Intraparty Attitude Conflict: Democratic Party Leadership in California

ATTITUDE CONFLICT is a phenomenon occurring within as well as between fpolitical parties. And if party members are differentiated in terms of their political dispositions, so too are they differentiated in terms of the status they have within their party. The relationship between these two forms of differentiation between membership stratification and attitude conflict is the central concern of this study. It is a relationship which has recently been the subject of some interest students of political behavior. David Butler, for example, has suggested that a principal dilemma of party leaders is that they are caught between the disparate demands of their followership: Their most loyal and devoted followers tend have more extreme views than they have themselves, and be still farther removed from the mass of those who actually provide the vote. The leaders therefore have to conciliate those who support them with money or with voluntary work, without alienating that large body of moderate voters whose attitudes make them most likely swing the other party and thus decide the next election. 1