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Vanishing Voter Is Reappearing to Cast Ballot This Year
By Dennis LaRue"The Vanishing Voter" -- Thomas E. Patterson's phrase -- has been re engaged in this presidential campaign, Patterson said Monday, and could well tip the election to John F. Kerry Nov. 2.Patterson, Bradlee professor of government and the press at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, spoke at Youngstown State University at the third annual Freshman Readers' Symposium. His latest book, The Vanishing Voter: Civic Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty (Knopf, 2002), is required reading for all entering students this year.Americans perceive "this as one of the most important elections of our lifetimes," Patterson said, as evidenced by increased voter registration, both Republicans and Democrats, and the number who watched the presidential debates this fall. On average, he reported, 15 million more Americans watched each debate than in 2000 when Al Gore ran against George W. Bush."We could see a 60% turnout -- and we need it," Patterson said. Such a figure would be the highest since 1960 when just under two-thirds of the electorate turned out. That year John Kennedy won the popular vote by just over 100,000 and handily won in the Electoral College.In 2000 and 1996, just over half of those eligible to vote did so, Patterson said. The number who vote in the states that hold presidential primaries is even worse, he noted, in some cases -- when no candidate has the nomination sewed up -- the average is just over 20% and it's "even been as low a 15%."So why the comparatively intense interest this year? The three most obvious reasons, as Patterson sees it, are a "wobbly" economy, a war in Iraq that continues to claim U.S. casualties with no viable exit strategy, and that Bush has been the most divisive president in recent history.When the president campaigned in 2000, Patterson recalled, he talked about being "a uniter, not a divider." Instead, the Gallup poll, which dates to the early 1930s, finds him "to be the greatest divider" since it began conducting surveys measuring job approval. "Ninety percent of Republicans approve of President Bush and only 10% of Democrats," Gallup found.Not so obvious reasons for decline in voter participation, as Patterson sees it, are "the conduct of the [national] news media," which he described as "largely a destructive force in our democracy," and the rise of "interest groups who cause politics to be less and less competitive." By donating to incumbents' campaign war chests -- 90% of political contributions go to incumbents -- the electorate has a sense that their voices count for little, Patterson said.Harvard's Bradlee professor is also concerned that politics has become a career, not a period of public services, for the majority who enter public life. "Careerism is a relatively new idea," Patterson asserted. "It used to be [elected] officials had something to return to. They had a life [outside of politics]. Today, there's no tomorrow if you're a politician and you lose."Despite the high visibility of career politicians in American history, Patterson said careerism "is a post World War II phenomenon. Before that, it was not unusual to have a 50% turnover in Congress after an election." In 2002, 98% of the incumbents who sought reelection were returned. Of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives, only 25 are competitive.The electoral map of California, which has 53 House seats, has been drawn such that all districts are either reliably Republican or safely Democratic, he said.Also turning the electorate off, Patterson said, is the willingness of those seeking public office to condone unsavory efforts in their behalf (while denying knowledge of these efforts) and discovering there is no penalty for telling lies, half-truths, stretching the facts and uttering true but misleading statements. The smear campaigns against John McCain in South Carolina in the 2000 Republican presidential primary and against Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., in his re-election bid in 2002 were among the most blatant, Patterson said.Nitpicking by elections officials -- such as Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's insistence that would-be voters fill out forms on 80-pound stock paper for their registration to be considered valid -- also repels voters, he continued.So many citizens' lack of interest in the news hurts democracy, Patterson said. Part of this can be attributed to the negative coverage accorded politics and those engaged in the field. When in 1968, coverage of both major candidates was half positive, 25% neutral and 25% negative, those figures are today reversed, Patterson reported. Since 1988, no winning candidate has garnered more positive than negative coverage in the national media.And electronic reporters make themselves the story rather than the candidates, he continued. Where once candidates were given 35- to 40 second soundbites to explain their positions on the 6:30 p.m. national news, today it's 7 to 8 seconds. "Today it's six minutes for a reporter to tell a story and only one minute for a candidate [to tell his position in his own words]."A Gresham's Law of journalism seems to have taken hold. "Controversies drive coverage," he continued. The insignificant, trivial and indiscretions from long ago crowd out examination of the issues: witness George W. Bush's drunk driving arrest in the late '60s, just before the election of 2000. That got more coverage than all air time given foreign policy issues in 2000, Patterson noted.This year is no better as Bush's service in the National Guard has received as intense scrutiny as John Kerry's service in Vietnam.Despite all this -- a cynical national media, the growth in numbers and power of interest groups, careerism, no penalties for lying and efforts to keep people from voting -- Patterson sees reason for optimism this year. "Ordinary citizens are taking matters into their own hands," he said. The level of involvement he saw in the Iowa caucuses reminded him of the foot soldiers who got involved to protest the war in Vietnam and Watergate."Churches are getting involved," he reported. "There's a flood of new voters." Where it was easy to register in 1992 and 1992 -- registration was taken to potential voters at libraries and bureaus of motor vehicles-- this year people are seizing the initiative to register and to get their family, friends and neighbors to vote, Patterson said."Small donors are coming out of the woodwork," he said, citing the many small contributions secured via the Internet that fueled the Howard Dean phenomenon. And while Republicans are working hard to enroll and register their base, the Democrats, as he sees it, are having more success."The key to this election is young people," Patterson stated. "There's a 10 to 12% increase in this bracket." He sees them as more likely to vote for Kerry if they make it to the polls. But Patterson has no statistics on how many who register for the first time actually vote. Patterson's book, The Vanishing Voter, summarizes a study of citizen involvement in the 2000 election campaign. The project was funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.Visit the Vanishing Voter at www.vanishingvoter.orgContact Dennis LaRue at [email protected]"