Some politicians today would not agree with Downs' ideology. Although his model makes economic sense, there is evidence that politicians would value party ideologies over seeking of the favor of the Median Voter. In this article in the Washington Post, Ted Cruz speaks out against moderate Republicans in the Senate. As a tea party member from Texas, Cruz has sparked division and tension with high ranking Republicans such as Mitch McConnell. The relevance of this article to Downs comes at the very end when Cruz comments on his potential running for president in 2016. He says, "I think we have seen election after election that when Republicans fail to draw a clear distinction with the Democrats, when we run to the mushy middle, we lose." Here, Cruz clearly opposes the whole basis of the Median Voter Theorem, stating that political victory is achieved through clear division of political lines, not the political views of the Median Voter.
Saturday, November 08, 2014
Ted Cruz versus Anthony Downs
Earlier in the semester, we studied Anthony Down's theory of the median voter. This idea can be summed up in his article when he writes, "If the distribution of voters along the scale remains constant in a society, its political system tends to move towards an equilibrium" (Downs, 140). In the United States, the distribution of voters for the most part stays stable and we live in a two party system. Therefore, according to Downs, representatives will move towards the political beliefs of the median voter in order to gain the majority of vote as long as the distribution is normal.
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I believe that Senator Cruz ignores reason in stating that the Republican party should move away from more moderate policies and should push towards the conservative right more forcefully. This displays his ignorance of Downs' median voter. Even though the Republicans now hold a majority in the House and Senate, this does not indicate that the population of the United States is becoming more conservative, but may be a reflection of many different factors. Republican wins in the 2014 midterm elections could be the result of dissatisfaction with the Obama administration, or could in actuality be a majority support of a moderate Republican party. Additionally, the population is continually changing and the median voter is changing as well, indicating that as baby boomers continue to retire and draw on Social Security and medical care programs, the population may overwhelmingly support more moderate policies as apposed to hardliner conservative policies. I believe that Senator Cruz should jump on the bandwagon with his fellow Republicans instead of riling up fellow congressmen and causing confusion of party ideology leading up to to the 2016 presidential election.
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