Let the Spin Begin: Does the New York Special Election Contest Between Tedisco and Murphy Say Anything About President Obama?

Tuesday's special election to fill Kirstin Gillibrand's House seat ended in a virtual tie (minus absentee ballots). Prior to and since the election, two conflicting narratives about its significance to national politics emerged. One spin said that the election contest between Democrat Scott Murphy and Republican James Tedisco was a "referendum" on the Obama administration. The other side said it was not.

John Judis of The Nation believes that election reflects the voters' confidence in Obama:

Special elections in the first year of a new president are important because the parties turn them into national referenda. And this election was no exception. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden campaigned for Murphy in the closing weeks; Murphy, who was relatively unknown in the district, based his campaign largely on his support for and Tedesco’s opposition to Obama’s stimulus plan.

In the first month of the campaign, Murphy, a businessman from Missouri who recently moved to the district, trailed Tedesco--and since Republicans boast a 70,000 voter edge in registration, he should not have been able to catch him. But based on a campaign that emphasized his support for Obama, he did catch up and on election night surpassed him.

Murphy’s election night edge doesn’t suggest that the Democrats will romp in 2010. . . . But if Murphy had lost by a significant margin . . . it would have shown that within a district that Obama carried in 2008, there was a significant undercurrent of discontent with his presidency and his policies. . . .

Ethan Porter, an Associate Editor at Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, published an article in The Nation which argues that the election has nothing to do with Obama:

[T]he results of tomorrow's election will reflect very little about popular opinion of [the Obama] administration. Yes, national issues have intruded; the Democrats are blanketing the district with campaign paraphernalia tying Tedisco to Rush Limbaugh, and Tedisco has hammered Murphy for supporting the stimulus package. But this is a local race, in a district that's trended blue only very recently, and somewhat by accident. "Murphy should lose, given the constitution of the district," says Jonathan Becker, a long-time observer of district politics and a political science professor at Bard College.

Before the 2006 election, Republicans maintained a 15 percent enrollment advantage, and Gillibrand managed to unseat incumbent John Sweeney only after a police report surfaced showing 911 had once received a domestic violence complaint from his wife. Even after that, Gillibrand just squeaked by. Her victory was in large part owed to her ferocious campaigning skills; even in her first race, she had the aplomb and tenacity of a veteran politician. She only beat her 2008 opponent after developing a reputation as a star-in-the-making and building a formidable political machine. And even then, there were still about 70,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats in the district.

My Take
Exit polling is probably the simplest way to determine whether President Obama's performance influenced voters in the special election. But it is unclear if or when such data will emerge.

In my opinion, Judis sometimes overstates his arguments, and he probably has done so with respect to his analysis of this election's national significance. The fact that Republicans have a 70,000 voter registration advantage does not say much about recent electoral trends in the district. Gillibrand, whose nomination to the Senate caused the need for the special election in the first place, was a second-term Democratic representative of the district. And, as the New York Times observes, Gillibrand remains "remains highly popular across party lines." She and Governor Paterson also campaigned for Murphy.

Regardless of which candidate ultimately wins, his party will claim that the victory either supports or condemns President Obama's policies. The inevitability of the spin, however, does not make it an accurate statement of the voters' decision making.

From the "Duh" Files: Effusive Political Adoration Does Not Lead to Social Change

John Judis, a writer for the New Republic, has written an article in which he laments the lack of critical progressive commentary and social movement activity regarding Democrats, including President Obama. Judis observes that:

[I] think the main reason that Obama is having trouble is that there is not a popular left movement that is agitating for him to go well beyond where he would even ideally like to go. Sure, there are leftwing intellectuals like Paul Krugman who are beating the drums for nationalizing the banks and for a $1 trillion-plus stimulus. But I am not referring to intellectuals, but to movements that stir up trouble among voters and get people really angry. Instead, what exists of a popular left is either incapable of action or in Obama's pocket.

This article sounds markedly less upbeat than an essay Judis wrote immediately following Obama's election victory. In that article -- America the Liberal -- Judis argues that the Democrats' success demonstrates that a new political bloc consisting of persons of color, women and liberal professionals could potentially engender longterm progressive reform.

Although Judis tries to temper his excitement, he believes that the 2006 and 2008 elections mark a fundamental leftward shift in the ideological makeup of the electorate:

The rise of [women, people of color, and professional liberals] within the post-industrial economy has brought in its wake a new political worldview. Call it "progressive" or "liberal" or even "Naderite". . . .[P]rofessionals are the vanguard of the new progressive majority. Their sensibility is reflected in the Democratic platform and increasingly in the country as a whole. . . .Professionals are generally liberal on civil rights and women's rights; committed to science and to the separation of church and state; internationalist on trade and immigration; skeptical of, but not necessarily opposed to, large government programs; and gung-ho about government regulation of business, especially K Street lobbyists.

