Studying the political nuts & bolts - 1994 midterm elections - Column

National Review, Dec 19, 1994 by William F. Buckley, Jr.

It requires a surprisingly small shift in total vote to effect great political landslides, as we discover, courtesy of the New York Times and Mitofsky International. We have from them an account of the political changes recorded every election year beginning with the Reagan victory of 1980. And we discover that a mere 2 per cent of the total vote had gone over to the GOP.

In 1980 when Mr. Reagan brought the Senate along with him, but not the House, 48 per cent of the total vote went Republican. In 1994, 50 per cent did. A mere 2 per cent, and all this commotion.

As one would expect, the internal breakdown titillates. American women, by and large, lean toward Democrats. I have never heard an explanation for this that is plausible. In 1980, 45 per cent of women went Republican; this year, a grudging 46 per cent. By contrast, men went Republican by 51 per cent in 1980, and by 54 per cent this time around.

Has the swelling black middle class affected the voting? No. In fact, black Republican votes decreased from 13 per cent to 12. Among Hispanics there was a rightward creep, if barely discernible: from 28 per cent to 30. Asians were not counted in 1980, at least not by Mr. Mitofsky.

We come to the category that separates white Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. And learn that among white Protestants the Republicans gained enormously in the 14-year interval, from 59 to 66. Catholics moved in the same direction, from 41 to 48. The Jews, for reasons that don't come instantly to mind, went in the Democratic direction, from 31 to 22. Come to think of it, a probable reason is that Reagan was associated with the stout wing of the Cold War, an issue no longer relevant, but one around which a hardy minority of Jewish voters clung in 1980.

Meanwhile tectonic demographic shifts were recorded. Nothing new in the staid old East (48 then, 48 now). But the Midwest moved solidly, from 50 to 56; the South moved massively, from 46 Republican the Reagan year to 55 on Tuesday. The West, in which of course California is predominant, moved as dramatically in the opposite direction, from 51 to 41. The reasons for this will be explored meticulously by the psephologists in the months ahead, but surely something there has to do with the fact that Ronald Reagan, a Californian, headed the ticket in 1980.

Given the figures, which in the context of greater America appear so slight, how is it that the impression is so solid that the political change is substantially important?

The reason, surely, is that whatever one says about the negative character of the campaigning and the advertising done by contending candidates, the lineaments of the alternative positions were pretty clear. When Newt Gingrich and Phil Gramm said over the weekend that they acknowledge a mandate that calls for less government, reduced federal extravagance, a diminished federal appetite to accept the burden of zoo-keeping in Walla Walla, it somehow did not matter that the numerical vote was so close. For one thing, the mere 2 per cent evolves into the difference between a Senate controlled by such as Kennedy--Biden--Sarbanes, and one controlled by such as Dole--Gramm--Helms. A victory by 51 to 49 is no less a victory. The talk over the weekend tended to focus on the blood lust of the new congressional bosses. This point was nicely dealt with by future House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who when asked whether there would be a rout of Democratic staff members, observed that as things now stand, Republicans have about 30 per cent of congressional staff, an allocation decreed over the years by the Democratic majority.

If the Republicans persevere in cutting down the size of congressional staff, and if they reduce the Democratic staff to a corresponding number, i.e., 30 per cent, that means a lot of ex-democratic staffers. Ah--but then that's the price we pay, is it not, for coming in 2 per cent ahead?