ANTI-INCUMBENCY HUMBUG
The media early on latched on to the anti-incumbency theme to explain voter discontent. By mid-August that theme had morphed into "inexperience" to explain what voters were looking for in this year's primary elections for Congress. And on August 13 The New York Times suggested anti-pork barrel sentiment may have contributed to some members of the powerful Appropriation Committees in the House and Senate losing their races. Bringing home the bacon wasn't enough to win and may have worked against them. But it should be noted that the Times article offered an anti-pork barrel vote as only one of several possible explanations for those defeats.
In the early days of the primary election season, anti-incumbency sentiment was spotlighted by both the electronic and print media to explain voting results, sometimes stretched to be an anti-Washington vote. One Associated Press (AP) reporter held to the anti-incumbency theme as late as early August to explain the Michigan primary results. In the lead in to the story the reporter said, "Incumbents beware. Another lawmaker just bit the dust." In that election, Representative Carolyn Kilpatrick lost her bid for an 8th term to the U.S. House of Representatives. But a more likely explanation was that Kilpatrick was the mother of the ousted and jailed Detroit Mayor who got himself involved in a number of highly publicized scandals, including, of course, sex. The sins of the son were visited upon the mother.
To further support the anti-incumbency theme the AP reporter cited the election losses of some other incumbents,. including Representatives Alan Mollohan (D.-W. Va.) and Parker Griffith (R.-Ala.), and Senators Arlen Spector (D.Pa.) and Robert Bennett (R.-Ut.). Not mentioned was the fact that Mollohan was involved in a scandal involving the misuse of hundreds of millions in federal funds with substantial amounts going to benefit family and friends. Griffith and Spector were both party switchers, in opposite directions, and thus were seen as just "opportunists" and not trusted by voters in their new party home. And Senator Bennett was not ousted by the voters but by the state GOP convention which picks its candidates and such gatherings are customarily dominated by party activists who, in this case, thought Bennett was too moderate. Bennett, a conservative himself, was simply outflanked by those activists farther to the right.
But lost in all of the cause-and-effect analyses is the fact that the next Congress will continue to be dominated by long-term incumbents with lots of experience in Washington and who will still be looking for ways to send pork back home, perhaps with more finesse. That is, regardless of how much voter discontent may be abroad in the land, the pattern has long been and will continue to be that a great majority of House and Senate members, Republicans and Democrats, are those whom voters keep sending back election after election. This is particularly true in the House where a large majority of members of both parties come from safe districts where some incumbents are not even challenged in the election. So, regardless of what the polls may show about voter unhappiness with Congress as a whole or media explanations of election results, voters make exceptions for their own Representatives.
The really vulnerable incumbents are those in the House who come from districts normally represented by the other party. This year that means those Democrats who rode to office on the "change" theme coattails of Barack Obama in 2008, ousting Republicans who normally represent those districts. This doesn't mean a conservative will be replacing a liberal. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi discovered on a number of occasions, often a conservative Democrat had replaced a conservative Republican two years ago and these members were difficult to bring into line with the more liberal party majority. The difference this year will be that the Republican winners probably will be even more conservative, reflecting the direction of the party ideology as evidenced by the impact of the Tea Party movement. Or some first-term Democrats who have had to move in a more conservative direction to save their seats.
So all media cause-and-effect analyses aside, even if control of one or both chambers changes, experienced incumbents will continue to dominate Congress and control its power structure, and the access of powerful interest groups will remain undiminished although who has better access may change.
This is not in any way meant to say that the electiion is only a choice between tweedledum and tweedledee incumbents. As said in my previous blog, there are great differences between the parties and what they stand for. While incumbents will continue to be by far the largest share of Congress, a significant shift (5 to 8 percent) in a more Republican direction, even with continued Democratic control, will mean a significant shift in what gets done--or not done.
Term Limits!!
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