Republicans most conservative in a century

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Political Scientist: Republicans Most Conservative They've Been In 100 Years

Categories: 2012, Congress, Democrats, Republicans

02:24 pm

April 13, 2012

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by Frank James
Congressional Republicans have a unique achievement, they are further from the political center than their predecessors of the past century.
Enlarge J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Congressional Republicans have a unique achievement, they are further from the political center than their predecessors of the past century.

When President Obama recently complained to news media executives about their ostensibly even-handed "pox on both of your houses" coverage of the partisan battles in Washington, it might have seemed like, well, a partisan shot from a Democratic president.

After all, his complaint was that the GOP had moved so far right, and intransigently so, that it was wrong to create a false "equivalence" by blaming both parties equally for the Washington gridlock. To a skeptic that comment, coming from a Democrat, sounded suspiciously partisan itself.

But while the president was making the kind of argument you would expect of the nation's top Democrat, he actually had the support of science — well at least political science research that maps that rightward GOP shift.

Keith Poole of the University of Georgia, with his collaborator Howard Rosenthal of New York University, has spent decades charting the ideological shifts and polarization of the political parties in Congress from the 18th century until now to get the view of how the political landscape has changed from 30,000 feet up. What they have found is that the Republican Party is the most conservative it has been a century.
This graph shows the ideological movement for both parties in the House. Note the steady shift towards conservatism among Republicans.
Enlarge voteview.com

This graph shows the ideological movement for both parties in the House. Note the steady shift towards conservatism among Republicans.

In a recent conversation Poole, who's viewed by other political scientists as the go-to expert on this issue, explained that the data are very clear:

"This is an entirely objective statistical procedure. The graphs just reflect what comes out of the computer. Howard Rosenthal and I, we've been working on something called Nominate. This does all the Congresses simultaneously, which allows you to study change over time.



"The short version would be since the late 1970s starting with the 1976 election in the House the Republican caucus has steadily moved to the right ever since. It's been a little more uneven in the Senate. The Senate caucuses have also moved to the right. Republicans are now furtherest to the right that they've been in 100 years.

Of course some, and not just conservative activists, will be quick to point out that Democrats also have their take-no-prisoner liberals who aren't prone to compromise on their core issues, either.

Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institution who studies public opinion, is definitely of the pox-on-both-house camp:

"Clearly, I think both parties have moved to the extremes since I've been watching politics. I don't think there's any doubt about that. The Democratic Party has been pulled to the left and the Republican Party has been pulled to the right. Part of that is redistricting."

Poole acknowledges that Democrats have contributed their share to the polarization of the political process, especially, he says, through their use of identity politics, appeals to race, ethnicity and gender.

Democrats have also contributed by losing House and Senate seats in the South where moderate Democrats have been replaced by Republicans. Meanwhile, moderate Republicans have continued to depart the scene, with Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine being just the latest.

Buttressing a point that Obama has sometimes made, this loss of moderates and further rightward movement by congressional Republicans would have been a challenge to navigate for even the biggest conservative hero of modern times, President Ronald Reagan. Poole said:

"Ronald Reagan was so successful because he made all these deals with these huge blocks of moderate legislators. That's why he had overwhelming majorities for the 81 tax cut, the 82 tax increase, where they had to go back and adjust the tax bill in 82 and the Social Security fix in 83. Then in 86 you had Simpson Mazzoli, which included amnesty and tax simplification. All that stuff passed with very large majorities. You cannot imagine anything like that happening now. Which is why the country is really in the tank.

"There's a lot of blame to go around. It doesn't look like there's any resolution of this anytime soon."

That said, Poole says the data are hard to deny; the polarization is largely due to how far and relatively quickly Republicans have shifted to the right end of the ideological spectrum. And he faults leaders of both parties for allowing the nation to get into a fiscal morass in which government spending on health care is unsustainable:

"It is true that the Republicans have moved further to the right than the Democrats have moved to the left. That's absolutely true.

"On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be much impetus on the part of the leadership of either political party to really do something serious about our budget crisis. I doubt very seriously we'll see much improvement.

"People forget how utterly irresponsible our political leadership has been for the last 30 years. ... The current political class of the U.S. just isn't in the same league as Truman and Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. You just don't have that kind of leadership now, just when we need it.

This isn't meant as a knock on Obama, Poole said. But he's not very optimistic about what an Obama second term would bring:

"The likely outcome of the election is that it's a very close victory by President Obama, the Republicans hold the House and may come within an eyelash of taking the Senate. I could see a 50-50 Senate. So good luck. After $2 billion gets spent on federal elections at all levels, how bitter will the atmosphere will be in January 2013? We're really up the creek."

Can't say I'm surprised.

[Eleas]

Can't say I'm surprised.

I'm confused. Is there any truth to the idea that the Democrats have shifted to the left? What does the article base this on?

[Anguirus]

^ Who knows? They probably had to say that just to get published. They could be including the Dixiecrats as Democrats.

[Scottish Ninja]

One thing that's dramatically missing from this story is any definition of what any of the points on the graph actually mean. How did they decide that Republicans in 2008 are "0.6" conservative when in 1976 they were "0.2" conservative? What is the difference between those two numbers?

But:

In a recent conversation Poole, who's viewed by other political scientists as the go-to expert on this issue, explained that the data are very clear: "This is an entirely objective statistical procedure. The graphs just reflect what comes out of the computer..."

Ooookay, then.

In fairness, it's not his fault that this story completely avoids any mention of the methodology by which they came up with these numbers.

[D.Turtle]

One thing that's dramatically missing from this story is any definition of what any of the points on the graph actually mean. How did they decide that Republicans in 2008 are "0.6" conservative when in 1976 they were "0.2" conservative? What is the difference between those two numbers?

