Treat Voters like People, Not Puzzle Pieces

Under every election model, political scientists argue that politicians tend to be more centrist when in power to gain reelection. This makes sense because those to the left of a Democrat’s votes or to the right of a Republican’s votes will be voters already predisposed to give their vote to the respective candidate. The interesting part of this discussion is whether this predisposition means that these voters are largely ignored by their party’s candidate even though they are essential for their victory.

The first example Marcus deals with is blacks and Democrats. He correctly points out that by the history of the relationship between blacks and the Democratic and Republican parties of the 1960s has led to blacks disproportionately voting Democrat. He also correctly recognizes that the Democratic Party, while always championing that they are the party for racial minorities, has done little with policy to help out with these communities.

For example, when the mandatory minimum drug penalties were being negotiated in the 1980s, it should have been the Democratic Party that came out against the large differences in sentencing guidelines for powder cocaine (consumed disproportionately by whites) and crack cocaine (consumed disproportionately by blacks). Instead, the sentences were passed. Democrats have championed more funding for schools in lower income areas and better public housing, but the quality of both these programs today are a testament to the effort the Democrats actually put into these issues.

Moreover, you can compare public housing and low-income school quality to the power of unions, another traditional liberal issue. Unions have gained in power throughout the country, making ridiculous compromises helped along by liberal politicians around the country. One could say that since blacks are a strong supporter of liberals, Democrats could focus on union workers more, some of whom who could vote Republican because of social issues. The fact remains that Democrats have increasingly taken black votes for granted, something that neither helps the black community nor the future of our country.

Where I disagree with Marcus is on his point about evangelicals. He writes that the right takes them for granted and thus issues like school prayer, abortion, and intelligent design are not being addressed. Here’s the problem with Marcus’ argument. I’m not sure that these issues would even be prevalent in the national debate if the 20% of evangelicals were not a strong part of one of our two parties. That is, Republicans run the risk of becoming nobodies in the future of the party without first cementing their evangelical values and voting likewise, like what happened to Arlen Specter and other Northern Republican Senators (or Republicans in Name Only (RINO) as Rush Limbaugh likes to call them).

Republicans may actually be ignoring and taking the fiscal conservatives in their party for granted. While George W. Bush frequently championed evangelical issues from his bully pulpit, fiscal conservatism was put on the back burner when introducing legislation like No Child Left Behind and not consolidating spending in the federal government.

Both parties need to treat their base voters like people, instead of another statistical point on their way to power. Only this sort of mindset will allow such groups to both be loyal to their parties and effectively represented through favorable legislation.