The Continuing Democratic Majority

...Recent polls, which set up hypothetical races between specific Democratic and Republican candidates, suggest a close presidential race...

...Yet, most of what they advocate requires a greater government role and more government money...

...Their resentments supply a sizable audience for the political spokesmen dubbed "conservatives...

...Cutting government expenditures is always an appealing idea (it even provided the core of Franklin Roosevelt's campaign rhetoric in 1932), but this does not prevent decisive majority support for such proposed measures as national health insurance and federal aid to mass transportation...

...If I may be permitted what seems a wildly heretical assertion, the important considerations are: who is more likely to win, and who will have the most effective relations with a Democratic Congress...

...no Democatic candidate had a chance there 25 years ago...

...The possible Democratic losses, as in the last two presidential elections, are among those upset by the "social" issues...

...COMMENTS AND OPINIONS 127 Romantic political messages, appealing to pie-inthesky dreams or nostalgic yearnings, rarely find much of a working-class audience...

...But there is little support for Goldwaterite economics, no matter who presents it...

...Such continuity rests, to a considerable extent, on traditional class politics, particularly those of the working class...

...Nevertheless, a meaningful American third "party" is easily ruled out at this time...

...Others emphasize the decrease in the gap between the blue-collar and white-collar Democratic vote, probably explainable by the increasing Democratic vote among the latter...

...Has this allegiance declined...

...The strong Democratic hold on the "outethnics"— blacks, Jews, Catholics, immigrants and their descendants—has been the other accepted dominant pattern for some time, but many have insisted that Democratic voting has significantly declined among the Catholic nationality groups...

...While such continuing party loyalty would be clear in a parliamentary system, it is obscured by the complications of American politics...

...Any precise predictions about the 1976 election is silly at this time...

...Perhaps there is no better way in the American system, but the result could well be a series of exhausting internal conflicts...

...These and other elections seemed to indicate that the particular annoyances of the period, sometimes summed up as "social issues," had become allimportant...

...In one small-scale example from my own area of suburban Long Island, four out of six congressmen elected in 1974 were Democrats...

...If they don't, it won't be because of anything we failed to do, but may be a result of what some in the Democratic fold actually do...

...Some will never forget the disputes of the late '60s...

...The plethora of candidates, the innumerable campaigns, the mountain of rhetoric, the vast expenditure of money add up to inanity and confusion, however noble the motivations of participants...

...A significant number may vote for a Ronald Reagan as a form of protest, but, soon realizing that his politics are about the same as those of Goldwater, few would support any continuing movements using him as a spokesman...

...Specific candidates are frequently unimportant, local and parochial issues usually irrelevant...

...During the 1972 campaign, Lubell noted that those who objected to government help to the underclass usually added a strident demand that more be given to people like themselves...

...That is the explanation for the strong Wallace showing in the 1964 primaries (against Lyndon Johnson), in the 1972 primaries, and probably again in 1976...

...The direct primary furnishes an easy protest mechanism for their feelings without affecting lasting political inclinations...

...Although the voters' motivations were varied and complex, both national elections reflected popular discontent over an agonizing war and domestic turmoil...

...In any case, even in 1972, about 60 percent of nonsouthern blue-collar workers voted for a Democratic congressional candidate compared to a little less than half of white-collar workers...

...White-collar workers, the fastest growing occupational group, have become more Democratic in their voting...

...HOW DOES ALL THIS FIT in with the evidence of increased ticket-splitting...

...As Samuel Lubell has disclosed in 20 years of election studies, many voters have been hedging their bets by choosing candidates of different labels for different offices...

...but historical experience indicates that such early "evidence" is usually meaningless...

...Furthermore, if we exclude the South (its special situation must be excluded from most of what follows), the same population groups provide the Democratic margin, augmented by new pro-Democratic types...

...Although in most elections less white-collar workers tend to vote Democratic than blue-collar workers, the trend is marked and corresponds to white-collar trends in political attitudes— on welfare state issues, civil rights, etc...

...The Republicans won two consecutive presidential victories, the second decisively...

...The large number of New Class amateur politicians, whose emergence on the political scene is generally welcome, could exacerbate the situation...

...Working-class politics in this country has, therefore, meant allegiance to the Democrats...

