When people compare George W. Bush to Herbert Hoover they are usually making the point that they are two of the worst presidents ever. But there may be more similarities than people suspect. When we have a little time to look back, we may see a lot of similarity between the elections of 1928 and the elections of 2004. The main commonality could be that both elections represented both a high point and an end point for Republican dominance.
In 1928, Herbert Hoover was elected as President of the Unites States and the Republican Party gained 32 seats in the House (giving them a 270-165 advantage) and picked up seven seats in the Senate (giving them a 56-40 advantage). In 2004, George W. Bush was re-elected as president and the Republican Party picked up three seats in the House (giving them a 229-205 advantage) and four seats in the Senate (giving them a 55-45 advantage). During the Reagan/Gingrich Revolution, the Republicans’ high point in the House was 230 (after the 1994 elections). They lost seats in 1996 and 1998, broke even in 2000, and then rebuilt their advantage in the post-9/11 elections of 2002 and 2004. Their high point in the Senate came after the 1996 election when they reached a 56 seat advantage (net gain of two seats) despite Bill Clinton’s re-election. Thus, after the 2004 election the Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress by just one seat less than their Reagan/Gingrich highs. It was truly the pinnacle of their power, much as the 1928 election spelled the peak of power for a prior generation of Republicans.
The stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression were the immediate causes of the demise of the prior period of Republican dominance. In 2005 it was a combination of factors, including the Valerie Plame and Jack Abramoff cases, the collapse of the president’s Social Security Reform, the Terri Schiavo case, the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, and the increasingly disastrous news from Iraq. Combined, these events crippled the Republicans’ reputation on all fronts: ethics, competence, national security, and honesty. The midterms of 1930 and 2006 marked the first significant reverses for their respective Republican ruling coalitions.
In 1930 the Democrats netted eight Senate seats, marking the first of four consecutive elections during the Great Depression where the Democrats would gain, cumulatively, thirty-seven seats in the upper chamber. In the House, the Democrats netted fifty-two seats and after some additional special elections, they took control of the lower chamber. This is roughly comparable to what happened in 2006, where the Democrats won six seats in the Senate and thirty seats in the House, retaking both chambers. If the House gains in 2006 had not been muted by the effects of gerrymandered districts, they would have been every bit as large and resounding as the victories in 1930.
The interesting thing is what happened in 1932, by which time it had become apparent that Hoover’s Republicans had no answer to the hardships of the Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt took back the White House for the Democrats after twelve years on the outside, and the Democrats had huge wins in both the House (101 seats) and the Senate (an astounding 12 seats). The gains in the Senate flipped control of the chamber and gave the Democrats a 59 vote caucus. The House margin was 318-117. This is the kind of election the Democrats could be looking at in 2008, if all our ducks line up in a row. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration…we have no way of winning anywhere near 101 seats in the House…but twelve seats in the Senate is not out of reach, we’ll almost certainly take back the White House, and another 30-50 seats in the House are not out of the question.
This is certainly how former Bush speechwriter David Frum (subscription) sees things moving.
The conservative ascendancy in American politics is coming to an end…
In primaries and caucuses, Democratic contests have drawn more voters than Republican ones. An early estimate after Super Tuesday suggests that, thus far, 11m Americans have cast ballots for Republican candidates, while more than 15m have voted for Democratic ones. Democrats outpolled Republicans by 20 per cent even in the state of South Carolina, maybe the most conservative in the nation…
In polls, Americans express preference for Democrats over Republicans on almost every issue surveyed, including such traditional Republican advantages as taxes, ethics and competence.
In 2002, equal numbers of Americans identified as Republicans and Democrats. In the six years since, Republican identification has collapsed back to the level recorded before Ronald Reagan. The decline has been steepest among young voters. If they eat right, exercise and wear seatbelts, today’s 20-somethings will be voting against George W. Bush deep into the 2060s. Most ominously, US polls show an ideological sea change: a desire for a more activist government, a loss of interest in the tax question and a shift to the left on most social issues (although not, interestingly, abortion).
As things are going, the Democratic nominee will win a majority of the votes cast (unlike Mr Clinton). They will almost certainly gain an increased majority in Congress (unlike Mr Carter). If the present mood lasts, that nominee will have a green light to move the US in new policy directions (unlike either Mr Clinton or Mr Carter).
