sex marriages by popular ballot,
with measures endorsed by voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington
reflecting a steady increase in public opinion favorable to gay marriage
over the past ten years or so. President Obama announced his personal
endorsement for giving gays and lesbians the right to marry one another
during an interview with ABC News in May 2012, and, several months
later, the Democratic Party became the first major party in American
history to endorse gay marriage in a political platform.
Already galvanized by their opposition to the Obama Administration’s
mandate requiring employers to provide birth control coverage in their
health insurance policies, opposition to same-sex marriage was in many
instances spearheaded by the Catholic hierarchy. Indeed, its opposition to
gay marriage (along with abortion) is often seen as the Catholic Church’s
principal contribution to contemporary American public life. But I want
to suggest that the Church has more to contribute than this, and that
in fact is the most significant contribution American Catholicism has to
make to the debate is a more nuanced understanding of the relationship
between morality and civil law—one that allows citizens with different
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moral views on controversial issues to engage one another respectfully in
the public square.
The Religious Liberty Paradigm
During the early twentieth century, the American Catholic Church was
in a predicament not unlike that in which it finds itself today. Prior to
the Second Vatican Council which closed in 1965, the Church’s theological claim to be the one true religion founded by Jesus Christ was
often directly translated by theologians into the political claim that governments were obliged to legally establish the Catholic religion and to
prohibit non-Catholic worship in public. This theory was a legal reality in many European countries before the Second World War and was
defended even by progressive American theologians who saw the First
Amendment as ultimately contrary to Catholic doctrine, although tolerable on pragmatic grounds given the religiously pluralist nature of the
American body politic.1 Catholic rejection of a core constitutional principle like religious freedom was hardly helpful in quelling hostility to
Catholics in American public life during the early twentieth century—
a hostility which, inter alia, helped to lose Al Smith the 1928 Presidential
election.
Hostility to the US bishops’ position on gay marriage has not risen to
that level yet, but the outlook is not dissimilar. Research indicates that
one of the main reasons young Americans either abandon the practice of
the Christian faith or refuse to embrace it in the first place is because of its
perceived hostility to their gay friends, and, when asked to select a word
that best describes Christianity, 91 percent of non-churchgoing 16–29
year olds and 80 percent of churchgoers choose “antihomosexual.”2 The
voters and statesmen of the next generation—rightly or wrongly—see the
Church as an enemy of gay people.
During the last 50 years the Catholic Church has gone from being
an implacable foe of religious liberty to one of its most dedicated advocates in both domestic and international affairs, and this is largely
due to the work of one American theologian, John Courtney Murray
(1904–67), who saw the great harm that older formulations of doctrine
were doing to the Church’s public image in the United States, and later
assisted in drafting the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious
Freedom.
Murray’s argument for religious freedom is complex and scattered
across a number of scholarly articles, many of which appeared in the
Jesuit journal Theological Studies of which he became editor in 1941. At its
heart, I would suggest there are three essential distinctions:
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(1) The distinction between civil society and the state.
(2) The distinction between moral law and civil law.
(3) The distinction between the common good and public order.
Murray’s argument for religious freedom was not grounded in the notion
that men and women—either alone or collectively—are incapable of
knowing religious truth with certainty. Nor did Murray argue that religion was simply a matter of private piety, and not a social good. Rather,
he grounded the claim for religious liberty in his affirmation that the
Church must always be free to preach the gospel. The very existence
of the Church as a social polity not subject to civil government in its
internal life has consequences for political philosophy because it means
that the state cannot simply be thought of as coterminous with civil
society.
The state is a more limited reality than civil society, and because of this
civil law is more limited in its scope than the moral law. Whilst the moral
law governs all human acts of will, even those that occur in the secret
recesses of the heart, civil law concerns itself only with a small number
of our external actions, and with these only insofar as they impact upon
public order. Rather than the more expansive concept of the common
good which “includes all the social goods, spiritual as well as material,
which man pursues here on earth,”3 it is this narrower criterion of public
order that Murray takes as the norm of lawmaking. Things like religious
truth and sexual probity are certainly moral and social goods, but the
law should not concern itself with them unless they impact upon public order, which Murray argues consists in the securing of public peace,
“commonly accepted standards” of public morality, and justice.4 Civil law
is not devoid of ethical value but its purpose is not simply to repeat the
dictates of moral law in statutory form. Rather, because society is necessary for human flourishing, law derives its ethical value indirectly, from
its effectiveness at securing for all citizens the moral good of social order.
Though Murray’s analysis is framed by his consideration of the religious liberty issue, he applied the same paradigm to other questions.
For example, in the mid-1960s he was asked by Richard Cushing, thenArchbishop of Boston, to advise on what the Catholic response should
be to proposals to decriminalize contraception in Massachusetts. Murray
did not consider it ideal that the Church had to say anything at all, arguing that “the authority of the church does not decide what the civil law
should be. This decision rests with the civil community, its jurists and
legislators.”5
But he realized that, given the political climate of the era, the Church
could not escape from having to make a statement. He recommended that
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Cushing remind people that “from the standpoint of morality Catholics
maintain contraception to be morally wrong,” but that nevertheless “out
of their understanding of the distinction between morality and law and
between private and public morality,” Catholics should “repudiate in
principle a resort to the coercive instrument of law to enforce upon the
whole community moral standards that the community itself does not
commonly accept.”6
Same-Sex Marriage and Civil Discourse in
the United States
How does all of this relate to the current debate over same-sex marriage?
I do not wish to suggest that Murray’s political philosophy provides us
with a ready-made answer to the question of whether to allow gay marriage. But it does provide Americans with pointers about how to confront
the question in a reasonable manner. In light of Murray’s analysis, many of
the arguments deployed by both sides in the debate seem deficient, often
failing to respect these distinctions between morality and law, society
and state, and between the common good and public order. Ultimately,
this is to the detriment of all participants in the discussion because the
maintenance of a healthy liberal democracy rests on respect for such distinctions. Attempts to draw a too close correspondence between moral
and civil law where there is no prior agreement on ethical norms tends
only to widen already-existing cultural divides, undermining the civil law’s
primary function as a means of securing social order and cohesion.
For example, consider the following statement from the US Catholic
bishops which is broadly representative of many arguments made against
gay marriage by non-Catholics, too:
By attempting to redefine marriage to include . . . homosexual partnerships,
society is stating that the permanent union of husband and wife . . . and the
generation of new life are now only of relative importance rather than being
fundamental to the existence and well-being of society as a whole.7
Note the importance of law as a form of moral and social “statement”
here. For the bishops, the first thing to be considered when speaking of
the function of law is not—as for Murray—the maintenance of public
peace or the protection of rights. Rather, it is the function of law as a
form of pedagogy. Laws governing marriages and civil unions are therefore
assumed to have the function of making educational statements about the
moral value of relationships. Such a view fails to honor law as something
with its own internal rationality, as something that must be engaged on
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its own terms of reference, since, for the bishops, the meaning of the law
is not to be sought in what the law actually says, but in extraneous factors.
So the “meaning” of a law which claims to be a matter of allowing samesex couples to avail themselves of this or that civil right is sought not
in the text of the law itself, but in the alleged motives of legislators (or
voters in a popular ballot), or in the wider social trends which gave rise
to the law in the first place. This begs the question why—if lawmaking is
a simple matter of making statements about right and wrong—societies
need a science of jurisprudence at all, rather than just a moral philosophy.
Opponents of gay marriage are selective in how they apply this lawas-moral-teacher paradigm to other questions, however. To return to the
example of religious liberty, we might ask: if, by treating homosexual
relationships as equivalent to heterosexual ones, society does wrong by
making a positive statement about the value of these relationships, is
it also wrong to treat Christian and non-Christian religious groups as
“analogous” for solely legal purposes, since (at least as far as Christian
opponents of gay marriage are concerned) these cannot both be considered equal in the light of the moral law? The answer is, of course, “No.”
But if a supporter of gay marriage ipso facto makes a statement about the
moral value of gay relationships, why is it that those who support the First
Amendment are not assumed to be making a statement that all religions
are equal?
It is very difficult to see how the concept of civil law advanced by some
opponents of gay marriage differs in any significant way from the idea
of moral law. In both cases, the function of the law is a means for the
formation of correct moral character, and one of its principal aims is to
form in the mind of the subject the same concept of moral truth that
exists in the mind of the legislator.
As I stated before, however, this legal moralism is not the province
only of opponents of gay marriage, but is also shared by many of its
advocates. Popular slogans which speak of “equal marriage” or “marriage
equality”—utilized effectively during the 2012 election cycle campaigns
for gay marriage in Maine, Maryland, and Washington—refer not simply
to equality under law, that is, to a parity of civil rights and responsibilities.
Rather, equality under the law is in itself taken to be a logical reflection
of a moral fact of equality between homosexual and heterosexual relationships. This idea was encapsulated by President Obama in his inauguration
speech after winning the election:
Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated
like anyone else under the law . . . for if we are truly created equal, then
surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.8
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The notion of equality under the law is blended with an appeal to the
moral value of love and to religious notions about all people being created equal, so that one cannot tell where one ends and another begins.
