First, a guest poster at Talking Points Memo had a couple of posts up at these links: The Incumbent Party I and The Incumbent Party II that talks about the fact that we have three parties in this country: the Republican Party, the Democratic Party and the Incumbent Party. He/she notes that the Incumbent party contains members from both parties, and that over time, their priorities become peculiarly aligned in many ways, especially around issues of self-preservation, and that this leads to an overwhelming concentration of power and advantages in the hands of incumbents. The data about uncontested primaries and races contained in Episode 1 and Episode 2shows how powerful that dynamic is in this state. As an easy reference, I would suspect that the roll of those who voted for tabling the Health Care Amendment would be a pretty accurate roster of the members of the Incumbent Party in Massachusetts.
And it’s not at all new. This has been the state of affairs at least since I moved (back) to Massachusetts in 1991. As I’ve noted before, and as David notes in Episode 2, except for the anomaly of the last election cycle, Massachusetts has been at or next to the bottom of states for contested elections. There are, as always, many reasons for this, but the primary reason has always been the overwhelming money advantage of incumbents. Back in the early 90’s, activists with what was the Commonwealth Coalition (the successor to Citizen Action following the latter’s demise), spoke with a bunch of community activists and leaders in an effort to understand why so few progressives and people of color were running for office. Most said that it was the intimidating financial hurdle needed to successfully challenge an incumbent that stopped them. Thus, joining with a bunch of activists from Western Mass. as well, the campaign for Clean Elections was born.
A public financing bill was first introduced in the legislature by then State Rep. Marc Draisen and that bill sank like a stone, so it was decided to pursue the initiative, and the rest is history. During and after the campaign, a group also affiliated with the Commonwealth Coalition called the Massachusetts Money and Politics Project released a series of reports that illustrated the dominance of money, and the interests that supplied it, over the political process here, based on analyses of candidates’ campaign finance reports. I wish they were available on line so I could link to them so you wouldn’t have to take my word for it, but they showed that incumbents tended to outspend challengers (when there were any) 2 to 1, that incumbents often raised money hand over fist in off years and even during cycles where they weren’t challenged, that Committee chairs tended to have even more of an advantage, and distributed quite a bit of their funds to colleagues as a way of preserving influence and fealty, and that campaigns, on average of course, got more expensive every year. The conclusions drawn from all this was that incumbents built war chests for insurance and challenge-avoidance, the hurdles for challengers were overwhelming, and that contributions were made by special interests not so much to support campaigns, but to preserve access and influence. Based on the anecdotal evidence I’ve seen since, I see no indication that any of this has changed. Sure, there are always exceptions, lots of campaigns can be run on the cheap, and some can be funded by the grassroots, but that doesn’t change the big picture.
So — public financing. That’s my suggestion for what’s needed if we want to take on the Incumbent Party. Incumbents need to be reminded that their primary constituency are their constituents, not just the leadership, not just their colleagues and not just their contributors. Contested races, where the parties compete on a relatively level playing field, are an excellent way to provide that reminder.
Yay, I learned how to post links!
Ignoring the fact that you have to come up with an actual candidate willing to run uphill, it seems like a concentrated effort could empty war-chests by running candidates against that candidate over and over again. Sure, the first few times you’ll get outspent, probably by more than 2:1. But eventually the opponent will empty his savings, and it will come down to recent fundraising ability. Sure, the incumbant still has an advantage, but it is less of an advantage.
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Of course, you can’t do this for just one district at a time, because the incumbant will pull from donors statewise. However, if you hammer at multiple districts at the same time, every single election cycle, you might be able to reduce their financial advantage eventually.
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Or, you’ll completely burn out your donors, volunteers, and everyone else of like mind.
Sorry I missed it — I gotta get a wider monitor …
You argue that the “primary reason” that MA is at the bottom of the states for competitiveness is because of the overwhelming money advantage of incumbents.
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But is this really true? After all, in every state I’m aware of (and nationally), the incumbent almost always has a major money advantage. This dynamic is not limited to MA. Unless it is true that the money problem is indeed worse here (and I haven’t seen such evidence), then it would appear that while the money advantage could very well be the “primary reason” for non-competitveness here and elsewhere, it does not explain why MA in particular scores poorly on competitveness.
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I know this state would be a lot more competitive if money, gerrymandering, and so forth was not an issue, but I do think that a good reason why MA is less competitive is because 1) MA tilts far enough to the Democratic side such that they wouldn’t vote for Republicans anyway, and 2) people are generally content, given that MA is one of the most (generally) affluent states in the country, with less income inequality than in other states. That doesn’t mean everybody is content, of course, or that MA is somehow perfect, but isn’t it possible that the lack of competitiveness in comparison to other states is a product of these demographics?
