Think it Through

What if we held a political party and nobody came?

This is becoming increasingly likely if your idea of a robust political party is one that includes 20 somethings or 30 somethings.

We now have historically large numbers of all age groups choosing the label “politically independent” (42%), but the number of independents stands even higher among the younger cohorts.

Just five years ago, six in ten Americans under age 40 called themselves either a Democratic or Republican, and today fewer than half of that age group chooses to align with either party, according to the latest Washington Post–ABC News poll (Oct. 15).

Among 18 to 29 year olds political party identity has dropped 13 points since 2003 (58% to 45%), and has declined 15 points among people in their 30s (from 64% to 49%).

ABC News/Washington Post data

Younger Americans’ reluctance to become members of the Democratic or Republican party does not mean, as some have suggested, that young adults are less active politically, or less likely to be joiners of causes, or less frequent volunteers at community events.

Belden Russonello & Stewart’s work for non-profits shows that younger adults are contributing time and money at a brisk pace to the causes they care about.  They are on social networking websites to get involved with issues, and in 2008 young voters were a key component of Barack Obama’s campaign – providing organizational and fundraising support nationwide.

So why are young people losing the motivation to identify as either Democratic or Republican?  The parties may be flummoxed, but if Democrats and Republicans are looking for the secret to attract young voters, there are plenty of hints.

• First, emulate Barack Obama’s leadership:  confident, cool, deliberate, and active.  Young voters continue to have more confidence in President Obama than do older voters, but this has not fully helped the Democratic Party. The Democratic identity among 18 to 29 year olds is down to 27% from 29% six years ago.  Republican identity in the same period has dropped even further among 18 to 29 year olds, from 29% to 18%.
• Second, do not back off from key positions that are important to young people and that tend to be more liberal than conservative.  The younger generation has shown consistently in polls to be more pro-gay rights, more interested in promoting renewable energy as a priority for government, more supportive of a government role in health care and help for the economy, and less supportive of a government role in dictating morality.  They are also less tax averse than older voters.
• Third, focus less on argument and more on solution.  Since Ronald Reagan convinced most the country that government could not solve big problems, this idea became associated with political parties.  This suited the Republican Party perfectly since it defined itself by its social conservatism and its anti-tax philosophy.  The Democrats, cowed by Reagan’s popularity, generally just went along with the idea that government was not part of the solution to problems.  Remember President Clinton’s second inaugural speech, in which he stated emphatically, “the era of big government is over.”

Younger generations have been attracted by Barack Obama’s intention to replace Reagan’s society of individualism and freedom, with one of fairness and collective responsibility.  In this type of society, government – and political parties – must play a role in solving problems.

In the current climate, young voters might be ready to become Democrats, but they have yet to commit, and their political identity is still up for grabs.  Will they become Obama Democrats?  Will they become loyal to him but not to his party?  Will they become more Republican whenever the Republican Party moves into the 21st century?

As young voters consider settling down with one family politically, right now there is no place that feels like home.

The recent surveys on health care reform have been reporting large-scale support for reforming our health care system but no consensus on the specifics.

• The latest New York Times/CBS poll (June ‘09) reports 85% of the American public wants either “fundamental changes” (51%) or to “completely rebuild” our health care system.
• A June survey by the Pew Research Center found 71% favoring either fundamental changes (30%) or to completely rebuild (41%) the health care system in America.
• A June survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that 68% of Americans favor “creating a public heath care option similar to Medicare to compete with private health insurance plans.”

The dissonance between this broad support for reform and the reservations about the specifics of reform, shown in some polls, lead some analysts to voice skepticism that health care legislation will pass this year. Others point to polls showing that the public is generally satisfied with the quality and cost of their own health care right now, so where is the impetus for reform? Indeed, the latest Pew numbers show that majorities of Americans do not have a “major problem” with “paying for the cost of routine medical care” (65%), “paying for the cost of health insurance” (56%), or the “quality of medical care in your community.” (73%).

If you only consider the numbers showing satisfaction with the current scene, you will not understand why seven to eight in ten Americans want Congress to pass health care reform. Talk to ordinary Americans, however, and the answer is clear – it is the insecurity Americans feel about health care and their future.

When pollsters have asked about motivations, the results are revealing. The Washington Post/ABC News poll in June asked a question that begins to explain why people are calling for reform, even if they say things are ok at the moment: the Post/ABC survey found 85% of Americans are concerned about “you and your family’s health care costs in the future.” 59% said very concerned and 25% were somewhat concerned.

