Inside Washington's Headlines

by Ken Feltman

PARIS - The European Conflict Index has allowed Radnor to be surprisingly accurate in predicting changes of government in Europe. Can we apply the same technical analysis in the United States and make projections about the November elections?

The theory behind both Indexes is that as the gap between the attitudes of the decision-makers in a country and the everyday people widens, the chances that the government will fail or change increases. For our purposes, decision-makers are defined as leaders in government and political affairs, the media, academia and business. The people are everyone else who can vote in the next election.

The first challenge is to understand which attitudes are important indicators of a gap and which are of lesser consequence. The second challenge is to analyze the significant gap-causing attitudes to determine whether and when they will lead to action that may produce change. Another challenge is to confirm our conclusions with additional research.

Does the American Conflict Index work as efficiently as the European, or at all? We can say with certainty that it works differently. The reasons are structural and have to do with the differences between the typical European political model and the American political system.

Europe has primarily parliamentary systems in which the government in power is frequently a coalition of parties with allied interests, banded together to rule. Thus, as the political leaders in power adopt attitudes too divergent from the general population, an opportunity arises for opponents of the ruling government to bring the government down. Because the governing class is often self-selected and insulated, the governing politicians may not see the revolt coming until too late.

What will happen in November?

American politicians are less likely to become insulated from public opinion. They are surrounded by polls and research. They have frequent contact with the voters of their district or state. Only if they ignore the warnings are they completely vulnerable.

A president may lack the support of the majority - but the president still governs until the next presidential election. When that happens and we have a mid-term election, the voters can take out their frustration only against other members of the president's party, or against all incumbent officials, but not directly against the president.

Voters have an outlet because the party that does not control the presidency (or in the case of a state, the governorship) is not relegated to the governing sidelines. That party may control the legislative branch of government and can pose a significant challenge to a president or governor of the other party.

When the votes are counted in November, will the Democrats take control? Perhaps not. The American system is based less on party loyalty and more on the personal appeal of each and every candidate. Many Americans truly do seem to vote for candidates first and parties second. It might be said that the 100 members of the U.S. Senate represent 100 different political parties, loosely grouped into two larger factions for procedural purposes.

Will Bush drag the GOP down?

Many observers assume that President Bush’s unpopularity will bring down Republican control of the House of Representatives, the Senate or both. It is not so simple. Most Republicans seeking reelection in November, House members as well as Senators, are running away from President Bush. They hope that their personal appeal will outweigh their political affiliation. The American Conflict Index gives these Republicans reason to hope.

Opinions of a clear majority of American decision-makers are clustered in a relatively narrow range, mostly grouped in the middle. The voters are clustered in the same middle. This means that the American Conflict Index shows relatively little reason to expect major social or political upheaval - even during this time of war in Iraq, high energy prices and many other national problems. Do we have it right? For a large country with such an active political process, the consensus is striking and argues against a major change in the House or the Senate in November.

As polls have varied and shown volatility over the past few months, the American Conflict Index has remained steady. The parties and news media seem to focus on the voters at either end of the spectrum. Those voters may be crucial in 2006 because, if one party's fringe voters turn out and the other party's fringe voters do not, the balance could tip, possibly decisively. Fringe Democrats seem more likely to vote. Regardless of the possible importance of turnout by voters on the fringe, the large majority of Americans are in the middle.

If the Index works in the U.S. the way it works in Europe, the Republicans will hang on in the Senate and have an even chance to retain the House. In the Senate, primary elections may determine if Republicans retain control. For example, Rhode Island would be expected to return Republican Senator Chafee to the Senate - but Chafee is now expected to lose his September 12 primary to his conservative challenger. If he loses, or is badly damaged by the negative primary campaign, this seat will go Democratic. Chafee is the GOP equivalent of Senator Lieberman of Connecticut.

Elsewhere, the races are getting tighter, which benefits Republicans. For example, New Jersey seemed to be safely in the Democratic column a few weeks ago. Now Republican Tom Kean, Jr. leads in two reliable private polls. Republicans are pulling closer in other states. The most likely result now calls for a Republican majority of two to four seats. The most favorable result for Democrats now seems to be a 50-50 split. In that event, Republicans will maintain control of the Senate only because Vice President Cheney votes to break ties. District-by-district analyses of House races show that Republicans have lost ground in the last three months. The number of vulnerable districts has doubled to just over 40. Democrats need to pick up 15 to gain control. The Republicans will suffer because some frustrated incumbents, mostly moderates, retired rather than face a tough election. These moderate Republicans had been marginalized by the conservative Republicans in control of the House leadership. Generally, the conservatives nominated to replace the retiring moderates are not doing well.

