POLITICS: ELECTION 2004

Machine politics

Election thought #6: My polling place, for the first time, used the dreaded electronic, no-paper-trail voting machine that we've been warned about for the past several years. My vote consisted of pushing a few buttons, rearranging a few lights, and then pushing the big red button that supposedly caused my little electron arrangement to be added to the count.

I didn't worry too much about this in my particular case, because: 1. I live in a Democratic city in a Democratic county in a Democratic state, and nobody along the line had any incentive to go and manipulate the results. And: 2. I'm not sure the old lever-based machine actually counted the votes either. (An acquaintance of mine who voted right after me did mention that he missed the crunch of finality you got when you pulled the big lever across the face of the machine, but that doesn't really mean your vote was counted either.)

But not every county is Hudson County, New Jersey. Some are Broward County or Dade County, Florida. And here or anywhere else, it's alarming that such a manipulable system would be put in place. It's the difference between a democracy and a junta.

Here's how the election process used to work on paper (as witnessed by me when I was a reporter): At the end of voting, a number of poll workers, with representatives of both parties present, passed the ballots around one by one and called out the votes, which several people would record. At the end of this process, there wasn't much question about the tally — or if there was, everything could be counted again. In the buzzword of the decade, the process was transparent.

There's nothing transparent about a machine that just cranks out an unsupported number at the end of the day. I have no reason to believe that my vote was counted, and — this being the key fact — there's no way to double-check. There's no way to verify the count to anybody's satisfaction.

As I say, I don't have any reason to think that my city would have manipulated the local results. But — people have been talking about this problem for the last two years, and the fact that those in power have deliberately designed systems to eliminate the hard, real, paper ballots seems like no accident. Everybody should have a stake in clear, verifiable, uncontroversial results, and if we don't have them, it's because somebody explicitly decided not to have them. They decided to eliminate transparency. Without that, there is no reason we should have confidence in the results we're given. They're nothing but a number somebody entered into a computer, followed not by a bundle of ballots that can be examined but by an asterisk and a footnote that says, "Just trust us."

But "trust" shouldn't enter into it. Look at it this way: True, it will be hard for anybody on the outside to prove that the system was tampered with because of the lack of physical evidence — but also impossible for the election system to prove that its results are authentic. There's none of what prosecutors would call a "chain of evidence," so that everybody knows where the ballots have been from the moment they were cast to the present.

In a sense, it isn't the public's job to prove the numbers are wrong. It is public officials' job to prove they are right. And they can't do that in cases where there are no ballots to examine. If there's an asterisk, it belongs on the election itself.

November 4, 2004 | 3:35 a.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041031.php#e64

POLITICS: ELECTION 2004

Bore of the same

	Remember this guy?

Election observation #5: A colleague says Democrats made the same mistake they always make — they nominated a liberal that most of the country wouldn't support. I argued this point with him. I also think they make the same mistake every four years, but it's a completely different mistake — nominating yet another uninspiring stiff.

In fact, I don't remember Kerry saying one single particularly liberal thing during the campaign. He didn't get beat over being labeled a "liberal" — it was because people have internalized the image of Bush as a strong protector of the nation and decided to stick with him in these perilous times. (In fact, I think Bush's Iraq war and the ensuing chaos have made people feel more in need of a leader who looks like Bush.)

I made myself the following little table, looking at the characteristics of the Republican and Democratic candidates over the last 10 elections (as best I can estimate them — you may disagree with some of my points).

