American history scholar Walter Russell Mead has written a persuasive essay placing the story-in-motion of the Tea Party within the web and roots of American populist history. He emphasizes the initial intense and highly divisive contest between the Federalists and their Whig successors, who gave high priority to banking and commerce, and the agrarians suspicious of those interests from the start of the Republic. If the patrician Thomas Jefferson was restrained in expressing, and even more in implementing, his philosophical convictions, radical Democrat Andrew Jackson was not. As president, he destroyed the Bank of the United States established by the Federalists led by Alexander Hamilton, emphasized and symbolized his personal commitment to the common people of the country, and – by the way – also paid off the federal debt of his time. Later in the nineteenth century, Democratic Party populism was personified notably by William Jennings Bryan, who was nominated three times for the presidency and remained throughout a strident critic of banking interests in general, and the gold standard in particular. Early in the twentieth century, Republican populism emerged to pursue a range of corporate, social services and public safety reforms, personified by Theodore Roosevelt, Robert LaFollette and others. Professor Mead echoes Ms Zernike in describing the Tea Party as a disorderly political stew, with many different ingredients. He describes an ‘amorphous collection of individuals and groups that range from center right to the far fringes of American political life’. A key characteristic is what is not present: ‘a central hierarchy that can direct the movement or even declare who belongs to it’ (Mead, 2011, p. 29). Such characterizations can be applied to much of the history of American populism.
Individual elections and associated publicity are important for third-force candidates in both Britain and the US. The sustained attention devoted by the Liberal Democrats and their predecessors to parliamentary by-elections provides particularly persuasive evidence for this point. National media can be attracted to highlight a locality, limited financial and also human resources can be concentrated on the district, and a victory for the third party can resonate across the country.
For the Tea Party, all this symbolism and more were provided by the special U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts on 19 January 2010. The winner, Scott Brown, had spent his career in the Republican Party, including service in the state legislature. Although relatively conservative in a liberal (blue) state, he captured the seat which had been held for nearly half a century by enormously influential Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and he fully welcomed Tea Party endorsement. A savvy phrasemaker, the new Massachusetts Senator declared he had won ‘the people’s seat’, simultaneously appealing to populism, which included but reached well beyond the Tea Party, and providing satisfaction to those who resented a perceived sense of entitlement and privilege in the Kennedy family. Until one month before the election, Democratic nominee Martha Coakley was far ahead in the opinion polls. The publicity resulting from this surprising election upset resonated forcefully across the nation for weeks, and the timing was perfect for boosting Republican Party prospects in the November elections, and Tea Party prospects in the numerous nominating primaries earlier in that year (Zernike, 2010, p. 82).
Election realities
Both the Liberal Democrats and the Tea Party supporters began their respective national election seasons in a state of justified optimism. Both parties had secured extensive publicity. Liberal Democratic leader Nick Clegg briefly became a media superstar thanks to a highly effective performance in the three-party televised debates during the general election campaign. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2008, became a prominent fixture on the political landscape as she crisscrossed the country, giving emphasis to Tea Party candidates.
Yet the actual elections were disappointing for both groups. For Liberal Democrats, the 2010 election provided a roller coaster, with apparent movement of public sentiment in their direction so profound that a substantial gain in parliamentary representation seemed possible. Opinion polls in the second half of April for a time placed the Liberal Democrats ahead of the Labour Party, a direct result of Leader Clegg’s outstanding debate performance on television. In the US, 37 percent of respondents to a nationwide public opinion poll in March 2010 expressed support for the Tea Party movement. Had that plurality been translated directly into votes, Tea Party-supported Republicans could have captured both houses of Congress, and at a minimum would have enjoyed substantial minority representation (Kavanagh and Cowley, 2010, p. 250; Mead, 2011, p. 30).
In electoral fact, the Liberal Democrats increased their vote over 2005 but ended with fewer members of the House of Commons. The nationwide vote increased from 22 percent to 23 percent, the best level of public support since the Liberal–Social Democratic Alliance in the general election of 1983, but the calculus of vote distribution in 2010 actually reduced seats in the House of Commons from 62 to 57. After the extremely optimistic, indeed heady, political atmosphere encouraged by opinion polls, and resulting media attention, this was a major disappointment. Nick Clegg spent a grim night following the election returns at his home in Sheffield. He was blunt in stating that the night had been ‘disappointing’, a term used only after internal party consultations, and that ‘We simply haven’t achieved what we hoped.’ Nevertheless, dawn provided clear evidence that the Liberal Democrats would hold the balance of power in the newly elected ‘hung Parliament’, where no party held a majority of House of Commons seats. Clegg conferred with other senior party representatives on a morning train ride into London (Kavanagh and Cowley, 2010, p. 201).
