Gary, Dan and Clayton:
Thank you for the very useful comments! Did we address them in the new
version?
Yuki and Doru
Softened Wedges: How Economic Opportunity Tempers Voter Response to
Polarizing Issues
/Political parties add polarizing issues to the public agenda in order
to establish favorable majorities. However, several Republican sponsored
racially charged propositions on California ballots, aiming at
polarizing the preferences of Whites versus Latinos, led the latter to
join the Democratic camp while affecting little change on the former
group's allegiances. Unlike previous research suggested, we find that
not only did Whites not punish the Republican use of this tactic, but in
fact tepidly rewarded it. Employing a multidimensional model of partisan
identification, we seek to show that it was economic opportunities and
not these propositions that shaped the preferences of White voters, thus
accounting for California's White shift towards the Democrats.
Therefore, in calculating the wisdom and effects of employing polarizing
issues, parties should account for the economic priorities of their
target groups. /
On 5/1/2006 8:39 AM, Gary King wrote:
dan makes good piints. In addition, do u have a measure
for unstabe electorates and wedge issues? Both sound like they would be novel amd also
hard to do. If not I would reword.
Gary