The stage has been set for the boldest and most dramatic redirection of US politics since Reagan’s first year in office.
Frum makes another point, and I think it is the essential point about political realignments. Frum makes it in the context of the larger (and much slower) Republican realignment that occurred between Nixon’s 1969 inauguration and the meltdown of 2005.
John Mitchell, Richard Nixon’s attorney-general, predicted in 1970: “This country is going so far right you won’t recognise it.” His prophecy was vindicated…
…For three decades, the right has dominated, with the Republicans winning five of the seven presidential elections since 1980. Conservatives did more than just win elections: even when liberals gained power, they governed on conservative terms.
What were the most important accomplishments of the Clinton presidency? Balancing the budget, welfare reform and the expansion of Nato – not exactly left-of-centre projects. And of Jimmy Carter’s? The deregulation of the airline and natural gas industries.
Neither president set out to accomplish these goals. Indeed, they often resisted them. In the end they had to accept the limits of the possible – just as Republican presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon accepted the limits of the possible in the liberal era from 1930 to 1975.
Neither Mr Clinton nor Mr Carter created a single, major, permanent new national social programme. Mr Clinton failed to bequeath power to his chosen successor; Mr Carter failed even to win a second term.
Of course, Frum has just described the experience of every progressive/Democrat over the last 38 years (just coincidentally, this exactly corresponds to my entire life). Whether we have been in power or out of power, we have not had the initiative on policy since Lyndon Johnson’s presidency succumbed to the violence in Vietnam.
But we’re on the cusp of a new progressive era. I will do another piece soon that looks at the differential turnout in the respective primaries of the Democratic and Republican parties, and how that turnout might cause a tsunami in the House and Senate races. I won’t know all the details until I dig into the data, but I can say with some confidence that if Barack Obama is our nominee we will stand an excellent chance of wiping out several Republican senators that most people consider to be safe. And we’ll also wipe out no small amount of seemingly safe House members, too.
The nomination of Hillary Clinton will probably eliminate any chance to beat those safe senators, although big House gains are still possible because most of the vulnerable House seats are in the Northeast or Upper Midwest. But it will much harder to expand the field of vulnerable House seats with Clinton as the nominee because she has such high negatives, particularly in areas currently held by Republican representatives.
When you are considering which candidate has the better health care plan, or housing plan, or whatever, please remember that a realigning election changes everything. Imagine what FDR could have accomplished with a 1928 Congress. Almost nothing. But with a 1932 Congress he gave us the New Deal. It matters a lot more whether our nominees can bring in a tsunami of new congresspeople than whether they have a slightly better policy paper on education reform. We should dare to think big. And, because almost all of us have no memory of living in a country with a progressive ruling majority, we simply cannot dream big enough. In my opinion, Clintonism, the Democratic Leadership Council, triangulation, or whatever you want to call it, is a philosophy for an era of conservative dominance, and it is wholly inappropriate for the times we are about to enter into. In fact, it may be the only thing that can prevent a new progressive era from arriving at all.
Okay, I’m finished. You can read this in orange if you want to.
you’re on a tear…Insightful your analysis.
This is a great essay. I don’t think that Clinton will be as bad as you think, because I think that it will be obvious to her that the times call for a liberal program and that that is the only way to the Presidential greatness than eluded Bill. But it will also be harder for her to get things enacted, given the hostility of Blue Dogs and Republicans who can make political hay out of opposing her. By contrast, if Obama wins people are going to be more hesitant to cross him, especially if he wins big. It will be harder to paint him as the partisan cutthroat, and that means we should see more Republican straining to find some common ground. (That in itself will be amazing to see, but it’s perfectly possible: the party will be rudderless if Obama wins big.)
This is a point you’ve made before and I think it’s absolutely central:
That got me to change or refine my thoughts on the race. This further point is seems pretty central too:
That’s worth an entry or ten, just exploring the implications of it, and emphasizing it.
thanks, that’s what I’ve been hinting at a lot, but this piece is an attempt to contextualize for people.
there’s the old adage; history never repeats but it mirrors. Reading your post got me thinking that should the economic indicators continue to be awful come October we may mirror 1929 – a financial tsunami in the $trillions: those exploding neutron loans and bank failures
I’ve heard it said that history doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.
