I finally got around to opening up the March 8 issue of the National Journal, with its provocative and conventionally-wise cover story about “The New Center,” which naturally makes the always-asserted, rarely-documented case that the freshmen Democrats won because they are more centrist. We first heard this in electoral terms when they won in 2006, and now, with floor voting records, we are hearing the echo in terms of their congressional behavior patterns. But just how accurate is the pre-ordained conclusion that Democrats won (and, naturally, can only win) by moving to the center?
Turns out, there's a fair degree of barefoot or just plain lazy empiricism in Richard Cohen and Brian Friel's “special report.” To wit:
- There are 43 frosh Democrats, 13 of whom replaced fellow Democrats who retired, ran for higher office, etc. In those cases, I directly compared the NJ's reported 2007 rankings (see p. 22 of print version; can’t find scores online) of the newcomers with the 2006 rankings of the fellow Democrats they replaced. And guess what: Only 5 of the 13 have more centrist voting records than their predecessors. So, when blue replaced blue, voting records got bluer, not redder. Oops.
- As for the 30 Democrats who replaced Republicans, there is a marginal, at best, “centrism carried the day” case to be made: 18 of the 30 are more centrist than the Republican they replaced. To determine that, I took the NJ's ratings for the 30 GOPers turned out and computed the net distance from a baseline, midpoint score of 50 (rankings are bounded between zero and 100). So, there are obvious centrist-won-out cases, like Arizona freshman Democratic centrist Harry Mitchell (liberal rating: 54) replacing arch-conservative Republican JD Hayworth (conservative rating: 85)—because a distance from 50 of just 4 is obviously much shorter than a distance of 35. On the other extreme, however, are cases like freshman liberal Democrat Paul Hodes (liberal score, 76) of New Hampshire replacing centrist Republican Charlie Bass (conservative score, 52). So, 18-12—or just three switched members (and there were some close calls) from being a 15-all split.
- Overall, then, of the 43 House frosh, 20 are more liberal than either the fellow Democrats they replaced or farther from the center (more liberal) than the (less conservative) Republicans they replaced. Meanwhile, 23 can be said to be certifiably more centrist. But from this near-tie among the 43 Democratic newcomers the storyline just had to be: Dems win by moving to the center! The selective analysis and quotes offered within the story—surprise!—confirmed this narrative.
A final note: Because the 30 Democrats who replaced the Republicans are, in every case, more liberal generally (even if closer from the liberal side of the 50 midpoint than the Republicans they replaced were from the conservative side of it), the 110th Congress is of course more liberal than the 109th was. In fact, the 110th is the most liberal in American history; surely it’s more liberal than the last Democratic Congress under Bill Clinton in 1993-94, chock full as it was with many southern Democratic seats now held by far-more-conservative Republicans. But hey: Don’t expect to see any mainstream media analyses pointing this out because, as usual, such narratives don’t fit with Washington pundits’ pre-conceived, if fictitious, conclusions about what happened in the 2006 midterms which, again, far too many “experts” in this town simply decided long ago was an election Democrats won because they finally learned to act more like Republicans. Oh, and I’ll be holding my breath for a correction or counter-piece from the National Journal...won’t you?
--Tom Schaller
