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Season of the Swing Voter They're still uncommitted, so politicians spend lots of time courting them. |
 "Oh, that's Mr. Libertini. He votes the same way in every election!" |
As for the 'man on the street,'
He probably doesn't have a clue!
By
CHUCK McFADDEN
of TheColumnists.com
There's
an old saying around Washington that the worse thing about being
a member of Congress is that you have to go back home and listen
to people who don't know what they're talking about.
Politicians would have their tongues cut out before they would
admit it, but they believe that The Man on the Street doesn't
have a clue. They're probably right. Most of us voters carry
around a disorderly pile of convictions and prejudices, but few
of us have any knowledge of The Issues and fewer still have any
desire to learn about them.
The same person will vote for Ronald Reagan, and then Bill Clinton,
blissfully oblivious to the fact that these two gentlemen have
almost exactly opposite views of the role of government in the
lives of the people. Politicians know that.
Some political writers tell us comfortingly that even if the
people don't know what they're doing, we always manage to elect
good men to the presidency. No we don't. Richard Nixon had no
business being president of the United States. Neither did Herbert
Hoover, or Warren G. Harding, or James Buchanan. Yet we elected
every single one of them, a few by landslides. Politicians know
that.
There are informed and alert voters. They vote for what they
believe is in their best economic interest. That's not ignoble.
It's just a little narrow.
The situation is worsened by the fact that about 40 percent of
the electorate holds (with varying degrees of ignorance) to one
set of Republican Party beliefs, no matter what, and another
40 percent holds (with varying degrees of ignorance) to Democratic
Party beliefs, no matter what.
Candidates know they can't change the 40 percent in the opposite
camp, and they have their own 40 percent sewed up, so they go
after the swing voters in the remaining 20 percent.
Problem is, the swing voters for the most part are the most uninformed,
fickle and flighty of all voters. They are erratic as butterflies.
But since they are the only voters in play, they are the ones
the campaigns must target.
Since swing voters don't pay enough attention to public affairs
to form a coherent set of opinions, and they don't adhere to
a consistent set of ideological beliefs, the most efficient way
to capture their votes is to frighten and fool them. As a result,
what you see and hear on television and over the radio during
the political season bears as much relation to reality as Sylvester
Stallone does to Tinkerbell. It is godawful.
The ignorance of voters and the fact that politicians try to
con and gull them has been a central fact of politics in the
United States for the last 175 years. But here's the really tough
part. It's not the swing voters' fault. Sure, they should pay
attention. But they don't. They're not interested, and that's
the way it is. They watch football on television, they mow the
lawn, they take the kids to the park. They work hard, usually
at soul-numbing, sweaty jobs. They don't read newspapers very
much. They do their damndest in most areas of their lives, but
their precious free time is not going to be devoted to a judicious
consideration of Al Gore's plans for Social Security, or George
W. Bush's tax cut proposal. Going into that little canvas booth
once every two years or so is their haphazard, lone contact with
the political process.
When
they cast that vote, they are sending a plea to those enigmatic
names in black typeface on the ballot: "Try to make things
better for me somehow. At least don't screw it up any more than
it is now."
The measure of an elected official in our land is how well, after
the campaign and its deceptions, he or she tries to answer that
mute hope - with honesty for the ignorant and uninterested as
well as the knowledgeable and sophisticated.
© 2000 by Charles M. McFadden. The cartoon image is from the IMSI Master/Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA 94901-5506, USA.
Chuck McFadden is a former Sacramento reporter for The Associated Press.
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