...The same villains were, according to the polls, seen as the people most dangerous to the nation...

...Excepting 1960 (the first Catholic elected president) and 1972, the difference between the Protestant and Catholic vote for Democratic presidential candidates has been fairly constant since 1948...

...Responding to specific frustrations, many workers may sometimes vote for candidates with this kind of appeal, such as Wallace...

...Ironically, Democratic "reformers," many of whom started out with the objective of developing a more responsible and disciplined party structure, may help create chaos...

...Presidential voting acutely reflects immediate events and the "images" of the candidates...

...The only significant Republican gains have been in the South...

...Among those both working-class and Catholic, 60 percent voted for Humphrey in 1968...

...In 1972, many of these voters reluctantly chose Nixon...

...yet these are aberrations...

...has its own legal, organizational, and financial obstacles...

...Andrew Greeley's examination of the two major Catholic nationality groups revealed that 73 percent of the Irish and 62 percent of the Italians voted for Democratic congressional candidates in 1970, the last year of available relevant figures...

...But the general election is another story...

...Some analysts concentrate on temporary shifts, as in 1972...

...the U.S...

...It is difficult to get voters to support new parties in a country with two major parties...

...But this is not what the internal struggles will emphasize, except, of course, for the Wallace forces and their opponents...

...For similar reasons, Reagan can do fairly well in Republican primaries...

...In 1964, the Wallace primary vote, outside the South, scarcely helped Goldwater...

...Individuals may find it profitable to participate in the campaigns of prospective nominees, for this means contact with political activists and possible influence on the direction of a successful candidate...

...Party identification, frequently used by pollsters, is a very complicated matter and is probably, by now, a poor indicator of either voting or political inclinations...

...BUT HOW ABOUT the supposed evidence of growing "conservatism...

...Nor is the former belief in an overwhelmingly Republican suburban population still feasible...

...In trying to think about the 1976 election, let's start with one proposition, even though it is discounted by some political analysts: the majority of voters still maintains a national allegiance to the Democratic party that goes back to the 1930s, most noticeable in the vote for congressmen...

...The Republicans did improve their position in the early 1950s, when the House was about evenly divided, but since 1958, the Democratic majority has been amazingly constant, about 54 percent to 56 percent, with the exception of the increased strength following the 1964 and 1974 elections...

...From a "left" perspective, one can hardly chastise anyone for avoiding blind loyalty to a party that is not really "ours...

...The successful candidate's task is to get them adopted...

...Let's not get too involved in their bickerings and mistakes...

...Instead, a majority of Americans again saw the GOP as primarily the agent of the powerful and privileged...

...Few 1968 Wallace supporters also voted for congressional candidates on his ticket...

...However, in the current political atmosphere, the older concerns appear dominant again, whether among the working class, or among yesterday's New Leftists who now yearn for the careers they formerly disdained...

...Many of them are prisoners of their own rhetoric, concentrating on pet issues and favorite people...

...Too many things can happen, particularly as they could affect the vote for the presidency...

...others are bent on ego trips...

...Workers, throughout the developed world, have a typical political orientation, described, in a recent British study, as "instrumental collectivism," a realization that they cannot solve their economic problems individually and that some government action is necessary...

...The evidence available implies an intensification of that image...

...And antics of McGovern and his supporters further antagonized those who were upset by the strains of the late 1960s...

...Attempts to sketch out new alignments between the Republicans and Democrats, which usually add up to quaint regional line-ups or a fanciful picture of a contest between "producers" and those who live off "ideas," look quite hollow by now...

...The best index is the vote for the House of Representatives...

...Because ethnic voting is a result of a variety of motivations, data supporting this view is available for local elections but a few statistics make it at least questionable as a national trend...

...Except for the South, the New Deal voting coalition is still the central national tendency despite several deviations in different times and places— something clearly recognized by, the Ripon Society, the sophisticated Republican brain trust...

...What some see as great achievements—the party and election reforms and the use of direct primaries for the presidential nomination—can disrupt the necessary cohesion and antagonize voters...

...The result could thus be either a realignment of the parties or some new party offering little more than the expression of such protest, similar to the Poujadists in France in the 1950s or the Progress party in a recent Danish election whose central plank was the elimination of the income tax...