I know that Clinton will hurt down ticket races just as much as I know the GOP will do anything to keep her in the race. When I forsee another Clinton presidency, I don’t see Democratic cohesiveness. I see something closer to Bush’s Rubberstamp Congress. People going along not for the party or the country, but because they’re afraid of reprecussions. We already did that twice in the 90s.
Even though I see Obama as only slightly left of Clinton, I think that he’ll be able to give us more liberal positions in government. Just from his background, I see a person who understands that gov’t needs to get a little liberal to get things done. I don’t think he’d hurt downticket races. In fact, I think that more Democrats would have a chance to get elected with him on the ticket.
I honestly don’t think either of them would bring about a more progressive majority, but I think that Obama will be more willing to work with progressives and liberals than Clinton would be.
It is unclear what progressive or liberal means any more, but whatever it means, it is certainly not something that will bring back the spirit of the New Deal. Obama over Clinton is certainly likely to avoid another round of Republican Lite of the Clinton 90s, but that may only be a matter of degree, since both espouse DLC righwardness.
Still, I can’t get over the idea that a Democratic presidential candidate (Hillary) would accuse and even castigate another candidate (Obama) for proposing a single payer universal health care system in the past. What we will get instead is the same old Corporate run for-profit health care system with a variety of subsidary plans to cover the uninsured, whose costs will continue to skyrocket, and which will still entail rationing (insurance company control) to increase corporate profits.
I haven’t been around much because it is campaign season after all 🙂 But, wow! I pop in here and post after post of yours is popping at such a high insightful level.
This is so true:
And of course this:
This is just about the length of my life too. I’ve constantly been frustrated with our inability to move into a new world and build on the successes of the past.
I’ve said this before and I’ve said it again, one of our parties greatest failures over the last quarter century has been our inability or refusal to put Bill Bradley into a national leadership role. He gets it and got it as early as 1988.
thanks. I wish you would abandon all other projects and spend all your time blogging here.
We were discussing Bradley the other day. What’s he up to? haven’t heard anything from or about him during the primaries.
Was stumping for Obama in NJ. Is an advisor with an investment bank, writes books, hosts a radio show.
Thanks.
If a cabinet post were made available for him, what do you think would be the best fit. Don’t know if he’d be interested, of course.
hopefully it won’t look like this. two more fisa amendments were voted on this evening.
the feingold-dodd-aclu allowing the fisa court court to amend surveillance programs if it finds them to be contrary to the requirements of this bill or the Fourth Amendment, and to limit the use of illegally collected information.
defeated 40-56, with Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WI), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Tim Johnson (D-ND), Even Bayh (D-IN), Tom Carper (D-DE), and Mary Landruei (D-LA) joined the nays…roll call
the second feingold amendment that would prevent “reverse targeting”, as Feingold describes it, “a practice by which the government gets around FISA’s court order requirements by wiretapping an individual overseas when it is really interested in a person in the U.S. with whom that supposed foreign target is communicating.” The amendment requires the government to obtain a court order whenever a significant purpose of the surveillance is to acquire the communications of an American in the U.S.
defeated 38-57, also with a large number of Dems crossing over, Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Inouye, Johnson, Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Rockefeller, and Ken Salazar (D-CO) among them. no roll call avail yet.
h/t tpm muckraker
no surprises here.
lTMF’sA
Do these people have constituents calling up saying, “I love the idea of having telecoms spying on me illegally and gosh, if you’re getting kickbacks from them, that’s really, really great! I hated my civil liberties anyway.”
they don’t don’t listen…l’ve called and e/m’d salazar everyday for a week, and have lost track of the number of times since he’s been in office.
he, and l’m sure the others, just don’t give a shit.
if l’m still here when he comes up for re-election 2010, l’m going to work my ass off to defeat him.
lTMF’sA
Salazar cares nothing for us. He has no principles. When we first heard him speak at a small gathering here, spouse said he’ll do nothing but maintain himself in office. We now agree spouse was wrong. Salazar has actively done bad things such as introduce and support Gonzales. We used to get form letters to our letters and FAXes. Now we hear nothing in return.
And when I call her office, I get, “Thank you, we have already noted your position.” GRRRRRR!!!!
A great post. Now if we could just get the Hillary fans to read it and not bitch about it being a sexist rant, somehow. But I hear so many Hillary supporters don’t do much reading anyway. And even if they read it, they don’t think about these things – they feel about them instead. It’s a shame.