Many are children of the 1960s and '70s--heavily influenced by Martin Luther King Jr., Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Nader--but their views are clearly reflected in succeeding generations of college-educated Americans, particularly the "millennials" who grew up during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Ucla's annual study of incoming college freshmen across the country found in 2006 that 28.4 percent identified themselves as "liberal"--the highest percentage since 1975.

Judis also contends that:

[S]even years removed from September 11, liberal views have re-emerged with a vengeance. Now, the coming recession seems likely to push voters even further left.

Needless to say, this "push" has not occurred.

The Left Effusively Endorsed Obama During the Democratic Primaries
I have always been suspicious of liberal arguments which celebrate the demise of the GOP and conservatism and which welcome the advent of a liberal Utopia. I wrote many essays on this subject during the campaign and since the election -- including an essay which responds to Judis's "America the Liberal." I also created Dissenting Justice because often, the Left seemed like it was in a collective Obama-Vegetative State, which rendered progressives incapable of offering critical and balanced analysis of the Democratic presidential candidates. I hoped to shake things up with my own rigorous analysis.

And as gauche as saying "I told you so" seems, I can barely resist doing so. Nevertheless, I will attempt to make a critical contribution to this debate by reiterating some of the basic points I have made on my blog and elsewhere.

What the Political Left Needs to Understand
First, an election is not a social movement. Although many diverse people united to support Obama and to oppose the GOP, this does not mean that they shared a leftist political ideology. The invalidation of same-sex marriage in California -- where Obama won by more than 20% of the vote -- demonstrates this patently obvious point.

Second, progressives were so unnerved by Bush and the Clintons that many of them projected radicalism upon a moderate (or undefined) Obama in order to frame voting for him as a dramatic break from the past. Although "change" supports many meanings, for progressives, it symbolized liberal transformation of U.S. political life and policy.

Third, many liberals wanted so desperately to believe in the myth of a post-racial America that they treated Obama's electoral success as the ultimate triumph of progressive race politics. Despite the fact that strong racial cleavages shaped the vote for both Obama and McCain, many commentators, nevertheless, argued that Obama's victory would allow the country to move beyond race altogether.

Fourth, many self-described liberals are actually political moderates. They passionately support a set of symbolic liberal causes, but they do not favor more substantive societal transformation. Beating up Don Imus or Republicans who sing about a "Magic Negro" is a lot easier to do than creating good public schools that do not deprive poor children and children of color of a quality education. And passing the much-needed Ledbetter legislation does not resolve the substantive legal difficulties that civil rights plaintiffs encounter if they manage to overcome tough procedural hurdles. Yet, liberals cheered loudly for Ledbetter without even discussing (minus a few exceptions) the need for more progressive measures.

Liberal Regrets: Not Obama's "Fault"
Progressives cannot blame Obama for his effort to straddle the ideological center. Instead, they must look inward and discover why they chose to treat a politician (as skillful in that role as he might be) as someone who is mythological or larger than life.

They should also canvass history, as Judis has done, to learn about the critical role of passionate collective activism in the evolution of U.S. politics and policy. Moderate presidents have presided over great changes in the U.S., but they did so with the backing and agitation of engaged social movements. True social change does not result from effusive adoration and acquiescence; instead, it arises from criticism, collective activism, strategic compromise and political opportunity.

Conclusion: Silence and Defensive Partisanship Will Not Create Change Either
Many liberals have remained silent or have become defensive partisans in response to commentary that reveals striking similarities between Obama's policies and Bush-era practices that provoked sustained and angry criticism from the Left. Consequently, I am not hopeful that progressives will welcome dissent and self-criticism in the near future. Dissent and criticism, however, are staples of successful social movement activism, which is an essential component of progressive (or conservative) political change.

Ironically, I have found that political conservatives (e.g. Glenn Reynolds) often provide the most accommodating space for dissenting progressives. Admittedly, progressive dissent can serve conservatives' interest in hearing criticism of Democrats. But this process can also link nonpartisans across the political spectrum, who, despite disagreeing on many issues, can learn and benefit from open debate. I hope that progressives will begin to provide the same space for liberal criticism that some nonpartisan conservatives have already offerred.

PS: My sudden obsession with links to my previous essays is just a subtle way of saying "I told you so!"


Just Added to Dissenting Justice:

Presidential Idol: Lincoln the Best, Bush Not the Worst

Free at Last? No!

A lot of liberal commentators have begun to argue that subordinated people are now "free," thanks to Obama's election and the new vast liberal center that propelled him to victory. People who occupy positions of relative social and economic privilege, versus those who experience subordination and discrimination, will likely interpret differently the meaning of the election. Tellingly, I have not seen many women, people of color, or gays and lesbians advocating the view that the political ideology of the country has lurched to the left. While Obama's victory definitely thrills most black people, blacks and whites have a different view of his success. To use King's metaphor, whites apparently believe that we have finally reached the mountaintop; blacks, however, believe that we can finally start climbing.

