David Frum's trip from the think tank world to the White House and back was brief but eventful. Frum left the New York-based Manhattan Institute in 2001 to join the Bush administration as a speechwriter. It was there that he coined the term "axis of evil" to describe Iraq, Iran and North Korea. This became the signature phrase of President George W. Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech and shorthand for Bush's war on terrorism.
Frum left the Bush administration for another think tank soon after -- some say as a result of a mass e-mail by his wife expressing her "wifely pride" at her husband's previously anonymous authorship of the phrase.
But his phrase lives on, as do other ideas borne of think tanks. The concept of "pre-emptive war" was pushed by another think tank, the Project for a New Century, and the New York based Council on Foreign Relations was developing plans for post-war Iraq months before the first bombs hit Baghdad.
Think tanks long have been associated with issues of war and peace. But an increasing number also deal with domestic and even local issues, none more prominently than the Manhattan Institute. President Bush credits the institute with inspiring his program of "compassionate conservatism." He also calls The Dream and the Nightmare, a book written by Myron Magnet, the editor of the Manhattan Institutes's City Journal, the most important work he has ever read, after the Bible.
The well-financed Manhattan Institute, whose "fellows" have gone on not just to the White House but to head the CIA and serve Margaret Thatcher, clearly has influenced domestic and foreign policy. But the institute, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, has had even more of an impact on former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who adopted the think tank's ideas (and phrases) on crime, "quality of life," homelessness, and welfare.
The effectiveness of the Manhattan Institute, the only sizable national think tank that has turned its attention to the policy of a particular city, is at a crossroads. Its long dominance in New York City is being undercut by a mayor who isn't nearly as partial to their ideas as his predecessor, and challenged by a group of liberal start-ups.
Most recently, 2001 Democratic mayoral candidates Fernando Ferrer and Mark Green both have joined the world of think tanks, Ferrer becoming the president of the Drum Major Institute and Green restarting a think tank he originally launched in 1981 -- the New Democracy Project.
"There is already a war going on in this country," Green told Newsday shortly before the war on Iraq began. "And it is a war of ideas."
FROM THINKING TO MARKETING
Defining the term think tank is a bit tricky. In America, the phrase first came into use during World War II, describing secure rooms where military planners could plot without being overheard. But the organizations to which the term is generally applied -- policy research institutes -- have existed since the early 20th century, when Progressive Era philanthropists established organizations designed to enable intellectuals to share their expertise with politicians.
While those early research organizations were intended to inform instead of persuade, think tanks' priorities have changed. The 1970s saw the start of a new generation of think tanks whose research sought to advance a specific ideological line.
Because of this, the once venerated role of the intellectual in policy making has been denigrated, in the view of Andrew Rich, a professor of political science at Wake Forest University in North Carolina who studies think tanks. "So many organizations right now have started to call themselves think tanks to cash in on the credibility associated with think tanks," said Rich. "There is no credentialing organization for think tanks, so if you want to start a research group and say you're a think tank, there is no one there to stop you."
In many ways, the defining goal of a think tank is no longer expertise, but impact. "We aim to influence the influential," said Larry Mone, the president of the Manhattan Institute, in a speech last spring. "In any process of social change, some people matter more than others. That's our constituency. . . .We make sure our ideas cross the radar screens of these key people."
Sometimes this means working directly with public officials. Other times it means advising leading professionals in the private sector or offering expert opinions to the press. Think tanks employ policy experts to publish reports and write books and articles in newspapers and magazines. Some publish their own journals, like the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, which are distributed to journalists and policy makers.
Conservative think tanks often focus on economic issues and look to the private sector to solve many of the country's problems. The left encompasses a wide range of groups with sometimes conflicting agendas, such as labor activism, environmentalism, economic justice and minority rights. But most of its policy organizations are more likely than their conservative counterparts to see government as able to provide solutions to many of society's ills.
