Political Ground War Has Its Casualties

The Hill

November 7, 2002

That was some election wasn't it? Of course, you know far more about it than I, since, when you read this it will have actually taken place—while as I write it, I don't have a clue how it will turn out. A political analysis of an election that must be turned in before the votes are counted is, shall we say, difficult to put together.

Actually, regardless of the makeup of the House or whether we're all going to get to know more than we ever wanted to know about Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and young Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), I think it is more accurate to suggest that everyone including the parties lost on Tuesday.

After all, both parties managed to spend more money than anyone would have imagined possible a decade ago without creating much of a wave, nationalizing the campaign, defining the issues, or changing all that many votes. That is quite an accomplishment when you think about it at a time when there are very real differences between the parties.

The Democrats apparently outdid themselves in getting out votes that don't exist, running roughshod over laws they demand be enforced against their opponents and generally acting like a party devoid of ideas, but convinced it can manipulate the system to hold onto and even increase its power.

In Chicago, the Daley machine and its union allies got caught telling city employees to contribute to and work (on city time) for Democratic candidates or expect a pink slip. That this took place in a state where many employees of the incumbent Republican governor are under indictment for doing just about the same thing shows a unique disdain for the very concept of equal justice.

Actually though, a Chicago election scandal seems oddly appropriate in a campaign that came off as a sort of throwback to an earlier time. Before it was over, we even had former Vice President Walter Mondale (D-Minn.) denouncing the very idea of reducing our taxes and playing Reagan to his senatorial campaign opponent, the younger and less experienced Norm Coleman (R). Meanwhile, the president and his White House seemed busy trying to return to the days of Richard Nixon who, like Lyndon Johnson before him, was pretty adept at keeping the public focused on an overseas war to the detriment of opponents who came off as unpatriotic and small-minded for trying to draw his attention back toward problems on the domestic front. It worked then and, by golly, it worked this time.

The result of all this was that an election, the outcome of which will have enormous consequences over the next few years, was decided by voters who felt for the most part that the two parties aren't all that different. The Democrats couldn't pin the blame for big business misdeeds on the GOP because their leadership was in the very same bed with the very same special interests. The Republicans faced similar problems because they really didn't want to go beyond the mouthing of slogans in most races. There were plenty of epithets and a lot of rhetoric, but most of it was even shallower than we have come to expect in recent years.

Democrats like Sen. Jean Carnahan in Missouri did essentially the same thing. Faced with criticism of her position on Second Amendment issues, Carnahan joined the National Rifle Association (NRA) and headed for the skeet range...probably wearing an NRA pin.

Think about this when you hear a Democrat saying today that the elections represented a repudiation of the Bush tax cuts or a White House spokesman suggesting that the people have, against all historic precedent, given their unqualified support to everything the president wants to do simply because they didn't send every Republican in sight packing.

The fact is that in today's world, our elections are increasingly decided not on the issues (which most candidates attempt to neutralize), but by flying squads of get out the vote experts and lawyers. Democrats brag about their ability to "knock & drag" their base voters to the polls and Republicans respond with task forces that inundate Republican voters with telephone calls cajoling, begging and, ultimately, demanding that they vote.

This is what both parties call the "ground game." A ground game combined with a meaningful discussion of the issues makes sense, but dragging folks to the polls instead of discussing the issues that might motivate them provides no mandate for anyone.

David Keene is the chairman of the American Conservative Union and a managing associate with the Carmen Group, a Washington, D.C.-based governmental-affairs firm.