New at Reason

David Weigel | May 22, 2006

Brian Doherty deflates the hopes of anti-war politicians everwhere.

Comments

Justin Raimondo|5.22.06 @ 3:46PM|#

Lovely article, but I would posit another reason why massive antiwar sentiment won't make much of an impact at the polls: the two major parties are merely the "left" and "right" wings of the War Party. By managing to keep their stranglehold on the leadership of the Democrats as well as the Republicans (in spite of the "net-roots" antiwar sentiment we see over at Kos), the interventionists manage to avoid having to face the issue of the war come election time.

|5.22.06 @ 3:56PM|#

Gee, Brian, couldn't you find a few more experts to quote? Let's look at the record:

1945, U.S. wins WWII
1946, Democrats lose control of Congress for the first time since 1930

1950 Truman leads U.S. into war in Korea
1952 Democrats lose both Congress and the Presidency

1965 LBJ leads the nation into war in Vietnam
1968 Democrats lose the Presidency

1989 George H.W. Bush leads U.S. into war in the Middle East
1992 Republicans lose the Presidency

Moral for politicians: Lose a war, lose an election. Win a war, lose an election.

|5.22.06 @ 4:15PM|#

Alan---We shall see, and interesting data points you've brought up. Most of those effects, you note, are on the presidency, not Congress, where domestic concerns seem to tend to drive voter choice far more than foreign policy ones, often for very rational reasons. I suspect a general rule, if one can be gleaned from the maddeningly complex data points of history, is that winning a war isn't going to guarantee your party future political success, but nor is running an unpopular war going to guarantee your party's political failure.

|5.22.06 @ 4:17PM|#

And Justin--I didn't spend a lot of space on it, but one of my bullet points did note the lack of a clear and distinct partisan alternative when it comes to expressing antiwar sentiment. That is, the Dems aren't exactly running strong and clear as a party about what to do about Iraq themselves.

|5.22.06 @ 4:17PM|#

Certainly makes the case for getting rid of gerrymandering. Does the average joe (sixpack) even realize how bad these are?

|5.22.06 @ 4:53PM|#

Brian,

I don't think most people outside of a few 60s leftovers want a repeat of Vietnam. It makes being anti-war tricky.

|5.22.06 @ 5:48PM|#

If another country's national legislature had a 95% re-election rate, would we consider that country to be a democracy?

|5.22.06 @ 7:03PM|#

Raimondo said something I can actually stomach...amazing. I see he still clings to that irksome "War Party" label, as if the complex processes that shaped the two big parties can be reduced to "Peace Bad...killing good." The parties may not follow freedomist policies, but they are most certainly not stupid.

|5.22.06 @ 7:17PM|#

the anti-war movement also hurts itself by supporting campaign finance reform -- a targeted campaign against the warhawks in the democratic party -- Lantos, Rahn Emmanual, Hillary, Pelosi, etc. in the primaries might work to sway the Dems to the correct position on the war. But how do you fund it and counter the DLC, etc.? Democracy at the federal level is effectively dead.

|5.22.06 @ 8:21PM|#

Could all this polling data merely suggest one bit of truth: There just isn't enough of a statistical sample to draw ANY conclusions about winners v. losers as it relates to war, peace and the sentiments about either? Just a bit of a hypothesis of mine. Take it away, Brian Doherty!

|5.22.06 @ 9:13PM|#

Jamie, if you mean a universal political law that would come up with accurate predictions or explanations for all future or past midterm congressional elections that occur during wars, you are quite right. But I do predict, for all the reasons detailed in the article, that despite polled dislike with the situation in Iraq over 60 percent, we will not see this causing appreciable damage, on the whole, to a party whose leader, and almost all of whose congressmen, supported and still support that war--nor much upheaval in the other party, which is a rather jumbled mess on the issue of support for the war--nor see many specific congressmen who are on the supposed wrong side of this issue punished for it electorally. Check back in early November....it's not that political prognostications, mine included, haven't been wrong before, or even right for the wrong reasons, so I'm not even hubristic enough to say that results that comport with my predictions mean that the reasons I stated were THE reasons. I do think that the "we aren't really THAT much against the war" is the main reason we won't see supposed antiwar sentiment having much impact.

|5.22.06 @ 11:21PM|#

I think that the "we're not really against the war" argument is very strong...most people I talk to concerning Iraq are not happy with how it is going, but still think we need to "finish the job", although no one knows how. Basically, you can extrapolate from this the average voter feeling:
"I think we should have gone into Iraq, but I don't like how it turned out...but I don't really have a plan or any ideas how to make it better."

