prescampaign

Issue #44

Last Update March 2, 2006

National The Presidential Campaign 2004 by Gerry Krownstein The campaign is over, even if the election is not. Regardless of who is elected on November 2, it is worth looking at the 2004 presidential campaign, if only to diagnose problems in one of the most important processes in our democracy: the selection of the President. Several things are immediately obvious: issues of importance to the nation were never really discussed, and may not be considered important any longer; the electoral machinery does not inspire confidence or lead to sensible campaigns; and the money spent on the campaign was astronomical. In this segment of the democratic process, at least, our democracy is sick.

Neither candidate issued detailed position papers on any of the critical problems facing our country. Neither party adopted a platform at their national conventions, or if a platform was adopted it was neither publicized by the party nor described in the media. Campaign speeches dealt in generalities and sound bites; even the debates could be boiled down to “more of the same” (Bush) or “whatever he did was wrong” (Kerry). Although Kerry went farther than Bush in describing his program (he did issue some details as to his plans for medical care and social security), he did not make any great effort to make the public aware of these details or to explain how they differed from his opponent's programs. In fairness to Kerry, the latter would be a difficult task given that Bush has gone to some effort to keep any details on his handling of these issues out of the public eye. The debates themselves were a failure as educational devices; even as a spectator sport, they lacked excitement after the first one showed that neither candidate would self-destruct. Not really debates, they should be restructured to allow candidates more than three minutes to make their case on any given issue. The public can take it, despite what pollsters and the media think.

In the absence of real facts as to how each candidate would govern, the American people were left with a popularity contest and social and religious prejudices as their only selection criteria. Why the paucity of information? The media believe that the public has the attention span of a flea would tune out if any presentation lasted more than twenty seconds. As a result, TV and radio only broadcasts sound bites, uninformed opinion, and the kind of analysis that is worse than useless in that it focuses on the horse race to the exclusion of the issues. The level of cynicism and contempt for the intelligence of the public displayed by TV and cable is breathtaking. Print media do somewhat better, especially magazines, which have the luxury of devoting real space to discussions with real content. Unfortunately, most magazines have relatively small circulation. Newspapers reach more people, but with a handful of notable exceptions nationwide, newspapers have become almost content-free (except for sports). USA Today is to news as Classics Comics was to literature, though not as accurate. Most of the tabloids devote very few column-inches to news stories and features that describe in depth the occurrences of the day.

As for the candidates, the Republicans long ago decided it was not in their political interest to let the public know what they really had in store for them; the Democrats have long been afraid that if they tipped their hand they would be distorted and smeared out of office.

The election machinery does not inspire the confidence of the electorate. From the Electoral College, which gave the last Presidential election to the loser of the popular vote, to voting machine problems with breakdowns, badly designed ballots and lack of auditability, to politically appointed officials that apply voting regulations to weed out potential voters of the opposite party, to the lack of any national standards on voting eligibility, ballot design, voting machine requirements and handling of absentee ballots, our electoral process is a shambles. Winner-take-all Electoral College rules disenfranchise a large proportion of the electorate and force candidates to focus on swing states where the results are likely to be close, rather than states with large populations where, today, real concerns are never addressed by either campaign. Major reforms are needed in the electoral process, lest voters begin believe the whole things is rigged.

The amount of money raised and spent by the campaigns of the two major candidates is astonishing; over $850 million raised, over $700 million spent so far. Close to a billion dollars seems a bit much for an election, although, per capita, it is only around $3 per citizen, or $7 per actual voter. Still, when you add in another $500 million for House races and $400 million for Senate races, out political parties have spent over $1.6 billion dollars for this election. That seems a bit much, especially when so little was gotten by the public for the money. The burden such sums place on the parties for fund-raising, and the requirement nowadays that candidates be personally wealthy to help defray campaign costs are both unhealthy. We need a better way to elect our federal officials. Campaign reform, though a catchy slogan, is the wrong approach; whatever regulations are passed, there will always be loopholes to subvert them. We need to determine how campaign money is spent, and then find a way to provide these goods and services at reasonable cost to all candidates equally.

Whoever wins in November, the system is broken and needs fixing.