A changing political philosophy?
In the mad scramble to define “the” conventional wisdom after three significant races yesterday, Orin Kerr at Volokh offers this amusing note:
I think there are four obvious lessons to draw from tonight’s election returns:
1. For Conservative Republicans: The America people reject Barack Obama and obviously want true conservative leadership. The Governorships of two states have switched to the “R” category, showing a grassroots conservative movement that is alive and well.
2. For Moderate Republicans: The American people obviously want old-fashioned economic conservatives who are moderate on social issues. McDonnell in Virginia and Christie in New Jersey won by downplaying social issues; Hoffman in New York-23 lost because he was too extreme.
3. For Moderate Democrats: The party out of power usually does well in off-year elections like this, and this year was no exception. But obviously there is no sign of any substantial shift in public opinion from the election of 2008.
4. For Liberal Democrats: NY-23 was the race to watch this year, given that right-wing extremists like Palin and Beck threw all their support behind Hoffman. But the district voters rejected the right-wing candidate, sending a Democrat to Congress for the first time in one hundred years. Obviously this shows that the American people reject right-wing extremism.
Obviously.
This was worth sharing for laughs, but there’s an interesting philosophical question with regard to NY-23. Several commentators who seem to espouse a relatively conservative governing philosophy helped generate a groundswell of momentum in favor of a candidate who ultimately lost. The sample size of one upstate New York district is not significant enough to tell us anything about the rest of the country, but is it possible for Americans to develop more extreme values over the course of a year?
There’s a distinction between approving or disapproving of the job President Obama has done and affirming or negating his values. How much of his election last year and how much of Hoffman’s defeat yesterday was the latter?
-Sam
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- More polarized than ever
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- Why did Brown win?
- Obama’s governing philosophy
- Political Philosophy: The TV Show
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