Learning to Love the Welfare State

Hot Pew Center data released a couple of days ago shows that the pendulum has swung decisively back from its mid-nineties skepticism about the welfare state and the social safety net. Older Americans, white Americans, and poor Americans all showed large increases in their level of interest in big government, meaning that for the next couple of cycles we may not be finding ourselves wondering what's the matter with Kansas (except that Kansas is actually has a high median income, a low poverty rate, etc., and will probably stay firmly Republican).

This is part of what makes the prospect of a presidential campaign -- to say nothing of a White House -- substantially guided by the Mark Penn worldview so frightening. If there ever was a time for Penn-ism in the Democratic Party it was in the years 1995-97 when, not coincidentally, he first cemented his relationship with the Clintons and landed in the top ranks of the consultantocracy. Things have, however, changed since then and I see no evidence that Penn and similar operators have taken this into account (to be fair, a lot of people who are right at the moment refuse to acknowledge that more centrist approaches were probably right in the past; liberal political operatives are just as good as centrist ones at finding ways to assimilate new evidence to their pre-existing worldviews).

Comments

I am sorry, but the table you provide us with just isn't strong evidence. The second and the third questions ellicit overwhelming majority liberal opinions throughout the years. The only difference is the first question about needy people in which people have returned to their liberal 1987 levels.

However, 1987 was one year before the Dukakis debacle and the middle of the rightward trend in the Congress composition which reached its apex in 1994. There also many other indicators and personal recollection to tell us that 1987 wasn't exactly a time of ideological traditional liberal hegemony. Far from it.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | May 4, 2007 9:06 AM

And just to clarify a bit. What is the opinion of people in certain issues is important. What is even more important is how high in people's priority lists these issues are.

Arguably, if these issues were really important to people, a liberal candidate would cruise to victory on a platform of a strong welfare state throughout the period.

Last but not least, the issue I think defines more than anything else the right-left divide right now is national security. While the war is obviously viewed as a undeniable disaster - which is a boost to the Dems- I fear that voters in general are more in tune with the Republican attitude towards foreign affairs.

This to me is very unfortunate, but the Dems need to fight it head on with a construction of an appealing alternative narrative which is neither in the Lieberman vein nor in the McGovern vein. If they manage to do so, this would really help their long-term prospects and more importantly, the country.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | May 4, 2007 9:12 AM

except that Kansas is actually has a high median income, a low poverty rate, etc., and will probably stay firmly Republican

Maybe I'm biased because I live here, but Kansas doesn't look "firmly Republican" to me. We have Democratic governor, a Democratic Attorney General, and 2 out of our 4 US Representatives are Democrats.

Posted by Alex Knapp | May 4, 2007 9:51 AM

Who are these 10+% of the people who can be flipped on the question of "Take care of people who can't take care of themselves"? Have they never thought about the role of our government in our lives? Don't answer that. I know they haven't.

Also, I'd like to see the Venn diagram on people who voted "Disagree" on that question and Bush supporters. I'd be willing to bet there's significant overlap.

Posted by DanF | May 4, 2007 4:45 PM