BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
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click
here.
Friday, July 23, 2004
STAY TUNED THIS WEEKEND!
I'll be blogging daily at and around the Democratic National
Convention, including throughout this weekend, so if you're not an
e-mail subscriber to Media Log, please check in frequently. I'm going
to try to take a camera to some events and post those as
well.
Also, the Phoenix staff will
be posting reports all week here.
NO MORE MUSH FOR THE MUDDLED.
Consider the Undecided Voter. He or she is a sorry specimen.
Though surely there are some undecideds who are knowledgeable
about and interested in politics, the general rule is that our U.V.
is disconnected, unaware, bored, and will, in the end, choose on the
basis of John Kerry's hair, or George W. Bush's smirk.
The quest for the U.V. is why
presidential candidates generally say so little that matters. Look at
the 2000 race, a time when - if you listened to the campaign rhetoric
- it appeared that the most important issue on the face of the earth
was whether senior citizens could afford their prescription drugs.
Now, this is not an issue without importance. Still, it was perfectly
obviously that Bush's and Al Gore's handlers had decided this was the
best way of appealing to that narrow sliver of undecided voters
without alienating anyone who had already decided to support them. It
wasn't pretty.
But things may be different this
time. The Boston Globe's Anne Kornblut and Susan Milligan
reported
recently on the Bush phenomenon of catering to the conservative base
in hopes of driving up turnout. They quoted anti-tax activist Grover
Norquist as saying, "Forty-five percent of the country is for Bush,
forty-five percent of the country is for Kerry. How much time do you
spend trying to talk to the 10 percent in the middle who don't know
what they think?"
The conventional wisdom is that
this opens up some room for Kerry in the middle, and perhaps it does.
But what if Norquist's 45-45 figure is actually too low? What if it's
more like 48-48, with four percent undecided (with a point or two for
Ralph Nader)?
That may indeed be the case. Last
night, I attended an event at the Mary Baker Eddy Library in which
three Christian
Science Monitor
journalists - White House reporter Linda
Feldmann, political
reporter Liz
Marlantes, and editor Paul
Van Slambrouck, who moderated - kicked it around. What struck me
about Feldmann's and Marlantes's observations was that, in 2004,
almost no one is undecided.
Unlike 2000, this is seen as an
important race about vital issues. "In this election, it seems that
everything is on the table," said Feldmann - war, terrorism, foreign
relations, the economy, and lesser but highly polarizing issues such
as same-sex marriage and Supreme Court appointments. As a result, she
noted, a recent poll showed that the level of voter engagement is
already the same as it was in October 2000, just before that
election.
"There are precious few undecided
voters out there," said Marlantes. She observed that she recently
interviewed
potential voters in Pennsylvania, one of about 17 swing states, and
found that "people are very, very sure which way they're going to
vote."
At that point, Van Slambrouck asked
for a show of hands from the several hundred people in the audience.
Who, he asked, is undecided? Maybe three hands went up.
Which raises an interesting
possibility for the Kerry campaign. Whether you support Kerry or not,
you have to concede that his greatest difficulty as a politician is
his reluctance to take clear, decisive stands on issues. Partly this
is admirable - we live in a world of nuance and grays, and someone
who understands that would be an obvious improvement over what we've
got now. But Kerry takes it to a new level. As Marlantes observed,
when it comes to specific issues, Kerry may not be any more of a
flip-flopper than Bush. (Remember compassionate conservatism? The
faith-based initiative? The promise to stay away from
nation-building?) But Kerry, she said, has the "personality" of
someone who doesn't come off as particularly decisive.
But if there more votes to be
gotten by appealing to the Democratic base rather than pandering to
the U.V.s in the middle, Kerry has an opportunity to articulate a
clear vision of what he wants to do with the presidency should he win
it.
It will start with the Democratic
National Convention. I asked Marlantes and Feldmann what they think
Kerry most needs to get out of the event. Their answers fit well with
the drive-up-your base scenario. Marlantes said Kerry needs to
introduce himself to the country - even to those who already say they
support him, noting that, to an unprecedented degree, the public is
choosing on the basis of party affiliation rather than person. "A lot
of voters still say they don't know very much about John Kerry,"
Marlantes said. Added Feldmann: "This convention is essentially a big
pep rally. They want Democrats to get excited."
What this could add up to is
something very different from- and potentially better than - the mush
to which we've been subjected in recent years. In honor of Dick
Morris, call it the End of Triangulation.
WHAT IF THE U.S. WERE MORE LIKE
MASSACHUSETTS? There were would be more cops and less crime.
There would be higher taxes, but much higher incomes. There would be
more bipartisanship and ticket-splitting. The country would be more
liberal, but not by as much as out-of-staters might think.
Something for Democratic National
Convention delegates to ponder
in the latest CommonWealth
magazine.
TECH UPDATE. The celebrating
was premature, but now it's official: I managed to get Claris Home
Page back onto my iBook, so the formatting problems of the past week
should be history.
posted at 12:06 PM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
