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The Democrats’ Misplaced Faith in Policy Feedback

The Democrats’ Misplaced Faith in Policy Feedback IntroductionFrom Social Security to Medicare, the Civil Rights Act to the Affordable Care Act, Democrats have long treated policy success as if it were tantamount to political success, assuming that the enactment of significant legislation would create supportive constituencies that would reward the party at the voting booth. President Obama appears to have made the same calculation. Instead of working to strengthen his party organization with an eye toward improving Democrats’ electoral prospects across the board, he focused almost exclusively on achieving significant policy accomplishments, assuming that those policy successes would redound to the party’s electoral benefit (Galvin 2010, 2016).His policy-centered approach, however, did not do much to help Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election or down-ballot Democrats during his two terms in the White House. Over that period, Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress (including 63 House seats and 11 Senate seats), 10 governorships, 27 state legislative chambers, and almost 1,000 state legislative seats. At the time of Donald Trump’s inauguration, Republicans controlled more legislative seats than at any time since the party’s founding, while Democrats enjoyed unified government in only 6 states, their lowest number since the Civil War.The notion that policies generate feedback effects http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Forum de Gruyter

The Democrats’ Misplaced Faith in Policy Feedback

The Forum , Volume 15 (2): 11 – Jul 26, 2017

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References (76)

Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
©2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
ISSN
1540-8884
eISSN
1540-8884
DOI
10.1515/for-2017-0020
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

IntroductionFrom Social Security to Medicare, the Civil Rights Act to the Affordable Care Act, Democrats have long treated policy success as if it were tantamount to political success, assuming that the enactment of significant legislation would create supportive constituencies that would reward the party at the voting booth. President Obama appears to have made the same calculation. Instead of working to strengthen his party organization with an eye toward improving Democrats’ electoral prospects across the board, he focused almost exclusively on achieving significant policy accomplishments, assuming that those policy successes would redound to the party’s electoral benefit (Galvin 2010, 2016).His policy-centered approach, however, did not do much to help Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election or down-ballot Democrats during his two terms in the White House. Over that period, Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress (including 63 House seats and 11 Senate seats), 10 governorships, 27 state legislative chambers, and almost 1,000 state legislative seats. At the time of Donald Trump’s inauguration, Republicans controlled more legislative seats than at any time since the party’s founding, while Democrats enjoyed unified government in only 6 states, their lowest number since the Civil War.The notion that policies generate feedback effects

Journal

The Forumde Gruyter

Published: Jul 26, 2017

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