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Cultural Issues and Images in the 1988 Presidential Campaign - Why the Democrats Lost Again Cleveland State University EngagedScholarship@CSU Political Science Faculty Publications Political Science Department 6-1991 Cultural Issues and Images in the 1988 Presidential Campaign - Why the Democrats Lost Again Joel A. Lieske Cleveland State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clpolsci_facpub How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! Publisher's Statement Copyright 1991 Cambridge University Press. Available on publisher's site at http://www.jstor.org/stable/419927. Original Citation Lieske, Joel. 1991. "Cultural Issues and Images in the 1988 Presidential Campaign - Why the Democrats Lost Again." PS: Political Science and Politics 24:180-187. Repository Citation Lieske, Joel A., "Cultural Issues and Images in the 1988 Presidential Campaign - Why the Democrats Lost Again" (1991). Political Science Faculty Publications. 7. https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clpolsci_facpub/7 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Political Science Department at EngagedScholarship@CSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Political Science Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of EngagedScholarship@CSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Cultural Issues and Images in the 1988 Presidential Campaign: Why the Democrats Lost-Again! Joel Lieske, Cleveland State University The culturalissues and Dukakisnot our ignorance. Thus we are enter- ity. It is my contention that Bush respondingto themput a wall up between tained and even amused the Dukakisand votershe couldhave gotten. by won in 1988 because he was more The wall got so thickthat peopleforgot tongue-in-cheek interpretations of successful in appealing to the cultural aboutthe economicissues. 1988 by leading salon commentators preferences (issues) and stereotypes Alan LaPierre,Executive Director (Erikson 1989; Sigelman 1989, (images) of those groups who consti- AlabamaDemocratic Party 1990). ' But we are still left with the tute the real, cultural majority in New York Times, Nov. 1988 10, uncomfortable feeling that, as a pro- American politics. fession, we know much less than we My case rests on the following How do you explain the outcomes think. So when we are challenged by contentions: of modern presidential elections? yet another paradigm, one which This is the central dilemma of Amer- contends that presidential campaigns (1) That the United States is a ican politics. Why, for instance, did are media horse races run on video diverse, multicultural society com- the Democrats, the so-called majority and audio sound tracks, and by posed of competing racial, ethnic, party, lose again in 1988? And why implication, that American voters are religious, and regional subcultures. have they gone down to defeat in rootless consumers of political This is a political axiom that many five of the last six presidential elec- "sound bites," it is time to take liberal Democrats seem to accept in tions? Curiously, there appears to be intellectual stock (Joslyn 1984; Orren theory but reject in practice. On the no dearth of answers to these and Polsby 1980). one hand, America's cultural plural- questions. My position in this debate is as ism is not denied. But on the other, Many pundits, such as neocon- follows. While I agree that the media it is often claimed that the nation's servative William Schneider (1988), is playing a much greater role in racial, ethnic, religious, and regional have argued that the Democrats are presidential elections, I feel that its divisions are not that important now, too liberal to win a national election. impact has been greatly exaggerated are waning over time, and will ulti- Others maintain that presidential by journalistic hype. True, the elec- mately become insignificant (Erikson, elections are retrospective referenda toral environment today is far dif- Luttbeg, and Tedin 1989). Yet, there on the economy and peace issues. ferent than it was 40 years ago at the is a growing mass of evidence which According to this view, the incum- dawn of television. Americans are suggests that ethnocultural dif- bent party never loses when times are generally more urbanized, educated, ferences in American society are still prosperous and the nation is at mobile, affluent, individualistic, and persistent and consequential. And peace. Still others argue that presi- politically sophisticated. Consequent- rather than decreasing, they may dential elections are actually beauty ly, they are also more independent actually be on the rise. This evidence contests in which voters select the than ever before-about one-third includes recent census data on the candidate who demonstrates the most consider themselves