Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy

Hacker and Pierson explain how Republicans rule with the slimmest of majorities, yet stray dramatically from the moderate center of public opinion to again and again side with the affluent and ideologically extreme. Major reasons include the unmatched Republican coordination and cohesion, sophisticated partisan gerrymandering making most House districts completely safe, and the base having the troops to influence the typically low-turnout primaries that determine who goes to D.C. Each year, with retirements etc., the Republicans become more conservative via the increased power of the base vs. new candidates. In the Senate, Democrats won the last three elections with 2.5 million more votes, yet hold only 44 seats because Republicans dominate the less populous states. "Off Center" also points out that polls citing support for Bush's tax cuts are meaningless because they were not put into context - eg. what will be given up? Paired with Social Security, tax cuts lose 74 - 21, Medicare 65 - 25, and deficit reduction leads by over 2:1. Unrealistic projections of federal surpluses and the costs of the tax changes (helped by staggered phase in dates -> underestimated 40%) were used to obscure their effects on competing priorities. Republicans also deliberately ignored its increasing the pressure for changing the Alternative Minimum Tax - seeing this as another opportunity to reduce taxes later. Another ploy was to confuse "average family" tax cut with "average tax cut" in the public's mind. Finally, the tax cuts scheduled expiration in 2010 is anticipated to great a large incentive for donations from the rich in that year. <br /> <br />Tom DeLay, a key figure in controlling House Republicans and lobbyist donations and a self-described ideologue, also utilizes agenda control to achieve his objectives. For example, in the Clinton impeachment debate he refused to allow consideration of the more popular and moderate censure alternative. Similarly, on Social Security reform, Bush refused the Reagan option of creating a bipartisan review - it had to be his way. Very conservative energy, EPA, OSHA, and bankruptcy bills were passed in a similar "no-alternatives" manner. Finally, the Medicare drug bill was passed courtesy of misrepresented costs, while providing great benefit to the drug and insurance industries and increasing costs for many recipients. <br /> <br />Another factor helping Republicans is that in 2000 more than 40% of those in the economic bottom 1/3 did not vote, vs. only 13% in the top third. <br /> <br />Money spent lobbying has nearly doubled since '97 to almost $2 billion/year; indirect lobbying (eg. telemarketing, issue ads) raises the total to nearly $6 billion. Republicans instruct lobbying groups to provide backing for the leadership's positions at the outset, well before key features have been finalized. The message is that "if you support us, we will see to it that you are taken care of - if you hold out or seek to nego

Media pundits will have you believe that the nation is divided neatly between red and blue states, mutually exclusive schools of thought that will seek absolution before considering compromise. There is credence for this line of thinking when examining the current regime. Looking at the Bush administration, one can see a puritanical state which espouses values and dictates policies which have been co-opted currently by an ideologically extreme agenda that leans severely to the right. The success of this comparatively small group has been surprising in their endurance, but co-authors Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, both political science professors at Yale and Berkeley, respectively, contend that most of the American public is, in fact, moderate. They explain that moderation avoids extremes at the ends of ideological and policy making spectrums and that support for progressive policies must be explained with not only good reasons but also in quantifiable terms so that trade-offs can be enumerated. This is not that revelatory, but what sets this book apart from the rest is the lucid way that Hacker and Pierson explain how the public makes trade-offs in deciding on issues. Conventional wisdom says that to stay in power, a party must appeal to swing voters and the moderate middle. If the party veers too far right or left, the laws of political gravity should bring it down. However, as the co-authors point out in case after case, the Bush administration and the radical right-wingers in Congress continue to gut programs supported by most Americans while lining the pockets of their corporate cronies without ever facing repercussions on Election Day. The dubious strategy shows how the Republicans furthered their unpopular policies through a potent combination of centralization, misinformation, secrecy and "backlash insurance"-a variety of tactics used to keep wayward members in line while shielding them from voter outrage. One of the most common insurance policies is "catch and release," in which the leadership allows moderates to vote their "conscience" as long as it won't threaten passage of a bill. Hacker and Pierson, however, point out that the honeymoon may soon be over and feel that Bush is already feeling the repercussions of not veering back to center. For example, the Bush administration's attempt to privatize social security, its top agenda item, has yielded to an organized movement that highlighted the horrific trade-offs of the Bush reform proposals. The co-authors identify exactly how Bush has recognized a "diminished appetite" for changing Social Security, which is the direct result of the center's expression of moderation. In fact, there has been a growing momentum as the center is regaining some clout through the voices of potent, high-profile opponents. A key example is Senator John McCain's efforts to prohibit torture and inhumane treatment of U.S. prisoners of war. As a postscript to the book, this past Thursday, December 15, 200

Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson's highly readable book is a timely look at how extremists pulled the Republican Party to the right--and are now pulling the country along. Even if it does not reflect a majority of Americans (who have more liberalized attitudes on abortion, contraception, and GLBT issues) the right learned that who is in control ultimately decides the agenda. Room in the 'big tent' for moderates in the mold of William Weld and Gerald Ford is rapidly shrinking today; the official party machinery does not recognize their positions on social issues as 'good policy'. That shrinking environment produces an extreme polarization. Ironically as they accuse the Democratic party of being 'extremist left-wingers' the Republican Party moves ever-further to the right. Flying in the face of conventional electoral wisdom (which says the most voters are in the middle) this strategy has only become more pronounced in the past years. The strategy is abetted by very careful media positioning. Using legislative leadership and media allies (ahem...Fox News) these extremists are able to convince a majority of the American public to 'trust us'. In other words, how a policy is sold becomes more important than that policy's actual effects upon the American people. We saw this both with President Bush's tax cuts package and the war on terror, both of which were originally adopted without significant visible public dissent 'We' are convinced that 'we' are included in the people to actually benefit from a bill---despite being in a much lower economic bracket. I also appreciated their examination of the political role of agencies. How a bill is implemented can affect the public perception of enacted legislation and who is staffing an agency ultimately affects how policies are created and implemented to enact legislation. Both the White House and Republican congress are most likely to support people who share their unilateral view of the nation and world---'they' are the only ones with the 'correct' answers. If there is a problem, it is best to let 'other people' deal with it while you are moving onto another target. Then there is the symbiotic view of the relationships between lobbyists and legislators, Republican Party leaders have figured out that the control of one facilitates the compliant nature of another. However, I was honestly shocked by their research that social conservatives had not played a role in this shift because their conclusion trumps at least 30 years of evidence from many other political scientists. Providing a thoughtful read, this book is highly recommended for personal and academic collections. Hacker and Pierson's engaging text encourages readers to think critically about American government, image, and power issues.

Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson have written a distinctly unusual book. Political scientists don't often write books that take sides in political arguments, and when they do, they usually don't do any better at it than common or garden pundits. It's hard to combine the attention to detail and to careful argument that academics are supposed to have with a passionate concern for the results of the fight. Off Center pulls off both. On the one hand, it is very clearly the work of people who have thought carefully and hard about how politics works. There's a depth of analysis here that's completely absent from the common or garden partisan bestseller-wannabe. But on the other, it doesn't pull its punches. Hacker and Pierson have no compunctions in arguing that the current Republican hegemony is dangerous, and needs to be rolled back. (rest of review below fold) They start by examining the conventional wisdom that American politics has strong centripetal forces, so that political parties have strong incentives towards moderation. According to both centrist pundits and many political scientists, parties that don't cater for the moderate voter should get booted out of office. This political commonplace doesn't appear to be true any more, to the extent that it ever was. The Republicans have been transformed over the last twenty years from a loosely organized coalition in which moderates appeared to have the upper hand, to a party that is astonishingly well disciplined by the standards of American political history and dominated by right-wing radicals. How has this happened? Hacker and Pierson immediately discard two common explanations, neither of which is supported by the facts. First, there is no evidence that Americans are more conservative on social issues than they used to be; indeed some evidence suggests that they are now a little more centrist. Nor does it appear that mobilization of "morals voters" was the key to Republican success in the last Presidential election - detailed analysis suggests that state-level efforts to put gay marriage on the ballot helped Kerry, not Bush. Second, there is no evidence of a general process of `polarization' in which both the left and the right are rapidly seceding to the extremes, leaving moderate voters with few palatable choices. The evidence suggests the contrary - while Democrats have become only somewhat more left wing, as Southern Democrats have either disappeared or defected to the Republicans, the Republican party has shifted radically to the right. Positions that were in the mainstream of the Republican party of the 1970s and 1980s are anathema today. So why hasn't the Republican party been punished by voters for its radicalism? As I understand it, Hacker and Pierson's explanation has three main components. First, information. Voters are often poorly informed about politics, and are vulnerable to "tailored disinformation," which distorts public perceptions. Second, institutions. The Republican Party ha

OFF CENTER is a wonderfully provocative yet deeply serious new book about the larger political forces behind today's headlines. Written by two of the nation's sharpest political scientists, it explains how the Republicans gained power--and what they are doing to try and keep it. This fast-paced book contains penetrating discussions of many crucial issues, including taxes, Social Security, and election reform. The authors' most disturbing claim--sure to spark debate among professors and politicians alike--is that the GOP has deliberately and skillfully weakened the normal mechanisms of electoral accountability in order to serve a privileged few. Whether one believes that the Republican majority is undermining American democracy or that it is saving it, this is a tremendously stimulating book that all informed Americans will want to read.