This interweaving of moral and civil law makes for great speeches, but is
ultimately a divisive form of social discourse, since those who have moral
objections to homosexuality, but might have been—if given the opportunity to think about it level-headedly—willing to consider equal civil
rights for gay and lesbian couples, will immediately be alienated, since
they are now being asked to endorse not only a package of civil rights but
a moral worldview that they cannot in good conscience accept.
What this comes down to is a need to distinguish more carefully
between marriage as a social and as a legal institution. For example,
a telling line in the Democratic Party’s 2012 Platform argues that all
families—gay or straight—should be guaranteed “equal respect, responsibilities, and protections under the law.”9 But should civil law really
concern itself with assigning respect within society? A liberal democracy operating along the lines suggested by Murray’s political philosophy
would probably not think this an appropriate function of the law, but
the leadership of the Democratic Party is certainly not alone in contemporary America in thinking that it should be. Jonathan Rauch, one of
the most articulate advocates of same-sex marriage, has argued in favor of
gay marriage by noting that marriage is not merely a legal instrument,
but “the great civilizing institution,” with “the power to turn narcissism into partnership, lust into devotion, strangers into kin,” as a force
capable of bonding “across clans and countries and continents and even
cultures.”10 It is a powerful moral and spiritual force. Kathleen Hull’s
research amongst same-sex couples echoes these sentiments:
Regardless of whether they have participated in commitment rituals, members of committed same-sex couples generally support legal recognition
for same-sex relationships through marriage or some similar legal mechanism . . . [and] practical benefits are not the only reason same-sex couples
desire legal recognition. Many people in committed same-sex relationships
also yearn for the symbolic benefits that legal marriage confers . . . These
individuals look to the law to perform an essentially cultural task, communicating to the broader society that gay and lesbian couples are “normal,”
“the same,” “just like you,” deserving of recognition and respect for the
commitment they have made . . . The source of law’s cultural power, at
least for some, is its assumed ability to produce cultural equality through
pronouncements of legal equality.11
Hull adds, and I agree with her on this point, that this belief in law’s ability to produce cultural equality “appears naïve given the many historical
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instances in which formal legal equality has not translated into cultural
equality for subordinated groups.”12 Above all, however, the making of
sweeping cultural statements is an inappropriate task for either advocates
or opponents of gay marriage to expect the law to perform in a pluralistic,
liberal democracy. Over-sentimentalizing the institution of civil marriage
simply places a weight on it which it is incapable of bearing, though this
intertwining of morals, law, and culture may well have been a truer reflection of reality in a bygone age when we did not distinguish as sharply as
we do now between marriage as a civil, social, and religious institution.
Ultimately, whilst civil law can guarantee equitable treatment for samesex couples, it cannot (and indeed should not) confer the kind of equality
that many gay interest groups are really seeking, an equality of moral and
social legitimacy. This is not to say that such groups should be forbidden
from seeking such a goal, of course, but merely that the law is not an
appropriate means to this end. This would not be liberalism, but a return
to an older form of ethical society-state from which the liberal state was
meant to be a departure.
The Liberal State at a Crossroads
One of the saddest aspects of the current impasse over the gay marriage
question—and one of the clearest indicators that something is wrong
with the social discourse surrounding the issue—is that both sides have
ended up advocating positions which are seemingly destructive of the very
interests that those groups are attempting to advance.
By arguing for same-sex marriage as a means of advancing the social
prestige of the gay community and of conferring moral approval on
homosexual relationships, advocates of gay marriage are eroding the distinction between public and private goods which is not only a key element
of the liberal state, but is also the very principle upon which almost
every advance in gay rights has been founded for the last half-century.
Even Andrew Sullivan, who was a proponent of gay marriage long before
many of its current supporters, has lamented the fact that liberals have
responded to critiques of their arguments by “adopting a traditionally
conservative position: they argue that their primary concern is not to preserve liberty, but to create a society which holds certain values dear, to
transform the culture to make it more open and inclusive, and to use the
laws to educate people in this fashion.” Sullivan has warned that liberals are undermining their own tradition by making arguments about the
“symbolic” nature of gay rights initiatives, yet no-one is listening.13
Similarly, in their defense of traditional marriage, the opponents of
gay marriage seem to have undermined the very concept of marriage as
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a shared social institution by their promotion of the (now largely toothless) Defense of Marriage Act which, for the first time, allows one state
to refuse to recognize as a marriage what has been registered as such in
another state. Jonathan Rauch points out that, whether or not traditionalists like it, “the trend toward social recognition of same-sex couples” is
not going away.14 Rather than protecting the traditional civil institution
of marriage, insisting on the maintenance of distinctions which most people regard as unnecessarily discriminatory may bring the entire institution
into disrepute, thereby accelerating the social decay which traditional values campaigners rightly lament. John Courtney Murray’s wry observation
that “the zealot at times fails to see how his zeal for results may betray him
into the use of methods that will in turn betray his cause,” is certainly
worth remembering.15
Some have suggested that it may simply be impossible to structure the
gay marriage debate in any other way. Perhaps the procedural neutrality characteristic of liberalism really cannot help us after all. Carlos Ball,
himself a well-known supporter of same-sex marriage, argues along these
lines:
The problem with relying on state neutrality on behalf of the legal recognition of same-sex relationships, from my perspective, is that there is an
antecedent question that must be asked in equality cases, namely, is the
class making the equality claim similarly situated to the class that already
enjoys the benefit? It is difficult, it seems to me, to address this antecedent
question in the context of the recognition of same-sex relationships without
a discussion of whether those relationships are in fact as good as oppositesex relationships . . . The state, in deciding whether the principle of equality
applies to the recognition of same-sex relationships, has to take a position, for better or for worse, on the moral issues raised by the antecedent
question.16
Ball concedes that there is a difficulty when we come to speak about how
the state knows that the moral choice it makes is the correct one, but
his point is that “in making a choice, the state cannot remain morally
neutral.”17 Even the maintenance of the status quo enforces the moral
position that lies behind that status quo. The state simply must make a
moral choice, even at the risk of making an incorrect one.
The reason why issues like the gay marriage debate are, therefore, so
controversial, is because they strike at the heart of the liberal distinction between moral and civil law. If, as Ball suggests, we cannot even
speak intelligibly about gay marriage until we have our moral bearings set
when speaking about gay relationships, what hope is there for the liberal
state?
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Murray’s approach may well offer us one last chance. Reconceptualization of the gay marriage discussion in the terms suggested to us by
Murray—with respect for his distinctions between society and state,
moral and civil law, and common good and public order—would at the
very least help both sides to move beyond self-defeating and polemical
positions and learn to speak in a common language, rather than shouting
at each other in mutually incomprehensible terms. For many contemporary Americans, accustomed to a public discourse in which competing
interest groups forcefully attempt to assert their moral vision without
compromise, Murray’s ability to distinguish between laws intended to
govern the whole of society (including those with whom he may have had
profound moral disagreements), and his own beliefs about matters such
as religious pluralism and contraception, may seem odd. But it would
be a mistake to paint Murray as an extreme pragmatist who was willing to shelve his Catholic convictions simply to make the presence of
Catholics in American public life more palatable in the increasingly progressive 1960s. Rather, it was precisely because of his belief in the moral
reasonableness of all people that Murray sought to develop means for
discussing controversial moral issues in the public square which would
allow different groups to engage with and learn from one another. He
did not shelve ethical concerns for pragmatic reasons. Rather, he believed
that, in a democratic society, the manner in which we conduct our public argumentation is itself an ethical concern of the highest order.18 A
Murray-inspired approach to debating gay marriage would not, therefore,
require moral neutrality from either its advocates or its opponents (nor,
for that matter, from the state). What it would require (perhaps fittingly
from a social philosopher who was ultimately a Catholic theologian) is
an act of faith—an act of faith by those on all sides of the debate in the
moral reasonableness of others, and a willingness to enter into dialogue
with them on that basis.
Notes
1. Even Msgr. Ryan, the theologian famous for his endorsement of Franklin
D. Roosevelt as a Democratic Presidential candidate, argued that in a
“Catholic State,” the government “could not permit” non-Catholic groups
to actively spread their beliefs in public. Although he admitted that this
doctrine contributed to profound suspicion of Catholics in public life, “we
cannot,” he argued, “yield up the principles of eternal and unchangeable
truth in order to avoid the enmity of . . . unreasonable persons.” See John.
A. Ryan and Moorhouse F. X. Millar, The State and the Church (New York:
MacMillan, 1922), pp. 38–39.
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2. David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, Unchristian: What a New Generation
Really Thinks About Christianity . . . And Why it Matters (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Books, 2000), pp. 33–34.
3. John Courtney Murray, “The Problem of Religious Freedom,” in Religious
Liberty: Catholic Struggles with Pluralism, ed. J. Leon Hooper (Louisville, KY:
Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), p. 145.
4. Murray, “The Problem of Religious Freedom,” p. 153.
5. John Courtney Murray, “Memo to Cardinal Cushing on Contraception Legislation,” in Bridging the Sacred and the Secular: Selected Writings of John
Courtney Murray, SJ, ed. J. Leon Hooper (Washington, D.C: Georgetown
University Press, 1994), p. 85.
6. Murray, “Memo on Contraception Legislation,” pp. 85–86.
7. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Marriage: Love and Life in the
Divine Plan (Washington, D.C: USCCB Communications, 2010), p. 23.
