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Home > Blogs > Campaigns Don't Count > Archives > 2007 > December > 04 > Entry
No Point in Running Away from Hillary
The NYT has a piece today about congressional Democrats running in Republican districts and how they’re worried about Hillary pulling them down in ‘08. Nancy Boyda is given as Exhibit A. She represents Topeka and surrounding territory, having beaten incumbent Republican Rep. Jim Ryun last year in a district that went almost 60 percent for Bush in ‘04. She is presented as trying to figure out how to separate herself from Hillary. The consensus reported in the piece is that Hillary is a problem, in large part because she unites Republicans and would energize and pull them to the polls like nobody else.
Well, maybe. Truth is, though, we’re talking about coattails, here, or reverse coattails or something. And to find a presidential election in which coattails have played a major role is not easy.
The really big congressional shifts — with clear national trends — tend to to come in mid-terms, like ‘06 and ‘94.
The modern presidential election in which coattails are most often cited is 1980 (which you have to be really old to count as modern). It saw a change in control of one house, the Senate, from D to R. That can’t be said about any other presidential election in more than half a century, that is, since 1952, when a lot of people could still vote straight party tickets by checking one box or flicking one lever.
Some “experts” will tell you that Ronald Reagan brought in the Rs Senate candidates in that year, which saw the defeats of such Democratic stalwarts as George McGovern, Birch Bayh and Gaylord Nelson.
But consider: the presidential race was a three-way deal, including Independent John Anderson. As a result, Reagan, though his margin popular vote margin over Jimmy Carter was substantial, got only 51 percent. Nearly all the Republican Senate winners got more votes in their states than he did. So how did he sweep them in?
What was apparently at work was reverse coattails. Dissatisfaction with Jimmy Carter carried over to other Democrats. This distinction may not be very important for some purposes, but it is certainly relevant to any analysis of Reagan’s power at the polls
There’s also this import: the negative reaction in 1980 was to an incumbent president; to find such a powerful reaction to a challenger, you have to go back to 1964, when the Republicans lost a net of almost 40 seats with Barry Goldwater on the ballot. (The landslides of 1972 and 1984 showed no such major change.) But does anyone think there’d an anti-Hllary LANDSLIDE?
Still, problems could arise in certain districts, of course. To believe that, you have to believe that Hillary would be a weaker candidate than some other Democrat, or at least weaker in some places. I wrote about that possibility in an earlier post labeled “Negatives, Schmegatives.” It makes clear that Hillary’s negatives wouldn’t keep her from winning if the circumstances are right; and if the circumstances are wrong, any other Democrat would lose, too.
In truth, however, that post is only about whether she would win or lose. It’s not about margins. It certainly isn’t about margins in specific districts. I don’t deal in margins.
This much can be said about these districts mention in the NYT piece: moving to the center — as a way of distinguishing oneself from the leader of one’s party — probably doesn’t do a legislator any good. Ask Jim Leach or the other Republican incumbents who lost in ‘06. They were disproportionately moderates in swing districts, not conservatives in conservative districts. Same thing in ‘94: The country seemed to be in anti-Clinton mood because he was — or so common analysis held — too liberal. But, as a general rule, the liberal Democrats survived in the House. Moderate Democrats got blown away in the conservative states.
So it’s really largely about your party, not your own ideology; if the winds are blowing against your party in your state, you have reason to worry, but you also have reason to doubt the conventional wisdom about what you should do.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: '80 race, 2008 presidential race
Comments
By TRS
December 4, 2007 8:23 PM | Link to this
Congress could become interesting. I would expect the Dems to pick up a few Senate seats because of all the retirements. That happened to them in the 90s and its the Republicans turn now as they regroup. Congress could be a bit more interesting. A good number of the Democratic pick ups in ‘06 were the “blue dogs” - moderate to conserative Democrats. It seems possible that three things which could affect some of those districts if Hillary is nominated. 1st, the Dems made about all the gains they could make in ‘06. I’m sure they would be happy with status quo and it seems in politics status quo is tough to maintain. 2nd, Congress has a 11% approval rating and is seen as quite liberal in alot of fly over country where these districts exist. To this point, the blue dogs have had no effect on the policies of their party. If a “blue dog” district believes Hillary would be elected and in essence give some very liberal politicians control of the Congress, Senate and White House, they may be inclined to vote for a conservative Republican to keep a more balanced government. That may be more likely in 2010, but still possible in ‘08. 3rd, while I agree that there is probably no huge reverse coat tail effect, there could be some. The Clintons cannot help themselves - they have to be Clintonian. Case in point - in her campaign she has tried to land on both sides of the issue, play the female victim and accuse others of personal attacks - same stuff they did for 8 years. Even those in her own party reacted negatively. Take that times 10 in congressional districts where she is truly polorizing and that could sway votes.