Ultimately, a coalition arrangement was reached with David Cameron and the Conservative Party. The Liberal Democrats had developed a carefully-prepared negotiating strategy in December 2009, well before the general election, which facilitated a disciplined focus on pragmatic considerations. During the course of the complex three-way negotiations, with Labour Party as well as the Conservative Party representatives, Liberal Democrats eventually concluded that the Conservatives were more likely than Labour to be able to deliver their MPs on any coalition agreement reached. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties together would have a clear House of Commons majority; Labour and Liberal Democrats in combination would still fall short of the 326 seats need for a majority. Liberal Democrats made major policy compromises, notably regarding immigration, tuition fees, and public expenditure, where £6 billion in spending cuts over the next fiscal year was agreed to, at least in principle. The coalition accord reflected pragmatic conclusions by experienced successful politicians that the Conservative–Liberal Democratic possibilities for cooperation in day-to-day parliamentary governance were greater than those of any Labour–Liberal Democratic accord. Personality dynamics were inescapably part of the process, but there was also a strong feeling among Liberal Democrats that the Conservatives would be more likely to deliver later on any commitments made, thanks to the sheer arithmetic involved.
Psychologically as well as philosophically, the modern Liberal Democratic Party arguably has more in common with the Labour Party than with the Conservatives, but many contemporary Liberal Democrats do not agree with this assumption. None of the team of negotiators with the two larger parties had been in Parliament before 1997, and they tended to see Labour as old-fashioned, tied to outdated notions of class and collectivism. Moreover, Prime Minister Brown appeared to be indecisive, in line with his reputation, and they found his and other older Labour politicians’ habit of referring to the Liberal Democrats as ‘the Liberals’ to be annoying and grating. Liberal Democrat negotiators testified that they were put off by Brown’s style and personality, reinforcing other alienating factors. Moreover, the ‘New Labour’ strategy which brought election successes under Tony Blair created distance from activists on the political left drawn to the Liberal Democrats. Ironically, Labour government support for the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, and dilution of traditional commitments to the ideological left in economic and social dimensions, alienated Liberal De
mocrats as well as Labour Party stalwarts (Laws, 2010). A less attractive Labour Party, in policy and other terms, made the Conservative Party a more plausible partner.
Practical political calculations also reportedly were extremely important. There was concern that Prime Minister Brown had been greatly weakened by the election returns, and in consequence that he would likely not survive long even if the formal coalition were put in place. There could be no guarantees that his successor as leader of the Labour Party would feel bound by the predecessor’s commitments to the minority party. In less personal terms, even if a Labour–Liberal Democratic coalition survived, there was significant danger that divisions within Labour would paralyze government effectiveness. While both Conservative and Labour Party leaders were reportedly willing to consider electoral reform, a key to expansion of Liberal Democratic representation in the House of Commons, the former were more credible in their case to Liberal Democratic negotiators. Commentators also have noted that David Cameron and Nick Clegg had more in common with one another in social and educational terms than either had with Gordon Brown, but this dimension probably reinforced other considerations and reactions, rather than being decisive alone (Kavanagh and Cowley, 2010, pp. 210, 221–5).
The fact that any Coalition government had been achieved was a major benchmark event. This is the first Coalition government in Britain since the national unity coalition which fought the Second World War, which had been a time of truly monumental national crisis. Moreover, Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s controversial personality and highly atypical, uneven political career reinforced incentives to assemble the strongest possible political coalition around him to address a military challenge involving national survival. Nick Clegg became deputy prime minister, with Conservative Party Leader David Cameron as prime minister. The Liberal Democrats also secured four other cabinet seats: Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury;2 Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills; Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change; and Michael Moore, Secretary of State for Scotland.
The fate of the Tea Party in the November 2010 US election was broadly disappointing, in that extensive media attention and often dramatically optimistic rhetoric from movement representatives translated into relatively limited gains. In Senate races, the Tea Party captured five of the ten seats where a Republican candidate was explicitly endorsed by the movement, a noteworthy but not overwhelming performance. The actual impacts of Tea Party support tended to be blurred by the fact that candidates endorsed often would have clearly won with or without the backing of this particular faction. In several states, Tea Party intervention damaged Republican prospects. US Senate majority leader Harry Reid was considered in serious trouble for re-election but prevailed narrowly over Republican Tea Party challenger Sharron Angle, even though she led in Rasmussen and other polls narrowly up until the election. Controversial Delaware Tea Party candidate and media commentator Christine O’Donnell upset popular relatively moderate Mike Castle in the Republican Senate primary, opening the door for the November victory of Democrat Christopher Coons. In Arkansas, Tea Party-endorsed Republican John Boozman defeated incumbent Senator Blanche Lincoln. Tea Party-backed candidates Rand Paul and Marco Rubio won in Kentucky and Florida, after defeating Establishment Republican primary election rivals. Popular West Virginia Democratic Governor Joe Manchin prevailed narrowly over Tea Party-backed John Raese. Manchin emphasized his own conservative credentials and kept a clear distance from the Obama administration. Arguably, these victories do not reflect decisive Tea Party impact. Southern Senate representation, once solidly Democratic, has been shifting to the Republican Party over the long term, beginning with the election of John Tower from Texas in 1962 and the dramatic party shift in 1964 by Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. In Wisconsin, previously unknown conservative Ron Johnson defeated popular liberal Democratic incumbent Senator Russ Feingold, but then refused to join the Tea Party Caucus in the Senate, emphasizing instead Republican Party unity.