...National programs in American emanate less from the philosophy of a candidate than out of some combination of existent conditions and ideas for meeting them, frequently pushed by pressure groups (within and outside the parties...

...The Democrats are likely to win...

...Yet, whatever the other side does, the Democrats can throw the game away...

...Every presidential election is special (which is why it is fool-hardy, at this stage, to predict the outcome for 1976...

...But there are other missions we are better equipped to perform...

...Since the end of the Vietnam War, the differences among most serious candidates, announced or not, are minor and will have to be overdramatized to create a distinctive image...

...The accompanying frustrations, further intensified by Watergate, suggested a disenchantment with all official political entities, including parties, and a sizable vote for candidates appealing to a vague need for some kind of protest...

...the other tendencies, specific occasional "discomforts...

...Nothing that has happened in American society implies any such dramatic changes and, except for special and temporary protest choices, most Americans will vote under the major party labels, and the Democratic label is generally more attractive to the majority...

...Calling oneself a conservative in recent times has been little more than a way of separating oneself from the archetypical "liberal" portrayed in the media...

...The continued Democratic congressional margin illustrates a relative "comfort" with party symbols...

...Working people are generally pragmatic in their politics, seeking the tangible and visible payoff...

...Working class and New Class may not always agree with each other on whom they like, but they now do have a clear agreement on whom they don't like...

...In 1976, whatever happens in the primaries, the earlier resentments may still be strong enough for them to support Wallace as a third-party nominee, or choose Ford (who, I assume, will get the nomination), or even Reagan...

...The Democratic vote has also steadily increased in rural and small-town America, former Republican bulwarks, indicated by the continuing election of liberal Democrats in such states as South Dakota and Iowa...

...Yesterday's targets—activists, protesters, hippies, even ordinary criminals and welfare chiselers—were much lower on the list of undesirables, which indicates a decline of the "social" issues...

...In other words, there is almost a national consensus for the idea of a welfare state and government intervention in the economy...

...Some New Politics people have expressed skepticism 128 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS about a welfare state philosophy and questioned "too much reliance on big government...

...Yet the implications for long-term voting trends seem slight...

...The current American political scene, of course, is not a replica of the 1930s or even of a decade ago...

...Even Nixon's 1972 landslide had little effect on Congress...

...The most relevant vote in 1975 was in the New Hampshire senatorial race, where the Democratic candidate was very successful with a class-line appeal...

...The most significant changes are those that should enhance Democratic support—an increase in the population base for Democratic voting and the return to major significance of those concerns that most favor the Democrats...

...Those administrations that achieved new policy thrusts—in the early years of Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, or Johnson—were headed by executives who, by judicious use of the political system, got Congress to do something, a COMMENTS AND OPINIONS 129 task that could become easier in the future because Congress has begun to do much on its own...

...Economic anxieties, which usually help Democratic candidates, gained votes for Nixon in 1972, out of fear over McGovern's proposed defense cuts and resentment against the presumed favored treatment of the underclass...

...Nevertheless, the Democrats start with both the long-range historical trends and the immediate situation clearly on their side...

...State and local choices are based on a variety of reasons, frequently unrelated and sometimes opposed to the motivations for national party loyalty...

...The annoyances and arguments of the 1960s are no longer so important...

...Efforts of Republican spokesmen to advertise their party as the tribune of "middle America" against "elite establishments" fizzled...

...In 1972, about 60 percent of the nonsouthern white-collar workers between 18 and 29 voted for Democratic congressional candidates...

...At most, findings about public opinion on civil rights, civil liberties, race relations, help to the underclass, etc.—the presumed bases for conservative tendencies—are very mixed and arguable...

...Within the white-collar category it is the New Class, the professional and technical workers in service and "knowledge" organizations, that is both dominantly Democratic and a significant force in the Party, especially among New Politics adherents...

...In 1968, he did get a sizable protest vote from Democratic voters, who nevertheless showed their continuing Democratic allegiance in congressional voting...

...While the Watergate revelations undoubtedly account for the 1974 Democratic sweep, their impact was so extensive because people were also angry about the state of the economy...

...New issues and constituencies have emerged...

...This Democratic trend is most evident among younger voters...

...The proper orientation for socialists in the early stages of the campaign is to play it cool about candidates, to come forth with and proselytize policies...