Along these lines, it might also be a good idea to find out how many Americans worry about:

• If someone in my family becomes very ill, our insurance will drop us from coverage.
• If someone in my family gets cancer or some other serious illness, our insurance will not cover all the costs. Could this put me at risk of bankruptcy?
• If I lose my job, I will lose my health coverage and I will not be able to afford to buy new health insurance and pay all my other bills.
• If I lose my job or if I change jobs, I will not be able to get health insurance because of a pre-existing condition.

A broad inquiry into the strongest currents behind health care reform needs to measure the insecurity that we all hear expressed every day in our lives. To what degree are Americans scared to get sick, scared to leave a job, or worried about a family member because of the way health care is administered?

The latest polls showing that President Obama is more popular than some of his policies are a sure sign that meaningful health care reform with a public option should be a slam dunk for Obama.

The intangibles of leadership, not the specifics of policies, usually determine whether or not the country will accept large scale change like health care reform.

If Franklin Roosevelt had lived through his fourth term in office, the country would have heard him call for national health insurance as part of a Second Bill of Rights he was preparing. After FDR’s death, President Harry Truman took the first step by calling on Congress to provide universal health care coverage. But in 1945, Truman was not popular, and the American Medical Association and others crushed Truman’s plan.

Twenty years later, President Lyndon Johnson had just won a landslide election and he enjoyed a national consensus behind his leadership. He move quickly in January of 1965 to ask Congress to send him a Medicare bill. He faced the same bitter opposition as Truman, as the AMA fought back hard with lobbyists and money. The AMA even offered an alternative it named Bettercare, a voluntary program run by the private insurance companies. None of this mattered in the face of LBJ’s popularity. Just 204 days after LBJ asked for a Medicare bill, he signed it into law on July 30, 1965, in Independence, Missouri with former President Truman at his side.

President Obama’s personality and style of leadership is polar opposite that of LBJ. Yet, Obama has the same level of trust at a time of hope and anticipation that he will accomplish great things for the country.

Obama’s consistently high job approval ratings — 65% in the latest ABC/Washington Post poll — reflect the public’s general trust in his leadership. This high level of trust is much more important than the fact that somewhat fewer Americans like his specific policies.  For example:

• 61% approve of the way Obama is handling foreign affairs
• 57% approve of his handling of the threat of terrorism
• 56% approve of his handling of the economy
• 53% approve of how he is handling health care

President Clinton’s health care reform did not unravel due to the details of his plan as much as the public doubts about his leadership and voters’ disgust at Congressional behavior. The infamous “Harry and Louise” ads did not focus on the particulars of the president’s plan as much as they argued that something as important as your personal health could not be entrusted to the government at a time when Clinton had stumbled during his first year in office and Congressmen were bouncing checks and playing the float at the House Bank.

Although the history of health care reform covers decades of defeats, the level of trust the public has for Obama should make health care reform achievable.

Yet, there are some things he can do to lose:

• He can lose if he relies on men and women of good faith to come together to do what is right for the country. For the insurance, hospital, medical and trial attorney lobbies, health care reform is about money, and they will oppose every dollar they are asked to sacrifice for the common good.

• He can lose if he depends on selling the details.  Flow charts did more to hurt than help the Clinton plan’s presentation to the public. The devil is not in the details, it is in his determination. If the issue is reduced to one of who do you trust: the President or the insurance industry, who do you think will win?

• He can lose if he talks more about how he will pay for the plan rather than how we will benefit. Obama’s best line so far on health care has been “we cannot afford not to do it.” He must describe for us the pay-off, not the process of how to get there.

Like LBJ, Obama has the opportunity to either convert or roll over the naysayers and enact a program that will benefit hundreds of millions of Americans for years to come.

Health care reform is his to lose.

The Republican message guru of the 80’s, and into the 90’s, Arthur Finkelstein of New York, built a successful career on one simple idea. If his candidate was trailing in the polls, he would call the opponent a liberal. His formula had two main advantages: simplicity and portability: FILL IN YOUR OPPONENT’S NAME HERE is too liberal for FILL IN YOUR STATE HERE. With this advice, he helped Republicans win many elections, because the liberal label meant favoring big government and higher taxes, being soft on crime, and social permissiveness.

Today you see these ads far less often. Even though the opinion polls have consistently shown almost no increase in the number of Americans who describe themselves as politically “liberal,” I believe there is solid evidence that the liberal bashing has lost its punch because over the last two decades Americans have gradually become more liberal. My conclusion derives from listening to hundreds of focus groups over the last two decades by our firm, Belden Russonello & Stewart, as well as an analysis of public opinion surveys. The latest Pew values survey describes the current phenomenon as a return to “centrism,” but whatever you call it, the move in public opinion is leftward. A look at public opinion polls on government, taxes, civil rights and gay rights supports what we have heard in focus groups.

