More Than the Presidency Is at Stake

The presidential election is the big deal every four years because that single office is the only one that is determined by a nationwide vote, and with it the future of the entire country is at stake. All Senate and House seats are filled as the result of votes only in each state or congressional district. Yet the Senate and House elections will, collectively, play a big role in determining what happens nationally, because Congress makes the laws and determines national spending.

In the case of most House seats, however, voters will face a growing frustration. The accumulated gerrymandering of congressional districts over the years means that very few elections for the House will be decided by less than a 10 percent margin. In other words, your Democratic or Republican representative will almost certainly win reelection, and even the open seats will likely be retained by the same party. Voters have less and less choice at election time.

For this reason, an unusual ballot initiative in Colorado is well worth watching. If a majority of voters approves the initiative, Colorado would become the first state to award its electoral college votes for the president on a proportional basis instead of a winner-takes-all basis. In the future, if the presidential vote in Colorado were to go Republican, for example, all nine of the state's electoral college votes would not go to the Republican presidential candidate but would be divided between the candidates based on the percentage of the popular vote each received in the state. The Democratic candidate could get as many as four electoral college votes even if the Republican candidate won a majority of the popular vote, or vice versa.

Two states already have systems that are more proportional than other states in awarding electoral college votes. Maine and Nebraska give the statewide winner of the presidential race two electoral votes but allow the presidential candidate who wins in each congressional district to win an electoral vote. If Colorado makes the change proposed on its November ballot initiative, a momentum might begin to build across the country to make voting for the president more proportional so that the winner of the popular vote is more likely to win in the electoral college.

More than half of the states this year include other important initiatives on their November ballots dealing with issues such as same-sex "marriage," taxes, and gambling or lotteries. Voters get to "legislate" directly on these issues. Thus, in this election, careful and concerned voters must give attention to a variety of different policy concerns and be alert to the differences among candidates running for election at federal, state, and local levels.

Campaign Rhetoric and Governing

Unfortunately, the farther one moves from local to presidential races, the more difficult it becomes to cut through the electioneering rhetoric to get to political reality. What it takes to win a presidential election campaign seems to have little to do with governing.

Take just one example. Sen. John Kerry berates President Bush on the campaign trail for having increased the national debt by trillion's of dollars and having no plan to reduce the deficits. Kerry promises to cut the deficit in half in four years. George W. Bush, on the other hand, tells voters not to trust a tax-and-spend Democrat to reduce the deficits, because Kerry will only make them worse. If you are a voter who is upset with Bush's deficit spending, big tax giveaways, and failure to offer a realistic plan for reducing the deficit, then you are supposed to vote for Kerry. If, on the other hand, you believe the president's campaign talk and distrust Democrats, then you are supposed to vote for Bush. That's what the campaign sound bites tell you.

What would actually happen during the next four years if Bush or Kerry wins the presidency? We don't know for sure, of course, because presidents seldom govern on the basis of their campaign promises and they must work with Congress and deal with emergencies. But a comparative study of the taxing, tax-cutting, and spending promises made by both campaigns concludes that both Bush and Kerry would, over the next ten years, add about the same amount to the federal deficit, namely, about $1.3 trillion (Washington Post, 8/25/04).

To make the point another way, if either candidate were really to make deficit reduction a priority, then his spending promises would evaporate. Either the deficits go up or taxes go up, or the promises to solve looming crises in Social Security and health care, for example, mean nothing. Campaign talk has increasingly become a means of telling voters what they want to hear, or expressing what the candidate wishes could be true if reality were not what it is.

