Three's a Crowd: The Dynamic of Third Parties, Ross Perot, and Republican Resurgence

4. Was There an Issue Constituency for Perot?

IV vvas There an Issue Constituency for Perot? dip UNDER THE LOGIC OF THE DYNAMIC of third parties, the emergence of a successful third party carries the possibility of change primarily because it presents a target to one or both major parties, enabling them to bid for the third party's constituency in subsequent elections. The issues that define the third party's constituency provide the basis for the major-party bid. In the absence of an identifiable issue constituency, the third party, no matter how successful it is ill the short tenn, would be unlikely to generate long-term change in the two-party system. A large vote for a third party might indicate discontent about the performance of the major parties-for instance, a major scandal or the choice of a candidate whom significant numbers of voters do not trust. In such a case, the signal to the parties may be clear-avoid scandal and the temptation to nominate untrustworthy candidates-but the potential for the third party to bring about enduring change would be limited. In contrast, when the third party mobilizes a distinctive issue constituency , the signal is clear, as are the major parties' incentives to respond . Their response, of course, is the key to the third-party dynamic. The question of the third party's issue constituency is important because it sets up the "pull" side of our model of support, and it posits that successful third-party movements, such as Perot's, are not merely negative reactions to major-party failures. How do we decide whether there was an issue constituency supporting Perot? We think of an issue constituency as defined by both issue preferences and issue priority. Preferences are the positions that support78 Was There all Issue Constituency for Per(1t~ 79 ers and potential supporters have on the issues; the priority of an issue is the importance individuals attach to the issue concern. Individuals who indicate one issue is more important than another express a priority for one public concern over another. An issue constituency is distinctive in the preferences of the candidate's supporters and in the importance they assign to various issues. One way of assessing the distinctiveness of a third-party movement on the issues is to compare its supporters' preferences with those of the two major parties. POLlCY DIFFERENTIATION When we say that the Democratic Party's constituency has a preference for imposing stricter controls on gun owners, we do not mean that every Democrat is in perfect agreement on the amount and degree ofgun control that is necessary or on the priority that should be given to that issue compared with others. With respect to gun control, some Democrats oppose the dominant view in their party. In matters ofnational politics , there is never perfect agreement, and describing aggregate preferences and priorities is always a matter of general tendencies, rather than perfect agreement. A constituency's distinctiveness is evident \vhen we compare one constituency with another. Thus, a typical set of Democratic supporters would be more supportive of gun control than a comparable set of Republicans, even if we also find some individual Democrats more opposed to gun control than some Republicans. Moreover, we might find that Democrats were more distinct from Republicans on some issues (e.g., gun control) than on others (e.g., how best to handle federal budget deficits). A third party's constituency is distinctive to the degree that it differs from the major parties, and this in turn is affected by the degree of choice offered by the two major parties. Consider two alternative ideal scenarios. In the"convergence" scenario, the two major parties take similar positions on the fc)relllost issues; as a result, they do not otTer a clear choice. When the parties converge on the issues, activists see relatively little difference between the major parties and their candidates, and divisions between the major-party activists themselves should be muted. This is a scenario ripe for a third party to exploit if there are sizable 80 THREE'S A CROWD numbers ofactivists and voters with preferences that diverge significantly from the consensus represented by the Democratic and Republican parties. There would be a significant opportunity to outflank the major parties, and their similar issue positions would encourage indifference between them among potential third-party supporters. Indifference between the major parties, ofcourse, is one ofthe conditions in our model that...