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4 Subconstituencies in Campaigns
- Temple University Press
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4 Subconstituencies in Campaigns I n the fall of 1994, Senator Chuck Robb of Virginia faced a tight reelection contest against Oliver North. Robb, who was stumping for votes at a factory, stopped to take questions from the press when the following exchange with Washington Post reporter Don Baker occurred: SENATOR ROBB: At least give honest and realistic responses to the tough questions, because otherwise we are going to continue to up the national debt and the budget deficit is going to be almost impossible to solve. DON BAKER: Senator, in the spirit of your desire to talk about these things, we’re outside a unionized plant here. Tell us what your position is on striker replacement. SENATOR ROBB: It has not changed. DON BAKER: Well, what is it? SENATOR ROBB: You’ve . . . you’ve heard it. DON BAKER: I’ve never heard you give it. Maybe I’ve missed it. Are you for it or against it? SENATOR ROBB: I’ve said that I’ve not taken a position on the merits. I did vote for cloture. My position on the basic underlying issue has not changed, and I take that position. On Virginia being a right to work state, I’ve not changed my position on that. DON BAKER: So you’re opposed to striker replacement? Subconstituencies in Campaigns / 55 SENATOR ROBB: No, I did not say that. DON BAKER: You’re in favor of striker replacement? DON BAKER: You don’t have a position on striker replacement? SENATOR ROBB: I told you, I take the position that it’s more important in my judgment to work on labor–management cooperation, and that is a divisive issue that is not coming to the fore. Period. DON BAKER (turning to a Robb campaign official): Will you give us a translation of that statement?1 Robb’s response to the question about striker replacement is problematic for scholars who seek to understand candidates’ campaign positions, because extant theories poorly explain such answers. Contrary to Robb’s answer, theories of candidates’position taking suggest that they have little incentive to equivocate on major issues of policy. Instead, they tend to hold that candidates should be decisive either by appealing to the median or average voter, an appeal that indirectly reflects the desire to appeal to majorities (e.g., Downs 1957), or through more extreme, expressive position taking (e.g., Boatright 2004) often propounded by candidates with virtually no chance of winning. Setting aside the possibility that the response was just a gaffe, Robb was an incumbent who repeatedly refused to take a position on the issue, even in televised debates. One possibility is that Robb saw no way to gain votes on the issue of striker replacement. An alternative explanation, however, might lie with subconstituency politics. If no groups held intense preferences on the issue, then equivocation would leave him free to act as he wanted later, perhaps to logroll on some other issue. This chapter investigates the conditions under which candidates target different constituencies through their position taking. In particular, I evaluate whether politicians tend to respond more closely to the will of the majority, as typically assessed using average district preferences, or to intense subconstituencies . Employing case studies and quantitative analyses of candidates’positioning on the Cuban trade embargo, extension of hate-crimes protections to cover sexual orientation, extension of the assault-weapons ban, and abortion, I test the hypothesis articulated in Chapter 1 that subconstituency preferences positively influence candidates’ campaign positions.2 Group Influence and Issue Positioning Surprisingly little is known about how candidates decide which district groups to pursue and how to appeal to them. Most studies of campaign positioning assume issues away and examine behavior in the abstract terms of ideological placement and distance (e.g., Downs 1957). While ideological impressions almost certainly matter, most campaigns are fought with, and over, issues.3 56 / Chapter 4 One explanation of how legislators take positions on issues to appeal to different combinations of district groups is given by Morris Fiorina (1974).4 In consensual districts, legislators appeal to the one active group. In diverse districts , however, a legislator’s position depends on the strength of the groups. Under these conditions, they cannot gain support; legislators are forced to choose from among the positions that cost them the least. Consequently, Fiorina recognizes that some conditions exist in which legislators can profitably vote with a smaller group if the group cares more intensely about the issue. While these predictions have...