« Two Cheers for Apple | Main | The Guard Moves South »

May 15, 2006

Keeping a Seat at the Table

As the 2006 Congressional elections approach (either too quickly or not quickly enough, I'm not sure which), the right blogosphere is having a fascinating debate about what to do when you're alone in the ballot booth. There seems to be pretty general agreement that the Republicans have blown it from a conservative standpoint. Twelve years of Republican rule in Congress, half of which also saw a Republican President, have given the country massive spending increases, the first new entitlement program since the Great Society, increased federal involvement in education, a brand new Cabinet-level department, a laissez-faire attitude towards illegal immigration, steel and lumber tariffs, and a strong argument for Democratic leadership of federal departments that even many conservatives think are a good idea like FEMA. While I'm not up in arms about all of the above by any means, as a voter whose primary desire from government is one that will leave me the hell alone the Republicans have not endeared themselves to me one iota either. Given that dissatisfaction, a growing number of conservatives and other right-leaning types are wondering what is the best way to use their vote in November.

On one side are the diehards who argue that no matter how bad the Republicans are, the Democrats will be worse. Jim Geraghty of NRO outlines this position pretty well, pointing out that the Republicans who will go down in the November elections are the conservatives, not the moderates. If conservatives don't vote, or if votes are cast for third party candidates or Democrats, Geraghty argues that the Republicans will not necessarily learn that they need to appease their base, but that they should move more towards the left to pick up votes. Worse, he notes that the Republicans left in office will be porkmeisters like Ted Stevens and Trent Lott and moderates like Collins and Snowe of Maine. And worst of all, a Democratic Congress will pass things like a new fairness doctrine and even more stringent campaign finance reform measures. Another argument put out is that by failing to support Republicans, conservatives will lose their seat at the table as Republicans won't bother to listen to their concerns since they don't vote for them or contribute to their campaigns. (Clearly we're continuing to fight for the best government money can buy.)

On the other side are those who argue that there's not a dime's worth of difference between how a Republican Congress acts and how a Democratic Congress acts, and at least when the Democrats were in the majority, the Republicans paid lip service to ideas like limited government. If the Republicans won't stand up for the ideals the conservatives hold dear, then many are asking why they should be expected to vote for them. The argument that Democrats will be worse is difficult to back up as far as many of them (and I) are concerned as Republicans are leading the charge for such measures as excess-profits taxes on disfavored industries (i.e. oil companies, whose crime is providing the fuel on which our prosperity is made possible). How, precisely, are Democrats going to be worse, particularly since we will still have a Republican in the Oval Office for the next two years who can (although he has yet to show that he knows how) veto the worst garbage a Democratic Congress might send him? Particularly when one considers the fact any Democratic Congress will be in power on very thin margins, the odds of the kind of silliness Republicans are trumpeting to the skies seems remote.

But in either case, the question that I'm more interested in is how voters can get people amenable to their point of view into office? The Republican party prides itself on a big tent, and Republican voters run the gamut from values-conservatives interested in using the power of the state to libertarians who figure Republicans are better than Democrats on economic liberties issues. For a sizeable fraction of that coalition, they're not seeing much return on their investment. What's the Matter With Kansas argues that values-conservatives are being fooled by Republicans who promise to legislate matters like abortion but who never accomplish that mission. But that fact is, Republicans of late have spent a lot more time and energy on issues like Terri Schiavo and partial-birth abortion than they have on spending restraint or reducing the size of the government. It seems that the Kansas thesis applies better to limited-government conservatives than it does to values conseratives. So how can those limited-government types get more of their ilk into power?

My first instinct is that it's a vain hope. As Hayek pointed out in The Road to Serfdom, people who want to control other people are naturally drawn to government, especially in a democracy. It's a logical argument: there are plenty of people in the world who would love to tell other people how to live, and under our system of government the only way people have of doing that is via political power. So those people are drawn to politics so they can gain the power they need to control others. On the other side of the coin are people who just want government to leave them alone. They don't have any interest in going to Congress or the Oval Office, they just want to live their lives in peace. This means that candidates interested in limiting government are sparse on the ground to begin with, and they're less likely to win elections or to stay in Washington very long because they've got other things they want to do. Ron Paul is very much an outlier.

