Radicalized Center Emerging in American Politics

Gerald Seib writes in The Wall Street Journal:

As he surveyed the results of last week's off-year election, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has analyzed more than a few of them, offered two thoughts: It's a really good time to be seen as a pragmatic problem-solver, and a really bad time to be associated with dysfunctional Washington.

 

All of which fits into the broader picture of an electorate profoundly dissatisfied with the political status quo—so dissatisfied, in fact, that it seems more open than it has been in two decades to somebody challenging the current system. That challenge could take the form of a third party or independent political force; more likely, it could take the form of an insurgent figure from within the major political parties who can galvanize what increasingly appears to be a radicalized center in the country.

This radicalized center appears economically disaffected, vaguely populist and not especially ideological. It feels increasingly detached from both parties. It isn't necessarily expecting some political savior but appears primed to latch onto one, should he or she appear.

It may not be obvious at first how last week's election results fit this picture. The year's three big races, for governor of New Jersey, governor of Virginia and mayor of New York City, were won by a conservative, a moderate and a liberal, respectively.

But consider them in turn and you can see the trends. In New Jersey, Chris Christie won re-election by positioning himself as a conservative Republican who is prepared to move beyond his own ideology to get things done. By bragging of his ability to work with Democrats, he ran as almost the antithesis of both parties in Washington.

In Virginia, the governor's race was won by Terry McAuliffe, who, as former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and leading pal of Bill and Hillary Clinton, hardly qualifies as an outsider. But it was both the misfortune and strategic blunder of his Republican opponent, Ken Cuccinelli, to become identified with the Republicans who led the government shutdown in Washington. That left the pragmatic problem-solver lane open for Mr. McAuliffe.

In New York, newly elected mayor Bill de Blasio is hardly nonideological; he's an avowed liberal. But it would be hard to find somebody who more represents an alternative to the status quo, as represented by departing Mayor Michael Bloomberg, or somebody more attuned to today's populist impulses.

Beyond those races, the national backdrop shows profound and growing disillusionment with the political status quo. Polling by The Wall Street Journal and NBC News over the past month revealed what Republican Bill McInturff, co-director of the Journal/NBC News survey, calls a "public opinion shockwave" taking shape.

Fewer than half of those surveyed identified themselves as either a Republican or a Democrat. President Barack Obama is getting the lowest job-approval rating of his presidency, but he's hardly alone. Republicans and the tea-party movement both are getting their lowest positive ratings in the history of the poll. The leaders of Congress—Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid, and Republican House Speaker John Boehner—all received their highest negative ratings ever.

Perhaps most telling, when Americans were asked whether they would prefer to vote for a Democrat, a Republican or an independent or third-party candidate for Congress from their own district, 30% said they'd pick the independent or third-party candidate.

Who are these politically disaffected folks? They range across the spectrum, but disillusionment appears particularly acute among white males, particularly younger white males without a college degree. A surprising number reside in the Northeast. A fair share consider themselves Republicans, but don't strongly identify that way.

The unifying characteristic, in many cases, is pessimism about the economy and their own place in it. That's where the populist streak comes in. The disaffected appear to believe that both the economic and political systems have tuned them out.

Politically, the question is whether any single figure has the political power to capitalize on this kind of opening in the center as an outsider, as Ross Perot did in the 1990s, or overcome the party rules and practices that tend to push candidates toward the parties' ideological supporters. The profile of the disaffected doesn't seem an especially good match for Democrats Mrs. Clinton or Vice President Joe Biden, who have long establishment histories. Conservative upstart Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, appears too ideologically driven to satisfy those in search of a pragmatic problem-solver.

New York's Mr. Bloomberg has governed as an apolitical independent, but it's hard to see a billionaire who made his fortune on Wall Street tapping into the populist vein.

The profile that may best match this mood would be of a pragmatic governor solving problems far from Washington. That sounds like Gov. Christie—who, not by coincidence, was viewed positively by twice as many people as those who viewed him negatively in the latest Journal/NBC News survey.