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“Life Ain’t Easy for a President Named Barack”: Party, Ideology, and Tea Party Freshman Support for the Nation’s First Black President

  • Jon R. Bond

    Jon R. Bond is Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University. His current research interests include presidential-congressional relations, congressional elections, and party polarization in American politics.

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Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 3. August 2013
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Abstract

In the heated rhetoric of the 2010 elections, there were some accusations that the Tea Party movement was racist, and charges of Tea Party racism persisted through 2011 as President Obama attempted to deal with an intransigent Republican majority. This paper seeks to refute the charge of Tea Party racism. In particular, I treat the charge of racism as a research hypothesis (HR): If racial animosity is a systematic motivation, then Republican freshmen elected to the House in 2010 with Tea Party endorsements should be significantly less supportive of the nation’s first Black president than are other conservative Republicans. The null hypothesis (H0) is of course that Tea Party freshmen support for Obama is not different from that of other conservative Republicans. Controlling for the most obvious competing hypotheses (party, ideology, district partisanship) while comparing the results to analogous control groups, the analysis is able to reject the null hypothesis: ceteris paribus, Tea Party freshman support is significantly lower than should be expected, and this behavior is different from that of control groups. Although these results fail to provide evidence to refute charges of racism, it does not prove that President Obama’s race is the cause of lower Tea Party support. In the end, it suggests that more research is needed to look for causes other than race to explain Tea Party behavior.

Corresponding author: Jon R. Bond, Department of Political Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845-4348, USA

About the author

Jon R. Bond

Jon R. Bond is Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University. His current research interests include presidential-congressional relations, congressional elections, and party polarization in American politics.

  1. 1

    Analysis of the 2010 election suggests that any Republican candidate with comparable resources could have won those Democratic seats (Nyhan 2010; Karpowitz et al. 2011; Bond, Fleisher, and Ilderton 2012).

  2. 2

    The term is suggested by the analysis of the “Gingrich Senators” (Theriault and Rohde’s 2011; Theriault 2013).

  3. 3

    Obama’s House success rate 2009 was 93.2%, the highest since 1953. Clinton’s 1993 House success rate of 86.3% ranks fourth behind Obama, Johnson in 1965 and Eisenhower in 1953.

  4. 4

    I estimated models using the measure excluding consensus votes. As expected, the relationships are in the same direction but statistically and substantively weaker. Results are available on request.

  5. 5

    The four non-signatories were Ray LaHood (IL-18), Sam Brownback (KS-2), Tom Coburn (OK-2), and Jim Bunn (OR-5) (Barone and Unifusa 1995, 1997). I prefer the more limited definition because it requires an explicit endorsement of Gingrich’s goals. Including these four makes very little difference in the results.

  6. 6

    The results were the same with the purged ACU scores.

  7. 7

    Suggested by a line from Johnny Cash’s hit song, “A Boy Named Sue” (Cash 1969; lyrics by Shel Silverstein).

  8. 8

    Although I cannot offer additional scientific avenues to explore, a normative source that might offer some insight is a brief philosophical treatise by Professor Harry Frankurt (2005).

I am grateful for support from the Department of Political Science at Texas A&M University, and for helpful suggestions from Sean Theriault and Richard Conley. Rich Fleisher and Bob Harmel offered healthy skepticism: I believe the analysis benefitted from their comments, but I take responsibility for the remaining deficiencies.

Appendix

Table 1a

Tea Party Support for President Obama in 2011 (with purged ACU scores).

Model 1Model 2Model 3
Tea Party freshman–1.74***–1.96***
(Elected with Tea Party endorsement = 1)(–2.88)(–3.04)
Non-Tea Party freshman–0.79–0.29
(Elected without Tea Party endorsement = 1)(–1.10)(–0.43)
Conservatism–0.16***–0.16***–0.16***
(ACU score w/ PSS votes purged)(–8.12)(–7.98)(–8.87)
District Partisanship0.190.020.01
(District Democratic presidential vote margin)(1.04)(1.24)(0.52)
Constant36.4936.5340.11
(24.83)(25.30)(25.55)
R20.310.310.29
F40.3932.0736.68
N239239239

Entries are OLS Regression Coefficients Estimated with Stata 12 with Robust Standard Errors; t-test in Parentheses. ***p<0.01; **p<0.05.

Table 2a

Republican Freshman Support for Democratic Presidents (with purged ACU scores).

2011199520091993
Tea Party freshman–1.74***
(Elected with Tea Party endorsement = 1)(–2.88)
Gingrich freshman1.29*
(Signed Contract with America = 1)(1.67)
Republican freshman2.96*1.44
(freshman = 1)(1.74)(1.02)
Conservatism–0.16***–0.30***–0.94***–0.71***
(ACU score w/ PSS votes purged)(–8.12)(–11.36)(–13.20)(–10.45)
District Partisanship0.190.77**0.19***0.13**
(District Democratic presidential vote margin)(1.04)(2.80)(4.81)(2.94)
Constant36.4946.07116.29104.31
(24.83)(21.10)(17.48)(17.24)
R20.310.510.690.54
F40.3947.8188.0970.73
N239235176175

Entries are OLS Regression Coefficients Estimated with Stata 12 with Robust Standard Errors; t-test in Parentheses. ***p<0.01; **p<0.05; *p<0.10.

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Published Online: 2013-08-03
Published in Print: 2013-07-01

©2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Masthead
  2. Masthead
  3. Editorial
  4. Introduction
  5. Articles
  6. What Americanists Don’t Know About American Politics
  7. Public Opinion Among Political Elites: The “Insiders Poll” as a Research Tool
  8. 527 Committees, Formal Parties, and Party Adaptation
  9. Fundraising Consultants and the Representation of National versus Local Donors in US House Election Campaigns
  10. Beyond the New Deal: The Postmaterialist Divide in Pennsylvania Presidential Elections
  11. Compromising Partisans: Assessing Compromise in Health Care Reform
  12. “Life Ain’t Easy for a President Named Barack”: Party, Ideology, and Tea Party Freshman Support for the Nation’s First Black President
  13. The Younger, More Independent Republican Leaner
  14. Turnout in the 2012 Election: A Review and Call for Long-Term Solutions
  15. Book Reviews
  16. The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns
  17. Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World
  18. Coolidge
  19. Erratum
  20. Erratum
https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2013-0038

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Masthead
  2. Masthead
  3. Editorial
  4. Introduction
  5. Articles
  6. What Americanists Don’t Know About American Politics
  7. Public Opinion Among Political Elites: The “Insiders Poll” as a Research Tool
  8. 527 Committees, Formal Parties, and Party Adaptation
  9. Fundraising Consultants and the Representation of National versus Local Donors in US House Election Campaigns
  10. Beyond the New Deal: The Postmaterialist Divide in Pennsylvania Presidential Elections
  11. Compromising Partisans: Assessing Compromise in Health Care Reform
  12. “Life Ain’t Easy for a President Named Barack”: Party, Ideology, and Tea Party Freshman Support for the Nation’s First Black President
  13. The Younger, More Independent Republican Leaner
  14. Turnout in the 2012 Election: A Review and Call for Long-Term Solutions
  15. Book Reviews
  16. The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns
  17. Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World
  18. Coolidge
  19. Erratum
  20. Erratum
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