Over the past few days, I have seen a far amount of coverage discussing the effect, both positive and negative, of having one political party control the Executive and Legislative branches of government. On Sunday, David Frum from the American Enterprise Institute had an interesting op-ed in the Washington Post, where he provided his advice to Republicans and discussed his concerns on one-party rule:

“There’s a lot of poll evidence that voters prefer divided government. By some estimates, perhaps as many as 8 percent of voters consciously cast strategic votes in favor of division.

While Mr. Frum quotes a poll, I wondered if there was any additional evidence, statistical or anedotal, to suggest that one-party rule is actually bad for the country. In scrolling through my Google Reader this morning, I found an interesting post from the Tax Policy Center’s “TaxVox” blog, which I think makes a good observation:

“The effect of divided government thus depends on whether McCain’s promise of bipartisanship trumps his promise to wield a ruthless veto pen–something that’s impossible to predict a priori.”

While polling suggests that we are headed towards Democratic leadership in the Executive and Legislative branch, I will be interested to see over the next few months and years whether this will actually lead to the execution of an effective government which addresses the key issues facing our country.

October 28th, 2008 by Craig Paridy | 1 Comment