That's the header of my New York Times column today, here are some excerpts, starting with the health care issue:
The point here is not to belittle or praise the president, but to point out that his hands are tied. The biggest leftward move in American economic policy occurred during the Roosevelt and Truman years, when the Democrats had the upper hand for five consecutive presidential terms. Because of depression and war, people were looking for real change. Competitive forces in politics were relatively weak, and the Democrats had the chance to make their policies stick.
The Supreme Court‘s recent ruling on campaign spending also comes into clearer focus through the median voter theorem. The court ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. Critics fear that the political influence of corporations will grow, but some academic specialists in campaign finance aren’t so sure.
For all the anecdotal evidence, it’s hard to show statistically that money has a large and systematic influence on political outcomes. That is partly because politicians cannot stray too far from public opinion. (In part, it is also because interest groups get their way on many issues by supplying an understaffed Congress with ideas and intellectual resources, not by running ads or making donations.) It is quite possible that the court’s decision won’t affect election results very much.
Here are the concluding two paragraphs:
The median voter theorem doesn’t predict that the legacy of the Obama administration will be a wash. But it does imply that we might find the most important achievements in areas that don’t always linger on the front page. For instance, the president’s ideas on education, which involve accountability and charter schools and pay for performance, may please the American public and thus make their way into policy. And because education transforms the knowledge and interests of the median voter for generations to come, such acceptance could make for a lot of other improvements.
If you’re looking for change to believe in, and change that will last, the odds are best when political competition is pushing the world in your direction.
Jacob Weisberg has a not unrelated column. And, for another perspective, here are the comments over at Mark Thoma's blog. A few further points:
1. "How tough Obama is" matters less than is usually portrayed. That is the fallacy of anthromorphizing the outcome of political battles. Obsessing over either positive or negative evaluations of key actors probably interferes with one's abilities to understand underlying structural forces.
2. Even the Supreme Court usually tracks voter sentiment reasonably well.
3. On the health care issue, I don't think the electoral calculations of the Democrats are over.
Tyler, thanks God that (1) his hands are tied, and (2) we are ambivalent (this relates to JW’s column). Tying the hands of government is the essence of constitutional democracy. Acknowledging our personal ambivalence is the essence of being human.
For all the anecdotal evidence, it’s hard to show statistically that money has a large and systematic influence on political outcomes. That is partly because politicians cannot stray too far from public opinion. (In part, it is also because interest groups get their way on many issues by supplying an understaffed Congress with ideas and intellectual resources, not by running ads or making donations.)
You are dead on.
On the health care issue, I don’t think the electoral calculations of the Democrats are over.
The Dems have been “calculating electorally” about health care for more than 75 years, and those calculations are not going to stop anytime soon.
Tying the hands of government is the essence of constitutional democracy. Acknowledging our personal ambivalence is the essence of being human.
Well and succinctly put.
You should remember that there never really 60 Democrats. Lieberman was almost McCain’s running mate. The blue dogs are almost their own party.
Tyler- You should apply this analysis to the party out of power. It certainly does not look as though the median voter theorem applies at all. I think COIN theory works better. Per Galula, the insurgent is judged by his words, while the government )counterinsurgent) is judged by his actions.
Steve
Over in Thoma’s comment section, they don’t seem to like you very much.
Clearly, the American people are stupid because they do not agree with me. I mean, there’s no possible way that the policy I propose might be flawed, so it must be the problem with the American people for not recognizing why my policy is correct.
The main problem is that the United States of America is a democracy and let these stupid people vote stupidly. What we need to do is to abolish democracy, and only let me vote.
Since Reagan promised we could have it all without paying for it taxes or government enforcing an honest market, the median voter always votes for the candidate promising a free lunch, unless the current free lunch party in power has failed to deliver the free lunch the median voter wants.
Obama ran on paying for government, but not paying for it by making the present government spending and taxes match while locking the economy into the prior economic policy prescription of sluggish growth by promoting consumption and punishing real capital formation.
But the religious dogma calling for tax cuts to stimulate the economy, pursued like the ritual of sacrificing virgins as the wells go dry from taking more and more water from them, has forced Obama to the free lunch median. The median voter will never listen to fact and reason when it comes to dogma. The earth was created in six days six thousand years ago, man is not an evolved animal, and tax cuts always create jobs and economic growth. Clearly the bad economy since 2001 was caused by all the liberal tax hikes passed by the tax and spend liberals.
Sarah Palin represents the middle, and she is telling the truth when she says God gave us the right to tax cuts and free lunches.
And the median voter knows the US has the best and cheapest health care system because Sarah Palin says so, and that their neighbor is the one who is driving up costs by visiting the doctor every other day because they are socialists. The median voter will never accept that by providing health coverage to every sing person will be cheaper in the long run because everyone will agree to shared sacrifice.
But the median voter doesn’t want shared sacrifice, but instead the free lunch of the other guy doing all the sacrifice. Reagan convinced America that by blaming the welfare queen, that will balance budget, save social security and medicare while cutting taxes.
538 has some data that median voter theorem has extremely limited explaining power when it comes to American politics.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/limited-influence-of-median-voter.html
mulp,
I’d bet a lot of the people who want tax cuts also want spending cuts, except maybe for wars that they assume are not permanent spending programs.
I’m always tripped out by the people who say we have to raise taxes because cutting spending is impossible.
mulp, it’s the Dems and EVERY “gov’t will solve the problem” promise maker who are offering the big lie of a Free Lunch.
Reagan & Palin and all small-gov’t folk don’t say we can have it all, they say we don’t need so much gov’t.
They’re right.
One factor that hasn’t received enough attention is the tradeoff between legislative goals and the size of the potential coalition. Obama had 60 votes in the Senate all right, but he decided to go for bills that had almost no chance of picking off Republican votes. That dramatically reduces the number of winning coalitions.
With 60 votes needed to pass legislation and 60 potential votes, there is only 1 winning coalition.
With 61 potential votes, there are 61.
With 62 potential votes, there are 1891.
With 63 potential votes, there are 39,000.
With 64 potential votes, there are 635,000.
With 65 potential votes, there are 8.25 million!
Even if you would greatly prefer the more leftist bill that the 60 vote coalition would write, it’s madness to write off every other potential winning coalition. You’re just setting yourself up for a Cornhusker Kickback when it comes down to crunch time.
The median voter is completely irrelevant, only the 41st percentile matters.
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