8. Office of the Press Secretary, “Inaugural Address by President Barack
Obama,” The White House, January 21, 2013, http://www.whitehouse.gov/
the-press-office/2013/01/21/inaugural-address-president-barack-obama.
9. “2012 Democratic National Platform: Moving America Forward,” Democratic National Committee, September 3, 2012, http://www.democrats.org/
democratic-national-platform. [emphasis mine].
10. Jonathan Rauch, Gay Marriage: Why it is Good for Gays, Good for Straights,
and Good for America (New York: Times Books/Henry Holt and Co.,
2004), p. 7.
11. Kathleen E. Hull, “The Cultural Power of Law and the Cultural Enactment of Legality: The Case of Same-Sex Marriage,” Law and Social Inquiry,
Summer 2003, Volume 28, Number 3, pp. 655–656.
12. Hull, “The Cultural Power of Law,” p. 656.
13. Andrew Sullivan, Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality
(New York: Vintage Books, 1996), p. 137.
14. Rauch, Gay Marriage, p. 53.
15. John Courtney Murray, “The Bad Arguments Intelligent Men Made,” in
Bridging the Sacred and the Secular: Selected Writings of John Courtney Murray,
SJ, ed., J. Leon Hooper (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press,
1994), p. 76.
16. Symposium, “Rights & Wrongs: Morality in the Gay Marriage Debate,”
Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law, Summer 2008, Volume 9,
Number 2, pp. 340–341.
17. Symposium, “Rights & Wrongs,” p. 342.
18. J. Leon Hooper, The Ethics of Discourse: The Social Philosophy of
John Courtney Murray (Washington, D.C: Georgetown University Press,
1986), p. 5.
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Chapter
21
Obama and the
Common Good
Daniel J. Daly
There has been an unbroken trajectory toward individualist
attitudes, lifestyles, and policies in the United States since the 1960s. The
past half-century has seen the emergence of gated communities; the belief
that one can be spiritual, but not religious; and the privatization of public goods.1 Given that the vast majority of voters view Barack Obama’s
signature policies and proposals as distributing and sharing benefits and
burdens more broadly throughout the nation, his re-election raises a number of important questions. Was the 2012 election a sign that in some
areas of contemporary American life the march of individualism has been
slowed or halted? Is there currently an attempt among the American people and President Obama to rebalance the equation between community
and liberty by attending to the good of all Americans? Finally, how has
President Obama’s record promoted or undermined the common good?2
Since the promulgation of Gaudium et spes at the end of the Second
Vatican Council, the primary general task of Catholic Social Teaching
(hereafter CST) has been to continually scrutinize and evaluate the social
situation in light of the common good. Catholic voters are called to assess
the prospects and performance of politicians likewise. Non-Catholics and
political commentators will be interested in how politicians measure up
to the common good because Catholics comprise the “largest swing vote
in American politics.”3
This chapter reads the Obama presidency through the lens of the
common good, as it is understood in the Catholic tradition. Therefore,
the first part of the chapter defines the common good. This is necessary because while the concept is frequently used, it is rarely defined.
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The second and third parts analyze the policies and rhetoric of President
Obama and show the ways in which he has and has not promoted the
common good. Due to the brief nature of this study this section is only
suggestive of Obama’s vision, and does not claim to exhaustively scrutinize his record. The chapter concludes by looking ahead to the prospects
and challenges that a Catholic common good agenda addresses to Barack
Obama in his second term.
The question of Obama and the common good is important not only
from the perspective of CST, but also from the perspective of the nature
of his presidency and his legacy. Ward Holder and Peter Josephson argue
that Obama aspires “to disrupt and reconstruct the very ethos that Reagan
created.”4 Reagan ushered in a new era of individualism, and promoted
the notion that government was the cause of, not the solution to, the
nation’s problems. The unbridled capitalist policies and perspective that
began with Reagan has encountered its first true political interlocutor in
Obama.5 Thus, the president has interjected a “deliberative politics of the
common good” into our national conversation.6 A recovery of a common
good ethos truly would be a lasting and transformative achievement of his
tenure.
The Common Good in Catholic Social Teaching
Due to its commitment to the common good, CST has leveled some of
the most intense and potent critiques of the rise of individualism. The
Second Vatican Council’s pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes defined
the common good as “the sum of those conditions of social life which
allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and
ready access to their own fulfillment.”7 The common good is a state in
which the structures of society facilitate the well-being of all persons.
There is a sense in which the common good is instrumental for the
recognition of each person’s human dignity, and, further, for each person’s
well-being. As Aquinas wrote, the good of the individual person cannot
be achieved without the family, nation, and kingdom.8 Certain goods
can only be realized by individual persons when they are shared with,
and enjoyed by, all others. The common good, or common bad, exerts
what social scientists call “downward causation” on those with whom it is
shared.9 It affects the well-being, knowledge, attitudes, actions, and habits
of all persons in a society. For example, personal intellectual development
exists in a dialectical relationship with the intellectual development of
others. If just one person cannot gain access to a quality education then
all others are deprived of her potential new insights and information. All
are diminished intellectually and otherwise when the genius of a child in
the inner-city remains fallow.
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The common good is achieved when members of a community share
in both the burdens and benefits of social living. In the Catholic tradition the obligation to serve the common good imposes duties that are
progressive; they are proportional to a person’s ability to contribute.10
In addition, while the tradition recognizes that benefits should be enjoyed
by all, it also maintains that benefits should accrue first to the neediest.
The most basic test of the common good, the good that is to be shared
and realized by all, involves an examination of the well-being of the most
vulnerable in society. The vulnerable, more than any other group, provide the barometer by which Catholics are to judge social progress. As a
result, a common good approach necessitates a preferential option for the
poor.11 Only and until the poor have the goods needed to live in a manner befitting human dignity will the common good emerge out of the
right relationship among persons and social institutions.
The notion that the common good “emerges” is important. The recent
work of sociologist Christian Smith on emergence contains lessons for
understanding the common good. Smith argues that when two entities at
a lower level combine or interact, a third, higher entity often emerges from
the relationship of the two lower. This third entity is real, but its reality is
constituted through the relationship of the two lower entities, and is not
merely a reality that exists in the composition of the two lower realities.12
A simple analogy is helpful. Two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom
form water. Water is not merely the simple addition of two hydrogen
(H) atoms and one oxygen (O) atom. It is a new reality that emerges out
of the relationship of these elements. Its properties, such as wetness, materialize within the relationship of the elements. While the H and O remain
H and O, they are also changed in their relationship. When combined
they exist in a state that transcends each individually. Thus, when one is
removed from the relationship the reality that transcends each (in this case
water) is annihilated. In like manner, the common good emerges within
the just relationships among persons and between persons and social organizations. It both transcends individual persons and positively affects their
flourishing. Additionally, if one person is denied the benefits of communal life or fails to contribute according to his ability, then the good is
weakened. The common good is not, as Jeremy Bentham would have it,
the simple aggregate, or sum of individual well-being.13 Rather, in the
words of Gaudium et spes, it is the sum of the conditions within society
which systematically promote the human dignity of all persons.14
Overarching structural change (such as moving from a national ethos
of individualism to the common good) only emerges out of transformations in multiple areas of social life. The common good emerges only
when complex webs of social structures and relationships collaborate to
systematically promote the human dignity and well-being of all. Further,
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Smith argues that in order to change a social structure there must be
change in a multiplicity of areas, such as: legislation, socially accepted
concepts and normative beliefs, economic conditions, bodily and spiritual practices, and forms of communication.15 Because the political order
has direct and indirect control over many of the above areas within contemporary American society, any evaluation of the common good must
account for the policies of political leaders and parties.
In recognition of the relationship of the common good and political
order the Catholic social tradition has traditionally affirmed that, in the
words of Gaudium et spes, “the political community exits for the common
good.”16 However, the political sphere does not maintain despotic control of the common good. John Courtney Murray’s distinction between
the society and the state is helpful here. He argued that the common
good “includes all the social goods, spiritual and moral as well as material, which man pursues here . . . ” and that responsibility for the common
good “devolves upon society as a whole.”17 By contrast, public order,
“whose care devolves upon the state, is a narrower concept” which is concerned chiefly with law. The common good, according to Murray, is the
product of the whole society: individual persons; civic organizations; the
state; religious groups; and the like.18 The state, then, should play an
analogous role to the Roman military’s subsidium; that reserve force that
was called upon only when needed. If social groups cannot provide the
goods that befit human dignity, then the state should employ its coercive
power to guarantee those goods.
Interestingly enough, although the notion is present, Murray’s language has never been incorporated explicitly into official Catholic social
teaching. The Catholic tradition has maintained that all political, social,
and religious groups, as well as families and capable persons, have shared
responsibility for the common good.19 No single body, group, or person
is solely responsible for the common good. Therefore, political action in
favor of the good of all is necessary but not sufficient for the creation of
the common good.20 This perspective affirms that the political order is
not always the problem, and in fact, must be a part of the solution to
systemic social issues. In the contemporary American context the president has more power than any one person in the public sphere. Thus, it
is fitting that he should be scrutinized according to the demands of the
common good. Let us turn to this task.