In races for the US House of Representatives, candidates backed by the Tea Party won only approximately a third of the seats they contested. In total, the Tea Party backed 130 candidates running for seats in the House. Only 43 of them were victorious with the voters. The winners are not concentrated in regional terms, which can be construed as good news for the Tea Party in indicating they are not regionally limited. By comparison, the Dixiecrat Party led by Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina in 1948 and the American Independent Party led by Governor George Wallace of Alabama in 1968 received some votes in all parts of the nation, but remained concentrated in the South in terms of core support (Moe, 2010, pp. 1–4).
House Speaker Republican John Boehner has so far been successful in orchestrating reductions from proposed spending, including an accord in April 2011 for $39 billion in cuts, while keeping the Tea Party within his wider coalition (Taylor, 2011, p. 1). Republican defections were held to approximately 25 percent of the party’s House members, while Democrats split much more evenly on the bipartisan initiative. A respected pragmatic negotiator, the requirement to deal with this far-right faction within his party caucus may actually have facilitated reaching agreement with Democrats, by indirectly encouraging them to be more flexible. Moreover, the need to raise the national debt ceiling by the end of the summer 2011 has given fiscal conservatives considerable leverage. Boehner has (through May 2011) skillfully, effectively exploited this leverage, stating in a well-covered spring public address on Wall Street and elsewhere that any such change must be tied to comparable significant reductions in future spending.
Alienation and party politics
The Liberal Democrats in Britain, both currently and historically, represent a magnet for those alienated from the established two-party system. This population grew slowly but surely after the Liberal Party nearly became extinct during the early years following the Second World War, reaching a plateau of approximately 20 percent of the national vote during the decade of the 1980s. In 2010 as in previous elections, opinion polls showed evidence that the electorate was not strongly committed to the third party in any substantial proportions, and was very fluid. This also is congruent with party history.
Liberal Democratic Party Leader Nick Clegg’s impressive debate performance attracted massive media attention to both him and his party, reflected in the apparent surge in support noted above. This complemented the overall strategy of the Liberal Democrats’ leadership, which was to work hard to minimize Conservative gains, while concentrating aggressive efforts in seats held by Labour which appeared vulnerable. However, Clegg’s appeal was clearly personal, and did not readily or directly translate into reliable in-depth support for the Liberal Democratic Party. Polling evidence is that public support was strongly associated with his image and projection over the media, not to a more comprehensive attraction to his party. Voters who indicated increased support for Clegg did not similarly show significant backing for Liberal Democrat policies, which in various ways contrasted with major established themes in both the Conservative and Labour parties. Moreover, party canvassers did not find similar evidence of broad movement to the Liberal Democrats. This apparent support may have been more an effort to give Clegg credit and recognition for notable skill in debate over television, with no actual intention of shifting one’s vote to his party (Kavanagh and Cowley, 2010, pp. 144–5, 253). A review by the Guardian newspaper of detailed opinion surveys collected by the National Centre for Social Research indicated the public supported the Liberal Democrat approach in only two policy areas: support for families over the institution of marriage, and maintenance of existing levels of taxation and public spending. On other policies, including expanding social welfare benefits, liberalizing immigration, and electoral reform, the public was opposed to Liberal Democrat positions (Young, 2010, pp. 1–2).
A separate, distinctive factor in Liberal Democratic success is local community engagement. Candidates who were dedicated to ve
ry specific local services, especially helping residents limited by age, income or both in dealing with government bureaucracy and rigidities, profited significantly at the polls. This local community service dimension of the Liberal Democrats and predecessor Liberals has become strongly established in party culture, and is highly congruent with traditional Liberal philosophy. While community service may rightly be viewed in positive terms, motivation for this sort of dedicated effort also implies at least some alienation from more established mainstream agencies of government and party representation (Cyr, 1988, p. 165). At the same time, as the research of John Curtice demonstrates persuasively, there has been a marked decline in the number of marginal constituencies in Britain. This makes dramatic Liberal Democratic gains in future general elections less likely, and at least indirectly created pressure for Coalition government in 2010 (Kavanagh and Cowley, 2010, p. 223). As Vernon Bogdanor emphasizes, there has also been a growing geographic concentration of the Liberal Democrat vote over the past three decades. For example, the Liberal–Social Democratic Party Alliance achieved 25 percent of the vote in the 1983 general election and 23 House of Commons seats, compared with a Liberal Democrat 2010 vote of 23 percent and 57 seats (Bogdanor, 2011, p. 124).
The Legacy of the Crash Page 21