Democrats:

Year	Nominee	Inspiring	Establishment	Next in line	Left/center	Won/lost
1968	Humphrey	No	Yes	Yes	Center	Lost
1972	McGovern	Yes	No	No	Left	Lost
1976	Carter	Yes	No	No	Center	Won
1980	Carter	No	Yes	—	Center	Lost
1984	Mondale	No	Yes	Yes	?	Lost
1988	Dukakis	No	Yes	No	Center	Lost
1992	Clinton	Yes	?	No	Center	Won
1996	Clinton	Yes	Yes	—	Center	Won
2000	Gore	No	Yes	Yes	Center	Lost
2004	Kerry	No	Yes	?	?	Lost

Republicans:

Year	Nominee	Inspiring	Establishment	Next in line	Right/center	Won/lost
1968	Nixon	No	Yes	Yes	?	Won
1972	Nixon	No	Yes	—	?	Won
1976	Ford	No	Yes	Yes	?	Lost
1980	Reagan	Yes	No	No	Right	Won
1984	Reagan	Yes	Yes	—	Right	Won
1988	Bush	No	Yes	Yes	Center	Won
1992	Bush	No	Yes	—	Center	Lost
1996	Dole	No	Yes	Yes	Center	Lost
2000	Bush	Yes	Yes	No	Center	Won
2004	Bush	Yes	Yes	—	Right	Won

One thing that I think emerges from the "data" is that left, right and center aren't the key factors. The key factor is this: In postwar America, an inspiring leader has lost to an uninspiring bore only once — in 1972. (I count Carter as an inspiring candidate in 1976, because he actually generated a lot of excitement as an insurgent candidate at the time, but not in the "White House strategy" campaign of 1980, where he stayed behind closed doors a lot.)

Many of the losers are the candidates who win the nomination because they just seemed to be the next in line for it — think Humphrey, Mondale, Dole. Bush would have been another one in '88 if Dukakis hadn't been such limp, timorous candidate. Nixon was the next-in-line candidate when he lost in 1960 but more of an outsider in 1968.

Left, right and center are tough criteria to call. From Reagan forward, there has certainly been no penalty for being on the right. But nobody has run as much of a liberal since McGovern — they've only been painted as liberals by Republican strategists.

I think Reagan is an interesting and pivotal figure to look at. I disagreed with him on most of his program, but I want to give him credit as a leader. He decided what he stood for, he spoke out for it in the 1980 campaign — probably the most substantive and least dimwitted campaign in this period — and then pretty much tried to make it happen as president. And here's the thing that characterized Reagan's leadership: When he wanted something, and especially when he felt he was losing popular opinion on an issue, he went on TV and sold the idea to the public. In short, he was the inspirational leader that Democrats have not had since Kennedy.

Democrats have lost gracelessly with Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry — every one of them as full of personality as a test-crash dummy. Clinton was a different species — he won by selling himself, but not by selling his policies. He proved excellent at winning elections, but his main achievements, other than balancing the budget, were Republican projects such as welfare reform. As masterful as he was connecting with people, as in the 1992 and 1996 debates, I don't ever remember him going to the airwaves and making a case to the people for his policy initiatives. Think about his health-care plan — he and Hillary developed it in coordination with the affected industries, but didn't use their skills to win over the public. Meanwhile, Republicans were airing faux-populist ads that trounced him. They beat him in the public arena, again and again.

Here's what we should really conclude from this history: The Democratic establishment really sucks at winning elections. They've had decades to try to win elections with their Bland and Neutral strategy, and it doesn't work. The characteristics that do work are Inspiring and Populist. Republicans know that, and if their candidate doesn't fit that mold, they remold the guy's image until he does. Democrats need to learn from this experience before, I don't know, Joe Lieberman gets the next nomination. Oy.

November 4, 2004 | 3:31 a.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041031.php#e63

POLITICS: ELECTION 2004

Moral values

Election thought #4: Another point brought out in exit polls was that many voters cited "moral values" as a reason for backing Bush. One newly elected Republican congressman came on TV explaining that when you start supporting gay rights and you take the words "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance, Americans don't support you anymore.

He's probably right about the majority of Americans — which doesn't mean that the majority of Americans are right, or that these are the voters who decided the election. More likely, these are the most solid of the president's Christian-right supporters. The fact that these "moral" issues suddenly became big motivators on election day suggests that Republicans and their allied churches were spreading the gospel on those issues under the radar of the national media. But it is disconcerting, since it's hard for someone like me to see how John Kerry can be found lacking in the area of morality. This deserves some consideration.