Obama’s Presidency and the Common Good
The re-election of Obama suggests that a segment of the polarized
American electorate is desirous of a more communitarian, less
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individualist nation. Commentators have argued that the reasons that
certain groups, such as Latinos and young people, voted for Obama was
that they believed that he supported an agenda that benefited all of the
nation’s people. A New York Times/CBS News poll taken before the election found that 52 percent of voters saw Romney’s policies as favoring
the rich, while only 9 percent said the same of Obama’s policies. In addition, 43 percent and 30 percent of likely voters said that Obama’s policies
favored the middle-class and the poor, respectively.21 What follows tests
the above public perceptions by evaluating President Obama’s policies and
rhetoric in light of the common good.
Policy
Two major policies capture Obama’s common good agenda. First, The
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was the most significant piece of anti-poverty legislation since the Johnson administration.22 In 2010 alone the legislation kept seven million people out of
poverty.23 According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,
“expansions in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax
Credit (CTC) kept 1.6 million people out of poverty, . . . expansions
in the duration and level of unemployment insurance benefits kept
3.4 million people out of poverty,” and “expansions in SNAP benefits
kept 1.0 million people out of poverty.”24 Insofar as it systematically
ensured that the basic rights of some of the poorest in the nation were
met, the Act was a significant achievement in the building up of the
common good.
Second, The Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) also was a major victory in the advancement of the domestic common good. The ACA does
not ensure universal access to health care, but does move the nation closer
to that goal. Fifty million people lacked health insurance in the United
States before the implementation of the Act. The ACA promises to reduce
that number to 18 million.25 In particular, it will provide regular access
to health care for the working poor and lower-middle class of the nation.
The United States Catholic Bishops opposed the final legislation because
they perceived it as providing an opening for the federal funding of direct
abortion. A direct abortion is any procedure that intends to end fetal life
and/or the pregnancy, as an end in itself, or as a means to a further end.26
However, over the past four decades the Bishops have consistently called
for universal access to health care.27 Furthermore, since the social encyclical Pacem in terris (1962) the universal Church has argued that medical
care is a human right that is required for the building up of the common
good.28
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Rhetoric
Obama has also recognized the importance of the power of rhetoric in
the shaping of a political community. In 2006 he delivered the keynote
address for the Call to Renewal conference for religious leaders. There he
explicitly stated that he believed in the power of religious rhetoric in the
political sphere for the dual purposes of connecting with religious peoples,
and to inspire people to embrace a “common destiny.”29 Then-Senator
Obama drew upon sociological studies that argued that there had been a
deepening individualism in personal habits and political perspectives in
the United States.30 In the speech he made oblique references to Robert
Putnam’s widely cited book Bowling Alone, which documented the loss
of social capital and connection in the US,31 and a 2006 study which
found that in 2004 the average American had one fewer close friend than
the average American in 1985.32 The Senator lamented the nation’s loss
of social connectivity. The speech would provide a window to the future
president’s political values.
President Obama’s 2009 “Notre Dame Commencement Address” further elucidated his vision. He drew upon Martin Luther King Jr.’s poetic
invocation of the common good when he stated that “our fates are tied up
in a single garment of destiny.”33 The President also called for Americans
to work together to reduce the number of abortions by helping women
avoid unintended pregnancies and by providing support for women who
carry to birth.
Both his “Second Inaugural Address” and his 2013 “State of the Union
Address” underscored the notion that the good of each person is intertwined with the good of all other Americans. As the Boston Globe noted
the day after the inauguration, “The driving theme of the speech could be
shown in the choice of words he made, using ‘our’ 79 times, ‘we’ 62 times,
‘us’ 18 times, and ‘together’ seven times. Obama only used the word ‘I’
two times in his 2,096-word speech.”34 Further, Obama concluded “The
State of the Union Address” with the following appeal:
[T]his country only works when we accept certain obligations to one
another and to future generations, that our rights are wrapped up in the
rights of others; and that well into our third century as a nation, it remains
the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the
next great chapter of our American story.35
Obama’s ideal “next great chapter” is characterized by duties to others and a relational notion of rights. These two speeches demonstrate
Obama’s deepening focus on the interrelation the personal and national
good. In sum, the beginning of Obama’s second term contained powerful
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arguments for a new, or better yet, retrieved, national moral and political
spirit.
The above study has shown that Barack Obama’s agenda harmonizes
with a Catholic notion of the common good in three general ways. First,
he often opts for the poor in designing, maintaining, and expanding
federal programs that meet the basic needs of vulnerable populations.
Second, he recognizes that benefits and burdens, rights and duties, are
progressive. That is, the former are proportional to what conduces to a
dignified personal existence, and the latter are proportional to one’s ability
to contribute. Finally, he recognizes that state action is necessary to secure
human rights and to promote the common good in certain situations.
Abortion, Embryos, and the Common Good
The above claims notwithstanding, it should be noted that not all of the
President’s proposed legislation and policies promote a Catholic notion
of the common good. The consistent ethic of life is at the core of the
Catholic commitment to the common good. The consistent ethic involves
many of the issues listed above, such as care for the poor, and universal access to health care. It also requires that the rights of the unborn
are recognized. Catholic doctrine acknowledges the unborn as members
of the moral community. The unborn are seen as already possessing the
transcendent human dignity upon which all human rights rest.36
President Obama has consistently supported a women’s right to choose
to terminate her pregnancy. In April of 2013 he reaffirmed his commitment to pro-choice policies when he became the first sitting president
to address the annual conference of Planned Parenthood. 37 The President’s public support of laws permitting direct abortion denies a group
of human beings the most basic of human rights. In addition, in March
2009 the President issued an Executive Order which removed the Bushera restrictions to the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research
(ESCR). The order facilitated a practice that intentionally terminates
embryonic life for scientific and therapeutic gain.38
Obama’s positions and policies in these areas are opposed by the
Catholic notions of intrinsic human dignity and common good. Any
discussion of the President’s support of the common good must be qualified by his support for legislation that allows for the killing of innocent
and vulnerable human beings. Furthermore, as the US Catholic Bishops
rightly underscore, there is no moral equivalence between abortion and
other issues such as economic or environmental justice.39 The right to life
stands as the first and most fundamental right. It is the most important
right in the creation of the common good.40 Therefore, Obama’s desire
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to reduce the number of abortions is insufficient. The good that is realized in common is deeply enervated if the law of the nation allows for
the intentional killing of some human beings.41 While President Obama
is powerless to unilaterally change abortion law, his moral and political
perspective on the issue has the capacity to shape the national debate.
Resultantly, Obama’s support for direct abortion undermines the creation of the common good and substantially qualifies any claims that his
policies opt for the vulnerable and weak.
Conclusion
When reading any American president through the lens of the Catholic
notion of the common good one encounters a complex and often confusing image. President Obama is no exception. In key areas he appears to be
attempting to enact and articulate a politics of the common good. This
is not his invention, as he draws on “civic republicanism”; that strand
of American rhetoric and policy that was suffused through the thought
of Presidents Washington, Adams, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Eisenhower,
and Kennedy, among others.42 In other areas his policies undercut the
well-being of all.
This study reminds one that on this side of the Kingdom of God
the common good always remains an aspirational goal, never to be
finally achieved by any President, nation, Pope, or church. Nevertheless, Catholics are called to scrutinize the contemporary situation in light
of good that is realized in common by continually evaluating the ways
in which states systematically promote or undermine the well-being of
the community and its members. To that end, those concerned with
the building up of the common good will be attentive to the following five areas during the remaining years of the Obama presidency: the
legal protection of the lives of all human beings from conception onward;
domestic and global poverty and inequality, especially global labor wages
and conditions; immigration reform; the environment; and war and
peace-building.
The relationship of Obama and common good becomes even more
interesting after the election of Pope Francis in March of 2013. Francis’s
personal witness to a life lived with and for others, his emphasis on CST,
and his focus on the preferential option for the poor has the potential
to alter and develop the practices, perspectives, and norms of the world’s
largest non-governmental organization and its members. Given the new
Pope’s positive reception by the laity, one expects that in the coming years
American Catholics will be primed to analyze the contemporary political
situation, and specifically the presidency of Barack Obama, through the
lens of the common good.
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Many American Catholics and non-Catholics have yearned for a leader
who would transform the era of individualism into an era of communal
solidarity. Obama’s politics of the common good, however incomplete,
has the capacity to play a necessary, but insufficient role in the emergence
of such a moral and political spirit. Ultimately, the ongoing battle for the
American ethos rests with the American public, and their reception or
rejection of Obama’s vision.
Notes
1. See: Robert Bellah, Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and
Steven Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in
American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); Robert
C. Fuller, Spiritual but not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America
(New York: Oxford, 2001).
2. Questions regarding the correct balance between liberty and community
in American society and politics have been asked by philosophical, theological, and political commentators on a regular basis since the 1980s.
The 1980s and 1990s were especially fertile decades for such research. For
a compendium of prominent thought on the issue see the edited volume, Communitarianism and Individualism, ed. Shlomo Avineri and Avner
De-Shalit (New York: Oxford, 2002).
3. William Prendergast, The Catholic Voter in American Politics: The Passing of
the Democratic Monolith (Washington D.C.: Georgetown, 1999), p. 218.
4. R. Ward Holder and Peter B. Josephson, The Irony Of Barack Obama: Barack
Obama, Reinhold Niebuhr and the Problem of Christian Statecraft (Burlington,
Vt; Ashgate, 2012), p. 170.
