Way back in 2005 (20 years ago(!)) the blogosphere discovered the "Crazification Factor" of 27% -- the baseline percentage of Americans who will take an action for reasons that defy any rational explanation whatsoever. The background came in a discussion of President George W. Bush's cratering approval numbers, and a query as to how low they might go, and it's still fun to read to this day:
John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is --
Tyrone: 27%.
John: ... you said that immediately, and with some authority.
Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.
For this reason, the "Crazification Factor" is also known as the "Keyes Number". And though undoubtedly the product of significant cherry-picking, it was fun in the years that followed to find other crazy propositions that clustered around 27% support.
I was thinking about this nugget of blogger history upon reading about an announced primary challenge against incumbent Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) by progressive influencer Kat Abughazaleh. The announced basis for the challenge is general discontent with Democratic leadership and the "gerontocracy" not being aggressive enough in fighting the Trump administration. But the problem is that nobody -- not even Abughazaleh -- can point to any problems on that front for Schakowsky, specifically. Abughazaleh herself agrees that Schakowsky has been a good Democrat!
Beyond that, Abughazaleh has never held elected office, has no significant political experience, is from out-of-state (she voted in DC last election), and doesn't live in Schakowsky's district. In terms of traditional bases of support, Abughazaleh has literally nothing going for her other than "I am not a long-standing incumbent Democrat."
To be clear, I'm not saying one would have to be crazy to vote for Abughazaleh. Rather, what made the Keyes Factor notable was that the Keyes/Obama race helpfully isolated out every possible reason one might vote for a candidate aside from "I'm attracted to the crazy." Likewise, I'm pointing out that if Abughazaleh does end up facing off against Schakowsky (and the latter hasn't decided if she's seeking reelection), any support the latter gets will be purely, 100% attributable to people voting entirely on the basis of generalized anti-incumbent/anti-established Democrat rage, untethered either to any particular vices of the incumbent or any particular virtues of the challenger. It will, in other words, provide a useful baseline for seeing how powerful this sentiment is amongst the Democratic electorate, because it is a race that is uniquely free of other confounding variables.
This race will not be like George Latimer beating Jamaal Bowman (an especially well-established challenger taking out a somewhat wounded incumbent, with clear ideological differences), or AOC beating Joe Crowley (a uniquely talented challenger ousting an incumbent asleep at the wheel). Here, the only impetus that might push a voter to pick Abughazaleh over Schakowsky is "Schakowsky is an old, long-tenured incumbent, and I don't like that." That's clearly a sentiment that has no small amount of force amongst Democrats right now -- but is it enough to actually win a race?
I don't think it is. My guess, assuming a head-to-head matchup between Schakowsky and Abughazaleh? I think the latter will end up pulling around 27%. We'll see if I'm right.
UPDATE: Erik Loomis writes a post on this race that I think pretty well encapsulates the dynamic I'm describing above. He opens by admitting he has no quarrel with Schakowsky or her performance in Congress; she has been a solid Democrat. Nonetheless, he finds Abughazaleh appealing because of grievances towards other Democrats that -- with the single exception of "she's old" -- he admits don't apply to Schakowsky.
This offers me a good opportunity to restate my general views on primaries:
(1) I will freely admit I default to being more "pro-incumbent" than a lot of my peers. This is because I view politics as a job and I think one gets better at it with experience (this is also why I oppose term limits). I am deeply skeptical of the populist "we just need some common-sense wisdom from outsiders in order to get things done in Washington" take. I also think primaries-for-the-sake-of-primaries are needlessly fratricidal and shunt energy that should be used to fight Republicans into D-on-D violence. Consequently, for me the burden of persuasion is always on the challenger to justify their primary challenge.
(2) That said, there are lots of good reasons that can justify a primary challenge! A substantially different ideological vision? Absolutely. Proof that the incumbent has gotten too cozy with Republicans and is selling out party priorities? Definitely (hello IDC!). Political heresies that can't be justified by the demographics of the district (fair or not, we have to give more leeway to Joe Manchin than to Dan Lipinski)? 100%. A serious scandal? Obviously. Indeed, where there is a good reason for antipathy towards a specific incumbent, then I think a primary challenge is the right way to push the party in a more positive direction. Nobody is entitled to keep their seat in absence of good performance.
(3) But there does need to be a real reason. "The incumbent is old", without that manifesting in terms of incapacity or unwillingness to "fight", is not a reason. "I feel I deserve to be a bigger deal" is also not a reason (looking at you, Joe Kennedy). "It's time for new blood" is also not, on its own, a real reason.