The marketing of ideas, particularly to the press, often becomes as important as the ideas themselves, and in this respect conservatives have been much more successful than their liberal counterparts, according to a 2001 survey, by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a leftist media studies group. The survey found that 48 percent of media citations of think tanks were from right-leaning groups, 36 percent from centrist groups, and 16 percent from groups that lean left.
Both conservatives and liberals agree that this reflects a think tank community whose right is much stronger than its left. According to David Callahan, co-founder of the New York-based national progressive think tank DEMOS and author of several studies of think tanks, "The left can't get it together. . . .It has lost the war of ideas. And if you're losing the war of ideas then you face an uphill battle on every other front.
"New York City," according to Callahan, "is a classic microcosm of this broader phenomenon. There's a handful of conservative intellectuals who have been running circles around the liberal establishment."
THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE AND NEW YORK
The sheer size of New York City's budget attracts policy advocates, who are after either their piece of the pie or a say in deciding how the pie is cut and served. In a historically liberal city, most New York policy advocates have been liberal. Groups working on policy issues from a liberal or leftist perspective include City Project, the Fiscal Policy Institute, the Community Service Society and Advocates for Children, as well as various research organizations affiliated with labor unions(such as the Five Borough Institute), and universities.
"There are dozens, hundreds, of liberal organizations and policy groups and institutions in New York that already exist and that already receive funding," said Neil Kleiman, director of the Center for an Urban Future. "The issue is that they are just so scattered - a thousand points of light as opposed to one focused beam."
The conservatives have that focused beam in the Manhattan Institute, which operates on a budget of $5 million a year. In 1978, as Tom Wolfe recently recounted, British millionaire Antony Fisher, who had already established a British think tank to promote free market economics there, founded the Manhattan Institute to push for similar policies in the United States. The institute first came to prominence when one of its staff, Charles Murray, published Losing Ground, a book arguing that the 1960s War on Poverty had hurt, rather than helped, low income Americans. (His later book The Bell Curve, which argued that differences in IQ scores between races are real and do matter, caused even greater controversy.)
As the group gained prominence, those active in its early days moved on, one to become head of the CIA under President Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush, another to advise British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The think tank itself, meanwhile, started looking at urban issues, developing its position as the sole conservative voice in New York City's liberal choir.
Besides wanting a chance to change New York, the Manhattan Institute saw an opportunity to use the city as a testing ground for its vision.
"If you really wanted to have [your] ideas reach the cities, you had to become a think tank for the cities," said the institute's vice president of development, David Desrosiers. "So in the '90s we started looking in our own backyard."
At that time, New York presented an ideal laboratory for the Manhattan Institute to formulate an urban plan, according to Fred Siegel, who from 1992 to 1993 was both a Giuliani advisor and the editor of the City Journal. The city was struggling with a sinking economy, a soaring crime rate, and a mayor whose popularity was waning. It was this environment, more than anything else, Siegel said, that led Giuliani to the Manhattan Institute.
"There was a sense in the early '90s of complete collapse," said Siegel. "Crime completely out of control, the rule of law seemingly broken. There was a sense of panic in the city, a sense of complete breakdown. In that framework, there was a lot of ferment. The Manhattan Institute had the largest vision that emerged out of that ferment."
On the heels of his loss to David Dinkins in the 1989 mayoral election, Giuliani was looking for vision and attended a Manhattan Institute conference on crime. The premise of the "Quality of Life" workshop was George L. Kelling's Broken Windows Theory. The theory, which held that policing minor disorderly behavior like graffiti or fare beating in the subways would help reduce violent crime, would become one of the foundations of Giuliani's remarkably successful policing strategy for New York.
The institute also helped Giuliani reverse his position on the homeless, according to Jack Newfield in The Full Rudy, his new book appraising Giuliani. While the candidate at first "ran for mayor as a crusader for more humane treatment for the homeless," Newfield writes, late in the campaign Giuliani changed his position; "he began attacking the right to shelter...Overnight he started to sound like the Manhattan Institute...which had..been tutoring him...They gave Giuliani a way of looking at poverty through a filter of 'a culture of dependency,' and fiscal tough love."
