"Politics For Dummies"

Guillermo C. Jimenez

On the eve of Election Day, the suspense of an uncertain outcome gives the waning American presidential campaign a certain gravitas, a certain ominous majesty — which, unfortunately, it does not deserve. While it is true that the stakes in this election are enormous, when it comes to content this campaign has been as pathetically vacuous as any in history.Once again the American populace has been treated to a two-year campaign filled with facile slogans, partisan bickering, shameless boasting, craven attacks, assorted outright lies and unbelievable self-expiations. Politics has been reduced to an undignified scrum little better than a fracas between two tribes of baboons. Is this really the same democracy that we trumpet abroad as some sort of example?

It might be worthwhile considering how the country of the Lincoln-Douglas debates got reduced to this sorry state of affairs.

The first culprit is the absurd Electoral College. This archaic contraption effectively disenfranchises three-quarters of the country. If you live in New York, where Kerry may have a 20-point lead, the likelihood of your vote changing the outcome is zero, or close enough. To anyone with common sense, it's hard to see why your choice is "Vote or Die", unless it has now become possible to die of stupidity.

It is the same in most other states. Even worse: in the remaining "swing states", the politicians must focus their energies on the undecided, who commonly represent less than 10% of the public. Thus, you could say that the entire presidential campaign comes down to convincing something like 10% of the voters in 25% of the states.

Even though that math may be approximate, the disturbing conclusion is nonetheless inevitable, that the battle for control of the global superpower hinges on persuading a tiny segment of American voters, a segment composed of frighteningly ignorant people. As political scientists have long established, undecided voters are the least informed and knowledgeable of voters. Anyone who hasn't noticed the vast chasm of policy differences between the two political parties must be, to say the least, somewhat unobservant. Let's call them cognitively challenged.

And yet there they are, and on November 2 they become the most important people in the world, deciders of the fate of nations: the American dummies.

How are they finally convinced, these paragons of political cluelessness? Outright lies and smears seem to work well, particularly if they are vicious and scandalous (e.g, Willie Horton; see also Swift Boat Veterans; etc., ad nauseum).

The tone of the entire campaign is therefore set by the lowest denominator. Informed, intelligent voters are irrelevant, because they have already been captured by one of the two parties. Why should the candidates waste time with well reasoned policy positions, when it's the photo ops and smears that are going to win the war?

True, the candidates' performance in the debates does seem to convince some of the undecided voters. In particular, swing voters are influenced by how the candidates walk and talk — rather than by what they say, which is mostly a sort of re-heated verbal porridge anyway.

The result is that elections now turn on the most ridiculous of trivialities. Make-up becomes all-important; or at least, vastly more important than well-reasoned policy positions. When Nixon sweated, he was finished. When Dukakis reacted to the thought of his wife's rape with the emotional intensity of an oyster, he was gone. When Reagan nodded his head in that corny grandfatherish way of his, the heartland purred, though he was just reading out a script in much the same way he had made Borax commercials. Al Gore learned to his regret that sighing a lot was really bad. Bush learned that grimacing and scowling are not good. We have also recently learned that it's probably better not to mention the lesbian daughters of your opponent's running mates. So much for the political content of the most serious part of the campaign — it has been reduced to nothing more than a mix between high-school recitation and male fashion show. And even that isn't done well.

We should not be surprised if the candidates finally arrive at the following remarkable political recipe: if you can spread around enough vague smears and scandalous lies, if you can stomach endless amounts of shameless boasting and self-congratulation, and if you can also avoid sweating, sighing or grimacing during the debates, all while snapping a carefully-rehearsed joke or two — hey, you may have what it takes to be the leader of the free world.

It's time to say it. This Emperor has no clothes. Our political system is not worthy of an informed electorate. It is time to abolish the Electoral College. We should move to issue-based politics and national referenda like the Swiss have, but this would require the American people to yearn for something more than a marketing contest between Democratic Coke and Republican Pepsi, something more than a presidential Super Bowl of B.S. When the American people refuse to put up with this sham any longer, the media will stop playing the dupe for contrived sound-bites and phony debates.

Ultimately, however, it's not up the American media to demand a better democracy — that's not their job. That responsibility belongs to the American people.

[Guillermo C. Jimenez lives in New York City.]