A sour mood about the economy is peeling normally Republican voters away. Only the most counter-intuitive analysts would suggest that the GOP will keep control of the House. But the one issue that clearly hurts Democrats is still out there: The public views Democrats as soft on terrorism. This is the issue that causes the American Conflict Index to see this election as a toss-up in the House. Can the Republicans exploit this issue? Can the Democrats counter? This election will test the American Conflict Index.

Will the Swedish election tell us what might happen?

The U.S. is heading into an election with a surprising consensus among decision-makers and rank-and-file voters. In Europe, only the Scandinavian countries show similar consensus (although skewed to the left while the U.S. is skewed slightly right). Sweden will have a national election on September 17. Can we learn from the Swedish results?

The European Conflict Index shows that Swedish decision-makers and Swedish voters do not see that the governing left-leaning coalition is all that effective, but the opposition right-of-center coalition does not seem all that better. For the most part, Swedes are less comfortable with the way things are going than in past years, but the campaigns have not addressed this issue as much as voters might like.

Although the European Conflict Index shows that many Swedish voters believe that the good times may be slipping away, the decisive factor in the election may be the perceived poor response to the Asian tsunami of December 26, 2004. Bush has Katrina, the Swedish Social Democrats have the tsunami. Some 543 Swedes were killed in the Indian Ocean disaster and the government was accused of being too slow to help the thousands of Swedes caught up in the tsunami.

Swedish voters tell us that the campaign has been more about the personalities of the leading politicians than is customary but without negative, American-style campaigning. Earlier this week, a member of the opposition was fired for spying on the Social Democrats with a stolen password. A close election is likely, with not much change in direction no matter which coalition prevails. Change is always difficult to predict when the voters are generally happy but this Swedish election has a good chance to end the ruling left-of-center coalition's control. If that happens, a tsunami may have tipped the balance..
 

OWill the results in Sweden help us predict the U.S. results? The November elections in the U.S. seem likely to produce a similar close result. As in Sweden, the direction of the country may not be greatly affected by the result, but the stakes are very high for the White House. Because President Bush is disliked so intensely by Democratic leaders in Congress, a change in control could bring two years of Congressional investigations that will further tarnish the Bush presidency.

Bush’s failure of leadership may not make the difference

We could dwell on the litany of bumps-in-the-road that have hobbled the Bush Administration and caused this erosion of support, but Hurricane Katrina marked the end of the effectiveness of the Bush presidency. President Bush was seen as aloof, unready and incompetent. Since Katrina struck, as I predicted at the time, things have gone steadily downhill. On August 26, The Washington Post ran a front page, column one article on the damage done by Katrina to President Bush, paraphrasing parts of an advance copy of these remarks as well as my September 2005 report, in which I predicted ‘the disintegration of the Bush presidency.’

I wrote that President Bush was ‘disengaged’ and ‘did not understand the leadership role that he would need to fill’ in the days after Katrina hit. ‘The momentum of the Bush Presidency has been slowed to a stop by the flooding of New Orleans.’

Today, Bush captains a rudderless ship, with little help from the Republicans in Congress or elsewhere in his party. You can read past reports (links below) to get my take on the missteps that have brought Bush, agonizingly, month-by-month, to a likely legacy as a failed president.

But his failed presidency will not be the reason that the Republicans lose control, if they do. The U.S. is not Sweden (and most Swedes are glad for that). The majority opinion about Bush's handling of the war and the economy will not doom Congressional Republicans. The clustering together of opinions of decision-makers and rank-and-file voters shows more about how the majority of Americans now view Bush. Yes, decision-makers and regular voters hold similar opinions. But the real story is how far Bush is from those opinions, whether on global warming, stem cell research or many other issues. Most Americans support less and less of what Bush now stands for.

Despite that, a feeling of unease over national security will give voters a reason to stick with the GOP. At this point, and subject to revision as events shape election day behavior, the Republicans seem likely to hold both the Senate and the House.

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