Intraparty Attitude Conflict: Democratic Party Leadership in California

• Author: Edmond Costantini
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296301600413
• Published date: 01 December 1963
• Date: 01 December 1963
• Subject Matter: Articles

956

INTRAPARTY

ATTITUDE

CONFLICT:

DEMOCRATIC

PARTY

LEADERSHIP

IN

CALIFORNIA

EDMOND

COSTANTINI

University

of

California

ATITUDE

CONFLICT

is

a

phenomenon

occurring

within

as

well

as

between

/~

political

parties.

And

if

party

members

are

differentiated

in

terms

of

their

A

political

dispositions,

so

too

are

they

differentiated

in

terms

of

the

status

they

have

within

their

party.

The

relationship

between

these

two

forms

of

differentiation

-

between

membership

stratification

and

attitude

conflict

-

is

the

central

concern

of

this

study.

It

is

a

relationship

which

has

recently

been

the

subject

of

some

interest

to

students

of

political

behavior.

David

Butler,

for

example,

has

suggested

that

a

principal

dilemma

of

party

leaders

is

that

they

are

caught

between

the

disparate

demands

of

their

followership:

&dquo;Their

most

loyal

and

devoted

followers

tend

to

have

more

extreme

views

than

they

have

themselves,

and

to

be

still

farther

removed

from

the

mass

of

those

who

actually

provide

the

vote.&dquo;

The

leaders

therefore

have

&dquo;to

conciliate

those

who

support

them

with

money

or

with

voluntary

work,

without

alienating

that

large

body

of

moderate

voters

whose

attitudes

make

them

most

likely

to

swing

to

the

other

party

and

thus

to

decide

the

next

election.&dquo;

:1

Professor

Butler’s

definition

of

&dquo;party

leader&dquo;

is

limited

to

the

elected

govern-

ment

official,

and

the

elaboration

of

his

hypothesis

is

limited

to

diagrammatic

repre-

sentations

which,

he

concludes,

&dquo;are

no

more

than

pedagogic

devices.&dquo;

And

yet

his

suggestion

seems

to

bear

significantly

on

another

recent

study,

more

comprehensive

and

more

empirical

in

nature,

conducted

by

Herbert

McClosky,

Paul

J.

Hoffmann,

and

Rosemary

O’Hara.

They

have

demonstrated

that

&dquo;whereas

the

leaders

of

the

two

[American]

parties

diverge

strongly,

their

followers

differ

only

moderately

in

their

attitudes

toward

issues,&dquo;

one

conclusion

among

several

drawn

from

the

results

of

questionnaire

studies

of

delegates

to

the

1956

national

party

conventions

and

of

a

nationwide

sample

of

adult

voters.2

2

The

Butler

hypothesis

is

not

incompatible

with

the

findings

of

McClosky

and

his

colleagues.

It

does

suggest,

however,

that

the

relationship

between

party

status

and

attitudes

may

be

significantly

more

complex

than

the

leadership-followership

dichotomy

would

indicate.

The

research

reported

here

seeks

to

put

a

slightly

revised

version

of

Butler’s

hypothesis

to

a

limited

empirical

test:

it

seeks

to

compare

the

political

perspectives

of

differentiated

groups

of

party

leaders

which,

taken

together,

are

somewhat

more

in-

clusive

than

Butler’s

elected

government

officials.

The

hypothesis

is

simply

that

the

NOTE :

I

would

like

to

express

my

appreciation

to

the

Falk

Foundation,

to

Professor

Eugene

C.

Lee

and

the

Institute

of

Governmental

Studies,

University

of

California

at

Berkeley,

and

to

James

Earle

Sandmire

for

their

generous

assistance

in

this

study

and

in

the

larger

study

of

California

party

leadership

of

which

it is

a

part.

1

David

Butler,

"The

Paradox

of

Party

Difference,"

American

Behavioral

Scientist,

4

(Novem-

ber

1960),

3-5.

2

"Issue

Conflict

and

Consensus

among

Party

Leaders

and

Followers,"

American

Political

Sci-

ence

Review,

54

(June

1960), 406-27.