Face it, most people are "finish the job" people and they aren't going to punish the Republicans for failing to do something when the Democrats have offered no clear plan on how to exit Iraq either...they're just going to say "eh, you did what you could". The reinforcement of that is, of course, the outrageous gerrymandering and incumbent power.

|5.22.06 @ 11:53PM|#

If another country's national legislature had a 95% re-election rate, would we consider that country to be a democracy?

I remember reading back in the 1980s (in one of Jerry Pournelle's books) that the Soviet Politboro had a higher rate of turnover than the U.S. COngress.

|5.23.06 @ 4:09AM|#

Good article, but this line confuses me.

And Republican voters are, of course, not as upset about Iraq as are Americans at large.

Does this mean the Democrats are "Americans at large"? While the Republicans aren't?

|5.23.06 @ 4:26AM|#

If another country's national legislature had a 95% re-election rate, would we consider that country to be a democracy?

Good question. Though, in theory it's possible the people are just happy with what they've got.

I think Brian's take on the Iraq fiasco is pretty much on the mark. But I've got my own theory about why the Republicans aren't getting thrown out anytime soon. The rout won't happen because there's nobody to rout them.

There's no real motivation for either party to put high quality candidates in the line up. Their goals are not really to change the country for the better, but to win elections. [I consider present Republican performance to proof positive -- all ideals they party ever claimed have been thrown to the wind]

The Dems and Reps don't have to give us high quality leadership. They just have to give us someone, or something, that will take 1% more of the vote than the other team's someone or something.

It's an inherent flaw in democracy, that this is where it ultimately ends up. Some people think multiple parties would "fix" the problem, but from looking at Europe I disagree.

In a democracy, idealism is ultimately second string to winning. What the hell good are your ideals if you can't win? [and does this remind you of any second string parties you know of?]


I have the same problem with democracy that Americans have with Iraq. I don't like it, but I don't see a better answer. [and spare me "this is a republic" routine -- I know, but it doesn't fix the fundamental problem I'm talking about here]

|5.23.06 @ 8:03AM|#

So why the two (blocked) popups from Reason.com when I surf to the article?

|5.23.06 @ 8:55AM|#

Kahn
Americans at Large = (Democrats + Republicans + Independents)

AaL is the set, R is the subset. Stop being willfully obtuse.

|5.23.06 @ 10:59AM|#

I support the war. I think it was the only thing to do. I think we must continue to be involved, cutting and running, I think would be disastrous for us and for them.

I also don't know of what should have been done differently majorly. A few small things here and there and a few army policies, and many of our allies policies. I have heard major criticisms from the State Dept, from the left and from the right, and I think they are all wrong.

I don't particularly like how it is going, and I don't like how much it is costing the Iraqis. Our cost is a fraction of theirs.

We are not making them a free democratic republic, nor I think can we. But we are doing our best, with our many flaws, that we can so that they have the opportunity.

And if they are succesful, it will be well worth the effort, for our one security, and for the region in general.

If not, well well be fighting some more battles.

|5.23.06 @ 11:08AM|#

The point of my earlier post where I got caught up in the pro war anti war thing;

I am dissapointed in the 'please me now' behavior of the public. I think that if you avoid uncomfortable decisions to please a short attention spanned public, that is no good.

I think that was one of the major problems with the Clinton administration, and that is why 9/11 happened, that is why Somalia happened, and that is a lot of what went wrong with the Balkans.

|5.23.06 @ 11:58AM|#

Americans at Large = (Democrats + Republicans + Independents)

AaL is the set, R is the subset. Stop being willfully obtuse.

Chill. Rest for a while. Then go check your assumptions a little more carefully before you open your mouth (or flap your fingers) again.

It wasn't all that long ago Reason ran an article about the myth of the Independent. To a substantial degree in practice this country splits Dem and Rep.

In any case it's not that big a deal anyway.

|5.23.06 @ 2:12PM|#

If House Republicans lose their majority it will be their own fault, not Bush's, for all the reasons described above and then some. They will have to do something really stupid that alienates millions of otherwise GOP-leaning voters in its own right. Something like outlawing Internet poker (the latest attempt to do so set to go before the full House - no pun intended - near the end of the current session).

M. Simon|5.23.06 @ 8:08PM|#

There are folks out in flyover country who worry that we are living 1936 all over again. A time when confronting fascism in Europe would have defeated it on the cheap.

The anti-war folks prevailed in 1936.

They did not stop the war. Only made it more costly.

Could the current situation be similar? We will not know unless the "peace" people prevail.

*

Remember Neville Chamberlain was a man of peace.