A Fox news/Opinion Dynamics poll released August 5th found that “While not moving the race numbers much, the convention does appear to have improved Democratic nominee Senator John Kerry’s image with the public. At the same time, President George W. Bush’s job approval rating is at the lowest point of his presidency.”
Opinion Dynamics President John Gorman added “What we see post-convention is actually a strengthening of the polarization in the electorate. Kerry voters are now more confident in their man and more committed to him… The ability of the Bush campaign to paint Kerry with a negative brush has been diminished and so has the chance for any major electoral movement. Given the closeness of the race, this may diminish the value of trying to use television to persuade voters and enhance the value of traditional get-out-the-vote efforts. With roughly equal numbers of voters on each side, getting them to the polls becomes crucial.”
TDS Strategy Memos
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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April 17: A Closer Look at the “Uniparty” Fable
RFK Jr. and MTG are using the same dismissive term for major-party differences. I took at look at this phenomenon at New York:
Partisan polarization has been steadily growing in the U.S. since roughly the 1960s. Ironically, during this time, the complaint that the two parties are actually too alike has become increasingly prevalent. For years, right-wing Republicans have called people in the GOP who don’t share their exact degree of ideological extremism RINOs, or “Republicans in name only,” suggesting they’re basically Democrats. Left-wing Democrats occasionally echo these epithets by calling (relative) moderates “DINOs,” “ConservaDems,” or — back when maximum resistance to George W. Bush was de rigueur — “Vichy Democrats.”
Today the term “Uniparty” has come to denote the idea that Democrats and Republicans are actually working for the same evil Establishment enterprise, their loudly proclaimed differences being a mere sham. This contention was the culmination of a five-page letter Marjorie Taylor Greene recently sent her Republican colleagues calling for House Speaker Mike Johnson’s removal, unless he changes his ways instantly. She wrote:
“With so much at stake for our future and the future of our children, I will not tolerate this type of ‘leadership.’ This has been a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats’ agenda that has angered our Republican base so much and given them very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority …
“If these actions by the leaders of our conference continue, then we are not a Republican party – we are a Uniparty that is hell-bent on remaining on the path of self-inflicted destruction.”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also leaned heavily into the Uniparty idea in his recent speech introducing running-mate Nicole Shanahan:
“Our independent run for the presidency is finally going to bring down the Democrat and Republican duopoly that gave us ruinous debt, chronic disease, endless wars, lockdowns, mandates, agency capture, and censorship. This is the same Trump/Biden Uniparty that has captured and appropriated our democracy and turned it over to Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard, and their other corporate donors. Nicole Shanahan will help me rally support for our revolution against Uniparty rule from both ends of the traditional Right vs. Left political spectrum.”
The Uniparty claim is ridiculous, of course, as FiveThirtyEight’s Geoffrey Skelley demonstrates:
“[O]ur current political moment is arguably farther away from having anything resembling a uniparty than at any other time in modern U.S. history. Based on their voting records, Democratic and Republican members of Congress have become increasingly polarized, and both the more moderate and more conservative wings of the congressional GOP have moved to the right at similar rates. Meanwhile, polling suggests that Americans now are more likely to view the parties as distinct from one another than in the past, an indication that the public broadly doesn’t see a uniparty in Washington. Although there are areas where the parties are less divided, the broader uniparty claim is at odds with our highly polarized and divided political era.”
Kennedy’s subscription to the Uniparty notion is understandable on two points. The first is that his candidacy is vastly more likely to tilt the 2024 presidential campaign in the direction of one of the two major-party candidates (likely Donald Trump, according to most of the polling) than to actually succeed in winning the presidency. Maintaining that it really doesn’t matter whether it’s Biden or Trump running the country is essential to maintaining RFK’s appeal as November approaches and the futility of his bid becomes clearer. Second, Kennedy’s pervasive conspiracy-theory approach to contemporary life lends itself to the argument that the apparent gulf between the two major parties is a ruse disguising a sinister common purpose.
MTG’s Uniparty contention also reflects dual motives. In part she is simply echoing Trump’s weird but useful contention that he’s an “outsider” battling a Deep-State Establishment that secretly controls both parties, which is pretty rich since he dominates the GOP like Genghis Khan dominated the Golden Horde. But there is a marginally more legitimate sense in which key elements of the two parties really are in line with each other on isolated issues that happen to obsess Greene, such as aid to Ukraine. If you are a hammer, as the saying goes, everything looks like a nail.
The same is true of other implicit Uniparty claims, particularly those made by progressive pro-Palestinian protesters who adamantly argue that the need to smite “Genocide Joe” Biden for his pro-Israel policies outweighs all the reasons it might be a bad idea to help Trump return to the White House (including the fact that Trump is palpably indifferent to Palestinian suffering). If the two parties do not appear to differ on your overriding issue, then the fundamental reality of polarization can fade into irrelevance.
So we’re likely to hear more Uniparty talk even as Democrats and Republicans head toward another highly fractious election with very high stakes attributable to their differences.
yep… everyone has gotta tell someone.. .create the cells and keep talking… it works.
Even then, we’re going to have to feel the pain. Sort of like cutting a leg off to stop the gangrene before it kills the patient.
AlleyKat, I’m talkin to every one I can. I lost a job because my boss was a Republican. My bumbper sticker says”Left Wing Christian For Kerry” you be surprised how many of us out there. I was always pretty much middle of the road voter untill this guy got selected by the supreme court. I know it’s not cool to have one party in control of the whole thing but, this time I hope the Dems get control of the House and Senate with Kerry as President. It’s going to take at least 2 to 4 years to get this mess GW and rest of the R controled Congress has screwed-up…..
