Tectonic Shifts in the Political Landscape

The times, they are a'changin'.

The political landscape is shifting rapidly. Certainties are dissolving.

Michael Barone notes that one of the hallowed certainties of the electoral process, the "incumbent rule" that held that voters who wait until the last minute to decide who to back never break for the incumbent, no longer applies. Bush has blown it out of the water in each of his election victories and so did Joe Lieberman in his Connecticut primary loss. He had only polled in the low forties in weeks before the election, and finally received 48 percent of the vote. [here]

I think what is happening here is part of the general revolt in both parties against an out of touch leadership. Even committed Republicans and Democrats are uneasy about a continuation of politics as usual and are suspending their judgment as long as possible before finally coming back to the fold.

And in a separate issue, Democrats are beginning to question their ties to one of their core constituencies -- the teachers unions. Mark Kleiman, echoing Mickey Kaus, makes this astounding confession:

some of what they ask for really isn't in the public interest... [and] kowtowing to them costs us [the Democrats] votes

Read it here.

This is big! Teachers and public employee unions have long been one of the most reliable sources of funding for the Democrats. For decades cynical party leaders have happily accepted a loss of votes and blatant disregard for the public interest in exchange for money. But now that equation is starting to be questioned.

In part this is because alternative sources of funds are becoming available to the Party so they don't need the unions as much as before, and because in a situation in which elections are decided by tiny vote margins they can no longer afford to blow off votes in order to get money.

If this decline in support for one of the most abusive and destructive of the Democrat special interests would result in a greater regard for the public welfare and responsiveness to voters' concerns, I would welcome it. But it is by no means clear that the new sources of funding -- vanity campaigns by the super-rich and internet contributions from left wing ideologues -- in any way serves the public interest. I fear that the Democrats are drifting ever farther from a position of public responsibility.

RELATED:

Mark Blumenthal has a long discussion of the "Incumbent Rule" here. He notes that it weakened significantly in the 1990's.