Democracy Spot

National parties mediate the differences between their regional bases. The Democrats, for example, must negotiate between the interests of their constituencies in the northeast, the upper midwest, and the west coast. What an autoworker in Detroit sees as a critical political issue from a taxi driver in New York City, and both would likely disagree with a barista in San Francisco, or a farmer in North Dakota. The result is often a mishmash of both policies and politicians: Byron Dorgan, Democratic Senator of North Dakota, holds substantially different views than Barbara Boxer, Democratic Senator of California. This is a good thing in electoral terms, as it enables political parties to contest and win national elections.

Regional parties, by contrast, are usually much more consistent (though not entirely) in their ideology, policies, and politicians. This gives them a stranglehold on their particular region. But it becomes a reinforcing cycle: the politicians that emerge from a regional party are the ones that are successful in that region. Politicians who do not adhere to the ideological template are marginalized or forcibly evicted from the party. And with each success and each eviction, the party regionalizes itself further and begins the cycle all over again. This is a bad thing for political parties, as it makes it difficult for them to contest national elections and weakens them everywhere but their particular region.

This syndrome is currently at play in Pennsylvania, where Republican Senator Arlen Spector is in danger from his own party. Specter’s relative moderation no longer seems to fit within the increasingly conservative and increasingly Southern GOP, and so he will be challenged in the Republican primary by Pat Toomey, who’s social conservatism fits much more closely with the current template. If Toomey wins, and it seems likely that he will, it is extremely difficult to see him winning against any reasonable Democratic candidate in a state that went for Barack Obama in 2008 by over 10 percentage points. Even if Specter wins, it will be by moving to the right, something that will weaken him in the general election. The likely flip of the second Senate seat in Pennsylvania to the Democrats will continue the regionalization of the Republicans, which will in turn make it more unlikely that Specter-like figures can survive in the party. The big tent is a useful electoral tool; diversity helps win elections. If the Republicans’ tent continues to shrink, there will be less and less room for actual voters.

GOP Senators effectively scuttled the initial automakers bailout bill. That was an electoral disaster waiting to happen for the Republicans in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania. That should have been clear to GOP leaders back in February; it should be even clearer to them today, when a Michigan dealership starting using that vote to sell cars by going after Southern GOP Senators:

A Michigan car dealership is using Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and southern Republicans as boogeymen in a new ad campaign. Les Stanford Chevrolet Cadillac in Dearborn, owned by brothers Paul and Gary Sanford, has released commercials showing Shelby, a fierce opponent of bailouts for U.S. automakers, warning of the industry’s inevitable decline.

As a followup to this post. The Republican Party continues to hold its base in the South and not much else. From a recent poll:

Republican Party:

Northeast: 8% favorable, 82% unfavorable
Midwest: 22% favorable, 68% unfavorable
West: 20% favorable, 70% unfavorable
South: 43% favorable, 47% unfavorable

Hat-tip to Steve Benen

[A follow-up to this post]

In counterinsurgencies, military effort can create the conditions for ending the war, but it (usually) can’t end the war by itself. That depends on the political accommodation of enough of the constituencies supporting the insurgents to undercut their military effort. Without that, the insurgency is likely to start again. In the Philippines in 1899-1902, the US was careful to recruit insurgents and their supporters to the American side through a variety of methods. A number of local warlords “surrendered” to American forces and then were immediately appointed governors of their areas. At a lower level, insurgent soldiers who surrendered were given amnesty and sent back to their homes. The result was that the Filipino insurgency was defeated not only militarily, but had the oxygen of support sucked away from them.

In Iraq, the political tensions have largely been between the Shi’ite majority, which dominates the Iraqi government, and the Sunni minority, which had held power in Hussein’s government. The Anbar Awakening was a reconciliation between American forces and the Sunni militias which had been fighting against them. The U.S. recruited the militias over to our side, with generous payments to leaders and militia members alike. The Sunnis, for their part, saw this as an opportunity to have influence in the larger polity. The Awakening, and the effectiveness of renewed counterinsurgency efforts in Baghdad essentially brought the insurgency down to a manageable level in 2007-2008.

But the thorn on the rose was always how the Shi’ite government would handle incorporating the Sunni militias and the people they represent into the larger government. Without an effective and good faith effort on the part of Maliki’s government to integrate the militias into the Iraqi military and give the Sunnis some form of reasonable political voice, there was no reason that the violence in Iraq could not spiral again. That’s why this is not a good sign:

But the Shiite-dominated Baghdad government never really liked the idea. Indeed, the first deals were cut by U.S. officials behind the back of the Iraqi government. So Maliki’s guys are:

• Arresting some leaders of the “Sons of Iraq” (the American term for Awakening forces)
• Attacking others
• Bringing only 5,000 of the ex-insurgents into the Iraqi security forces
• And stiffing others on pay, with some complaining they haven’t been paid in weeks or even months

I think Maliki’s gambit is to crack down on the Sunnis while American forces are still available in sufficient numbers to back him up. This is a turning into a test of strength, Sunni vs. Shiite.

Counterinsurgency operations succeed when they can co-opt the nationalism of the country in which the insurgency is being fought. But they have to co-opt the entirety (or as as near as makes no difference) of that nationalism, not just the attractive parts. In Iraq, that means Sunni as well as Shi’ite nationalism needs to be brought in out of the cold.

Having said this, it’s not clear that the Americans can do anything useful any more. Long-term, the Sunnis and Shi’ites have to figure out a way to live with each other. Any kind of realistic solution has to come from them. Unfortunately, a “realistic” solution might include an all-out civil war which ends with one side or the other emerging on top. Winning the counterinsurgency doesn’t stop Iraq’s ethnic, cultural, or political divisions; it only creates the opportunity to resolve them.

At the end of a reasonable analysis of the situation in Afghanistan, Robert Kaplan asks the wrong question. It’s not a big surprise, as the question he does ask fits nicely into the post-Vietnam perception of American military action. It is, nonetheless, wrong:

To that end, significant numbers of American officers and civilian contractors will be embedded in Afghan government ministries for years to come, helping to run things. But does the home front have the stomach for it?

Ignoring the prejudicial phrasing used (”stomach for it”), the question that Kaplan should have asked was not “does the home front” but “should the home front.” Deciding that a multi-year military effort in a failed state far from home is not worth the cost in blood and lives is not an unreasonable one.