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The Collapse of the Democratic Presidential Majority: Realignment, Dealignment, and Electoral Change from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton. By David G. Lawrence. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. 251p. $65.00.
The Divided Democrats: Ideological Unity, Party Reform, and Presidential Elections. By William G. Mayer. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. 214p. $65.00 cloth, $18.95 paper.
Both of these books begin with the same basic puzzle. What is it that changed in American electoral politicking as the New Deal era ebbed, so as to yield such noticeably different outcomes? And how should we describe the resulting politics, so as to restore some integrated way of understanding it? Both books also proceed by the same basic method. Each not only relies on data from the American National Election Studies but also turns particularly to neglected elements within these data, resurrecting some frequently overlooked items while recalculating old favorites in new and illuminating ways. As a result, both books share two cardinal virtues: questions big enough to be worth asking, and explicit, empirical, systematic answers.
Where they differ is in the central conceptual notions through which they address these puzzles and to which they apply their data. In The Divided Democrats, William Mayer begins with the problem of a majority party that has had difficulty winning recent presidential elections, the very ones, presumably, best suited to reflecting its majority. Mayer organizes his inquiry around the question-a grand and recurrent one-of whether there is an inherent structural difference between the two great U.S. political parties, large enough that it may serve as an underlying explanation for these recent difficulties. But he cuts into the argument through one of the main explanatory options, namely, party reform.
In this alternative argument, a reformed presidential nominating process magnifies internal party conflict, and conflictual nominations then contribute to defeat at the general election. In two forceful substantive chapters, Mayer maintains instead that reformed rules for delegate allocation neither automatically exaggerate nor prolong discord and, even then, that divisive primary contests do not obviously make any independent contribution to unhappy outcomes in November. His attack on this second point, arguing that the relationship between divisiveness at the primary and defeat at the general level is entirely spurious, is so well executed that it is likely to...