5. Gary Dorrien, The Obama Question: A Progressive Perspective (New York:
Rowman and Littlefield, 2012), p. 225.
6. Ibid.
7. Second Vatican Council, “Gaudium et spes,” in Catholic Social Thought:
The Documentary Heritage, ed. David O’Brien and Thomas Shannon
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 1998), paragraph 26.
8. Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, trans., Fathers of
the English Dominicans Province (Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1981),
II–II 47.10 ad 2.
9. Christian Smith, What is a Person? Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the
Moral Good from the Person Up (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011),
p. 365.
10. Pope John XXIII, “Mater et magister,” in Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage, ed. David O’Brien and Thomas Shannon (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis, 1998), paragraph 132; United States Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All, in Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage,
ed. David O’Brien and Thomas Shannon (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998),
paragraph 202d.
11. United States Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All, p. 16.
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12. Christian Smith, What is a Person? pp. 28–31.
13. Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation in Justice: A Reader, ed.,
Michael Sandel (New York: Oxford, 2007), p. 10.
14. Kenneth Himes, Christianity and the Political Order (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis,
2013), p. 204.
15. Christian Smith, What is a Person? p. 369.
16. See both: Pope John XXIII, “Pacem in terris,” in Catholic Social Thought:
The Documentary Heritage, ed. David O’Brien and Thomas Shannon
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998), paragraph 54; and, Second Vatican Council,
“Gaudium et spes,” paragraph 74.
17. John Courtney Murray, “The Problem of Religious Freedom,” Theological
Studies, 1964, Volume 25, pp. 520–521.
18. John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths (New York: Sheed and Ward,
1960), p. 8.
19. Second Vatican Council, “Gaudium et spes,” p. 26; and, United States
Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All, pp. 99–100.
20. United States Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All, p. 122. Here the
Bishops cite Murray’s aforementioned article, “The Problem of Religious
Freedom.”
21. Brian Montopoli, “60 Percent Say Economy Top Issue,” CBS News,
November 6, 2012, accessed February 28, 2013, http://www.cbsnews.com/
8301-250_162-57546031/early-exit-poll-60-percent-say-economy-topissue/.
22. Gary Dorrien, The Obama Question, p. 93.
23. Arloc Sherman, “Poverty and Financial Distress Would Have Been Substantially Worse in 2010 Without Government Action, New Census Data
Show,” Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, November 7, 2011, accessed
June 4, 2013, http://www.cbpp.org/files/11-7-11pov.pdf.
24. Ibid.
25. Nancy-Ann DeParle, “The Affordable Care Act Helps America’s Uninsured,”
The White House Blog, September 16, 2010, accessed June 4, 2013, http://
www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/09/16/affordable-care-act-helps-america-suninsured.
26. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Declaration on Procured Abortion,” The Holy See, paragraph 7, November 18, 1974, accessed June 12,
2013, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/
rc_con_cfaith_doc_19741118_declaration-abortion_en.html.
27. See USCCB President Francis Cardinal George’s statement on why the
Bishops opposed the ACA; “Universal Health Care,” United States Catholic
Conference of Bishops, March 23, 2010, accessed May 30, 2013, http://www.
usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/health-care/upload/
health-care-cardinal-george-statement.pdf. For the United States Catholic
Bishops’ support of universal health care see: “Health and Health Care,”
United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, Section 5, accessed June 4, 2013,
http://old.usccb.org/sdwp/national/HEALTH.PDF.
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28. Pope John XXIII, “Pacem in terris,” p. 11.
29. Barack Obama, “Call to Renewal Keynote Address,” Sojourners, June 26,
2006, accessed June 11, 2013, http://sojo.net/blogs/2012/02/21/transcriptobamas-2006-sojournerscall-renewal-address-faith-and-politics.
30. Ibid.
31. Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).
32. Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin and Matthew Brashears, “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades,”
American Sociological Review, 2006, Volume 71, pp. 353–375.
33. Barack Obama, “University of Notre Dame Commencement Address,”
New York Times, May 17, 2009, accessed June 4, 2013, http://www.nytimes.
com/2009/05/17/us/politics/17text-obama.html?pagewanted=all.
34. Bryan Bender and Matt Viser, “President Obama Urges Unity for Common
Good,” Boston Globe, January 22, 2013, accessed February 25, 2013, http://
www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/01/22/while-calling-for-unityobama-lays-out-liberal-vision/i7ubjqPLOisA9BKuRTTFMP/story.html.
35. Barack Obama, “The State of the Union Address,” White House,
February 12, 2013, accessed June 11, 2013, http://www.whitehouse.gov/
state-of-the-union-2013.
36. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Declaration on Procured
Abortion,” paragraph 13.
37. Barack Obama, “Remarks by President at Planned Parenthood Conference,”
Planned Parenthood, April 26, 2013, accessed June 12, 2013, http://www.
plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/obamas-historicspeech-41247.htm.
38. Barack Obama, “Executive Order: Removing Barriers to Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells,” White House, March 9,
2009, accessed May 9, 2013, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/
removing-barriers-responsible-scientific-research-involving-human-stemcells.
39. United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, “Forming Consciences for
Faithful Citizenship,” United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, paragraphs
28 and 37, accessed June 13, 2013, http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/
faithful-citizenship/.
40. Ibid., 49.
41. Ibid.
42. James Kloppenberg, Reading Obama (Princeton; Princeton University Press,
2011), p. 101.
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Chapter
22
The Rise of the
Liberal Protestant?
Faith and Politics
in the Obama
Administration
R. Ward Holder and Peter
B. Josephson
In May 2012, as the presidential election began to heat up (and
just before Mitt Romney clinched the Republican nomination), Barack
Obama announced that his beliefs regarding gay marriage had “evolved.”
The particular timing of the president’s statement was political—the vice
president had announced his support for gay marriage only days before—
though at the time the electoral effect was uncertain. But the president’s
explanation of his changed stance was perhaps most remarkable. Obama
did not explain that faith-based concerns about gay marriage should not
determine public policy. To the contrary, the president announced that
his view had changed because of conversations with friends and family,
and as a result of reflection on the example of Christ. “The thing at root
that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf,
but it’s also the golden rule.”1
Although few on the right or on the left acknowledge it, liberal
Protestantism has decisively influenced Barack Obama’s approach to political life. Obama has become increasingly comfortable articulating the
connection between his mainline Protestant beliefs and his politics, a
connection too often overlooked by pundits and commentators. In this
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chapter we examine three pairs of Obama’s speeches—on the relation
of faith and politics, on foreign policy, and on domestic policy. These
speeches demarcate three regions in which Obama grapples with the
implications of prophetic Christianity for enacting the tension between
the personal call of faith and the public responsibilities of office.
The Surprising Faith of Barack Obama
At a cursory glance, Obama might seem an unlikely herald of the return
of mainline Protestant thought to American politics. Obama’s path to
his church has been well marked.2 Raised in a secular home with occasional Muslim influence, he found his way to membership in the Trinity
United Church of Christ in the late 1980s. He came to Christian faith in
an African-American congregation that was unashamedly liberationist in
its proclamation of the gospel, in a denomination that contains some of
the most progressive elements in American mainline Christianity. Obama
was influenced by the thought of some of the most progressive and politically minded theologians of the twentieth century, Reinhold Niebuhr and
James Cone, and sought models through which to allow that progressive
Christianity to shape his governing.3
Obama spoke seriously about his Christian faith and its effect on his
politics early in his term as senator, and deepened that conversation late
in his first term. In the 2006 “Call to Renewal” speech (which formed
the basis for a chapter on faith and politics in his book The Audacity of
Hope), Obama described the moment at which he knew he must consider
more fully the relation between his faith and politics. During the 2004
Senate campaign, Obama’s opponent, Alan Keyes, declared that Obama’s
political beliefs put him at odds with the teachings of Jesus. At that time
Obama’s answer was what he called “the typical liberal response”—“that
we live in a pluralistic society” and “I can’t impose my own religious views
on another.” But Obama knew such a response was inadequate. Reflecting
on that moment in 2006, Obama argued that progressives must come to
understand that religious belief cannot be “set apart” from political beliefs.