I think we have two totally separate moral universes in this country. Think about the word "morality" — you probably have an instinct for what it means. And that instinct might not be the same as other people's. Author George Lakoff, in his book "Moral Politics," suggests that liberals and conservatives have two completely different ways of thinking about morality, both related to how we think about the idea of family. Conservatives model their morality on a "Strict Father" concept, while liberals model theirs on a "Nurturant Parent" concept. What I have to say will sound different from Lakoff's basic description, but if you read his book it isn't that different.

If I look at my gut-level idea of what morality means, it isn't exactly about strict or nurturing parents. To me, it's this:

ð Morality is about your relations with other people. You're expected to treat other people, your community and the world well. This leaves plenty of room for individual freedom. Driving an SUV is wrong because it's harmful to the community's safety and abusive of its resources; homosexuality is not wrong because it is not harmful to others and it is consistent with the ideals of freedom and equality.

I think Bush voters have this idea:

ð Morality is about your personal behavior. People are expected to obey common rules — obeying the rules is moral, disobeying is immoral. The rules, which may be community norms or biblical imperatives, impose strictures on individual freedom, but they protect society from chaos. Those who disobey them are undermining society by undermining the rules. So driving an SUV is fine because it reflects societal values; homosexuality is wrong because it violates the rules and makes the majority community uncomfortable.

The essential difference between these visions is that for conservatives, morality means obedience to a system of social control; for liberals, morality is a personal responsibility to the community. In the first instance, society is held together by standards of behavior and threatened by dissent; in the second, it is held together by mutual support and threatened by irresponsibility.

If John Kerry offended conservatives' moral sensibilities, it probably has something to do with the abortion issue, which is inevitable, but it may also have to do with his outspoken dissent against the Vietnam War. Liberals see his war record as honorable because he shouldered his responsibilities as a citizen rather than leaving the fight to someone poorer and less privileged. Bush was dishonorable because he used his privilege to finesse his way out of Vietnam. This does not trouble conservatives (who in the person of Bob Dole were shouting, "Where's the outrage?" when the culprit was Bill Clinton) as much, because Bush stayed within the system and wore a uniform. He didn't betray the tribe, like Kerry did. In those days, you were told to "love it or leave it" when it came to your country. On the left, protest was a strongly moral response to an unjust or misguided war; on the right, it was immoral to erode national unity.

We sometimes hear the same complaints from the right today: protesters are hurting morale and aiding the enemy. You're either for us or against us. It's hard for the left to take claims of "morality" seriously from a president who has sacrificed a thousand American lives and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives for reasons that have proven false and therefore unjust. It's possible that liberals could have claimed a piece of the "morality" territory, but Kerry, an ambivalent supporter of the war, wasn't the guy to do that. (Howard Dean might have lost by doing it; Wesley Clark might have won.) In the future, maybe that's some ground that shouldn't be ceded so easily.

November 4, 2004 | 2:43 a.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041031.php#e62

POLITICS: ELECTION 2004

Questions unasked

Election thought #3: As of 4 or 5 a.m., one factor analysts were pointing to was an unexceptional turnout among young voters, who were thought to be energized and primed to vote in massive numbers this year. I wonder what they thought of Bush's offhandedly delivered debate remark that "We're not gonna have a draft, period" as if the possibility were so remote that it required no discussion.

Man, that promise is going to be SO easy to break. When recruitment is plunging and they're pulling troops out of the nuclear-armed Korean peninsula to fill spots in Iraq, you know there's going to be pressure to get more troops down there right away.

Not to get all generational on you or anything, but in 1980, Bush's hero Ronald Reagan promised in clear English to abolish draft registration, helping him to grab a big part of the youth vote. It took him about 10 seconds to go back on that promise. And the young people who voted for him in 1980 pretty much voted for him again in '84. If you think Bush made that promise with anything more long-term than yesterday's election in mind, think again.

Here's what happens when the generals in Iraq start demanding more troops: Some member of Congress introduces a bill. It sneaks through both houses with razor-thin margins. Bush, if he's forced to give any explanation at all, says he's had to make some "hard decisions" to "preserve freedom" and protect American lives, and signs the bill. I'm not saying it will happen, but there's going to be pressure for it to happen.

