Why politicians misread their constituents

>>> all right. so, theories for why we have this phenomenon reserved from the data, chris. maya, tim just offered a theory which i thought was an interesting one on the fact that maybe the asymmetry is due to the conservative base that manages control on its politicians and a democratic base controlled by its politicians. they follow.

>> yeah, i actually agree with tim on the first part of that. the state houses in this country are more polarized than 1920 , part of that isredistricting and hardening within the districts. there's a point about the asymmetry on the democratic side is part of more complicated and part of what i wanted to challenge is, we're in a contrast particularly since 2008 , in which we've. become so ideologuically polarizes on how the debates happen. there's such a contrast that democrats have gotten a reaction that has come from the ranks.

>> the polling you have. constituents not voters, right?

>> that's right.

>> it seems to me, the first question we need to establish is, maybe they're completely right about their voters, right? it could be the case that they're absolutely nailing the ideology of their voters. in fact, the people who show up to vote, their voters, are super conservative than those at-large. they will almost certainly have more money, right? how plausible do you think that is?

>> it could explain some of the variation. not 20 percentage points, though. nonvoters and voters actually look more alike than you would think.

>> jeff.

>> david mayhew , a political scientist who wrote in the 1970s , he talked about the way that politicians kind of anticipate where they think their voters are going to be, and they take preemptive measures to try to address those views. i think what you talked about, chris, the fear of the base. it's applicable here because liberals are kind of silent when there's a defection on things, you know. you didn't see liberals up in arms about elaine kagan's kind of defection on the medicaid portion. but john roberts could barely show his face at federal society meetings.

>> right.

>> you don't see, say, when mary landrieu supports oil drilling or joe manchin shoots a hole in obama's.

>> people went after the manchin act. but i also want to talk about, there's a wave of constituency act, right? there's the voter. and then there's the big which is power and wealth which i