Cheerio, median-voter

America’s upcoming midterm election has raised much debate on how the spatial distribution of voters will determine the outcome. Contrary to past elections, Democrats and Republicans have forgotten about the median-voter and instead, have become more extreme in their speech to capture those consistently liberal or conservative, respectively. As a result, more and more moderates have decided to tune out and rationally abstain from voting since their votes will not be decisive. This suggests that the spatial distribution of voters for this particular election is heavy-weighted on the tails. For instance, according to this article, a survey by the Pew Research Center found that “73% of ‘consistently conservative’ Americans are likely to cast a ballot on November 4th, along with 58% of consistent liberals”. The question then remains on which party captured more extremists and will guarantee victory this upcoming Tuesday. 

Analyzing this situation under Down’s spatial location theory, we can expect the voting turnout to be determined by the abstention rates on both sides. Thus, in this case, we need to assume away the assumption of no abstentions implied in his model. If abstention were symmetrically spread across de distribution, then the median-voter would still remain as the decisive voter. However, if abstention is more likely in young people, then Republicans will have a better chance of winning, assuming that the Republican party has more elder citizens than the Democrats. The challenge remains on moving as much citizens to the ballot box this Tuesday. As parties have said their goodbyes to the median-voter, ironically, the midterm election will be determined by abstentions, not voters.

McAuliffe appealing to Moderate voters in Virginia's Gubernatorial Race

          Ken Cuccinelli isn't the only one displaying more moderate views in the Virginia gubernatorial race, Democratic candidate McAuliffe appears to be shifting his views too.  As this article from the Washington Post reports, McAuliffe did not support offshore oil drilling for Virginia in 2009, but starting in May he began to support offshore oil drilling.  His spokesman attributed his change of heart to "technological progress," but the median voter theorem offers another reason for McAuliffe’s change in stance.

          According to the median voter theorem, a candidate in an election by majority will adopt the platform most preferred by the median voter.  In the case of Virginia offshore oil drilling, a stance against offshore oil drilling would generally be considered on the liberal side of the spectrum and a stance in favor of offshore oil drilling would be on the other side.  Assuming McAuliffe is only looking to win votes, shifting his stance to being in favor of ‘responsible’ oil drilling enables him to pick up votes from the middle, while keeping the votes from his liberal base.

          Conservative groups have already accused him of flip-flopping on the issue, and the Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter (an organization generally seen as very liberal) has expressed discontent with his and other politicians’ shifting positions.  If the assumptions in the median voter theorem hold, the shift will be to his benefit, but if the environmental groups get an unusually large number of liberal voters to abstain from voting, it could hurt his chances. Time will tell if moderating his position ultimately helps or hurts McAuliffe.  

The Relative Importance of Ideology for Political Candidates

                      

To what extent do party platforms matter? Suzy Khimm of the Washington Post addresses the relationship between party platforms and the views and actions of individual candidates throughout the political process (article). Since 1972, changes have been made to the nomination process that favors more candidate driven elections. For candidates in a two-party system, what matters is not where exactly they sit on the spectrum of political ideology, but whether or not they capture more votes than the opposing candidate. According to the median voter theorem, espoused by Harold Hotelling and Anthony Downs, the tendency of political parties is to converge to a central, more moderate platform and thus acquire the largest percentage of voters by winning "the median voter" (assuming a unimodal distribution of voters, with the majority of the voters in the center). Khimm explains that “’the nominee knows that he cannot be punished or rewarded for following the party platform,’ and may break from the party to appeal to independent voters.” And according to Downs, it is advantageous for a candidate to profess an ambiguous and broad platform to appeal to these "independent" or "median" voters as competition forces parties towards an equilibrium. It makes sense that candidates would seek to position themselves ideologically where they can potentially win the most voters.

But doesn't this tendency to move towards the middle alienate those at the relative extremes on the political spectrum? Don’t the two parties become eerily similar as they approach the middle? According to Khimm, “Even those who don’t believe platforms are all that significant agree they’re useful for at least one thing: highlighting the baseline differences between the two parties.” Not only do party platforms highlight the differences and so distinguish one candidate from another, they also hold candidates accountable to the ideologies they profess and the many promises they make during campaigns. Downs claims that voters must be able to detect the side of the midpoint on which a candidates falls, which is in part determined by the "extremist policies" the candidates espouses. Even voters at either end of the spectrum might agree that given two candidates, they would prefer the candidate who is relatively closer to their political ideology to win the election. Candidates have to position themselves centrally, but they also must be identifiable with their party's platform. 

Herman Cain for the win?

As Republican presidential candidates have been on the campaign trail in pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination, Texas Governor Rick Perry and businessman and former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney have emerged as front-runners in quite a few polls and have lately been battling for the lead position.  In an unlikely turn of events, Herman Cain won a GOP straw poll yesterday in Florida with a convincing 37% of the 2,657 votes cast.  In his WSJ Online article today, Patrick O'Connor discussed some of the reasons why Cain may have come out ahead of his opponents who have been gaining more support and tend to be relatively more moderate than the former corporate executive (though Perry has led a considerably more conservative campaign than Romney).

