Will the Foley scandal costs the Republicans votes, as is often suggested? In my view, not so much. When foreign policy, terrorism, and social issues are the questions of the day, the Republicans tend to do well. It doesn’t matter so much if the Republicans have botched those very issues, provided those issues make the headlines. Those are the issues which make the Republicans seen important. Voters punish Republicans for bad governing "in the polls" but not always "in the booth."
The North Korean crisis helps the Republicans. Even the botched war in Iraq helps the Republicans. No matter how badly the Republicans do, people (rightly or wrongly) trust the Democrats with national security even less. Along related lines, the Republicans will never get much credit for the rather high levels of discretionary spending pushed by the Bush Administration. Even bringing up such spending gets voters in a "Democrat frame of mind."
The Democrats have their best chance when voters are focused on the economy. It is neuroeconomics at work; the very topic activates the part of the brain that leads people to vote on way or the other.
It was safe to vote for Clinton once the Cold War ended. More generally, Republican competence in foreign affairs is the greatest friend the Democrats have right now.
Think about it.
You may be right. FDR was elected four times, and most of his policies made the Great Depression worse. Government failure does not necessarily lead to political failure.
If you’re argument is right, and if the political parties recognize it, then a rational voter should presumably do exactly the opposite. The Republicans have an incentive to screw up foreign policy, and the Democrats have an incentive to screw up the economy. So if you’re concerned about foreign policy, you should vote Democratic, and if you’re concerned about the economy, you should vote Republican.
The lack of trust in Democrats on national security issues started with Korea and then Viet Nam. They were not only blamed for the loss in Viet Nam, but for starting both wars. It was frquently pointed out that war was much more likely when a Democrat was President. Republicans were thought as the party that prevented wars, or stopped them. Iraq tends to undermine that belief.
Parties don’t start wars, individuals do. The current two party system is a disaster no doubt, but no less than the voters that choose a party rather than a candidate. Bush, Rove, and especially Wolfowitz had agendas. Finish what GHWB started.
An extreme examle of this effect is Winston Churchill, who was unceremoniously tossed out after WWII.
The parties win when the issues on the mind of voters are the issues where the party is
considered to be strong. This consideration is the results of many factors, but is far
more rational than Tyler’s post suggests. Why? Because huge number of decisions affecting
the implementation of a policy are carried out by political appointees. If a party is
known for strength on issue X, then the people hired by the elected officials will tend to
be strong on X.
This issues can and do change. Republicans did not sieze the foreign policy issue, the
Dems abandonded it over the course of three decades (and seem to be doing little to
reclaim it.) OTOH, the part of Lincoln coasted on civil rights for decades, only to start
pushing again in the 50′s and 60′s. LBJ then led the D’s in one of the greatest about-
faces in history.
No matter what an R does on civil rights today, if that’s the subject, the D’s win. The
only way to change a situation like this is to either leap-frog or spend a lot of energy
to convince the electorate that your position is superior.
Coke would kill for that kind of branding.
you may think foley doesn’t matter much, but tradesports says you’re wrong (and i trust the markets, though there’s still time for them to shift again).
A similar dynamic is at work on education policy, which is generally run by the left in the USA. Perversely, the worse the education system fails kids, the more voters feel they need Democrats in charge of the schools. Dems have mindshare on “cares about kids and education” — even if the policies they espouse (education as a govt jobs program for teachers) are the cause of the problem.
A counter-example to this is the environment. By practically every known measure — air quality, water quality, forests, etc, etc — the environment has been improving. Yet demand for Dem policies remain high. I chalk this up largely to scientific ignorance and superstitious thinking among Americans. People are genuinely afraid of ‘chemicals’ and want fewer parts per billion, regardless of any actual health risk. Fears of contamination are, I think, hard-wired into human nature and fairly impervious to arguments based on actual evidence.
World’s a funny place.
I agree with the theory, but I am less pessimistic about the consequences. Yes, we vote Republican when national security concerns take center stage. Yes, Republicans as a group have an incentive to keep foreign affairs in the spotlight by bungling national security policy. But this is not true of Republicans individually. While we may not defect to a Democrat when Republican incumbents botch the war in Iraq, we will consider a different Republican. Poorly executed foreign policy creates an opening for other Republicans offering a fix. The incentive for Republican candidates individually, then, is to live up to their party’s image. Likewise with Democrats and the economic policy.
I have yet to read any critic of the “botched war in Iraq” offer a realistic alternative to Bush’s strategy and Rummy’s low force tactics which would result in fewer US deaths.
I flatly do not believe that “more troops”, with more targets, accidents, and mistakes, would have meant fewer US deaths.
It’s intellectually dubious, if not dishonest, to call something botched with no standard of how it could have been done correctly.
Perhaps I missed it? (I doubt that any unbotched scenario has been written here, but I’m not a total regular.)
Under-reported? Hardly – it was the front page of one of the Bay Area newspapers today.
Actual death warrants? Hardly: “But he said the number of deaths in the families interviewed — 547 in the post-invasion period versus 82 in a similar period before the invasion — was too few to extrapolate up to more than 600,000 deaths across the country.”
Liberty Dad:
I’m puzzled what word you would consider reasonable if “botched” doesn’t apply here.
The low troop numbers were proven reasonable for the “major combat operations” (as Bush called them on “mission accomplished” day). That was controversial w/in the military and Rumsfeld was proven correct. Fast and light indeed works against comic-opera class armies.
The real questions here are:
a. was this war “winnable” on any basis whatever, given the geopolitical context?
b. could Iraq have been stabilized better had different decisions been made?
My suspicion (and that of most experts aside from the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz wing of the administration) is that the answer to a) is NO.
Not disbanding the Iraqi army might have been one way to ensure greater stability (use Saddam’s levers of control while gradually filtering out the worst elements ) and hence fewer casualties. Providing adequate body armor or heavier humvee armor might have reduced casualties.
More troops in the early post-war period could have helped a lot by creating a stronger “presence” (more cops on the beat). But given my view of the inherent unfeasibility of the Iraq project, I wouldn’t work too hard to convince you more troops would have been decisive.
That’s what I could come up with in 5 minutes. It really isn’t hard.
It is rumored that the James Baker commision will recommend (safely after 11/7) redeployment to bases outside population centers. When that is implemented, we will have achieved the original aim: permanent US presence near Iraq’s major oil reserves. Perhaps a defensible objective from some angles, but the path to it was pretty damaging to US soft power (to say nothing of many thousands of innocent Iraqi by-standers).
Look-if a blog is going to be posted on the theory of elections, why don’t we leave party choices out of it?
Why don’t we just focus on the fact that upcoming elections for districts are coming up soon and that THAT is our priority.
Has anyone not learned yet that it is not proper to discuss party with others?
Aside from that, before you know it, Presidential elections will be coming up soon.
Keep your opinions to yourself and focus on the big issues that are laid out in front of you.
You have a complaint about something? THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
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