Groping Pundits Promote Divided-Government Theory
LIKE a bad virus, the Theory of Divided Government has gripped a whole flock of radio commentators and armchair political analysts. Before Tuesday's elections, media prognosticators had no theory. In fact, many were going back and forth on whether the Republicans would lose the Senate, the House, both or neither, and defending each scenario as if each were inevitable. This is what they are paid to do, so they do it.
In this state, local pundits were following the polls, and yet no one predicted that Kevin Quigley would beat Jack Metcalf, and few would have bet more than lunch that Linda Smith, who seemed to think she would waltz through the election, would be pushed off the stage by Brian Baird, a little-known psychology professor.
As media analysts grope for reasons why Americans voted for President Clinton and retained a Republican Congress, they're taking cues from Republican strategists. The theory du jour is voters divided power to play the dishonest Democrat off against the extremist Republicans.
It's one thing to pronounce that the elections have produced a divided government. That's obvious. It's quite another thing to argue that the same people who voted to keep Rick White in office supported Clinton in order to keep White in check and vice versa. On that theory, the voters who booted Metcalf out would have gone with Dole. Only media types who see elections as nothing more than a power play between parties can believe this is how people make up their minds.
Fortunately, most voters aren't as Machiavellian as pundits. Nor are they as gullible as political analysts who will grab any theory as long as it sounds deep.
Last fall, before the Gingrich revolution stalled out with government shutdowns, the House leaders were calling on the American people to give them the White House to "get the job done." They certainly weren't talking about the wisdom of divided government then. Not until it became clear Dole was a hopeless candidate and the legislative shenanigans in 1995 would jeopardize GOP control of Congress, did the Republicans try to sell divided government as a reason to keep them around.
Neither Bush nor Reagan, both of whom battled entrenched Democratic Congresses, saw any virtue in divided government nor did they consider voters wise for setting up that situation year after year.
But if not to fulfill some hollow theory, why did voters choose Clinton and retain GOP members of Congress with more conservative agendas?
Well, maybe because voters, being more connected to life than theory, vote for individuals, not parties. The divided-government theory only makes sense if voters actually are more concerned with partisan labels than the specific candidates and issues on the line. Just because voters consider both parties flawed doesn't mean they aren't choosing the best candidate in any given race, without regard to the total tally of Rs and Ds in Congress.
In nationwide exit polls on Tuesday, half the voters approved of the current Congress, half disapproved. Half wanted GOP control of Congress if Clinton were elected to a second term (presumably the half that likes the current Congress), half wanted Democratic control. In a poll of Washington state voters conducted just before the election, fewer than 10 percent indicated they'd vote for Clinton but opt for a Republican in the congressional race.
Even the few who did say they would split their votes did not mention a desire to thwart Clinton by sending his opponents to Congress. They judged candidates on personal qualities, experience, and stands on the issues.
White, who was re-elected with a comfortable margin over challenger Jeff Coopersmith, wisely cast a few moderate environmental and pro-choice votes to deflect criticism that he was too conservative for his constituents. His anti-deficit views are well received in the 1st District, as is his work on telecommunications issues.
You don't have to buy into an overblown divided-government theory to understand why voters in the 1st District would reelect both White and Clinton without being unprincipled in either choice. Similarly, the defeat of Metcalf, Smith, and Randy Tate says little about voters' general anxieties about a GOP-controlled House and more about those candidates being out of step with local values.
Gingrich, speaking on election day, got it right. "The average person began figuring out three weeks ago that their local candidate was not named Newt." The sensible average voter was measuring individual candidates on the issues. Even though six out of 10 voters polled said they did not like Gingrich, few said that was very important to their votes.
The punditry's false divided-government theory is pernicious because it promotes more cynicism about government. It assumes voters are so distrustful of politicians that they actively court gridlock. And, it attempts to elevate partisan opposition into a fixture of government (this is not the institutional checks and balances built into the Constitution), as if that would be a good thing.
If people are told something often enough, they may come to believe it. The irony is, society-shaping, progressive legislation like Medicare, now considered sacrosanct by voters in both parties, was created not during a time of divided government, but when the White House, House and Senate were securely in one party's hands.
Terry Tang's column appears Friday on editorial pages of The Times.