I am getting so tired of the narrative “Well, their policy positions are almost identical, so it’s really just a matter of how you feel about their style.” Not so. These people preaching this narrative aren’t looking at the two most important factors when confronted with one of these perfect-storm points in history when you can actually achieve such a large realignment.
Policy specifics don’t really matter much at all before they get elected. If they’re persuasive enough of politicians to bring enough support into the Congress with them, they’ll be able to do whatever they think is best for the country.
By the way, I’m 37. I’ve never been able to see a government work like this either. I’ve only read about it.
Thanks for the history lesson, Boo.
We elders have seen much of our life’s work slip away. It is stunning how much we’ve lost in these conservative years.
a realignment doesn’t look like anything except in retrospect.
i mean, maybe you’re right. i certainly want you to be right. but every time there is a change in parties people start talking about realignment. (remember the almost messianic class of ’94? and the “permanent republican majority” talk of just a couple of years ago?) time passes and it almost always turns out to be more of a minor blip than a real reallignment.
so maybe you’re right. or maybe you’re just telling me what i want to hear. neither of us will have any idea for at least 10 years.
That was GOP-speak. Instead of actually working toward it and strengthening their gov’t roles, they just said it, as if saying it was enough to make it happen. The American public may be easily duped, but they do want to see results in the end. The GOP couldn’t deliver results. Unless daily scandals and lies were the results they wanted to deliver.
Katrina, above all else, killed them. They may have been able to ride out the rest, but the message of Katrina was crystal-clear: “We don’t give a rodent’s sphincter about you!” Apparently, folk finally got the message.
I hope you don’t mind but I buzzed you. This was a great bed-time story…much better than waterboarding! http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=39891
I don’t mind at all.
You left out one pertinent thing:
What was the media environment like in 1928-1930?
I can’t help thinking about the possibility that The Village would impede even a Rooseveltesque realigning agenda, even with a Rooseveltesque mandate.
Perhaps the media too would get swept away in the storm. I suppose it is possible, since Obama enjoys media darlinghood (at least for the time being).
On the other hand, I can’t imagine that Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan, David Broder, David Brooks, Bill Kristol, etc etc would cheerlead for all this.
Would they and their ilk have enough influence to put the brakes on?
Or would people finally stop listening to them?
The media was not especially progressive in 1929 either. It was the same media that, just a decade earlier, had screamed for the government to lock away anyone who criticized WWI, and had acted as a catalyst for the flu pandemic by urging citizens to rally for military parades.
The media has been a corporate shill throughout most of US history.
still doing my homework on this, BooMan. i like this, possible shift in the narrative? this caught my eye:
Walter Dean Burnham
definitions:
Critical realignment: an abrupt coalitional change among the mass-based electorate.
Secular realignment: a gradual change in voter coalitions.
forgive me for nutshelling you: realigning election changes everything – tsunami of new congresspeople – dare to think big – appropriate for the times.
ok, “dare to think big” means recognizing that an abrupt shift is possible, right? someone stating that the conservative ascendancy in American politics is coming to an end is a significant statement. but just because one thing ends doesn’t mean critical realignment occurs automatically. Burnham lists four Criticial Realignment Phases:
if these phases are appropriate, what phase do you think the Democratic Party is in currently?
Oh jeez, great question. I’ll have to think about it.
Here’s what I think without thinking about it.
Based on my research into the senate and house races, and adding in the immense enthusiasm in the primaries and the huge advantage in the youth vote, it is pretty clear to me that the Republicans are about to be repudiated with extreme prejudice.
The problem that I see is systemic to the left as a whole across the whole spectrum. Dems have spent the last 14 years working on policy on the assumption that they require some kind of bipartisan support (along with this, with the assumption that progressive ideas are unpopular and dangerous for incumbents).
So, we are almost totally unprepared to deal with a realignment on ‘Day One’. But I also think we can adjust quite quickly.
If you look at the FISA votes today, you’ll notice that ALL the freshman voted correctly, but that the Dems elected between 2000-2004 did not. We have already succeeded in the last election cycle in electing better Democrats. The next batch will be good too, although if we really hit paydirt it will involve some DINOS like Tony Raimando of Nebraska and Ronnie Musgrove of Mississippi. That’s okay, provided we’re dealing with a 60-plus caucus.