After becoming mayor, Giuliani continued to borrow heavily from the organization. He was particularly influenced by Murray's ideas concerning welfare reform.
Giuliani hailed the Manhattan Institute for allowing him to challenge what he referred to as the "intellectual rigidity" of New York. In a 1999 speech, Giuliani stated, "The Manhattan Institute and the City Journal have helped to shake up that rigidity. It's allowed us to think thoughts that were impossible for New Yorkers to really embrace in large numbers in the past."
LIBERALS AND NYC THINK TANKS
With the Manhattan Institute proving itself to be so effective, many New York liberals wanted something similar they could call their own. In the mid 1990s, a set of meetings was put together by Ken Emerson and Sarah Ritchie of the Century Foundation. The organizers quickly realized they did not have the resources to launch a think tank that could counter the Manhattan Institute. To provide an alternative on the cheap, they started the New York Progressive Network. Based on the model of Moving Ideas, a national network of think tanks run by the American Prospect magazine, the goal of the New York Progressive Network was, according to Ritchie, to "thicken the progressive community."
"There were all these smaller research and advocacy groups, some of which were multi-issue organizations, others were more specialized, but they seemed to be less than the sum of their parts," said Ritchie. "So what we were trying to do was basically [create] an organization of organizations that had similar political orientation that represented a wide spectrum of policy issues."
While the network model has had some successes elsewhere, as with the Progressive Los Angeles Network, it does not provide a true substitute for a strong, singular think tank. New York Progressive Network now exists only as a largely inactive web site - a kind of online phonebook for progressive organizations.
A more successful effort was the Center for an Urban Future, which came out of City Limits, an urban affairs magazine, in 1996. Many progressives claim the center as an ally, the closest thing to a strong liberal think tank that New York has.
Still Neil Kleiman, who founded the group with Andrew White, insists that the group is not progressive per se.
"There were about a dozen living room conversations about how people can create a liberal alternative to the Manhattan Institute," said Neil Kleiman. "We decided to do something completely different."
(His comments mirror those of some people connected to the Manhattan Institute who insist that the Manhattan Institute is not conservative -- that its pragmatic scholarly research simply focuses on what works and what doesn't work, and what works tends to contradict conventional wisdom, i.e. liberal beliefs.)
Taking a lesson from the Manhattan Institute, whose City Journal had become popular among urban policy makers, the Center for an Urban Future focused on the presentation of its ideas. The center described its research as investigative journalism - a departure from the academic bent of most think tank research. It sent its staff members into "the field" to do research on New York neighborhoods.
The center's main focus is economic development. It explores the effect that different industries, such as aviation or the arts, have on New York's economy, and examines how state fiscal policy affects the city.
"During campaigns we get a lot of people running for office [calling]", said Kleiman. "Especially during the 2001 cycle when everyone was running. We'd have three [competing] candidates from Bensonhurst calling, with questions about ideas and policies and programs. They want fodder."
END OF AN ERA?
The election of Michael Bloomberg as mayor of New York has added two high profile names to the ranks of New York's think tanks.
While it is only in the formative stages, Mark Green's New Democracy Project has begun the Monthly Exchange, regular meetings of progressive policy advocates in New York City, loosely modeled after the Wednesday Meeting, a series of strategy meetings of conservative activists in Washington, D.C.
Ferrer said he joined the Drum Major Institute, which was founded in 1961 by a lawyer for Martin Luther King, Jr., because it presented "the opportunity to take something that had a very good heritage and turn it into a progressive public policy institute" promoting social and economic justice.
Although the organization is small, "in the marketplace of ideas you don't need the resources of the Manhattan Institute," Ferrer said. "You need creativity."