(4) And finally, I think it is actually bad to challenge incumbents who have objectively good records. We want our politicians to be properly incentivized vis-a-vis good performance. When they misbehave, we should put a little fear into them (and a serious primary challenge is a great way to do that). But the corollary is that when they do well, they should be rewarded with political security. Do badly, get primaried; do well, keep your seat. But if doing the right thing doesn't yield electoral rewards, then the material incentive structure for politicians to do good things frays considerably, and we have to start relying on less reliable and more idiosyncratic mechanisms to get our representatives to vote in the appropriate fashion.
6 comments:
There is an issue on which Schakowsky and Abughazaleh's stated views differ at least somewhat, though, and that is Israel/Palestine, as Schakowsky is a liberal Zionist (though it should be noted, not one uncritical of the Israeli government).
Schakowsky describes herself on her website as "a Jewish American [with] a deep personal connection to the State of Israel [...] consistently a steadfast friend and supporter of the Jewish state in her quest for peace and security," and calls Israel "the only true democracy in the Middle East" and says she is "committed to enduring the survival of Israel as a Jewish State" with a two-state solution as the best prospect for achieving this.
Abughazaleh, on the other hand, is a Palestinian American with views on I/P that are indeed different from Schakowsky's. Abughazaleh doesn't comment on this in her campaign launch video, but she does have a Palestinian keffiyeh visible right behind her in the video. While Abughazaleh does also say she supports a path to reconciliation between Palestinians and Isarelis, she writes in her platform that "I believe in holding our allies accountable, even when it's inconvenient. For too long, the United States has let allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia commit egregious acts with American taxpayer-funded weapons. I am a proud Palestinian-American, but people of all backgrounds and ethnicities should be disturbed by our government's complicity in Israel's 58-year-long illegal occupation of the West Bank and the ongoing attacks on Gaza" — a contrast with Schawkosky's stated position.
Arguably, this won't be the biggest issue in the district (and might not favor Abughazaleh there), but everything is national now, especially when someone is mainly known online and JUST moved from halfway across the country, and this issue is one that has some intra-party importance nationally.
While it's certainly possible that Abughazaleh will try to draw a distinction here (and their different backgrounds likely will yield different tenors), these positions aren't *actually* that far apart. Schakowsky has been regularly critical of Israel and has been a vocal opponent of the occupation; Abughazaleh refers to Israel as an "ally" (albeit in the context of one that needs to be held "accountable") and likewise frames opposition to the "occupation" in the context of the WB and Gaza (58 years, not, as hardliner would put it, 77 years).
Insofar as Abughazaleh needs to generate *something* that distinguishes her from Schakowsky I agree this will be a prime candidate (if only because the candidates' background prime people to view them as in sharp conflict here), but I don't view it objectively as a major difference.
Well, here you go, one of her first campaign text: "Do you think Democratic leadership should do something to stand up for Palestinians AND fight against Trump and Elon, [name]? I'm Kat Abughazaleh, a proud Palestinian-American, and that's one of the reasons I'm running for Congress against a Democrat who voted to send billions to Israel." Proceeds to mention Palestine and Lebanon. So she's taken it as a real plank of her campaign.
I can't say this is surprising — quite the opposite. Abughazaleh is a deeply online candidate with no history in or connections to the district.The easiest and best base she can get is people who aren't from the district who will support her over Schakowsky on I/P and try to turn this into a national media race.
I don't think we disagree. As I said, Abughazaleh has to find *something* that nominally distinguishes her from Schakowsky, and I/P is a prime candidate less because their positions are actually super far apart and more because their respective identities will prime many people to assume a sharper conflict and project onto the race a symbolic narrative of pro-Israel old guard against pro-Palestine insurgent.
Plus, I suspect there is a fair amount of overlap between those voters who are prone to assuming all longstanding Dem incumbents are bad, generally and those prone to assuming all longstanding Dem incumbents -- especially the Jewish ones -- are bad on Israel, specifically. So this ends up being of a piece with the broader point, which is that Abughazaleh -- lacking any of the traditional basis a challenger might normally rely on to oust an incumbent, such as local connections, political experience, a scandal afflicting the incumbent, or a significantly different ideological profile -- is going to see how far she can ride the wave of "long-standing Democratic incumbents are automatically awful and need to go."
I think the basis of the challenge is about "new blood" in theory, but really is about purported ideology in practice. "She's ideologically fine, but 80 years old" is damn near never sufficient; they also want to get the energy of the loud (but not particularly big) leftist base out. I think there's a reason leftists who loudly insist that, say, Nancy Pelosi is too old aren't clamoring to primary Bernie Sanders, who is all of 18 months younger.
Abughazaleh has reached the point of saying "Hamas isn't antisemitic."
https://x.com/abughazalehkat/status/1787893366920806500
As a lifelong Democrat, I would want Alan Keyes to beat her.
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