Gone to the dogs

Voters are disengaged, and the media are restive and unhappy about it. But don't blame the moronic undecideds -- blame it on a post-political system that rewards money, moderation, and mush.

by Dan Kennedy

As anyone who's heard the phrase "attack-dog politics" or "dogging one's opponent" knows, canine metaphors are hardy perennials along the campaign trail. The October 16 issue of Newsweek, however, introduced something entirely new. You could call it "dogged analysis," but that would hardly begin to do justice to the depth of the contempt it displayed toward those insufferable undecided voters, toward the issues around which George W. Bush and Al Gore have built their dispiriting presidential campaigns, even toward the political process itself. "Going to the dogs" is more like it.

A four-page fold-out chart titled "Family Fundamentals" depicts what is supposed to be a typical American family: a white, prosperous-looking middle-aged couple, their teenage daughter, their preadolescent son, and Grandma. All five ask questions about where the candidates stand on various issues -- worded, in most cases, to make them appear as selfish and self-obsessed as possible. ("We really could use some help with these taxes. Who will get us more money?" "Can either of these guys keep the price at the pump down?" "Both of them help us pay my tuition bills, but I'll still have to wait tables.") Next to their concerns are thumbnail descriptions of where the candidates stand.

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In the fold-out chart, the only intellectual substance is reserved for the family's golden retriever, who complains, "Middle-class humans are so self-centered," and demands answers about the failed drug war, the threat of nuclear catastrophe, relations with an ever-more-powerful China, and the gap between rich and poor. "The next president will have to handle a complex series of unpredictable and rapidly changing technological, economic, and environmental problems in the context of disorienting globalization. Bow-wow!" proclaims what is indisputably the most sentient being in the room. Alas, Fido -- unlike his dimwitted masters -- does not receive a response to his concerns.

There are just two and a half weeks to go before Election Day, and the presidential race is the closest since 1960, when John F. Kennedy barely edged out Richard Nixon. Yet the public is tuning out. The broadcast networks scaled back their coverage of the staged, scripted conventions, and viewership of the parts that were broadcast was down considerably. The three presidential debates drew audiences of 47 million, 37 million, and 37 million -- barely two-thirds the number who watched in 1992, the last time the presidential race was hotly contested. The highly touted political Web sites fizzled; Voter.com, which boasts the presence of Watergate legend Carl Bernstein, announced layoffs in the middle of the campaign. Increasingly, political-news coverage is targeted toward the niche audience that watches the Sunday-morning talk shows and the all-news cable networks: readers of elite national newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post and political magazines like the pro-Gore New Republic and the pro-Bush Weekly Standard.

In the past few weeks, it has become especially fashionable among the media to bash the undecided focus groups: the pathologically uninformed stars of the post-debate shows. This past weekend, for instance, they were skewered unmercifully on Saturday Night Live, which has captured the political pulse this fall better than it has in years. At one point during a debate sketch, Bush practically begs a woman who says she's pro-choice, opposed to big oil companies, and in favor of HMO reform to vote for Gore, yet she continues to insist she can't make up her mind.

A front-page analysis in the October 17 Wall Street Journal by John Harwood and Jackie Calmes put it this way: "Many undecided voters may resolve their doubts less by sifting through the issues than by forming general impressions of the candidates in the campaign's final days. `These soft voters do not have a coherent set of beliefs,' says one senior Bush campaign strategist. `If we hear more about "Gore the Fibber" than "Bush the Bumbler," that would do it.' "

The Journal adds, "Right now, it appears that the election will turn on who among them actually shows up to vote." God help us.

"At some point in an election, an `undecided voter' becomes a euphemism for stupid and lazy, and that time is now," says Tucker Carlson, a staff writer for the Weekly Standard and a commentator for CNN. Carlson's solution: don't encourage them. "We've got to stop pretending that everyone should vote. Maybe democracy by the interested is good."

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Dan Kennedy's work can be accessed from his Web site: http://www.dankennedy.net

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Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com

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Articles from July 24, 1997 & before can be accessed here

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