This spring, the group will hold conferences on tax policy and on how population shifts affect urban politics. It produces ProgBlog, a weekly electronic newsletter offering a progressive viewpoint on political and economic news.
Earlier this year, the Drum Major Institute worked with Bloomberg on his education program, advocating measures to make schools accountable to parents. According to Andrea Batista Schlesinger, the group's executive director, Bloomberg was receptive to the initiative and included elements of it in his plan. After years of frustration working on education in New York, she said, having a mayor who listens is "landmark stuff."
Bloomberg's willingness to listen to a variety of policy experts is in sharp contrast to Giuliani's approach, many say, and reflects the new mayor's non-ideological openness to -- in the words of think tank founder Andrew White -- "finding out what works and what doesn't."
The Manhattan Institute would surely have a different interpretation for why its local influence seems, at least temporarily, to be on the wane. Representatives from the institute declined to comment on its relationship with Bloomberg, nor their view of him. A current City Journal article on the administration's taxation and spending policies, however, might offer a clue. Its title: "Bloomberg to City: Drop Dead."
NON-PARTISAN ELECTIONS
As expected, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has created a new commission to revise the city charter -- the fifth commission in the last six years; the second in Mayor Bloomberg's 15 months in office. He has named Frank Macchiarola, the former schools chancellor, to lead it.
In announcing the commission on March 26th, the mayor charged it with considering nonpartisan elections for all city officials and to put such a proposal on the November ballot. The four previous commissions examined nonpartisan elections and failed to propose them to voters. The mayor also called on the commission "to strengthen the operation of city government" by offering proposals on structural issues such as reorganizing and consolidating city agencies and changing the way the city contracts for services and purchases goods.
The issue of non-partisan elections is bound to create intense partisan conflict, pitting Democrats, with overwhelming voter registration advantage, versus Republicans and minor parties, particularly the Independence party. Bloomberg's first policy proposal as a mayoral candidate, on June 7, 2001, was at a Independence Party event, where he endorsed nonpartisan elections in exchange for that party's endorsement.
As I wrote previously on this issue, nonpartisan elections are widely practiced in the United States, but unfortunately too little studied. Proponents of the Progressive Era reform argue that nonpartisan elections weaken the hold of parties, broaden candidate fields, make elections more competitive, broaden candidates' vision, and may increase minority turnout as well as the prospects for minority candidates. Opponents counter that parties are valuable, indeed, essential; that party cues are replaced by less desirable ones such as race/ethnicity and incumbency; that nonpartisan elections have a class bias as well as a Republican/minor party bias; and that nonpartisan elections promote governmental gridlock and encourage extremism.
The mayor hinted, as he has in the past, that he would put his own money in a public campaign for nonpartisan elections. This would be a first, a mayor funding a campaign for major change in a city's constitution -- the mayor as the Four Billion Dollar Gorilla.
HISPANIC VOTING IN NEW YORK
Once, the New York City political alphabet was simple: the three I's -- Ireland, Italy, and Israel -- were the itinerary for political success. Today, politicians court everyone from Albanians to Zimbabweans. But the most prominent destinations for New York politicians are clear -- San Juan and Santo Domingo -- and the reason even clearer: There are 790,000 Puerto Rican and 407,000 Dominican New Yorkers, according to the 2000 Census. Latinos' share of the general electorate declined to 18 percent in the 2001 general election, after reaching historic highs in the primary and the runoff.
All in all, the census counted 2,160,554 Hispanic residents of New York City in April 2000, an increase of some 400,000 from the 1990 census. Spanish is the second language of politics in New York City (indeed, in the state and the nation).
Slowly but inexorably, the Hispanics of New York City will turn percentages into power.
The huge growth in population does not swiftly and automatically translate into more political clout, however. Many Puerto Ricans (who are U.S. citizens) have left, and the immigrants who have replaced them tend to be younger -- more Hispanics are under 18 years old than New Yorkers overall -- and non-citizens. Even among those Hispanic New Yorkers eligible to register, about 657,000 actually have done so. And among those registered, only 267,000 voted in the 2001 mayoral general election.