independent- racial and ethnic identifications of attractive combination of personality and therefore more receptive to the Americans, survey data on church traits, leadership qualities, and polit- campaign appeals of individual can- membership, subcultural studies of ical credentials (Miller, Wattenberg, didates. But the medium only com- American government and politics, and Malanchuk 1986). Yet others municates the message. It is not the and cultural explanations of Ameri- contend that most losing Democratic message itself. can political behavior. candidates have run notoriously inept In order to understand the growing As Leege, Lieske, and Wald (1989: campaigns. In the Yiddish vernacu- role of the media and the changing 31) have observed, "Racial and eth- lar, Dukakis was a "Putz." Finally, character of presidential campaign nic diversity-and the group con- some analysts (Burns, Peltason, and politics, it is my thesis that political sciousness that accompanies them- Cronin 1989: 276-77) try to please scientists must first understand the have accelerated rapidly in recent everyone by advancing umbrella ex- cultural realities of American politics years."2 In 1960, they point out, the planations that include all of these and the kinds of issues that concern United States was 88.6% white, arguments. most voters. Thus I will argue that 10.5% black, and less than 1%o Unfortunately, none of these ex- modern presidential elections are Asian and other. By 1985, they note, planations, taken individually, is par- being increasingly decided, not by the the predominant group, white ticularly persuasive. And most ap- socioeconomic issues traditionally Anglos, had dropped in population pear to be little more than post hoc emphasized by liberal Democrats, but share by 10%0while blacks increased rationalizations. Of course, when by a new set of cultural issues, first to 12%. Hispanics constituted something cannot be fully under- identified by Richard Scammon and another 7% while Asians and others stood, we are prone to make fun of Ben Wattenberg in The Real Major- grew to 2.7%. Based on census pro- 180 PS: PoliticalScience & Politics Why the Democrats Lost-Again! jections, they note that by the year Along with economic divisions, recent presidential elections, how- 2000, whites will constitute less than these cultural divisions have become ever, these groups have become 74% of the population; while blacks, intertwined with other dimensions of increasingly divided not only over Hispanics, and Asians will comprise social stratification, producing what longstanding social welfare issues another 13%, 9%, and 4%, respec- Leege et al. (1989: 34) describe as an that formerly united them but also tively. "increasing segmentation of the over a new set of racial (commonly But race is not the only cultural American population by life-style labeled as civil rights) and cultural cleavage that divides Americans. In choices." As a growing number of life-style issues. The new issues in- 1980, the U.S. census also included a scholars have documented, this seg- clude special federal aid programs question on ethnic ancestry: "In mentation is observable in the racial, for racial minorities, affirmative addition to being American, what do ethnic, and social segregation of resi- action, busing, drug abuse, urban you consider your main ethnic group dential neighborhoods (Weiss 1988: crime, bilingual education, illegal or nationality group?" Based on xii; Robbins 1989), ethnocultural immigration, capital punishment, responses to this question, over 118 conflicts within the American states school prayer, abortion, homosexual million Americans (52.3%) classified (Peirce and Hagstrom 1984), and the rights, and gun control. Though few themselves into a single ancestry division of the U.S. into identifiable are explicitly racial, ethnic, or group; some 69 million more political subcultures and cultural religious, most have racial, ethnic, (30.8%) designated a multiple ances- regions (Elazar 1970; Gastil 1975; and religious overtones. try group. Thus, of the 226 million Garreau 1981). These new issues have emerged, in Americans surveyed in the 1980 cen- Finally, historical studies of the part, because of growing racial- sus, a surprising 83.1% identified American electorate suggest that par- ethnic, religious, and subcultural with a nationality other than tisan divisions and voting behavior divisions in the American electorate; American. are best understood in terms of the partly because of the declining im- Though they are declining as a political preferences of subcultural portance of the social welfare and proportion of the population, the groups operating within different foreign policy issues in American two dominant ethnic groups in regions and locales (Kleppner 1970;
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