This is true not only on the side of promising a better future, but also on the side of admitting mistakes and accounting for failures. President Bush continues to say that we are winning the "war" against terrorism, bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan, and entering a period of revived economic growth. On the campaign trail there is no explanation of past misjudgments or apology for failures. Even as The Wall Street Journal (9/2/04) endorsed Bush for a second term, it complained, "If only Mr. Bush had been as forceful in settling disputes among his national security team. A blood feud—the CIA and State versus the Pentagon—meant that many vital decisions on Iraq were split down the middle or left to fester." And with respect to Bush's dealings with Congress, the editorial continued, "we wish Mr. Bush had been bolder. His failure to veto a single bill has only encouraged Congressional spendthrifts. On Medicare, he settled too easily for too little reform, saddling taxpayers with untold billions in future liabilities."

Kerry does not need to account for a past presidential term, but his assurances that he will turn around foreign, military, and economic policies sound equally uncritical and unconvincing, unless, of course, one believes that anyone other than George W. Bush will do better. The Washington Post editors (7/30/04) complained of Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic convention that he "missed an opportunity for straight talk. His promises to stop the outsourcing of jobs and end dependence on Middle East oil are not grounded in reality. And Mr. Kerry failed to acknowledge the fiscal challenge posed by the imminent retirement of the baby boom generation, with its call on Medicare and Social Security. To the contrary, he raised the issue of Social Security only to reaffirm that he would not cut benefits—a promise that a President Kerry might come to regret."

Apparently, the rule for campaigning is never to speak a cautionary or apologetic word about one's own achievements and plans, however unsuccessful they have been or unrealistic they may be, and always to say something negative and discouraging about one's opponent. But don't take our word for this. To learn more about the stances of the two presidential candidates and in some cases to read more extensive policy positions, go to their web sites:  http://www.georgewbush.com (and) http://www.johnkerry.com.

Going Behind the Rhetoric

In this issue of the Public Justice Report we include election-year articles on social policy and the economy. The last issue compared the presidential candidates on health care policy and included an assessment of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. The first two issues of the year dealt with the same-sex "marriage" debate, religion and politics, foreign and defense policies, and the Middle East. These assessments are intended to shed light on some of the realities that are overlooked or covered over by campaign propaganda and the typical media coverage.

Even more important than deciding how to vote on November 2 is deciding how to become an ever more mature and responsible citizen over the long term. Voting is one among many responsibilities that citizens in a democratic country are free to exercise. Voting is not the goal of the process, but rather a means. If you don't agree with the decisions being made by your state's legislature or Congress, and if you wish you had representatives who better represented your view of life and government, then a long-term approach is required to help train better leaders and to educate citizens more fully. To say this is like saying that the chief goal for a couple who has fallen in love is not figuring out how to have a splendid wedding ceremony but rather preparing to nurture a life-long marriage. The wedding ceremony is but a step, one event, a means along the way of married life. Participating in a national election should be a regularly repeated act in the life-long exercise of one's citizenship. The goal of citizenship should be the fashioning of a more just country and a more just world, not merely to vote in elections.

With each passing year, we citizens should be gaining in maturity and depth of insight about what political leadership requires. We should not merely return to the race track every four years to see who wins the horse race. Instead, we should be developing the quality of our civic life day after day, year after year. And that means cooperative engagement through organizations such as the Center for Public Justice to equip citizens, develop leaders, and help shape just policies. This year you may decide to vote for George W. Bush because he takes a pro-life stance, opposes stem cell research, advocates tax cuts, and talks tough against terrorism. Or you may decide to vote for him because you think he would do less harm to the country than John Kerry would do over the next four years. Or perhaps you may decide to vote for Kerry instead of Bush, because Kerry wants to reverse growing anti-Americanism in the world, promises to reduce tax cuts for the rich, proposes a different solution to the health care crisis, and intends to do more to protect the environment. Or you may vote for Kerry simply because you strongly oppose Bush.

Whatever you do about your presidential vote, don't think that you have fulfilled your civic obligation for 2004 if you go to the polls on November 2. There is much more than that to consider and to do at the local, state, and national levels over the long term. We need a new approach to politics and government in America. Take the additional steps necessary to help prepare the next generation to make that possible.

—The Editor