957

substructure

of

party

leadership

deviates

in

attitudes

more

radically

from

the

actual

political

center

than

does

the

superstructure;

that

the

top

party

leaders

are,

indeed,

faced

with

the

dilemma

not

only

of

a

voting

public

holding

more

centrist,

or

mod-

erate,

views

-

amply

demonstrated

by

McClosky

and

his

colleagues

-

but

also

of

a

more

extremist

group

of

party

militants

standing

below

them

in

the

hierarchy

of

party

leadership.3

Focus

The

data

used

to

test

this

hypothesis

are

focused

on

the

California

delegation

to

the

1960

Democratic

national

convention.4

As

would

be

true

of

any

other

dele-

gation,

such

a

focus

allows

us

to

compare

different

levels

of

party

leadership

by

dif-

ferentiating

delegates

from

alternates.5

But

there

are

characteristics

of

this

particular

delegation

which

are

advantageous

for

the

purposes

of

this

paper

while

not

being

of

such

universal

incidence.

Of

prime

significance

in

this

respect

is

the

exceptional

degree

to

which

the

delegation

constituted

a

generous

cross-section

of

the

state’s

Democratic

leadership.

Replete

with

party

notables

of

all

sorts,

it

was

characterized

by

a

representativeness

which

is

not

always

found

among

convention

delegations.

The

fact

that

there

was

no

contest

between

rival

party

factions

in

the

June

1960

presidential

primary,

that

there

was

only

one

authentic

party

slate

presented

to

the

Democratic

voters,

meant

that

no

group

of

party

leaders

was

excluded

from

the

delegation

through

defeat

at

the

polish

But

the

primary

served

more

to

confirm

than

to

cause

the

cross-sectional

nature

of

the

California

contingent

to

the

Democratic

convention.

A

delegation

selection

committee

had

met

four

months

earlier,

in

Febru-

ary,

and

had

drawn

up

the

slate

of

delegates

pledged

to

the

&dquo;favorite

son,&dquo;

Governor

Edmond

G.

Brown,

which

was

subsequently

presented

to

the

Democratic

primary

3

The

fact

that

Butler

considers

the

party

militant

to

be

a

part

of

the

party

followership

rather

than

leadership

arises

from

his

more

limited

definition

of

party

leadership

and

poses

a

terminological

difficulty

which

does

not

seem

to

affect

materially

the

efficacy

of

the

con-

clusions

herein

drawn.

Indeed,

what

will

be

identified

as

one

of

the

groups

composing

the

substructure

of

party

leadership

—

the

"caucus

nominees"

—

is

quite

similar

to

what

Butler

calls

the

"party

militant"

group.

’ The

story

of

this

delegation

is

lucidly

told

by

John

H.

Bunzel

and

Eugene

C.

Lee,

The

Cali-

fornia

Democratic

Delegation

of

1960,

Inter-University

Case

Study

No.

67

(University,

Alabama:

University

of

Alabama

Press,

1962).

See

also

Eugene

C.

Lee,

"Organization

and

Administration

of

a

Large

Delegation:

California

Democrats,"

in

Paul

Tillett

(ed.),

The

National

Conventions

(Dobbs

Ferry,

New

York:

Oceana

Publications,

1962).

5

The

term

"delegation"

will

be used

throughout

these

pages

to

include

both

delegates

and

alternates.

6

A

delegation

slate

pledged

to

George

McLain,

old-age

pension

promoter,

managed

to

attract

some

646,387

votes

in

the

Democratic

presidential

primary

—

almost

half

the

number

of

votes

given

to

the

slate

pledged

to

Governor

Brown.

However,

by

no

stretch

of

the

imagi-

nation

can

the

McLain

slate

be

considered

to

have been

a

repository

of

state

Democratic

leadership.

The

1960

situation

stands

in

marked

contrast

to

those

of

1952

and

1956.

In

1952

a

delegation

slate

largely

composed

of

political

unknowns

and

pledged

to

Senator

Estes

Kefauver

carried

the

presidential

primary

after

the

last-minute

withdrawal

of

President

Truman

from

the

race

had

left

the

"regular"

slate

without

its

candidate.

In

1956

Cali-

fornia

Democrats

were

treated

to

a

primary

contest

between

two

real

contenders

for

the

presidential

nomination

—

Kefauver

and

Adlai

Stevenson.

Each

was

represented

by

a

reasonably

strong

delegation

slate ;

neither

had

a

monopoly

of

state

party

leadership

sup-

porting

him.

In

both

1952

and

1956,

then,

primary

contests

meant

that

the

delegations

sent

by

California

to

the

Democratic

national

conventions

were

something

less

than

cross-sections

of

state party

leadership.

Despite

the

McLain

phenomenon,

this

was

not

true

in

1960.