From the Heartland

By Stephen Earl Bennett

The relationship between partisanship and ideology is fascinating. Partisanship is the sense of psychological identification most Americans have with one of the major political parties, which originates in childhood and congeals over the lifecycle. There are other ways of defining partisanship, but this notion goes back to the 1950s.

Ideology refers to a set of political, economic, and social ideas that are accepted by at least a portion of the population. In the context of contemporary American society, the dominant ideological tendencies have been liberalism and conservatism since at least the 1920s.

The first facet of the relationship between liberalism and conservatism that is interesting is that recent polls show Democrats outnumbering Republicans at the grassroots. American data from the Pew Research Center’s May 2006 15 Nation Study—which is the most recent Pew poll available for secondary analysis—showed that 45 percent of the public either identified with or leaned toward the Democrats, 12 percent were Independents, and 43 percent identified with or leaned to the GOP.

Democrats’ lead over the GOP seems to be growing following the 2006 elections. The Gallup Poll conducted November 9-12, 2006, showed that 56 percent of the public identified with or leaned toward the Democrats, while only 34 percent identified with or leaned toward the GOP.

Nevertheless, conservatives outnumbered liberals among adults. Moreover, it appears that ideological proclivities don’t change much, at least in the short run. The May 2006 poll showed, for example, that 19 percent of the public described their political views as either liberal or very liberal, while 37 percent said their political opinions were moderate, and 44 percent claimed they were either conservative or very conservative in political outlook. In late November, 42 percent of the public told the Gallup Poll they were very conservative or conservative, 33 percent labeled themselves as moderates, and 22 percent claimed to be very liberal or liberal.

Things get even more interesting when we crosstabulate ideology by party identification. The same poll reported 35 percent of Democrats describing their political views as liberal or very liberal, while 43 percent said their political views were moderate, and 22 percent described their political outlook as conservative or very conservative. Among Independents, 21 percent said their political views were liberal, 43 percent called themselves moderates, and 37 percent labeled themselves conservatives. Only 3 percent of Republicans claimed to be very liberal or liberal, while 30 percent said they were moderates, and 67 percent said they were conservative or very conservative.

In short, even though the Pew Center recently reported that there were more liberal Democrats in 2006 than in 2000, Democrats were still more ideologically divided than Republicans. Things have been this way for some time. A poll conducted for Pew in April 1996 found that 31 percent of Democrats said they were liberal or very liberal, 47 percent claimed to be moderates, and 22 percent said their political views were conservative or very conservative. Of Republicans, 9 percent were liberal or very liberal, 33 percent said they were moderates, and 58 percent described their political views as conservative or very conservative. Among Independents, 19 percent were liberals in 1996, while 47 percent said their political views were moderate, and 35 percent claimed to be conservatives.

Okay, Republicans’ ideological proclivities are more uniform than Democrats’. And things have been like this for at least a decade. So what?

For one thing, now that the Democrats have taken over the House of Representatives, the Speaker (Nancy Pelosi) and most chairs of key committees will come from the party’s liberal wing. The same would hold now that Democrats outnumber Republicans in the Senate.

Liberal and moderate Republicans at the grassroots found the GOP’s staunchly conservative leadership in the House and Senate since 1994 to be at least mildly off-putting. Polls conducted on behalf of Pew in April 1996 and April 1998—I wish we had more recent data, but we don’t—showed that, although a majority of all Republicans approved of the job performance of the GOP’s congressional leadership, conservative Republicans were more likely to approve than liberal or moderate Republicans. (Liberal Democrats were more likely to disapprove of Republican leaders of Congress than moderate and conservative Democrats.)

Will we see a similar pattern among moderate and conservative Democrats after the party assumes control of Congress in 2007? Several Democratic candidates for Congress claim they are conservative. Brad Ellsworth, who ran in Indiana’s Eighth Congressional District, is one example. Heath Shuler, who sought election in North Carolina’s Eleventh Congressional District, is another.

What will happen now that Ellsworth and Shuler have been elected, if they vote with their more liberal Democratic colleagues under pressure of losing future funding if they do not support the party’s leaders? (I assume that people who donate to candidates’ campaign coffers expect something for their money.) Will moderate, and especially conservative, Democrats in Ellsworth’s and Shuler’s districts feel betrayed, assuming they even know the two “rookies’” voting records?

Where Ellsworth is concerned, for example, a recent report lists him as one of the most endangered Democrats seeking reelection to the House in 2008. Given how even the partisan division is in Indiana’s Eighth Congressional District, Mr. Ellsworth could lose his seat even under the “best” of conditions.  Since many Democrats in that district tend to be conservative, if Mr. Ellsworth were to get the reputation of “talking conservative” in Indiana, but “voting liberal” in Washington, his tenure in office could be very short indeed.

Stephen Earl Bennett is adjunct professor of political science at the University of Southern Indiana.

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