“In fact, it is often what drives their beliefs and values.” Indeed, the progressive discomfort with religion “prevent[s] us from effectively addressing
issues in moral terms”—including issues “of poverty and environmental
stewardship.”4
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than
what all the world’s great religions demand—that we do unto others as we
would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells
us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have
in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.5
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“[S]ecularists are wrong,” Obama said, “when they ask believers to leave
their religion at the door before entering the public square . . . . [T]o say
that men and women should not inject their ‘personal morality’ into
public policy debates is a practical absurdity.”6
Five years later, in his 2011 prayer breakfast speech (a speech that displayed the significant influence of the work of Reinhold Niebuhr on the
president’s understanding), Obama emphasized the way his personal faith
shaped his political work, beginning with the “biblical injunction to serve
the least of these.” Obama argued—against some politically conservative
Christians—that the Christian obligation of charity ought to be realized
through political action, as well as in the work of families, churches, and
community organizations. Second, Obama emphasized the importance of
humility, of the recognition of the limits of human knowledge. The difficulty, then, is “to balance this uncertainty, this humility, with the need
to fight for deeply held convictions.” Finally, Obama said that each day
he prays “that I might walk closer with God.” For Obama, daily prayer is
a reminder of the imperative of service, and of the “larger purpose” God
has for our lives.7
Obama has applied his faith to his account of the development of
particular policies. Very early in his presidency Obama was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize. Obama recognized a broad distinction between the
demands of politics and statesmanship and the demands of the Christian
faith. The statesman, Obama argued, “must face the world as it is,” and in
his particular case he must address “threats to the American people.” But
the Christian can be no nationalist; the Christian must observe a moral
obligation that transcends political boundaries. The Christian teaching,
which Obama called the “law of love,” is not always politically practicable. The Christian stands as moral critic of the statesman. Thus Obama
framed his understanding of foreign policy in terms of the realities of politics in the world, and the alternative moral aspiration of the Christian
calling.8 He reiterated those twin perspectives, and called attention to the
effects of the political life on the Christian soul, in his May 2013 remarks
on the increasing use of drones by his administration to target terrorist
threats. “[I]t is a hard fact,” Obama said,
that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in
every war. And for the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command,
those deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the
civilian casualties that have occurred throughout conventional fighting in
Afghanistan and Iraq.9
As early as his April 2009 “New Foundation” speech, Obama placed his
domestic policies in the context of his Christian faith. After detailing his
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administration’s approach to the economic stimulus, Obama turned to the
Sermon on the Mount to explain the overarching theme of his programs.
He pointed to the parable of two men, one of whom builds on sand, the
other who builds his house on a rock. Obama argued that the American
economy must be built on a new foundation, a foundation of rock, not
sand. But he presented this “New Foundation”—a phrase the administration hoped for a time would take hold as the defining statement of the
Obama program, and one the president continues to use with some frequency, though most news accounts simply ignored it—in an explicitly
Christian context.10
Three and a half years later, at the end of his first term in office, in
response to the shooting of elementary school students and their teachers
and principal in Connecticut, Obama delivered an address as part of an
interfaith vigil. The media attended mostly to the president’s proposed
policies to address gun violence. But the main thrust of the speech was
not so much political as it was prophetic.
These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will
be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true.
No single law—no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent
every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can’t be an excuse for
inaction. Surely, we can do better than this . . . .
Obama then turned to consider our existential confrontation with darkness and uncertainty in an explicitly religious (if ecumenical) context.
All the world’s religions—so many of them represented here today—start
with a simple question: Why are we here? What gives our life meaning?
What gives our acts purpose? We know our time on this Earth is fleeting. We know that we will each have our share of pleasure and pain; that
even after we chase after some earthly goal, whether it’s wealth or power or
fame, or just simple comfort, we will, in some fashion, fall short of what we
had hoped. We know that no matter how good our intentions, we will all
stumble sometimes, in some way. We will make mistakes, we will experience hardships. And even when we’re trying to do the right thing, we know
that much of our time will be spent groping through the darkness, so often
unable to discern God’s heavenly plans.
And in speaking of the nation’s special responsibility to its children,
Obama again turned to the Book of Matthew—his source for his remarks
on prayer and on the new foundation.11
At the 2012 prayer breakfast, Obama returned to these themes with
greater urgency. Citing the works of a long line of American reformers,
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he began, “We can’t leave our values at the door.” He then offered a litany
of his administration’s programs, tying each to a teaching of his faith.
He connected the financial reform and the health insurance act to the
injunction to “love they neighbor as thyself ” (Matt. 22.39). He bound
higher taxes for upper income Americans to Jesus’ teaching that “unto
whom much is given, much shall be required” (Luke 12.48). Support
for education, job training, and scientific research, Obama argued, result
from the injunction that “I am my brother’s keeper and I am my sister’s keeper” (Gen. 4.9). Foreign aid and humanitarian interventions are
outcomes of the responsibility to care for the least of these and to speak
for those who cannot speak for themselves. Obama again emphasized the
limits of human knowledge (as he had in 2011).
In the words of C.S. Lewis, “Christianity has not, and does not profess
to have a detailed political program. It is meant for all men at all times,
and the particular program which suited one place or time would not suit
another.” Our goal should not be to declare our policies as biblical. It is
God who is infallible, not us.
He concluded that “each and every day, for many in this room, the
biblical injunctions are not just words, they are also deeds.” In short,
Obama called on people of faith to “be doers of the word and not merely
hearers.”12
The Religious Right and the Return of
a Religious Left
There is a widely accepted narrative about the rise to political power
of the Religious Right, or conservative evangelicalism.13 The details are
argued, but the substance is generally a matter of agreement, whether one
applauds or decries this rise. In the 1970s, evangelical conservatives began
to mobilize in order to take direct political power. There is some disagreement about whether the motivating factor was the Roe vs. Wade decision
in 1973 or the Bob Jones University vs. Simon decision in 1974. The movement sought to renounce its place on the margins of political and social
power, and pursued its goals through a strategy of electing religiously and
socially conservative candidates to seats on important government agencies, as well as in statehouses and in the Congress.14 Realizing that they
aimed at a transformation or reformation of the culture back to the putative Christian foundations of America, real effort was also put in place to
create the institutions that would form the next generation of activists.15
In that same period the Democratic Party was increasingly becoming
the party of secularism. Yet this narrative does not reflect the history of the
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earlier twentieth century. “For most of the twentieth century, spanning
the period from the Progressive era of the early 1900s to the civil rights
movement of the 1960s, the Religious Left was the dominant religious
voice in the public square,” and especially in the Democratic Party.16
A century ago the platform of the Democratic Party was shaped by social
gospel Christians like William Jennings Bryan working with progressive
social scientists like Woodrow Wilson.17
The progressive wing seemed to dominate during the New Deal and
after. When John Kennedy ran for president in 1960, he very deliberately
set his Catholic faith aside from his politics. In the wake of Roe v. Wade, as
Christian conservatives became more prominent (and for many the Religious Right became the public face of Christianity), the liberal Christian
element in the Democratic Party played a less and less vocal role. Yet
Obama offers himself as both Christian and progressive. In this he represents a re-emerging wing of the Democratic Party. Stephen Mansfield
argues that Obama has made “a conscious attempt to reclaim the religious voice of the American political left.” Mansfield continues, “He is
unapologetically Christian and unapologetically liberal, and he believes
that faith ought to inform his politics.”18 Obama very deliberately seeks
to restore to his party the “spiritual progressive” synthesis it enjoyed in
the early part of the twentieth century. Obama thus can be understood in
the terms that Stephen Skowronek offers, as a president whose ambition
is generational change. “[R]econstructing political order is a process that
joins party building to an assault on the residual institutional structure of
the old order.”19
Obama is not alone in this effort. In the early twenty-first century,
“the new Religious Left is seeking to reclaim its prominence in defining a
moral vision for the nation.”20 John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign
put very few resources into religious outreach. In 2005 Rabbi Michael
Lerner helped organize the “Network of Spiritual Progressives” to provide “a spiritual alternative to both secular materialism and the Religious
Right.” By 2008, each of the major Democratic candidates had made
religious outreach an important part of campaign strategy.21 In part,
Obama had a political goal, of offering people of faith an alternative to
the religious right.22 Obama’s calculation to offer an acceptable alternative
to adherents of mainline Christian denominations was politically savvy.
Mainline Protestant churches claim membership of more than ten million Americans.23 When paired with liberal Roman Catholic voters, such
numbers could decide a close election. In this context Democratic Party
leaders, led by Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Howard Dean, increasingly
advocate for outreach to faith-based voters.24
The project to restore Mainline Protestantism to a public role in
America’s political landscape faces additional opposition on the left.25
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In Rabbi Lerner’s experience, “many on the Left, to be blunt, hate and fear
religion.”26 Thus Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey—an observant
Catholic who opposed abortion rights—was barred from speaking at the
1992 Democratic National Convention. When Obama announced his
extension of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships,
the most vocal opposition came from the American Civil Liberties Union
and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Though some
Democrats might accept a rhetorical shift toward God-speak, others are
made very uncomfortable, and most would likely be uneasy with genuine
professions of faith. A party rooted in its embrace of diversity may have
a difficult time welcoming people of absolute moral concerns. A party
that insists on a strict interpretation of the separation of church and state
may have a difficult time accepting that religious commitments inform
political life.27
Looking Ahead
In The Audacity of Hope, Obama sought to develop a model whereby faith
commitments could matter in the public square, but not trump all other
concerns. When religious reasoning enters the public sphere it comes with
absolute truth claims. If one’s religious beliefs are at stake, compromise is
frequently not an option. But compromise is just as frequently the only
way forward in a political process.28
Obama articulates his greatest policy goals both as issues of social
justice and public policy and as concerns of salvation and the soul.
E. J. Dionne argues that Obama’s linkage of personal faith and political action “is one of the reasons he emerged as a major force in American
politics.”29 In his 2006 “Call for Renewal” speech, and in the passages in
Audacity that emerged from it, Obama writes, “Solving these problems [of
poverty and racism] will require changes in government policy; it will also
require changes in hearts and minds.” He continues, “[F]aith can fortify
a young woman’s sense of self, [and] a young man’s sense of responsibility.”30 In his second term as president, speaking at the University of Cape
Town in South Africa, Obama articulated this idea in even more personal
terms. Obama was drawn to politics as a young man, he said, because of
“the belief that I could be part of something bigger than myself,” and the
realization “that my own salvation was bound up with those of others.”