While many pundits argue that Obama's victories in Virginia, Florida, Indiana, and North Carolina indicate a radical political realignment, these arguments neglect to examine the fine print of the election returns in those states. First, his victories in those states were extremely close. He won Virginia and Florida, for example, by just 3 points, and North Carolina and Indiana by only a hair. Shift 1.5 % of the votes in Virginia and Florida to the GOP and those states become tied. North Carolina and Indiana would become deadlocked by an even smaller degree of movement. Also, Florida has been relatively more purple than other southern states, having voted for Carter, Clinton and maybe even Gore (depending upon how you count the chads and butterfly ballots). Kerry lost Florida to Bush by 5 points, far less than the other regions of the Deep South.

In their collective rush to portray this election as indicative of an ideological revolution, most commentators fail to mention that Obama did not win a majority of white votes nationally; no Democrat has managed to accomplish this feat since 1964. Even in many so-called blue states, a majority or near majority of white voters have voted for Republicans in recent elections, including this one (see this article: link). Accordingly, if blacks and Latinos do not widely vote, if white women retain their electoral flexibility (or "purpleness"), or if white professionals have a more attractive Republican option, then the country could easily go red again.

Finally, many commentators mention Obama's appeal among highly educated professionals. They argue that a coalition of younger, wealthier, educated elites and persons of color can dictate national politics in this new ideological era. This style of argumentation emerged during the Democratic primaries. But the assumption that highly educated people are inevitably liberal betrays history. Most educated progressives want to believe that education causes people to embrace liberal agendas and that perhaps, finally, most voters have now learned that the liberal label works best. But while polling data indicate that educated people tend to support hot-button liberal causes (pro-choice, gay rights, etc.), their approval dissipates on matters that are not merely symbolic to them.

Consider the subject of same-sex marriage -- which true-blue Californians just voted to prohibit. Many young educated liberals support the legality of same-sex marriage, but unless they intend to marry someone of the same sex, their connection to the issue is largely symbolic. Voting in favor of this issue, however, permits them to express their support for gay rights concerns.

By contrast, consider the utter lack of attention paid by Democratic candidates to the issue of resegregation and funding inequality in America's public school systems among Democrats. According to substantial education data (I strongly recommend the work of Professor Gary Orfield), densely blue, liberal, highly educated, professionally populated, Obama-supporting parts of the country (the upper-Midwest, Northeast, West Coast) have the most segregated and unevenly funded public school districts in the nation. Not only are these schools relatively more segregated than those in the Deep South, the level of racial isolation in them actually mirrors the degree of segregation in the South a decade after the celebrated Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Black and Latino students in these school districts also live in concentrated poverty neighborhoods that lack jobs and stability, and many of the schools are vastly underfunded, have teachers with fewer credentials of those who work in wealthier districts, and enroll students who routinely underperform on standardized measures of academic achievement.

Obama's campaign did not specifically address issues of concentrated poverty and racial isolation. Instead, most of his economic policy statements focused on helping the generic "middle-class." Also, it is very hard for Democrats in these resegregated jurisdictions to blame the "evil" Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld monster for this problem. Most blue-state local governments refuse to abandon property tax-based school funding. Liberal, upper-class parents flock to the suburbs where states have built public schools to facilitate their avoidance of inner city school systems. And these parents often resist efforts to equalize school funding or to integrate high-performing schools by expanding poor children's access to those institutions.

While Democrats celebrate the role that Northern Virginia liberals played in Obama's victory, many of these highly educated professionals (along with those in Montgomery County, Maryland) work in Washington, D.C. but reside in the suburbs in order to escape the substandard, underfunded, and largely black and poor school system in Washington, DC. Coastal and Midwestern liberals instinctively demonize and dismiss red-state southern whites. Yet, they often refuse to scrutinize how their own jurisdictions create policies that reinforce invidious patterns of social advantage and disadvantage.

I believe that Democrats should celebrate "our" electoral victory. But we must not delude ourselves into thinking that change is now easy because this trivializes the experiences of people who live in conditions of vast inequality, and it cheapens the hard work of people who have dedicated their lives to advocating social justice. Despite this week's Democrat sweep, voters in several states gave "reality checks" to liberals. In Florida, California, Arizona and Arkansas they stripped gay people of equal protection and liberty. In Nebraska, they banned affirmative action, and they barely failed to do so in Colorado. These votes do not prove that a new-left generation has arrived. On the contrary, they look like "more of the same."

Related articles on Dissenting Justice:

Separate and Unequal Public Schools: "Liberal" Blue States Have Worse Records Than "Dixie"

2008 Is Not 1964: Why Liberal Mania and Conservative Panic Are Nothing But Melodrama

Blacks Less Optimistic About a Coming Liberal Utopia

A Sober Look at a Democratic Sweep

Split Ticket? What California's Battle Over Same-Sex Marriage Means for U.S. Liberals

Strong Support for California Anti-Gay Measure Proves That Many Blue-State Voters Embrace Red Agendas