Reviewed by:

• Donkey Work: Congressional Democrats in Conservative America, 1974–1994 by Patrick Andelic
• Marjorie Randon Hershey

Patrick Andelic writes about the American presidential election of 1972, “The people had spoken, but it was not immediately clear what they had said” (p. xiv). That is a central challenge of democracies; voters can use their ballots only to select candidates, not to tell the winners what to do. As a result, elected officials, pollsters, and historians spend years after the election trying to clarify what voters meant. Andelic’s answer is that the period from 1974 to 1994 is not just a simple story of liberal collapse and conservative ascendancy after Democrat George McGovern’s landslide loss in 1972. Instead, Andelic argues, Democratic strength in Congress, which lasted until 1994, helped protect the size and scope of government from the conservative resurgence—but also hampered the Democratic Party’s ability to respond.

The author argues that the Democratic congressional majority during this time served as a bulwark of liberal sentiment and programs. But due to the very nature of both Congress and the party, its effectiveness in parrying the rising strength of organized conservatism was limited. The size of the House of Representatives and the structural forces that slow its work made it tougher for the Democratic House majority to hold its own, especially without strong presidential backing. So did the diversity of the party, including the Democrats elected in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The fact that so many “Watergate Babies” were elected from marginal districts meant their main concern had to be reelection rather than generating public policy (p. xxi). The flowering of subcommittees fragmented the party’s congressional power. Its congressional leadership (which is, of course, chosen by the congressional party itself) was often more committed to internal party reform than to developing a coherent programmatic agenda. Although Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980 helped unify the House Democrats as the last bastion of Democratic strength in Washington, it did not help them clarify what they stood for.

At the same time, as Andelic points out, the institutional difficulties that “frustrated the efforts of congressional Democrats to create a public philosophy for the post–New Deal order also enabled the Democrats to fight in defense of the legacy of the New Deal and Great Society” (p. 146). So the congressional Democrats did succeed in protecting the party’s existing social programs, middle-class entitlements in particular.

In addition to the institutional constraints on Congress, there could be many other possible explanations for the relatively slow and uneven advance of the [End Page 157] conservative agenda. For instance, the strength of Democratic Party loyalties among southerners contributed to the exceedingly slow pace of the secular party realignment in the white South. The challenge of adapting conservative thought to a political culture in which racial conflict played a prominent role was substantial, at least until Republicans reconstructed their bundle of ideological principles to combine fiscal conservatism with evangelical positions on abortion and women’s roles.

In fact, Andelic does provide a clearer and more convincing argument late in the book, especially in the too-short epilogue. Here he notes that it may be too much for analysts to expect the Democrats—or the Republicans—to define a public philosophy coherent enough to guide government action in a political culture that is fundamentally ambivalent. He notes that in U.S. politics, conservatism has not replaced liberalism so much as it has generated an often puzzling combination of Republican hostility to big government alternating with Democrats’ defense of government social services. That, in turn, reflects a public hoping to reduce the reach (and taxing power) of big government while also demanding extensive public services. This fundamental ambivalence is at the heart of American political culture.

审核人：

• 驴工作：保守党美国国会民主党人，1974–1994，作者：帕特里克·安德里克（Patrick Andelic）
• 玛乔丽·兰登·赫尔希（Marjorie Randon Hershey）

帕特里克·安德里克（Patrick Andelic）谈到1972年美国总统大选时说：“人民讲话，但现在还不清楚他们说了什么”（第xiv页）。这是民主国家面临的主要挑战。选民只能使用选票来选择候选人，而不能告诉获奖者该怎么做。其结果是，民选官员，民意调查机构，和历史学家花费数年的大选后试图澄清选民的意思。Andelic的回答是，从1974年至1994年这段时期不仅仅是在民主党人乔治·麦戈文（George McGovern）于1972年滑坡失利之后的自由主义垮台和保守派优势的简单故事。相反，Andelic辩称，国会的民主力量一直持续到1994年，这有助于保护规模政权从保守的复兴中脱颖而出，但也阻碍了民主党的回应能力。

作者认为，这段时间的民主党国会多数派是自由主义情绪和纲领的堡垒。但是由于国会和党的性质，它在抵制有组织的保守主义不断增强的力量方面的作用是有限的。众议院的规模和减慢其工作速度的结构性力量使得民主党众议院多数党很难拥有自己的政权，尤其是在没有强大总统支持的情况下。因此，没有党的多样性，包括在水门丑闻之后，于1974年当选民主党。这么多“水门婴儿”是从边缘地区选出的事实，这意味着他们的主要关切必须是连任，而不是制定公共政策（第xxi页）。小组委员会的开花结果分散了党的国会权力。它的国会领导权（当然是由国会党本身选出的）通常更致力于党内内部改革，而不是制定连贯的纲领性议程。尽管罗纳德·里根（Ronald Reagan）在1980年的胜利使统一众议院民主党成为华盛顿民主力量的最后堡垒，但这并没有帮助他们澄清自己的立场。

同时，正如Andelic指出的那样，“使国会民主党人为后新政秩序建立公共理念的努力感到沮丧的体制困难，也使民主党人能够捍卫新政和伟大政权的遗产。社会”（第146页）。因此，国会民主党人确实成功地保护了该党现有的社会计划，尤其是中产阶级的应享权利。

除了国会的机构限制之外，[End Page 157]保守议程的进展相对缓慢且不平衡，可能还有许多其他可能的解释。例如，南方人中民主党忠诚的力量导致了白人南方世俗政党重组的步伐极其缓慢。至少在共和党人重构其思想体系以将财政保守主义与对堕胎和妇女角色的传福音立场相结合之前，使保守主义思想适应种族冲突起着主要作用的政治文化的挑战是艰巨的。

实际上，Andelic在书中确实提供了更清晰，更有说服力的论据，尤其是在结尾太短的情节中。他在这里指出，分析师可能无法期望民主党人或共和党人定义一种足够连贯的公共哲学，以指导政府在根本上矛盾的政治文化中采取行动。他指出，在美国政治中，保守主义并没有取代自由主义，而是使共和党对大政府的敌意经常与令人困惑的结合，而民主党人则对政府的社会服务进行了辩护。反过来，这反映了公众希望减少大政府的影响力（和征税权），同时也要求广泛的公共服务。这种根本的矛盾是美国政治文化的核心。