A Surfeit of Democracy

It's not a good time to be a Republican in Kentucky. I know things are bad for the GOP everywhere, but the situation in the Bluegrass State is even worse. Mitch McConnell, the state's senior senator and GOP leader in the Senate, is getting slammed by bloggers and talk radio for failing to stand up more to the Obama administration.

But McConnell's troubles are nothing compared to the woes of Senator Jim Bunning. For the past couple years, Bunning's been cultivating his reputation as the most clueless member of that remarkably clueless institution. Back in 2004, he made headlines when he said his Democratic opponent looked like one of Saddam Hussein's sons. He won the race, but it was a close-run thing.

Now he's making headlines again, and once again, he's making Kentucky Republicans reach for the ibuprofen. Bunning's latest--and possibly greatest--gaffe was to predict that Ruth Bader Ginsburg would die before the year's end. Needless to say, this hasn't gone over too well.

Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics grouses about Bunning's stupidity. But he makes a thought-provoking point, mostly unrelated to Bunning:

This is one big reason I do not understand why partisans on both sides suffer the primary process. It has become one of many mechanisms that effectively guarantee incumbents will be on the general election ballot. What this means, in turn, is that the party usually has to tolerate guys like Don Sherwood, Stevens, and Bunning. There is no "low cost" way for Republicans to hold their incumbents accountable, which means only the Democrats do. And the same goes with Democrats when their incumbents behave badly.

Very interesting. When you take this in conjunction with George's Will recent column, I wonder if we might be seeing the start of an anti-populist backlash.

For years, we've been taught that the solution to all problems is more democracy. It's been that way since...oh, at least the early 20th century. That's when progressives like Hiram Johnson in California and Robert La Follette in Wisconsin enacted a series of reforms intended to give the "common man" more say in the political process.

The reformers gave us the referendum, the initiative, and the recall. The people could now make their own laws; they could approve or reject bills from their state legislature; and if they disliked one of their politicians, they could yank him off the stage. Most people have accepted this as a good thing. America's a democracy, right? Certainly, we trust the people to make the right choices, especially when compared to those conniving politicians.

But these reforms have completely screwed up the balance of power. Before, authority was divided between legislative, judicial, and executive branches. Along come the reformers, and they add a new branch: the popular. There's no checks on them, no balances to less their power. The initiative, referendum, and recall give them the final word on everything.

This leads to all sorts of problems. For years, the California legislature tried to raise taxes, only to see their efforts rejected in repeated referenda. Now California's facing the mother of all budget shortfalls. I'm not usually a fan of raising taxes, but I can't help thinking the state would be better off today if a few of those hikes had gone through.

But maybe I'm seeing ghosts. Maybe Cost and Will are outliers, and maybe everyone else accepts that more democracy is always a good thing. Who knows? These are strange times. Anything is possible in politics, now more than ever.