Do Congressional Liberals Really Need to Tremble? A Quick Look at Some Hard Data
The conventional wisdom promulgated by journalists and politicians since November 4 is that the country has moved to the right politically, as evidenced by the massive electoral victory of Ronald Reagan, the Republican seizure of twelve new seats and control of the Senate, and the Republican capture of thirty-three new seats and working control, albeit not nominal control, of the House. The prescription drawn from the conventional wisdom is that the congressional liberals, mostly Democrats, who managed to survive should "tremble" over their past liberalism and shift their position to the right. If this widely accepted view were true, the more liberal a member's voting record, presumably the more likely that member should have been to lose a seat or, if reelected, to lose support from his most recent previous election. A careful analysis of the actual November 4 congressional election returns for the 247 Democratic members of the House and the 18 Democratic senators who were seeking reelection reveals that in fact there was no relationship between their degree of liberalism and loss of electoral support. Democrats from all parts of the ideological continuum both lost seats and saw their previous margins of victory shrink.