More liberal on taxes and government

Perhaps nothing has separated liberals from conservatives more over the past several decades than attitudes towards taxes. The idea that government takes too much of our personal income is central to the conservative position in the country, and the liberal position has been that taxes pay for things we need, therefore we do not begrudge them.

The data over the last 15 years indicate a shift away from the conservative position on taxes. Since 1994, the proportions of Americans who think their federal income taxes are too high declined from 66% to 46%, according to Gallup. The Gallup polls also show that more Americans today than ten years ago think the income tax they pay is fair (51% in 1997 and 61% in 2009); and fewer think that “middle income people” are paying “too much” of federal taxes than thought so in the past (57% in 1994 compared to 43% in 2009).

Opinions about government generally track the difficulties of the nation. When the nation is troubled economically or because of a security threat, the public is more supportive of government action in general. When times are good overall, Americans tend to forget what government does for them and claim to be rugged individualists.

After 9/11 attacks, the public’s confidence in government to make the right decisions shot up to its highest level in decades.

When NORC’s General Social Survey asked Americans if the “government should do everything possible to improve the standard of living of all poor Americans,” or if they believe “it is not the government’s responsibility and everyone should take care of himself,” the numbers in favor of government help rose during the recession of 1990 and ‘91, then dipped until 2000, when they shot back up and stayed up.

These and other surveys indicate an increasing openness to government helping people in need and a public that is stepping away from the taxophobia that fueled the Reagan revolution.

More liberal on crime

A look at the public opinion data on crime adds fuel to the idea that Americans are becoming more progressive. Several polls show that the death penalty is becoming less popular, and that more Americans believe the government should spend more money attacking the causes of crime than on law enforcement through more prisons, police and judges. Also, several polls have shown that although legalizing marijuana still is rejected by a majority of Americans, support for legalization has grown in the past few years.

More liberal on rights

Perhaps the largest shift leftward in public opinion on liberal-conservative issues over the last 15 years has been the rise in support of individuals’ exercising their rights and the growing tolerance for people who are different. Gay rights are the most dramatic, but not the only example of this increased tolerance. Gallup studies show that from 1996 to the present, Americans have moved steadily in favor of calling “homosexuality” an “acceptable alternative life style” (44% in 1996, 57% in 2009), as well as more in favor of “marriage between same sex couples being recognized by the law as valid with the same rights as traditional marriages” (27% in 1996, 40% in 2009).

Our own BRS polls for the ACLU have shown that a majority of Americans now support a “gay or lesbian couple” being able to adopt a baby legally (46% in 1998, 53% in 2007).

Also, ABC News/Washington Post surveys have indicated a 31-point rise from 1993 to 2009 in the belief that “homosexuals who do publicly disclose their sexual orientation should be allowed to serve in the military.” (44% in 1993, 75% this year)

Beyond gay rights, a general question about individual rights, which BRS has asked since 1998, shows a slight but steady rise in the number of Americans who think “generally, in this country we do not go far enough “to protect liberties and rights (from 31% to 36%), ” and a corresponding drop (from 29% to 24%) who think we “go too far” to protect rights.

The policies of President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney catapulted civil liberties to the front burner of American politics in the same way that Reagan and his interior secretary James Watt built widespread national support for environmental causes. A public that had been previously asleep to threats of civil liberties now has been awakened by government action on Guantanamo, incarceration of people indefinitely without showing evidence, illegal wiretapping, etc. A recent BRS poll reveals that “protecting civil liberties and the Constitution” rates near the top of the public’s issue concerns, just below the economy and the war in Iraq, at the same level as protecting the country from terrorists, and ahead of health care reform and improving education.

Conclusion

The data on individual rights, government, taxes, and crime do not offer a complete picture of how Americans think about these issues, but taken together they add credence to the idea that the American public opinion is moving gradually to the left in many ways. How far we do not know. It is likely, however, that the trend will continue.

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Center for People and the Press, astutely points out that much of the turn leftward on issues such as gay rights is due to cohort replacement: the younger generations hold more liberal views than their elders, and as the older generations disappear, they will be replaced by their more liberal children and grandchildren.

It may be hard to imagine now, but some day soon a media consultant will make his or her name with the following formula: FILL IN YOUR OPPONENT’S NAME HERE is too conservative for FILL IN YOUR STATE HERE.