Members of Congress are single-minded seekers of reelection, this is the basis of Mayhew’s theory and an important truth to acknowledge especially as incumbents become more and more frequent. And love him though we may, Jim Himes of Connecticut’s 4th District is no exception to this rule. We can observe this particularly through the scope of three concepts identified by Mayhew: advertising(making yourself visible through interviews, ceremonies, speeches, etc), position taking(using speeches, roll call votes to take up a popular position more than to change policy), and credit claiming(pork barrel legislation, casework, particular policies) all of which representative Himes uses to a considerable degree to continue to seek reelection and which we will analyze in the annals of this blog.
Advertising: Himes is using the VAWA anniversary in this example to advertise himself as a champion of women’s rights and to try to advertise his support for the values it embraces. Particularly because of the significant population of women within his district, as covered in blog post #3, he uses this statement to advertise this portion of his interests while additionally marking himself out as a bipartisan deal maker, hoping that the passing of the VAWA can transfer to other deals that are pertinent to modern times.
Another example of advertising that Jim Himes uses an interview on the Mueller report and using his support of the Mueller investigation, which many Americans are awaiting with support for a full report. He says that “everything about this has become political” and that “the way to end that of course is for the truth to be out there.” He uses his position on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to set up interviews with news stations to talk about information that is largely readily available to increase his visibility as a member of Congress using such topics.
Position Taking: DACA is immensely popular with as many as 8 in 10 Americans supporting the program. Jim Himes is using a press release to take up a position of support for DACA though not particularly offering any long term policy specifics to solving a fundamentally broken immigration system that DACA is more or less a “band-aid” for. This is a great example of position taking because it offers support for a cause without particularly offering a change of policy.
Credit Claiming: A great example of credit claiming is Representative Himes’ insistence that he is an author and a “champion” of Dodd-Frank despite being in support of the effort that gutted it. He simultaneously holds the mainstream view of most Democrats by claiming to be a great supporter and one of the architects of Wall Street regulation and reform while simultaneously being an instrument of its fall to support the banking/investing industry within his own district and the source of a great many of his donations. Indeed the words on his website “Unfortunately, we are now forced to defend against multiple efforts undo all of the protections we have instituted” are extremely ironic in light of his voting patterns. Perhaps we might call him Schrödinger's politician, being both in support of and against Dodd Frank until we can see him vote. But this is a great example of credit claiming because he uses a particular policy to advance an important industry within his district while mostly going against party lines.
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