On the other hand, those 657,000 registered Hispanic voters represent a 46 percent increase in registration from a decade earlier. And this was at a time when the city's overall eligible electorate actually declined. As a result, Latino registration accounted for about a third of the overall growth in registered voters in New York City during the decade. Hispanic voter registration increased in all boroughs, with the most growth in the Bronx and Queens
It is not so surprising then that from 1989 to 1997, Latinos' share of the total New York City electorate grew (as recorded in the ABC News exit poll) from eight percent in 1989 to 13 percent in 1993 to 21 percent in 1997.
The vast majority of Hispanics are Democrats. Among Latinos surveyed by the Hispanic Federation in June 2002 who reported being registered to vote in New York City, 74 percent were Democrats; only 10 percent were Republicans. There has been little difference in Latinos' partisan registration proclivities over the last several years. (See Table 1)
But Hispanics made history in the 2001 elections in at least two ways.
The mayoral election saw the most serious candidacy by a Latino - Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer -- since Herman Badillo's mayoral runoff against Abe Beame in 1973. In the September 25 primary (moved back two weeks after 9/11), Ferrer came in first. Hispanics made up an historically high 23 percent share of the vote, giving Ferrer 72 percent of their vote against three opponents. But he failed to reach the 40 percent threshold, thus forcing a runoff, which his opponent Mark Green won.
The 2001 Democratic mayoral primary elections were, according to John Mollenkopf and Luis Miranda, authors of a Hispanic Federation report, "a watershed for closing the gap between turnout among Latinos and the overall turnout rate." But the effect "proved to be short-lived. It collapsed in the general election." Had Ferrer been the Democratic nominee, it is almost certain that Hispanics would have turned out in record-breaking numbers - perhaps 25 percent.
This brings us to the other major political story of the 2001 New York City mayoral election. In the general election, 47 percent of Latino voters cast a ballot for Republican Michael Bloomberg, splitting the Latino vote with Democrat Mark Green, who got 49 percent. The headline was: "City's Hispanic Shift, Moving Toward the G.O.P."
What's more, this was not necessarily an aberration. It is true that Hispanics voted overwhelmingly Democratic in 1998 for Chuck Schumer (82 percent) and in 2000 for Hillary Clinton (85 percent) and Al Gore (81 percent). But the proportion of Latinos in New York City voting for a Republican candidate doubled in a dozen years, rising steadily from a quarter of the Hispanic electorate who supported Rudy Giuliani in 1989 to the nearly half in 2001. (See Table 2)
The Hispanics in New York City and elsewhere in the country (with the exception of Cubans) have historically voted Democratic. But Republicans recently have been courting Latinos heavily (in the 2000 presidential and the 2002 Senate and gubernatorial campaigns). Hispanics' strong Catholicism and cultural conservatism would seem to make them receptive to the Republican Party on social issues. And their growing numbers make them increasingly a swing constituency - a dominant one in some jurisdictions -- motivated less by party identification than by ethnicity.
Hispanics in New York City are increasing in number and diversity, sometimes producing conflict and electoral competition among Hispanic groups. According to John Mollenkopf "more recent South and Central American tend to be more conservative. They tend to be somewhat more middle class, higher income, property owning."
Old and new immigrants have produced a large second generation now coming of voting age. Like young people from all ethnic and racial backgrounds, they are less likely to vote than their elders. But, as history makes clear, this will not last forever. Shifts in the New York City political topography historically have been tectonic - gradual -- but inexorable. The Irish, then the Jews and Italians took a generation or two between their arrival in the city in large numbers and their climb to political office. Blacks followed a similar course. And so too will Hispanics.
