The midterm elections have been widely viewed as a sudden change of direction, with Democrats seizing the wheel from Republicans. While that may be true, the big electoral news — news that has gone largely unnoticed — is this: After decades of weakness, after sideswipes from independent candidates, the two major parties are back. Indeed, they are more potent and influential than at any time in the past century.
Parties, which grew strong in Congress after Reconstruction, began to fray after 1910, when a group of progressive Republicans joined with the Democratic minority in a revolt against the House speaker, Joseph Cannon. With the speaker's power diminished, the power of seniority in the chambers grew. The most senior member of the majority party on a committee became chairman — whether or not he was loyal to the party program or leadership. This system insulated committees from party control.
During much of the next half-century, it was pretty much downhill from there. Political analysts have considered the national political parties weak and inconsequential, both in the electoral process and in government. Officeholders were seen as free agents, motivated by personal career goals and preferring weak parties that would not interfere with their interests. Meanwhile, the percentage of independent voters increased, as did ticket splitting.
The resurgence of party power was slow, but showed its first glimmers in the 1970s, when Democrats began dismantling the seniority system and centralized power in their party leadership.
This move also contributed to party polarization — Democrats and Republicans moved farther apart. In the past, the views accommodated by each party ran from one end of the political spectrum to the other. The liberal Senator Jacob Javits was a Republican while the conservative Senator John Stennis was comfortable as a Southern Democrat. This diversity no longer exists. Today, the parties accommodate only views that run from the middle to the opposite ends of the spectrum.
This makes it easier for them to grow in strength. Why?
For starters, members want their parties to help them secure and retain office. To this end the national parties have built a formidable capacity to raise money and provide campaign assistance. This year, the parties provided more than $230 million in direct support to candidates — and they did so without the benefit of "soft money," the unregulated large donations that were banned under the new campaign finance law. The last time the House of Representatives changed hands, in 1994, the parties spent less than $40 million. Thus party spending has increased nearly 500 percent in 12 years. Money, not surprisingly, breeds loyalty.
But it's not all about money — there's also candidate recruitment. Sure, it's been a while since parties stood by and waited for the primaries to produce a slate of candidates. But this year marked the apex of the trend, with the parties pursuing and supporting attractive candidates with greater fervor than ever before.
Representative Rahm Emanuel and Senator Charles Schumer, leaders of the Democratic Party's campaign committees, were assiduous in recruiting candidates they thought could win while discouraging others from making a try. (Why, you might ask, did the Democrats support a candidate like Jim Webb in Virginia — someone who is outside the party's traditional orthodoxy? The longer that parties are barred from power, the more likely they are to accept candidates and strategies that depart from the wishes of "the base.")
The behavior of voters in 2006 was perhaps the greatest sign of party strength. Voters approached the race more like British voters casting votes for a parliamentary majority than like Americans weighing the unique merits of individual candidates.
Exit polls and other research show that voting has become more strongly correlated with party identification and that ticket splitting has declined. Voters also see party control as more consequential.
No result from 2006 was more striking in this regard than the Rhode Island Senate race. Exit polls showed that the incumbent Republican, Lincoln Chafee, had a robust approval rating, 63 percent. Yet his constituents voted him out of office largely because 75 percent of them disapproved of his fellow Republican, President Bush.
The 2006 election results confirm that the parties have been growing stronger, not weaker. The current political environment, in which two parties with sharply divergent views vie for power in closely contested elections, seems likely to persist. As long as it does, powerful, centralized parties will dominate the landscape.