31
Every American president takes an oath to preserve, protect, and
defend the Constitution. At the same time, one does not become president without what some call a “fire in the belly,” a desire to accomplish
great things. The logic of political ambition and the structure of competitive elections encourage efforts at change, and the greatest ambition
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for change is not satisfied with tinkering with an established system.32
Obama’s work to establish a place for Christian politics in the Democratic
Party is part of a very grand political project. Obama’s second term is
his final opportunity—through social justice programs, court appointments, and the like—to reshape American politics. But the frequently
untold story is that this is also his opportunity to reshape the voice of
liberal Christianity in Democratic politics, and in support of his faith
commitments.
Notes
1. Jackie Calmes and Peter Baker, “Obama Says Same-Sex Marriage Should be
Legal,” New York Times, May 9, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/
10/us/politics/obama-says-same-sex-marriage-should-be-legal.html?page
wanted=all&_r=0 accessed June 5, 2013. See also Amy Sullivan, “Obama’s
Case for Gay Marriage Shows That Invoking Faith Isn’t Just for
Conservatives Anymore,” Washington Post, May 11, 2012, http://www.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-case-for-gay-marriage-shows-thatinvoking-faith-isnt-just-for-conservatives-anymore/2012/05/11/gIQAg6Q
oIU_story.html, accessed June 5, 2013.
2. Stephen Mansfield, The Faith of Barack Obama (Nashville: Thomas
Nelson, 2008), pp. 48–52; Cathleen Falsani, “Interview with Barack
Obama,” Chicago Sun Times, March 27, 2004, http://blog.beliefnet.com/
stevenwaldman/2008/11/obamas-interview-with-cathleen.html, accessed
September 1, 2010.
3. We have considered this in our The Irony of Barack Obama: Barack Obama,
Reinhold Niebuhr, and the Problem of Christian Statecraft (Burlington:
Ashgate, 2012), esp. chap. 3.
4. Barack Obama, “2006 Speech on Faith and Politics,” New York
Times, June 28, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/28/us/politics/
2006obamaspeech.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1, accessed November 15,
2011. See also The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American
Dream (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), pp. 231–268; Mansfield, The
Faith of Barack Obama, pp. 83–92.
5. This is true of issues of race, as well. When candidate Obama addressed
the controversy surrounding his pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, he
did so in the context of America’s racial history, but found a path forward through faith. Barack Obama, “Obama’s Speech on Race,” New York
Times, March 18, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/03/18/
us/politics/20080318_OBAMA_GRAPHIC.html?_r=0#, accessed July 16,
2013.
6. Obama, “Speech on Faith and Politics.”
7. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at National Prayer Breakfast,”
February 3, 2011, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/02/03/
remarks-president-national-prayer-breakfast, accessed July 20, 2011.
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8. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at the Acceptance of the Nobel
Peace Prize,” December 10, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/remarks-president-acceptance-nobel-peace-prize, accessed December
11, 2009.
9. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at the National Defense University,” May 23, 2013, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/
23/remarks-president-national-defense-university, accessed June 5, 2013.
10. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on the Economy,” April 14, 2009,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-economygeorgetown-university, accessed July 11, 2011.
11. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at Sandy Hook Interfaith Prayer
Vigil,” December 16, 2012, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/
2012/12/16/remarks-president-sandy-hook-interfaith-prayer-vigil, accessed
December 21, 2012.
12. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at the National Prayer Breakfast,”
February 2, 2012, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/02/02/
remarks-president-national-prayer-breakfast, accessed June 5, 2013.
13. On this, see Randall Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right
Distorts Faith and Threatens America (New York: Basic Books, 2007); Frank
Lambert, Religion in American Politics: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2010); and Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell,
American Grace: How Religion Unites and Divides Us (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 2012).
14. The Religious Right was always aware of the multiple avenues toward societal
and political power. Thus, several school districts have seen efforts to target
seats on the school board. See David Steinmetz, “Creator God,” Christian
Century, 2005, Volume 122, Number 26, 27–31.
15. The movement took time to coalesce. Kiecolt and Nelsen found that conservative Protestants were not as politically sophisticated and did not maintain
as much of an attitudinal consensus as their liberal counterparts as they examined data from 1972 from 1984. See K. Jill Kiecolt and Hart M. Nelsen,
“The Structuring of Political Attitudes among Conservative and Liberal
Protestants,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1988, Volume 27,
pp. 48–59.
16. Lambert, Religion in American Politics, p. 221.
17. E. J. Dionne, Souled Out (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008),
p. 30. Dionne links Bryan to Niebuhr: both supported faith-based progressive politics (33).
18. Mansfield, The Faith of Barack Obama, pp. xv, xxii.
19. The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership From John Adams to George Bush
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1993), pp. 37–38.
20. Lambert, Religion in American Politics, p. 221. Jim Wallis’ book, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, has also been
highly influential (New York: HarperCollins, 2006).
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21. Amy Sullivan, The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats are Closing the
God Gap (New York: Scribner, 2008), pp. 205–208; Lambert, Religion in
American Politics, p. 224.
22. See Nathan R. Myers, “God at the Grassroots: A Political Analysis of StateLevel Christian Right and Pro-Family Organizations in American Public
Schooling,” Political Theology, 2010, Volume 11, pp. 271–286. See also
Lambert, Religion in American Politics, p. 238; Kevin Phillips, American
Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money
in the 21st Century (New York: Penguin Books, 2007).
23. Estimates suggest 10–12 million members in 2008. See also Biff Rocha and
Jeffrey L. Morrow, “Dancing on the Wall: An Analysis of Barack Obama’s
Call to Renewal Keynote Address,” in What Democrats Talk About When
They Talk About God: Religious Communication in Democratic Party Politics,
ed. David Weiss (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010), p. 132.
24. Sullivan, The Party Faithful, pp. 213–218; Lambert, Religion in American
Politics, pp. 242–246. James L. Guth provides careful analysis of the results of
this work for the 2008 campaign. See his “Obama, Religious Politics, and the
Culture Wars,” in Transforming America: Barack Obama in the White House,
ed. Steven E. Schier (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2011), pp. 78–80.
25. Lambert, Religion in American Politics, p. 226.
26. Lambert, Religion in American Politics, p. 243.
27. Dionne, Souled Out, pp. 77–78; Lambert, Religion in American Politics,
pp. 242–248; Guth, p. 87. See also Rob Boston, “Church, State, and
Obama,” Church and State, January 2010, pp. 7–9.
28. Audacity, pp. 259–262.
29. Dionne, Souled Out, pp. 77–78. Dionne notes that Hillary Clinton made a
similar linkage.
30. Audacity, pp. 254–255.
31. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at the University of Cape
Town,” June 30, 2013, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/
06/30/remarks-president-obama-university-cape-town, accessed August 14,
2013.
32. Skowronek, pp. 6, 9–10, 15, 17–21, 27, 24–25, 37–38.
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Contributors
Neal Allen is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Wichita State
University. His research interests include Law and Courts, Southern Politics, Congress, and the Politics of Race. He is the author of “Living,
Dead and Undead: Nullification Past and Present,” American Political
Thought Fall 2012, and “Scandal and the Politics of Race: From Martin
Luther King, Jr. to Barack Obama and Beyond,” in Scandal!: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Consequences, Outcomes, and Significance of
Political Scandals.
Robert G. Boatright is Associate Professor of Political Science Clark University. He is the author of Getting Primaried: The Changing Politics of
Congressional Primary Challenges (University of Michigan Press, 2013),
Interest Groups and Campaign Finance Reform in the United States and
Canada (University of Michigan Press, 2011), and Expressive Politics: Issues
Strategies of Congressional Challengers (Ohio State University Press, 2004),
and the editor of Campaign Finance: The Problems and Consequences of
Reform (Open Society Institute, 2011). He has written several articles and
book chapters on campaign finance, congressional elections, and interest
groups. He is currently completing a book on the history of congressional
primary elections.
Douglas M. Brattebo is Director of the Center for Engaged Ethics and
Assistant Professor of Political Science at Hiram College. He is co-editor
of three books, including The Obama Presidency: A Preliminary Assessment (SUNY Press, 2012), with Robert Watson, Tom Lansford, and Jack
Covarrubias. Brattebo’s many publications include book chapters, journal articles, and book reviews on topics ranging from President Obama’s
firing of General Stanley McChrystal to the no-fly zones in place over
Iraq from 1991 to 2003 to Newt Gingrich’s role in undermining civility in American political life. Among the courses he teaches at Hiram are
Ethics in US Foreign Policy, The American Presidency and the Executive
Branch, Engaged Citizenship, and The Virtues, Leadership, and Legacy
of Abraham Lincoln.
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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Mark D. Brewer is Associate Professor of Political Science and member
of the Honors College faculty at the University of Maine. His research
interests focus generally on political behavior, with specific research
areas including partisanship and electoral behavior at both the mass
and elite levels, the linkages between public opinion and public policy, and the interactions that exist between religion and politics in the
United States. Brewer is the author or editor of a number of books
and articles in academic journals, with the most recent being The Parties Respond, 5th edition (with L. Sandy Maisel, Westview Press, 2013),
Parties and Elections in America, 6th edition (with L. Sandy Maisel,
Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), Party Images in the American Electorate
(Routledge, 2009), and Dynamics of American Political Parties (with
Jeffrey M. Stonecash, Cambridge University Press, 2009). He is also the
editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Political Science.