I don’t doubt that the factors you’ve mentioned contribute to the problem. It may be that the combination of financial advantages of incumbency, plus Democratic dominance, plus relative affluence (I’ll take your word for it on that) is what contributes to the fact that we rank so low, and that the absence of one or more of them would mean that we would rank higher. But I’m skeptical. I don’t think Democratic dominance explains the lack of primaries within the Democratic party. And, having lived in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, New York and now Massachusetts, I haven’t discerned a greater level of contentment here than elsewhere (in fact Massachusettsans seem noticeably more cranky on the whole than anywhere else I’ve lived).
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But even if your thesis is correct that all three factors apply, the only one that can be addressed directly through political action is ameliorating the financial advantages of incumbency. I don’t see running out and saying that there should be more Republicans, god forbid, or that we should all have less money and be more cranky, as a viable reform agenda somehow. ; )
You said:
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“1) MA tilts far enough to the Democratic side such that they wouldn’t vote for Republicans anyway…”
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This is sort of a non sequitur. You do mean to imply that most voters are absolutely content with their incumbent, and that no Democrat may challenge another Democrat? Are we in Iran?
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“2) people are generally content, given that MA is one of the most (generally) affluent states in the country, with less income inequality than in other states.“
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Is the income equality claim true? MA is in the top 5 in per capita income which implies, to me, that there may be many wealthy people and a lot of lower income people. Or not. Where’s your citation to prove this?
A link
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To the contrary, Massachusetts is 11th from the bottom (i.e. there’s lots of income inequality goin’ on) of the list.
it appears indeed that relative income equality doesn’t play a role. And in any case, New York is pretty similar to MA in terms of general income and income inequality, yet generally has more competitiveness, according to the link in the original post.
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So why is it that MA is less competitive than other states? It’s unlikely because of the money advantage, since candidates in other states also experience this. Better gerrymandering? A poorly run opposition party? A brilliant majority party machine?
I thought the greatest loss of population, in absolute head count, was from New York state. And doesn’t NY show up, along with NJ, as the highest tax regimes in the US?
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Besides moving to NYC for a high-powered job, who’s relocating to the Empire State?
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As a matter of fact, didn’t MassInc show a fair number of people leaving NY for MA? (Can’t put my finger on their demographic study a few years ago.)
Not really sure how this post is related to my post, but OK. I(and the OP) am talking about political competitiveness, not economic.
Hope I can explain how I got to this
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If I have low or little expectations of my elected official, and he or she delivers to those expectations, I’m unmotivated to change.
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If I have high expectations and my rep is not meeting them, that’s when I will consider a change.
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Smart politicians keep expectations low (promising nothing like a Bridge to the 21st century and then meeting those promises.(actually I liked Clinton, but this was the only example I could remember of a big promise of nothing)
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In MA politicians have been underselling expectations for years (as in many other states).
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This has the added “bonus” of creating voter apathy.
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So we have an uncaring electorate not paying attention to an under promising and “don’t rock the boat” set of incumbents…
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What upsets this?
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1. When a politician gets way out of whack with his or her constituents (Lieberman/Lamont). Lieberman made a fatal mistake, he stuck his head out in support of the war, drew attention to himself, and now he will likely pay the price.
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2. Occasionally corruption catches an incumbent (Randall “Duke” Cunningham).
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3. Retirement
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4. A really big mistake (GHWB and the “no new taxes” plus the weak economy and not getting Saddam the first time)
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Ok, it’s my hypothesis – there are probably other reasons but I need to go make dinner 🙂
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Mark
Smart Mass, Dumb Mass
I think that blogging in general has done a great job of addressing voter apathy by informing people of what is really happening:
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In government
In foreign affairs
In the press
In the media in general
To be honest, the incumbent candidate owes only the incumbent party any fealty. The party is there to ensure power is applied correctly to gain advantage. The voters are just pretty much there because they are needed to pay taxes. Without the control of the party, chaos would ensue.
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While the party leaders can develop strategy and create tactics to meet the strategic goals, voters are controlled by the whim an whimsy of the media or simple fears. What is important to them today is forgotten tomorrow and replaced the day after. The wise incumbent will follow the dictates of the party bosses.
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In high school civics, we are taught about the power of the voter but, as most things taught in high school, we learn the real world is very much different.
Merriam-Webster online:
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Irony
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1 : a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other’s false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning — called also Socratic irony
2 a : the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b : a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c : an ironic expression or utterance
3 a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity b : incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play — called also dramatic irony, tragic irony
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ?
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Sorry if my response sounded as though I was trying to use irony. I was simply trying to state the facts.