Open season on one's political opponent winds to a close on Tuesday, and I can't say I'm sorry. I will try to sneak into my voting precinct without triggering the campaign toadies who crouch at the chalk circle marking the minimum distance from the polls at which campaign activities may take place. But as I draw near, I know they will spring upon me, waving flyers in violation of the spirit but not the letter of the law.
Apparently voters respond to that sort of thing. Otherwise campaign managers wouldn't still be ordering it, right? Voters apparently also respond to empty, vicious rhetoric that exploits whatever fears and prejudices lay in their short-term memories.
Looking at campaigns around the country, the common element seems to be the strategy of distorting the other side's position while lobbing personal attacks. I would sympathize with the candidates--from my years as a columnist, I know quite well how it feels to have your views deliberately misrepresented, your character attacked and your background ignorantly disparaged--but it seems most of the candidates give as good as they get. The Bowles-Dole race has drawn national attention not just for the candidates' high profiles but also due to its general nastiness.
Campaigning is something of a prisoner's dilemma. If neither candidate runs an attack campaign, people will decide the winner based on something more civil, perhaps even the salient issues. If only one candidate runs an attack campaign, the attacker wins (I guess the other guy is a wimp). If both run attack campaigns, the voters elect the candidate with the most nefarious political strategist, and everyone is disgusted by the end of it. The sad part is that the strategy is always to attack, either in defense or to take the easy win.
My British friends are astonished when they visit me and watch adverts on the telly in which companies bash their competitors by name. I explain to them that, like passing a slow car on the outside lane, here such actions are considered rude but not illegal.
I don't buy Progresso soup because the company's ad campaigns consist primarily of snotty women belittling their loved ones with snide remarks about Campbell's soup and immaturity. Alas, such consumerist indulgence is not afforded me when my duties as a citizen call me to vote.
The venom of the campaigns per se is not what bothers me so much as the distortion. As far as I care, candidates can be as mean as they want (perhaps we benefit from seeing their true colors) so long as we get the truth. Instead, we pigeonhole candidates into Republican and Democrat because it's the only way we have any idea what we're voting for. Is it any wonder in this country that independent candidates rarely get elected? Independent thinkers are the last people who appeal to American voters, unless they provide an entertaining sideshow a la Ross Perot or Ralph Nader.
Elizabeth Dole asked Erskine Bowles to agree to use their war chests not toward acerbic commercials but for a series of debates. This is the best way I think any campaign could be run. Real campaign finance reform would be to spend money on debates and honest information. At least we did get the debates eventually.
I used to love politics. I viewed it as a spectator sport for the nerdy: "Ow-that had to hurt. That move was slimy, but it sure was clever!" I loved the Wednesday morning quarterbacks of the Beltway.
But the distractions of the electoral process are a prelude to the inefficiency of the political process. Government agencies blow money toward the end of the fiscal year lest their budgets be reduced next year; the incentives are not structured to encourage the wise use of resources or laudable public service but rather to garner as large a piece of the pie as possible.
It's not surprising. The empty games of the election year lead to the empty games of the term of office. Except that these people are actually in charge of things. So I will trudge to the voting booth, braving the flyers and campaign toadies, to be one of the people who show up to make the decisions. After all, if I don't vote, I can't complain about the results.
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