Anne Marie Cammisa joined the faculty of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute in 2011. Previously, Dr. Cammisa was a Senior Fellow at the
Governmental Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. She has also
taught at Suffolk University in Boston, the University of New Hampshire,
and the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College,
where she directed the Center for the Study of New Hampshire Politics
and Civic Life. She has published Governments as Interest Groups: Intergovernmental Lobbying and the Federal System, From Rhetoric to Reform?:
Welfare Policy in American Politics, and co-authored her third book Checks
and Balances?: How a Parliamentary System Could Change American Politics, with Paul Christopher Manuel. In addition, she has done work on
women in politics, including a review article in “State Politics and Policy
Quarterly” with Beth Reingold. She has also served as a reviewer for several academic journals, including Politics and Gender, State Politics, Policy
Quarterly, and Publius.
Christopher Chapp is Assistant Professor of Political Science at St. Olaf
College. He is author of Religious Rhetoric and American Politics: The
Endurance of Civil Religion in Electoral Campaigns, published by Cornell
University Press.
Dante Chinni is a journalist who is the director of the American Communities Project at American University and author of the book Our
Patchwork Nation (Gotham, 2011). He writes the weekly Politics Counts
column for the Wall Street Journal and has written for publications
ranging from the Atlantic Monthly to The Economist.
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Daniel J. Daly is Associate Professor and Chair of Theology at Saint
Anselm College, in Manchester, NH. His recent publications include:
“Unreasonable Means: Proposing a New Category for Catholic End of
Life Ethics,” Christian Bioethics (2013); “The Relationship of Virtues and
Norms in the Summa theologiae,” The Heythrop Journal (2011); and
“Structures of Virtue and Vice,” New Blackfriars (2011).
Terri Susan Fine, PhD, is a professor of political science, Associate Director of the Lou Frey Institute and Content Specialist for the Florida
Joint Center for Citizenship all at the University of Central Florida.
Her primary research and teaching interests focus on American political participation and political communication including public opinion,
voting and elections, voting rights, and voting systems. Her publications
have appeared in Polity, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Women and Politics,
the Journal of Policy Practice, Perspectives on Political Science, the Journal
of International Women’s Studies, E-journal of Public Affairs, and others.
An article she published in Perspectives on Political Science was named one
of the US Department of State’s best articles on US elections in 2005.
Christopher J. Galdieri is Assistant Professor of politics at Saint Anselm
College in Manchester, New Hampshire. He received his undergraduate
degree from Georgetown University and his doctorate from the University
of Minnesota. Before coming to Saint Anselm, he taught for two years
at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Past research has appeared
in Politics and Policy, Extrapolation, and the Columbia Journalism Review,
and he regularly provides analysis and commentary to a wide range of
news outlets. His interests include the relationship between political elites
and the mass public and presidential nominating politics.
Mark J. O’Gorman is Associate Professor of political science at Maryville
College in east Tennessee. He teaches public policy, law and environmental politics, US government and US campaigns and elections in
the college’s Social Sciences Division. He has coordinated the college’s
environmental studies major for 15 years. Mark has published works in
US and European journals on politics and environmental sustainability,
including the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. Mark
led the college’s renewable energy project team that helped Maryville College earn a 2013 Renewable Energy Innovator of the Year award by the
Tennessee Valley Authority.
R. Ward Holder is professor of theology at Saint Anselm College. A graduate of Cornell College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he did his
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doctoral work at Boston College. Among other works, he has authored
John Calvin and the Grounding of Interpretation: Calvin’s First Commentaries, Brill, 2006; and has edited A Companion to Paul in the Reformation,
Brill, 2009. Recently he has co-authored with Peter B. Josephson The
Irony of Barack Obama: Barack Obama, Reinhold Niebuhr, and the Problem
of Christian Statecraft. His work has been published in Christian Century,
Society, Church History, and Perspectives on Politics.
Dr. T. Lucas Hollar is Assistant Professor of Public Health within
the Master of Public Health Program at Nova Southeastern University’s
(NSU) College of Osteopathic Medicine, and he is a co-principle investigator for evaluation of Broward Regional Health Planning Council’s
Community Transformation Grant, “Transforming Our Community’s
Health” (TOUCH), made possible with funding through the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Hollar’s teaching responsibilities are
within the areas of public health program planning and evaluation, organization behavior and leadership, and public health policy. His current
research focuses on organizational change and development for patientcentered medical homes, childhood obesity, and public health theory.
Based on this research, Dr. Hollar is a co-author on manuscripts published
in the American Journal of Public Health, the Journal of Health Care for the
Poor and Underserved, and the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
Before joining the faculty at NSU, Dr. Hollar had severed as Assistant Professor of Government at Stephen F. Austin State University and Adjunct
Professor of Public Administration at Florida Atlantic University. In addition to his teaching and research, Dr. Hollar recently became an alumnus
of the American Osteopathic Association’s Health Policy Fellowship Class
of 2011–12.
Peter Josephson is Associate Professor of Politics at Saint Anselm College,
where he also holds the Richard L. Bready Chair in Ethics, Economics,
and the Common Good. He teaches in the Politics, Humanities, and
Philosophy departments. From 2005 to 2008 he served as the Academic
Advisor to the New Hampshire Institute of Politics. From 2005 to 2010
he co-chaired Saint Anselm’s programs for Learning Liberty and Education in Liberty and the Liberal Arts. He served as Program Director of the
Civic Leadership Academy at the NHIOP from 2008 to 2011. Currently
he serves on the board of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy. He
received his BA in Russian and Soviet Studies from Oberlin College, his
MA from the University of New Hampshire, and holds a PhD in Political
Science from Boston College, where he was a recipient of the Boston College Excellence in Teaching Award. His scholarly work has been supported
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by grants and fellowships from the Earhart Foundation and the Lynde
and Harry Bradley Foundation. Josephson is the author of The Great Art
of Government: Locke’s Use of Consent, co-author with R. Ward Holder of
The Irony of Barack Obama: Reinhold Niebuhr, Barack Obama, and the
Problem of Christian Statecraft, as well as works on politics and popular
culture, and the writings of Henry Kissinger. His current research explores
the relation between philosophy and classical liberal politics.
Jennifer C. Lucas is Associate Professor of Politics at Saint Anselm
College. She received a MA and PhD from the University of Maryland—
College Park. Her research interests include congressional politics and
women and politics, and her research has appeared in American Politics
Research and Social Science Quarterly.
Bryan W. Marshall is professor and Assistant Chair of the Department
of Political Science at Miami University. Bryan received his PhD while
a fellow with the Political Institutions and Public Choice (PIPC) program at Michigan State University. His teaching and research focuses
in the areas of Congress, congressional-executive relations, and quantitative methods. Marshall’s recent articles appear in Social Science Quarterly,
Legislative Studies Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Journal of Theoretical Politics, American Politics Research, and Conflict Management and
Peace Science. His most recent book, Decision Making on the Modern
Supreme Court (Cambridge University Press 2011), analyzes major theories of judicial decision making and offers a theory emphasizing how the
president and Congress affect the Court as well as legal precedent, issues,
and judicial preferences. In addition, Bryan served as APSA’s Steiger Congressional Fellow (2008–09) working for the House Majority Whip, the
Honorable Jim Clyburn.
Kevin Parsneau is Associate Professor in the Department of Government
at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he teaches US politics,
the presidency, and public administration. He received his doctorate
from the University of Minnesota and his undergraduate degree from the
University of Montana. His past research has appeared in American Politics Research and Politics and Policy. He studies the presidency, executive
branch nominations and executive branch politics, with attention to how
political elites connect presidents to policy and the public.
Luke Perry is the Chair of the Department of Government and
Politics and Associate Professor of Government at Utica College in
New York. Perry earned a PhD in Political Science from the University
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of Massachusetts at Amherst and worked previously as Assistant Professor of Political Science at Southern Utah University from 2008 to
2011. In 2012 Perry served as a Fulbright Scholar at Vilnius University
in Lithuania. Perry’s research focuses on the presidency and politics and
religion. His recent books include Mormons in American Politics; From
Persecution to Power (Praeger, 2012) and Mitt Romney, Mormonism, and
the 2012 Election (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2014).
Richard J. Powell is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute for Leadership and Democracy at the University of
Maine. He is the author or editor of Changing Members: The Maine Legislature in the Era of Term Limits (with Matthew Moen and Kenneth
Palmer) and Legislating Without Experience: Case Studies in State Legislative
Term Limits (with Rick Farmer, Christopher Mooney, and John Green),
as well as numerous academic journal articles and book chapters on the
US Presidency, Congress, state politics, elections, and public opinion.
Marc J. O’Reilly is Associate Professor of Political Science at Heidelberg
University in Tiffin, OH. He writes on US foreign policy, the Middle
East, and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of Unexceptional:
America’s Empire in the Persian Gulf, 1941–2007 (Lanham, MD:
Lexington Books, 2008). He is the author or co-author of several articles and chapters and is co-authoring a textbook on the Middle East in
International Politics that will appear in 2014.
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