Teflon coating

The role of scandals in politics is a lot more complicated than you might think.

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‘The only way you can lose this election, Joe, is to get caught in bed with a live man or a dead woman.” So said writer Larry L King (not the long-time CNN host) to US Congressman Joe Pool. This was the 1960s, and it highlights several things. First, the cultural status of homosexuality at the time, but also something about politics.

To a much greater extent than New Zealand, the US has become increasingly politically polarised since the early 1980s. Back then, you’d find a big overlap in the attitudes of Democrat and Republican voters towards social and economic issues. Since President Ronald Reagan, however, there has been a slide of Democrat voters towards the liberal-left, and Republicans to the conservative-right, of the ideological spectrum.

This means that if you had a political contest between a shrub in a red pot and a small bush in a blue pot, about 40% of the American electorate would vote for each. It really doesn’t matter what type of plant it is.