And the next election? First of all, 2008 is somebody else's problem. Second, you've already shown you don't plan to show up and vote anyway, just like young voters in '84, so there's not much of a penalty. You lose.

P.S. Has anybody looked into why Bush always says he hasn't raised troop levels in Iraq, despite the glaring need, because "the generals haven't asked"? That reeks of Clintonian word-parsing. It isn't hard to communicate to generals that they're not to ask for more troops before the election, so that the president can make his precise little statement. Somebody should pin either the president or the generals down on this question. Not have they "asked" for troops but are they going to need them.

Related links:

November 3, 2004 | 10:40 p.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041031.php#e58

POLITICS: ELECTION 2004

Recriminations II

Election thought #2: I had three favorite candidates in the Democratic field. 1. Carol Moseley-Braun. 2. Howard Dean. 3. Wesley Clark. Too bad they couldn't get elected because they were 1. too black and female, 2. too fiery and outspoken, and 3. too, um ... what was the problem with Wes Clark? Actually, there was none. Clark would have mopped the floor with Bush. As a Vietnam veteran, a distinguished general with a record in international affairs, and a knowleldgeable outspoken critic of the war, he would not only have won the election but shifted the national consciousness.

I think he lost the Democratic nomination for two reasons: 1. He started at the last minute and it took him a little while — just a week or two, really — to get comfortable with campaigning, during which time he lost the initiative in the media. 2. He didn't have Kerry's multimillion-dollar personal bank account to buy himself a victory when the other candidates went broke. Democratic voters missed the obvious winner. Any disappointed voters, especially in early-primary states, should be pointing fingers at themselves today.

November 3, 2004 | 5:02 p.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041031.php#e57

POLITICS: ELECTION 2004

Let the bitter recriminations begin

I'll post thoughts about the election today as they come back to me from the 5 a.m. haze in which I was originally thinking them.

Election thought #1: If you want someone to blame for losing the election (and I don't have any reason to doubt Kerry lost, in spite of what liberal radio and bloggers are trying to argue this morning), look in the mirror. Think back to January — that's when Democrats chose Mr. Stiff to run against Bush because they thought he would be "electable." That says two things to me:

1. The attitude from the beginning was one of fear. Democratic voters assumed from the start that they were going to lose, and hoped they could find a way to squeak somebody through.

2. Voters aren't clever enough in January to predict who's going to be "electable" in November. (Remember Mike Dukakis?) They might want to try voting for the guy who's the best leader rather than the guy who's least offensive.

November 3, 2004 | 4:25 p.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041031.php#e56

POLITICS: ELECTION 2004

Ask me if I Kerry

I haven't voted for a Democrat for president since 1992. I haven't been a Democrat since 1999. I like to say the same thing that Ronald Reagan always said about having switched: I didn't leave the Democratic Party — the party left me.

The Democrats have been running in fear since 1980, afraid of being called "liberal" in a country where the word had become synonymous with two great menaces: taxes and minorities. The low point of American politics up to now was 1988, when two things happened. First, the elder George Bush — probably a decent man and a sincere public servant for most of his life — gave himself over to the Republican election-winning machine and said whatever small-minded thing he was told to say. Second, Michael Dukakis just took it.

For two decades, liberalism has been defined by Republican PR about liberalism, and Democrats have tried to prove they weren't as bad as Republicans say. The now-sainted Bill Clinton played the Republicans' game as much as anyone — he just happened to be able to win elections while doing it. Clinton was the best middle-of-the-road Republican that Democrats have ever elected. What he never did was what Reagan did — articulate a vision that would rally people to a cause. Make people believe. Build a movement.

Nothing about John Kerry convinces me he's a leader of any particular courage either. On the most important issue of the last four years, he was cowed into voting for Bush's war because Democrats were afraid to stand up to the president before the 2002 election. They were totally played. (You can see the roll call of shame

November 2, 2004 | 10:00 p.m. | Hoboken, New Jersey
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041031.php#e55