I’d say neither party is ready for a realignment, and I don’t think we’ve seen a party fail for the same reasons that Republicans have failed before. People are complacent enough to tolerate bad governance, but not on this level. Above all, they want competence, but they will increasingly be looking for relief on education and medical care as costs soar and the economy slows. There isn’t a perfect precedent for this, but at least on cultural issues, we’re going to prevail in the near future and consolidate a new generation of progressive voters.
if you think we’re almost totally unprepared to deal with a realignment on ‘Day One’ (interesting choice of words)… what makes you think we can adjust quite quickly?
i’m beginning to think that understanding what “phase” we’re in now helps prepare us for what happens after the election.
Well, health care is a good example. All you need to do is go read the health care bloggers to know that their culture is poisoned by operating in a conservative dominated environment. So all their policy proposals are oatmeal instead of belgian waffles, whip cream, and strawberries. That’s what I mean by not being ready on Day One.
It takes time for people to realize that they are no longer shackled to a Republican filibuster and can do whatever they want. Related to that is actually changing what you want in the first place, which will come, but not immediately.
belgian waffles, whip cream, and strawberries
damn. now i’m hungry.
a lifetime on the political sidelines will do that to you.
i ♥ oatmeal to belgian waffles, whip cream, and strawberries realignment.
Just give me some red meat baby!
the cornucopia realignment!
is it “We should dare to think big” or that we should dare to think “differently?”
Excellent!
I was having this argument with a friend the other day. She likes Clinton’s health care plan better than Barack’s and I said, think of it this way — would you rather have Clinton trying to pass her health care plan as is against an obstructionist Republican opposition or would you rather see Obama try his way after he blows everyone away in the general election?
Great stuff…I’ll use these arguments a lot over the next month or two. Thanks!
Gotta agree with everyone else, you’ve been firing on all cylinders the past few weeks. Great work.
The Dems may learn quickly to govern within this new hypothetical realignment . . . but I have my serious doubts. I think it is extremely unlikely for the Dems to pull of any real liberal policy victories. I see a small realignment in 2008 based on anti-conservative, anti-Republican sentiment but I see the Dem party screwing it up and the Republicans successfully mounting a minority counter-attack in 2010 or 2012.
The Dems have simply not prepared their caucus or the people for a liberal policy agenda. Since the Democrats’ power has been waning the last 3 decades the Democrats only “winning” strategy has been triangulation or running away from the liberal policy you impliedly advocate. That’s exactly what the current Congress is doing. Today they stand as the most unpopular Congress in history precisely because they will not govern from the left (in fact, they appear to be governing from the right–the GOP couldn’t handpick a more suppliant Congress). The only reason the Dems control anything right now is that they look good compared to the hated GOP and Bush.
I know I know. The Dem Congress has an excuse–there is no filibuster-proof majority in the Senate right now and the President can veto bills. But how is it possible that the Dems aren’t landing huge blows to the GOP right now? Why not force the dipstick in chief to veto popular bills? Why not use the power of Congress to control the agenda and permanently tar the Republican brand? If the Dems can’t even stand up for the liberal brand and knock the Republicans silly in this environment then I really don’t see how being in the majority changes things. In fact, all signs point to further compromise to “get things done” rather than pushing a liberal agenda. There will always be a few conservative Dems to side with the GOP on big issues and the GOP will always stick together on the big issues.
The Republicans get it. They understand this is a war and not a battle. They stick to their principles in good and bad times. Look at what the conservative base is doing to McCain right now. They are forcing him to the right and if he loses they are preparing for the minority and fighting for their conservative convictions. Preparing their caucus and the American people for conservative policies is more important to them than winning one election. I really do admire their ability to move the country to their positions over the long term. Unfortunately, the Dems have never proven their mettle and instead we get two right-leaning presidential candidates that talk about how they will work with Republicans to get things done. They should be sticking a knife in the Republicans unless they come around. And we all know the Republicans would rather lose elections than vote for liberal policies so let’s just stick the knife in already. Please? I see very few Dems that can do that and a lot of GOPers that are capable of delivering the fatal blow.
Sorry Boo. I wish you were right but we really need a more powerful and numerous liberal caucus that actually has the courage of its convictions before there is realignment.