Sara, you’re a little off on your medieval history. Connally served in the Trickster’s first term, then got caught up in the AMPI scandal. He joined the Republican Party in the spring of 1974, which prompted the great line that it was the first known instance of a rat jumping onto a sinking ship.
Bless you, Ed. Please talk to any Bush-supporting friends. I wish I could understand how Republicans can support Bush when there are intelligent, consistent, well-informed Republicans (who I may not necessarily agree with) who could move their party forward with honor.
I was one of those misinformed voters who voted for Bush. I liked that compassionate conservative bull XXXX . Personally, I think the extrmeist religion thing he has going on is a big turn off with me and I was happy Kerry made reference to it in his speech. When did God become a Republican?
The bounce may not have shown up much in the first horse-race polls Monday, but all polls I’ve seen later in the week have shown at least some Kerry-ward movement, and various state polls (from ARG and not-so-credible Rasmussen) also look brighter. Plus, as many have said, the poll internals are all so solid Kerry that you have to figure many of the undecided are just Kerry votes waiting to happen.
I heard reports that on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade this morning, traders seeing the job numbers broke into a chant of “Kerry! Kerry!”. Can anyone confirm this? We may view this as the day the back of the Bush administration was broken — a clear end to job growth (maybe going to negative territory), and renewed fierce fighting in Iraq.
Sara, that’s an extraordinary report if true. It reminds me of 1980, when Gene McCarthy and Ralph Abernathy came out and endorsed Reagan. It was obvious Carter was in unusually deep trouble. Any guesses on who these mystery statesmen are?
I understand plans are in the works for a leadership PAC made up of at least four retired GOP Senators, all with extensive Foreign Affairs experience, to announce a week before Bush’s Convention, a Republicans for Kerry effort. I gather the idea is full page ads in Wall Street Journal, Barrons, NYTimes and WaPo and maybe others with lots of recognized signatures, and with the theme being the need for significant changes in approach to Foreign Policy. (My source is someone who knows about one of these retired Senators efforts to solicit signers.) The advertisement would then be reprintable, and available for easy distribution in places where such “names” would influence things.
So — as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the resignation of Richard Nixon, we can call it the Ghost of Nixon/Conally play — for those who remember John Connally’s leadership of Democrats for Nixon — for which he was paid off by being made Sec. of Treasury in Nixon’s second term — but the dastardly act was done in the 1972 McGovern race.
The Senators involved are so senion, they will not be looking at appointments — and well fixed enough that Bush cannot do them in.
The post ends with the comment that getting people to the polls is crucial. Yes it is but persuading moderate Republicans and independents is also crucal and possible. Many moderate REpublicans are open to the idea of not voting or voting for Kerry if apraoched politely one o one. There is a lot of dissatisfaction about Bush’s extremist religion, budgt deficets, and misiformation about the war.
The Kerry campaign needs to set up a means for us to write personal letters to undecideds. And we all need to talk to our Republican friends about how party loyalty might mean getting rid of a leader who is leading the party the wrong way.
This is what I postulated on the bounce threads before, that it didn’t really increase Kerry’s support so much as deepen it.
> I can’t wait to hear the spin from the White
> House and Treasury Security John Snow-job on
> these numbers. 32,000 new jobs in July is an
> absolute shocker and will change the dynamics
> of the race in terms of how many Americans will
> view the economy. The consensus number
> predicted from July from a cross section of
> economists prior to the report’s issuance was
> 243,000 new jobs. To top it all off, the already
> bad June numbers were downgraded from
> 112,000 new jobs to 78,000.
From WaPo:
‘We’re not satisfied,” Treasury Secretary John Snow told reporters in Pittsburgh. “We’re encouraged, though, by the fact that the unemployment rate came down.” ‘
So the “unemployment rate came down?” Let’s see what Karl Rove can make of that line, in the Chimp’s TV commercials.
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I’m sitting here in Finland, thinking this is sweet on so many levels. 11 more weeks, and unless Kerry turns out to be absolutely abmysmally bad in the TV debates or Al Qaeda does “Shrub” a big favor, we are going to see America resume its leadership of the free Western world again. After four long years of Bushit.
Can’t wait.
MARCU$
On the basis of your analysis, Ruy, as well as my own gut feeling, I just left a message for my county Democratic Chair volunteering to help with our local GOTV efforts. This is something we need to start talking up among the party faithful.
I can’t wait to hear the spin from the White House and Treasury Security John Snow-job on these numbers. 32,000 new jobs in July is an absolute shocker and will change the dynamics of the race in terms of how many Americans will view the economy. The consensus number predicted from July from a cross section of economists prior to the report’s issuance was 243,000 new jobs. To top it all off, the already bad June numbers were downgraded from 112,000 new jobs to 78,000.
This is Bush’s worst nightmare. The economy needs to create 150-200,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with population growth.
Yup, we’ve certainly turned the corner with the economy. Bush has taken us down a blind alley. I’m seriously looking forward to observing how the Bush Admin will spin its “Stay The Course” economic message after two straight months of these horrible job numbers.
More goo- ,er, I mean *bad* news for “Shrub”:
http://money.cnn.com/2004/08/06/news/economy/jobless_july/index.htm?cnn=yes
Job growth shock
July payroll growth far shy of Wall Street forecasts; unemployment rate slips to 5.5%.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Hiring by U.S. employers slowed significantly in July, according to a government report Friday, as the number of new jobs added to payrolls came in far below Wall Street expectations.