Volume 2, Issue 1

Professor Bernstein looks back at this year's Democratic presidential nomination, and discusses the implications for the future of the nominating system. Among the interesting aspects of the 2004 cycle he comments on: the demise of the winner of the invisible primary, Howard Dean; the decisions by Dean and nominee John Kerry to opt out of public financing; and the ability of Democrats to rapidly converge on a nominee after the surprising results of the Iowa caucuses.

Gilman argues that the Republicans have transformed themselves into the first ideologically-defined American political party to achieve success, while the Democrats remain an old-fashioned non-ideological party serving group interests. These partisan differences are manifest in approaches to governing: Democrats prefer to bargain and compromise, while Republicans assume that a majority entitles them to full control over policy outcomes. To challenge the Republicans successfully, Democrats must abandon the old-style of governing as policy tacticians and adopt an ideological approach to governing in the classic European sense.

The recent gubernatorial election in Louisiana suggests that racial issues remain salient in the Deep South. Pre-election polls showed Republican Bobby Jindal, an Indian-American supported by George W. Bush and Governor Mike Foster, with a comfortable lead. However, Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco may have benefited from white voters’ discomfort with supporting a brown-skinned Indian-American. Her performance, both absolutely and relative to normal Democratic showings, correlates strongly with the support won by David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klansman, who ran as Republican in 1991. These findings also suggest that efforts to build a more racially diverse Republican party may encounter resistance from white conservatives, especially in rural areas.

In spite of the Republican Party's relatively narrow margin of control in the U.S. House of Representatives, Professor Irwin finds distinct Republican advantages in the patterns of House voter performance and in current electoral practices that bode poorly for Democrats aiming to regain control of the chamber any time soon.

Professor Carpenter challenges the conventional wisdom that George W. Bush must avoid the fate of his father by focusing on the economy. He argues that the economic picture was quite different for father and son, such as dissimilar rates of change in unemployment and inflation during their tenures in office. More importantly, economic approval ratings fail to predict accurately their overall approval ratings. In contrast to the conventional wisdom, Carpenter’s analysis shows that perceptions of foreign policy leadership appear to be more important in predicting approval for both presidencies. And even though the combination of economic and foreign approval ratings appear to drive Bush II’s performance ratings overall, these played a rather insignificant role for Bush I.

The authors explore the apparent anomaly of strong public support for the environment and popular public support for a president with a poor environmental rating by groups such as the League of Conservation Voters. In attempting to understand why there have not been public outcries against George W. Bush’s anti-environmental policies like those that occurred during the Reagan presidency, the authors present three possible explanations: a lag time phenomenon, change in media coverage and ownership, and redefined issue salience.