The straw poll immediately followed a Thursday night GOP debate, in which Perry stood by "a Texas law he had signed making illegal immigrants eligible for in-state university tuition," which disappointed many conservatives and alienated some voters.  This is typical of the dilemma faced by candidates of having to appeal to two different audiences while trying to win a single-party primary but also taking into consideration appealing to the median voter in the general election later on.  In a two-party election, Perry's policy would still have alienated some conservatives, but it also likely would have won him some moderate votes by moving him closer ideologically to the Democratic candidate.  The primary is a balancing act where the candidates must determine how conservative (or liberal, as the case may be) they must be to win primary votes without going past the point of no return where they cannot come back close enough to the middle to compete for Downs' decisive median voter in the general election against a candidate of the other party.  Therefore, although either Perry or Romney would likely be ultimately more electable than Cain in the general election, he was able to surpass both candidates for a win this Saturday.

Bill Owens and where he (ONLY) stands

In this political ad, Congressman Bill Owens, then running for Congress in New York’s 23^rd district, claims that he wants to eliminate the Bush tax cuts (whereas his two opponents want to keep them) for the wealthy and create jobs.

There are two interesting things about this video.

1) The video is titled “Where I stand”. Based on what we know on how risky informative campaigning is, and based on our assumption that politicians are vote maximizers it might be safe to assume that Bill Owens allegedly, was able to figure out what the median voter’s preferences were. Which would explain why he took such big risks by clearly enunciating where he stands.

2) The second and more important aspect is that Bill Owens claims that he is going to eliminate the Bush tax cuts , create jobs (and makes dozens of other similar claims in other campaign ads on how he is going to change different policies). The only problem with these claims is that Bill Owens ends up, partly by choice, and because of the relative comparative advantages that his district commands, in the Agricultural committee, the Committee on Armed services and the Committee on Homeland Security. The implications this has is that singlehandedly he would never be able to do anything about the Bush tax cuts for instance, not even initiate a bill for that matter because he doesn’t hold a position in the committees responsible for putting such proposals to the floor. The citizens are (rationally) ignorant about what promises a politician can actually keep and which he/she can’t. And usually, the politicians will not be able to hold them without three (almost) overwhelming conditions. He/She should be a member of the committee that deals with that particular issue, that the proposal commands a majority vote in the committee and then command a majority vote in the House, unless there’s a veto by the President and then the bill needs 2/3 of the votes.

So next time a politician claims that he IS going to change something without explaining the committee system and exposing what it entails, you could get away with calling him a “misinformer”, you might even get away with calling him a deceiver.

How can all politicians get away with claims and promises that can’t be kept? How do people buy into it so fast?

NRA Endorsement of Perriello

This Daily Progress article discusses the recent acknowledgment that Tom Perriello will most likely be endorsed by the National Rifle Association in the upcoming election. The NRA follows a “friendly incumbent rule” by which they support pro-gun law makers seeking re-election.

"Tom hasn’t been afraid to stand up to members of his own party when it comes to fighting for the Second Amendment, and the NRA’s endorsement will signify to Virginia gun owners that they can continue to count on Tom to represent them,” said a spokeswoman in his campaign. Perriello has a strong history of defending second amendment rights and the NRA supports their friends who have stood by them in the past.

The article got me thinking about our discussion in class of the median voter theorem. If the single dimension policy space is a social conservatism continuum, or even more specifically a continuum of gun policy conservatism, what will this endorsement do for Perriello?

The NRA’s endorsement and Perriello’s pro-gun platform would move him (as a candidate option) along the continuum towards the conservative end. It can be predicted from the theorem that inevitably Perriello may lose the votes of some liberal anti-gun extremists as a result of isolation. Yet, it would also be assumed that he would gain the votes of those super loyal to the NRA in all its decisions Conservatives.

The overall gain Perriello would get from his position in the policy space would be contingent on the location of the median voter. If the median voter is already more conservative it is likely that the NRA’s endorsement and his pro-gun stance will benefit him, but rather if the median voter is more liberal (with respect to second amendment rights) it could do more harm than good in his efforts to win the election. Given that much of the 5^th district is heavily rural, I’d say this is really great for Perriello and could give him a big boost.

The Rise of the Middle

By now most people are aware of the Tea Party movement to represent the extremes but most have not hear of the new political group that is beginning to make noise called the “Militant Middle.” This group is made up of disillusioned independents and moderates who feel that current government policies are being dominated by the extremes. The “Militant Middle” has even found a vocal supporter in Jon Stewart:

Stewart tells his devoted audience, "We live in troubled times with real people facing very real problems; problems that have real if imperfect solutions that I believe 70 to 80 percent of our population could agree to try and could ultimately live with. Unfortunately the conversation and process is controlled by the other 15 to 20 percent."

Political scientists say that the Republican and Democrats are picking more extremely partisan candidates because it is easier for them to get funding within the party in the initial stages and it is easier to distinguish them from other candidates in their campaign. Voters who would normally steer towards the middle are being forced to pick polarized candidates (because those are their only options—something that could help this is allowing people other than registered party members vote in primaries) so voters appear to be more partisan than they actually are.

Advocates of the middle seem to suggest that Downs’ Median Voter Theorem is actually not working. The “Militant Middle” is arguing that the Democrats and Republicans and their candidates are actually not moving towards the middle but rather forcing the middle to choose a side (like making you walk that extra mile to get a hotdog instead of competing for your business). Even though parties are fully informed of the middle’s preferences, they are simply not conforming to them. One interesting thing to note is the complaints by some contributors that President Obama promised policies that suggested a movement towards the middle after winning the primaries (like the theory predicts might happen) but they feel that he has not delivered on these.

Even if this movement fails to bring any real candidates to the political forefront, the party can serve the same purpose as the aforementioned Green Party by putting partisan Republicans and Democrats on notice in an attempt to bring the extremes back to the middle.