The dysfunctional Long March to November 2008
Evan Thomas (he of the “15 points“) circles around an interesting element in today’s politics, but doesn’t quite capture it, in our view:
There is the America of the rich and the America of the poor, as Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards likes to point out. There is the America of Red States and Blue States, populated, as columnist Dave Barry likes to joke, by “ignorant racist fascist knuckle-dragging NASCAR-obsessed cousin-marrying road-kill-eating tobacco-juice-dribbling gun-fondling religious fanatic rednecks” and “godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving leftwing Communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts.”…
But the real divide, the separation that may matter more to the future of American democracy, is between the political junkies and everyone else. The junkies watch endless cable-TV news shows and listen to angry talk radio and feel passionate about their political views. They number roughly 20 percent of the population, according to Princeton professor Markus Prior, who tracks political preferences and the media.
Then there’s all the rest: the people who prefer ESPN or old movies or videogames or Facebook or almost anything on the air or online to politics…
Today, the evening news shows draw about 10 percent of the viewing audience. For the political junkies, the offerings are much more bounteous than in 1970: not only 24-hour news channels but an infinitely expanding blogosphere…
The presidential candidates by and large at least give lip service to “coming together,” though at the same time their cynical operatives are usually maneuvering to drive voters further apart with “wedge issues” and negative advertising. Americans could, of course, reject this hypocrisy and demand the sort of leadership that reaches across the political aisle to accomplish hard tasks. But first they will have to switch off the Xbox or click away from the Home Shopping Network or “Girls Gone Wild” and go out and vote.
We agree with Thomas that something seems to be dysfunctional in this Long March to November 2008. But surely the problem is not that Americans are disengaged from the political process, as he suggests. The voter turnout was excellent in 2004, for example, for both political parties. And voters were engaged in 2006 as well. We’re not sure that there is a unitary explanation for the strangeness of this political season, but here are some possible causes:
– Part of the fault might lie with McCain Feingold, which stripped the parties of money and power to the advantage of the 527’s and the “20 percent” political junkies that Thomas discusses.
– Part of the reason is undoubtedly the strange way that the nominating process of the parties for presidential candidates has disintegrated since 1968.
– Part of the reason may be that the political reporters themselves are part of the extreme “20 percent”, and now they have their own 24/7 outlets for their endless prognostications.
– It may be that all these factors have come together in a unique and unpleasant way in 2007-2008.
It is unseemly and ridiculous for adults aged 55 to 70, who presumably are men and women of some substance and accomplishment, to kill themselves for two years or more with 18 hour days of nonsense. It is not a testimony to their character that they do so, though it certainly is ample witness to their ambition. There is nothing to be learned after the first dozen firehouse visits or town meetings or discussions in diners.
We understand that such exertions are part of the political process, but they have gone too far. Maybe when one of the candidates drops dead of a heart attack or collapses from psychological exhaustion, the lesson might sink in. It should not be necessary to be a tri-athlete to be president; indeed, such rigors promise to produce perhaps the worst possible outcomes — the youngest candidates most possessed of ambition and least prepared for actual responsibility.
We’re not sure of what the answers are. Getting rid of McCain-Feingold would be an excellent idea, replacing regulation with disclosure and transparency. Letting the political parties spend what they like in any manner would be helpful, and would diminish the power of the 527’s and the fringes. And it should be clear enough that the ridiculous nominating process — in which, for example, campaigns and their workers set up shop in Iowa two to three years before the caucuses — is in desperate need of reform by the parties. But possibly some aging aspirant is going to have to keel over, or some catastrophic candidate emerge from the process, before power is taken from the microcasters of America’s current political life.