Table 1: NYC Hispanic Voter And Party Registration, 1996-2002
Year | Percent Registered | Party Registration | |
2002 | 69% | Democrat: 74% | Republican: 11% |
2001 | 66% | Democrat: 74% | Republican: 11% |
2000 | 60% | Democrat: 69% | Republican: 12% |
1999 | 58% | Democrat: 76% | Republican: 9% |
1998 | 53% | Democrat: 71% | Republican: 12% |
1997 | 57% | Democrat: 73% | Republican: 11% |
1996 | 51% | Democrat: 70% | Republican: 15% |
Table 2: Hispanic Voting In NYC Mayoral General Elections, 1989-2001
Election | Hispanic Share | # of Hispanic Voters | Vote Choices | |
2001 | 18% (EMR) | 267,000/1,480,914 | Green: 49% | Bloomberg: 47% |
1997 | 21% (VNS) | 285,000/1,357,249 | Messinger: 57% | Giuliani: 42% |
1993 | 13% (VNS) | 245,570/1,889,003 | Dinkins: 60% | Giuliani 38% |
1989 | 8% (ABC) | 152,000/1,899,845 | Dinkins: 73% | Giuliani 26% |
1989 | 13% (CBS/Times) | 247,000/1,899,845 | Dinkins: 65% | Giuliani 34% |
Doug Muzzio is a professor in the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College and a political analyst for WABC.
Every two weeks the New York City Council meets for its Stated Meeting to introduce and pass legislation. As a regular feature, Searchlight covers these meetings and posts a summary of the bills passed.
STATED MEETING - MARCH 26, 2003
Quote of the Day:
"Go into any neighborhood in the city and you will find posters and flyers attached to trees advertising realty, weight loss programs, all sorts of music, and home repair services. These entrepreneurs/vandals have taken it
upon themselves to use our city's trees as free advertising space." – Councilmember David Weprin in support of a bill to double the fine for those who nail or staple signs to trees.
Meeting Summary:
At the March 24 Stated Meeting, the New York City Council passed four new pieces of legislation aimed at helping the city's environment.
One measure (Intro 109-A) would require that city-owned vehicles, with the exception of fire and police departments, to use recycled motor oil. Some federal government agencies such as the Department of Defense and the U.S. Postal Service already use so-called re-refined motor oil.
Another bill (Intro 240-A) would double the fine for those that put posters and notices on trees. The number of trees in the city has decreased by 30 percent since 1978 and the council argues that some of those trees have been killed by illegal postings.
Other environmental measures passed by the council included a bill (Intro 123-A) that would increase the fines for those who pollute the city's sewer systems and legislation (Intro 377) giving city agencies more flexibility if they want to purchase energy efficient products that may cost more initially, but save energy and money in the long term.
The council also passed a bill (Intro 178-A) aimed at protecting taxicab drivers from excessive fines if their hazard lights burn out. "An automatic penalty is not only unfair, but it encourages a driver to work without fixing the light to recoup their losses from the fine," said Councilmember Diana Reyna who drafted the legislation.
Each piece of legislation will now go to the mayor, who has 30 days to sign or veto each bill.
At the meeting, the council also received official notice that Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoed three bills passed in recent weeks.
The mayor vetoed legislation (Intro 93-A) that would allow welfare recipients to count GED and English language classes toward work requirements. Bloomberg said the bill "mandates education at the expense of work." The mayor also said the measure could jeopardize the city's ability to comply with state and federal work requirements and that the city could be fined over $200 million a year.
Bloomberg also rejected legislation (Intro 278-A) which would require pharmacies that do not carry emergency contraceptives to post signs indicating that they are not sold at that location and a bill (Intro 281-A) requiring hospitals to inform rape victims that emergency contraception is available and to offer it if requested.
"It is the responsibility of the city to ensure that victims of rape and sexual assault receive the best possible care during their recovery," said Councilmember Christine Quinn.
The council has 30 days to override the mayor's vetoes and can do so with a two-thirds majority of the council. The council is expected to override all three.
The next Stated Meeting is scheduled for April 9.