But:

In a recent conversation Poole, who's viewed by other political scientists as the go-to expert on this issue, explained that the data are very clear: "This is an entirely objective statistical procedure. The graphs just reflect what comes out of the computer..."

Ooookay, then.

In fairness, it's not his fault that this story completely avoids any mention of the methodology by which they came up with these numbers.

The article is using the DW-NOMINATE scores as the basis for its claims. It's obviously not in the scope of a short article to precisely explain where those scores come from.

As the article explains, those scores are the result of work done by Poole and Rosenthal. Basically what they do is look at roll call votes in the House and Senate and through statistical methods look at the one or two factors (or dimensions when graphed) that explain most of the variability in how the various members of congress vote. With just the two dimensions, it is possible to correctly predict the vote of members of congress in more than 85% of the cases (in recent years more than 90%). When one looks at the dimensions, the most important one is the difference between the two parties - which is interpreted as the liberal-conservative divide. The second dimension reflects the intra-party differences - divisive issues of the day, like slavery, civil rights, etc. This is usually interpreted as "social issues".

Now, the farther apart the scores, the less two members of Congress voted together on one issue. So, the absolute increase in the scores (towards -1 for Democrats, towards +1 for Republicans) reflects the fact that there has been less and less votes on which parties voted together or in which members voted together with the opposite party.

Now, obviously there is a problem comparing different Congresses over time, as that methodology would not reflect a complete right-ward shift (for example) of the entire spectrum. This is where the DW-Nominate scores come in. In order to have scores that can be compared over multiple Congresses, it takes advantage of the fact that there is significant overlap between each Congress and the next. Basically, individual members of Congress get their own score over their entire voting record over several terms, and this is used as a basis with which to compare other members. As there is always a lot of overlap, it is possible to reflect at least some of the overall movement of political ideology. Obviously its not perfect, but it is quite good.

[CarsonPalmer]

Can't say I'm surprised.

I'm confused. Is there any truth to the idea that the Democrats have shifted to the left? What does the article base this on?

Depends on your starting point. If you start with Woodrow Wilson's draconian policies on civil liberties and race, they've moved well to the left. But then again, if you start with Lyndon Johnson, they've moved well to the right again.

And when it comes to gay marriage, well that's a big leftward shift by both parties, even most of the Republicans.

[Haruko]

Can't say I'm surprised.

I'm confused. Is there any truth to the idea that the Democrats have shifted to the left? What does the article base this on?

Political science Professors Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, authors of Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, had an April, 2012, lecture aired on Link.TV wherein they talked about (complete with graphs) the polarization of the two American national parties. Although there is a polarization, they said, the Democratic Party has only made a small leftward shift, while the Republican Party has made a dramatic shift rightward. In other words, though the Democratic Party has made a shift, the polarization is fueled by the Republican Party shift.

So yeah, the Democratic Party is moving left, but the Republican Party steals the show — ho boy, does it — with its ridiculously massive move to the right.

[Scottish Ninja]

The article is using the DW-NOMINATE scores as the basis for its claims. It's obviously not in the scope of a short article to precisely explain where those scores come from.

As the article explains, those scores are the result of work done by Poole and Rosenthal. Basically what they do is look at roll call votes in the House and Senate and through statistical methods look at the one or two factors (or dimensions when graphed) that explain most of the variability in how the various members of congress vote. With just the two dimensions, it is possible to correctly predict the vote of members of congress in more than 85% of the cases (in recent years more than 90%). When one looks at the dimensions, the most important one is the difference between the two parties - which is interpreted as the liberal-conservative divide. The second dimension reflects the intra-party differences - divisive issues of the day, like slavery, civil rights, etc. This is usually interpreted as "social issues".

Now, the farther apart the scores, the less two members of Congress voted together on one issue. So, the absolute increase in the scores (towards -1 for Democrats, towards +1 for Republicans) reflects the fact that there has been less and less votes on which parties voted together or in which members voted together with the opposite party.

Now, obviously there is a problem comparing different Congresses over time, as that methodology would not reflect a complete right-ward shift (for example) of the entire spectrum. This is where the DW-Nominate scores come in. In order to have scores that can be compared over multiple Congresses, it takes advantage of the fact that there is significant overlap between each Congress and the next. Basically, individual members of Congress get their own score over their entire voting record over several terms, and this is used as a basis with which to compare other members. As there is always a lot of overlap, it is possible to reflect at least some of the overall movement of political ideology. Obviously its not perfect, but it is quite good.

Thanks for the explanation; it's just annoying to read something like this and have no clue how to evaluate what they're saying.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Good visualization of the data:

[General Mung Beans]

How the heck are the Southern Democrats so liberal through most of the late 19th Century. Unless by "conservative" and "liberal" they simply mean partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats.

[CarsonPalmer]

How the heck are the Southern Democrats so liberal through most of the late 19th Century. Unless by "conservative" and "liberal" they simply mean partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats.

Economics, I guess. Southern Democrats were closely aligned with the populists for a while.

[Simon_Jester]

Whereas there were a lot of 'business Democrats' who didn't align with the Progressive movement, too.

Also, that was a time when racial issues really weren't on the table politically for the totally white-dominated power structure. It wasn't until serious challenges to racist law arose in the 1940s and later that the southern Democrats began to be uncomfortable with the party.

[LaCroix]

If you take the southern Democrat line and flip it around, it very closely resembles the curve of the Republicans. It's rather obvious that this means that all those who were becoming conservative ones left the s.D and went to the Republicans, where they became even more conservative (just like converts, who usually become hard-core believers to prove they do belong there.)