James Ceaser, who spends quite a bit of time thinking about ideology and political parties, has a number of interesting observations on the 2008 election. He notes that the candidates of each party may be tied to a tired ideology, but is doing nothing to alter it to the circumstances of today.
Since Ronald Reagan ran for the presidency 28 years ago, all of the presidential elections have been fought within the same ideological framework. Candidates have come and gone, party fortunes have risen and fallen, and the world order has undergone a complete transformation; but the basic structure of the debate between liberalism and conservatism has remained unchanged. During the past two elections, the two camps have dug in, solidifying and consolidating their positions. The result has been an era of strong polarization accompanied by the political equivalent of trench warfare.
Electoral analysts from across the political spectrum have begun to argue that this structure is ready to crumble–a prognosis that seems about half right. There is now strong evidence that significant segments of the electorate are no longer much concerned with the old liberal-conservative divide. In Michael Barone’s words, “we have entered a period of open-field politics” in which voters are moving around and “there are no familiar landmarks.” This diagnosis applies especially to younger and newer voters, for whom Ronald Reagan is a distant figure from another age. The change is sufficiently large that most campaign strategists, Karl Rove among them, have counseled abandoning the 2004 battle plan of appealing chiefly to a committed base, and adopting instead a strategy that tries to appeal to those at the margin who are less tightly moored. Nonetheless, it is not true that the ideological edifice inherited from the Reagan era is in immediate danger of collapse. It remains intact–no alternative ideological way of thinking having yet been offered as a viable replacement.
From this perspective, the most noteworthy aspect of the current campaign is surely something that has not taken place. Neither party will select a candidate who has campaigned on the basis of a call to alter or reconfigure the party’s ideological position…
The absence of new thematic thinking certainly does not mean that ideological controversy will disappear. Just the opposite may be true. In the general election, each party’s candidate will be pushed by the opposition to defend a version of the existing party philosophy, perhaps even more faithfully for not having a philosophical platform of his (or her) own. Much time, of course, still remains before the fall campaign to develop new themes, but leopards do not easily change their spots, and dramatic changes in the contenders’ ideological thinking are unlikely at this point.
If a new turn in thinking is not what the candidates bring to the table, there is something else they do offer: themselves. All three of the candidates stand out dramatically in relation to their party, especially as non-incumbents. (Elections involving a sitting president inevitably have a strong emphasis on him personally, if only because the opposition may focus obsessively, as in 1996 and 2004, on what it cannot abide in his mannerisms and character.) What experts dryly call the “personal factor,” meaning the voters’ evaluation of the candidates’ individual attributes and style, seems certain to play a much larger role than usual in the upcoming election. The choice of the person, as Alexander Hamilton envisaged, will loom large.
Let’s add Michael Barone to the mix and see what we get: “Most people’s views of the world are shaped by the times in which they came of age. That’s why we speak of a baby boom generation or a Generation X. But some people miss out on the formative experiences of most of their peers. That’s the case, I think, with the Republicans’ certain nominee and the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. John McCain missed the 1960s. Barack Obama missed the 1980s.”
Interestingly, America’s problems today are somewhat like the needs of the 60’s and the 80’s. We believe that there is a need for a new American optimism about the future, but the prerequisite for that is a renewed sense that Americans can be and are in control of more of their nation’s destiny. Our unnecessary overdependence on foreign oil is one issue that is not seriously confronted by the political establishment. As well, Americans want to shop at Wal-Mart, where almost everything comes from China, but they justifiably worry that their job may go overseas. Neither of these issues is solved by a deranged populism, but both of them should be confronted.
Moreover, the mission (never coherently stated nor put to a vote) that has formed “the heart of the Bush presidency” — reforming the alien politico-religious structure of far off foreign lands — has surely not contributed to a sense that America is in very good control of its destiny.
Finally, the US would appear to be in a somewhat different position than it was in the last century. When FDR was elected, Americans numbered 122 million and were over 6% of the planet’s relatively tiny population. Now the population of this crowded world is almost 7 billion, and the relative US share of its population has fallen by almost a third to the 4% range. Americans are awash in a sea of other humans, and, if they are not going to run this big world, they at least want to control what goes on within their own borders. From control of the country’s borders, to better control of economic sovereignty, there are data that show that a majority of Americans want sensible measures that enhance an American sense of better control of the country’s destiny. We’ll have to see who, if any of the above, can rise to these challenges.
UPDATE
We’d support the Victor Davis Hanson 10 Point Platform as an excellent approach for the next administration. (HT: GS)
