If you are looking to read a dry analysis of the author’s opinion on why he thinks the Republicans are not able to change liberal policies, Matt Grossmann’s “Red State Blues” is for you.
The author’s premise is that even though Republicans have kept the state offices, they have not been able to change/eliminate the social legislation that previous Democratic officials have put in place. Mr. Grossmann insists that Republicans are moving more to the right causing Democrats to move further to the left. He also points out that more liberal than conservative legislation is passed every year. It is hardly mentioned that there has been a movement to the left by both parties over the last 50 years (ponder who is leans more to the left, John F. Kennedy or George W. Bush). Rather than talk about a country-wide shift, it is easier to insist there is a radical move to the right by Republicans.
I was not happy with the method employed by the author to back up his statements. Each chapter would have a note section at the end, mostly listing only the person or persons who he referenced in his writing. Readers are left to look up those names in Notes and then travel to References in the back of the book and search for the name(s). Once there, I was dismayed to find that in many cases, only the books were listed, rather than including the referenced page numbers. This makes it a chore to find the original statement and in what context it was originally written, a task that the great majority of people will never do (me included). Thus, we don’t even learn the original passage’s frame of reference, and are forced to accept whatever the author wrote. While I am going to question the veracity of statements in books written by supporters of either political party, clean and easy-to-follow references might sway me to a different view. Because of the reference methods employed, that didn’t happen with “Red State Blues.”
As is the norm, Mr. Grossmann injects his own political slant and although it appears he tried to stay in the middle of the road, his opinions affected the outcomes. He admits the book is skeptical of Republican achievements and mentions redistricting so many times that one feels forced to agree that this is the only reason Republicans get reelected to state offices. What is assigned as liberal versus conservative legislation deserved more scrutiny, as this appeared to be a black-white decision rather than the reality, that there are countless shades of grey.
In short, I don’t feel the author successfully defended his thesis. In the author’s own words, “…anyone can pick a metric, produce a ranking, and write a blog post.” Or a book. Two hundred pages of dry reading insisting the Republicans are failing because they aren’t shredding Democratic legislation would be more interesting in a short article rather than in book form. Two stars.
My thanks to NetGalley and Cambridge University Press for an advance electronic copy of this book.
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