This problem is made worse by the way we've run our government for the past 70 years. Politicians run on platforms of providing benefits for their constituents, and they do so because politicians who bring home money win elections. It's all well and good to look for politicians who believe as you do, but if they can't get elected, they're not worth much. As the boys at QandO frequently point out when discussing neolibertarianism, ideological purity has to come in second place if you hope to change anything in our system. But I digress.

Let's take me as an example, because I can at least be reasonably sure I won't be accused of caricaturing my own views that way. I'm a firm believer in Jefferson's maxim that the government that governs least, governs best. Were I king for a day, I could happily trim the size of the federal government by 50-70% or more. Which makes me at least as much an outlier as Congressman Paul, and maybe more. Obviously neither the Democrats or Republicans offer me what I am looking for. Ten years ago, the Republicans at least were talking about limiting the size of government, but today the idea that the Democrats are appreciably worse than the Republicans on that front flies in the face of the past six years of Republican governance. Still, if I want to have an effect on the process, what's the best way for me to do that? If I continue to vote for Republicans, it is logical to assume they will continue to act as they have during the past six year. But if I withhold my vote or vote for Democrats or third party candidates, I risk the Republicans learning the wrong lesson about their behavior. I also lose the opportunity to affect the Republican party, since they listen to people who give them time and money, not people who carry water for other parties. On the other hand, let's be honest, my ability to influence the Republican party now is pretty close to zero, as I can't afford to give the kind of money it takes to have an impact on party policies. So the only real threat for me is that the Republicans may move in a non-preferred direction if I vote against them.

There's little doubt that's a risk. Part of the reason the past few elections have been so close is the ability of both parties to calibrate their positions. Let's say that I form a limited government party and I want to pass as much limited government legislation as possible. To be successful, I need a majority, but in order to get more votes I have to water down my positions. I could get maybe 5% (and that might be optimistic) for my dream position, so I've got to make a lot of compromises to approach the 50% mark. Therefore, I want to clear that bar by as little as is necessary. If I make deals and end up at 55%, that means I gave away too much and won't be able to accomplish as much as I could if I'd stood a little more firm and won 50.1%. (These are simplifications, btw, so bear with me.) That is what is happening with the two parties today: the Republicans have a narrow edge in voters based on their various positions. If they shift to the right on an issue, they lose some voters, and the Democrats will pick those voters up, moving their own position to the right. If the electorate is generally conservative, this means both parties tend to shift right, as Republicans can hold more right positions while still holding a majority, and the Democrats have to shift to the right in order to challenge the Republicans for control. This situation describes the electorate in the 1990s, when President Clinton ended up signing a welfare reform bill that was widely condemned on the left. Conversely, up until the 1980s, the electorate was further to the left, to such a degree that the two Republican presidents that held office between FDR and Ronald Reagan were moderate to liberal Republicans, because that was what it took to win elections.

While the above description is simplified (and I should note that I did not invent it, I just can't find the link to where I first saw it), it's useful in explaining how we end up with candidates nobody can stand. In order to get that magic 50.1%, things get watered down to a degree they aren't satisfactory to the people who militate for them, but they're still radical enough that voters on the other side hate them. It also explains how we can get better candidates: by moving the electorate. If there is general popular support for limited government, we have a chance of getting it put into law. Until that day comes, however, it will remain a pipe dream. The idea we can pull the parties radically away from the center for our pet causes flies in the face of electoral realities.

So how should you vote in November? That's up to you, but I'm still sticking with Democrats and third parties. If the country really can't survive a Democratic victory, we're screwed anyhow because this war is going to last a long time and sooner or later the Democrats are going to get back in power. So I'm not frightened by those who claim that a Democratic Congress would be a disaster. We survived four years of President Carter; two years of Speaker Pelosi is nothing to worry about in the grand scheme of things.