Print
The Clinton-Obama contest now threatens to take the entire Democratic Party–and maybe America–down with it. Where once the Democrats all but had the keys to the White House in their pockets, now they resemble some drunk staggering home from a bad bar fight who can’t remember what happened to those keys.
Deciding which candidate to blame for this gets has become impossible, because both are guilty. The fault lies not so much in the candidates as in their elders, the leaders of the Democratic Party. This includes former Presidents, former Presidential candidates, and Party officials. The donors to the campaigns also bear responsibility.
Let’s begin with former Presidents. Bill Clinton obviously needs to support his wife, but his conduct has been anything but Presidential. Even his wife’s campaign managers have felt compelled to rein him in. And where is Jimmy Carter, defender of elections in other parts of the world, but unable to raise the voice that won the Nobel Peace Prize to bring peace to his own Party?
As for former candidates, Bill Richardson, John Edwards and company also bear some guilt. Maybe all three have tried to remain neutral in hopes of landing a cabinet post, but that should not prevent them from telling both candidates that any endorsement will go to the candidate who runs the best campaign against John McCain. If the current mudslinging continues, there will be no cabinet posts for anyone.
Meanwhile Democratic Party officials are behaving like referees who have lost control of the game. Start with the much-discussed superdelegates. It would take only a few phone calls for the superdelegates to issue a joint statement condemning negative campaigning along with a pledge to withdraw support for any candidate who goes negative.
Other Party officials seem to have surrendered their ability to control the contest. Democratic Party head Howard Dean has disappeared from sight. The heads of various Democratic Congressional campaign committees have become so anonymous that everyone has forgotten their names. Their inaction is not only self-destructive but stupid since they will need a strong candidate at the head of the ticket to reach their goal of building a veto-proof majority.
Finally there are the people providing the money for all this negative campaigning. I have always wondered why the big donors didn’t get together and refuse to contribute to negative campaigns. There are several major donors to both the Clinton and Obama campaigns who could stop the mud-slinging in a minute by merely threatening to pull their donations. The same goes for PACs like EMILY’s List and ActBlue. The AFL-CIO could also end it by issuing a statement condemning negative campaigning and threatening to withhold support.
The Republican Party, which has enjoyed great success using the so-called Eleventh Commandment, no doubt finds the Democrat’s current problems more than amusing. While the GOP worships ‘Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican,” the Democrats behave like a dysfunctional family. John McCain, who appeared headed for an early exit, now sports a knowing smile that says someone may know where to find those lost White House keys.
That McCain smile no doubt comes from reading the exit poll data from last week which showed that about a quarter of the supporters of either Obama or Clinton have become so riled up by the infighting that if the rival candidate wins, they might just take their votes and stay home. If the Democrats lose a quarter of their own base, not only will neither candidate win, but also the party stands to lose, not gain, Congressional seats. Independents have to be asking whether a Party that cannot handle its own bickering can expect to end our deep national divisions.
Those of us in blogdom have probably been as guilty of mudslinging as the candidates. Instead of the constructive role blogs played in 2004 and 2006, it appears every blog has taken sides and now is engaged in a battle to see who can write the most tasteless invective. Discourse reached a new low for me when one anti-Hillary poster wrote, “All c— and no cattle.” On the other side, the racial invective is just beneath the surface.
As I gaze in the mirror, my own part in this has hardly been commendable. Those of us writing about the campaign have an obligation to enlighten readers about strategy and tactics. We also obviously have the right to support the candidate of our choice. But along with rights come responsibilities. In my own case, I have to admit sometimes I have crossed the line. Perhaps for me, the time has come to back off from personalities and focus on the issues.
It is the issues that have been the real losers. It is not that there is nothing to write about. Try Iraq and the economy for starters. As the media gleefully pour gasoline on the conflagration engulfing the Democrats, notice how these issues have disappeared from the front pages.
The American people realize the country is in trouble. They also know bickering won’t get us out of it. Right now the Democratic Party reminds me of that famous Laurel and Hardy line, “Here’s another fine mess, you’ve gotten me into.”
The irony of all this lies in the fact that were the Democrats to disavow negative campaigning and discipline those candidates who practice it, it could alter America’s political landscape. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I truly believe the American people have become tired of politics as usual and nothing is more symbolic of that than negative campaigning.
The conventional argument is that negative campaigns win, or else why would candidates resort to them, but in Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide, Stephen Ansolabehere and Shanto Iyengar assert:
Alabama to Wyoming, New York to California—candidates have taken the “attack dog” tenor, and their bark has kept many voters away from the polls.
Kim Leslie Fridkin and Patrick J. Kenney of Arizona State University found:
n general, the results suggest that negative messages delivered in a legitimate fashion and focusing on a relevant topic depress evaluations of opponents. In contrast, negative messages containing irrelevant information delivered in an overly strident manner depress evaluations of both candidates involved in the campaign.
In an interview published by Examiner.com, David Mark, former editor in chief of Campaign and Elections magazine and author of Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning offers an interesting explanation that helps explain some of what has occurred so far:
In large, media-driven states like California, Texas or New York many people get their political news through 30-second attack ads. But in other places where retail politics is practiced, candidates will be punished for going too negative.
Mark may have just summed up the 2008 campaign.
He also acknowledges that research is mixed about the impact of negative campaigns. Here some might say the devil lies in the details, but for me the solution lies in principles. Many states have enacted “Stand By Your Ad Rules,” that require candidates to appear in their televised advertisements and take responsibility for those ads, which have helped to curb some of the more abusive practices. Why not a “Stand By Your Campaign Rule?”
When a candidate’s surrogates distribute false emails about a candidate or distort their record, shouldn’t the candidate bear responsibility? Sports analogies are often over-used, but here one may be appropriate: when a player commits a foul or penalty, it is the team that is assessed the cost whether a free throw, fifteen yard walk-off or time in the penalty box. This campaign needs a penalty box.
As for my own part, I may not have control over the candidates or the Democratic Party, but I can do whatever is in my power not to contribute to this mess any further. The alternative is too scary. More about in a future essay.
Print Posted by: liberalamerican
