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Bill
Hamilton, one of the now long-gone political
pollsters who helped start the whole professional
approach to political campaigning decades ago,
used to tell his clients to take care not to
become slaves to the survey research he conducted.
“Remember that the reason a voter gives us an
answer is because we asked him a question,”
Hamilton advised. “It doesn’t mean that he
actually was thinking about it at the time.”
What
Hamilton knew is that professional consultants in
election-year politics could influence answers by
posing leading questions. A pollster certainly can
capture answers and percentages of voters who feel
a certain way or support a certain position. But
there can be a false certainty in numbers.
Hamilton, therefore, liked to share with his
clients what are termed “open-ended answers,”
the comments and observations those being polled
offered voluntarily in the course of the
conversation.
What
Hamilton lived to see and to condemn is the almost
exclusive focus on the numbers produced by what
are termed “wedge issues” in campaign
communications. Wedge issues are selected
specifically to emphasize the differences between
and among candidates and to polarize voters.
“Voters need real choices,” trumpet the
consultants, who cite such tactics as what works
for winning candidates for office. Just as
certainly, of course, such tactics do not work for
the other half of the candidates who lose
elections. And just as certainly they work against
the goal of identifying a broader public interest
and the ability of candidates to translate that
interest into successful governance, i.e. solve
real problems faced by citizens and specific
jurisdictions.
Consider
the tired, unimaginative agenda put forward thus
far by candidates on behalf of their consultants
in the 2005 Virginia elections. Though discussion
of these particular wedge issues began decades ago
and though differences will never be resolved, one
must conclude from the comments of most candidates
thus far that taxes last year, guns, gay marriage,
the death penalty and abortion are the five most
critical issues in Virginia’s future. In
reality, these issues are red herrings that are
dragged back and forth across the debate stage on
the advice of professional political consultants
bent on rerunning their last campaigns. Perhaps
the ultimate red herring, if these issues are
taken to their logical conclusion, is in order:
Impose the death penalty for raising taxes,
restricting guns, marrying gays or seeking an
abortion!
Candidates,
unfortunately, hesitate even to scratch the
surface on the issues most Virginians actually
think about and face every day. Candidates make
philosophical and platitudinous statements about
the value of public education or investing in the
transportation system, of course, but shy away
from real answers to real questions.
How
does my child get into a state university five
years from now if we don’t build the room and
the faculty? Why isn’t it easier to start a
technology business here than in other states? If
Northern Virginia is creating all the new jobs in
the state, what are the rest of us supposed to
change? How can I expect to get to and from work
in ten years if we don’t start making road,
bridge and rail improvements now? Are my child’s
high school math and science teachers going to be
qualified and able to keep her attention? What are
we doing now to ensure there will be enough nurses
and other health workers when I get old? Why
aren’t we replacing those ancient coal-burning
energy plants that trigger my asthma instead of
protecting them? If the terrorists aren’t
supposed to succeed in snuffing our freedoms, why
am I supposed to submit to random searches? What
is the plan to stop farm runoff into the
Chesapeake Bay and for that matter, the
Shenandoah? What if the military base does move?
Are those dogs going to attack my child next? Fill
in the question you actually are thinking about
here.
It
would be nice to think that candidates for
elective office eventually will get to these and
other questions that Virginians really have on
their minds. But these are complex questions. They
are tough to fit into a poll or a newspaper
headline or the six o’clock news. They don’t
lend themselves to simple answers. That makes them
as low on the list of the professional political
consultants as they are high on the minds of the
public. That is the tragedy of politics in
Virginia today and could be a primary reason a
majority of Virginians who could vote never do.
They get neither the “adequate reflection of
their views,” nor the “judgment” Edmund
Burke suggested their representatives owe them,
only the tyranny of the political cynics.
Yet,
exactly because they are tough questions, they
need to be discussed. Because they will require
innovative answers, some compromises and
tradeoffs, often a bipartisan and sustained
effort, they need to be tackled by every
candidate. First, however, citizens, corporate
executives, neighborhood groups, associations and
political reporters must pose them as the real
questions facing the Commonwealth and must demand
answers from everyone seeking elective office.
The
alternative of being force fed last decade’s
agenda is a weakening of our representative
democracy with leaders who stiff-arm any different
point of view. The alternative is an erosion in
our quality of life and deadening of our
commitment to freedom and opportunity for all with
leaders who lack vision. Like the red herrings
brought too often in front of the stage lights,
that kind of future smells pretty bad.
--
July 25, 2005
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