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EDITORIAL: The morning after: Regardless of who won, the body politic probably has a headache
(Daily Press (Newport News, VA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Nov. 8--Twenty million dollars. That's the approximate figure for how much George Allen and Jim Webb will have spent on a Senate campaign that is, blessedly, over this morning.
Congratulations to the victor, unknown as of the deadline for this page on Tuesday. Whoever it is has a great deal of work to do, and here's a suggestion, something to add to the list:
Fix the process. Save us from another $20 million campaign that leaves people feeling not informed, but insulted.
It's the same process that had Thelma Drake and Phil Kellam belittling and abusing each other in their 2nd District House race. And yes, it's part of the same process that gave voters little or no choice in the other congressional races in Hampton Roads.
It's a process that's broken. That drives many normal people away from politics. That feeds apathy and cynicism. That leaves even the winners stained and tainted.
So it would serve the winners well, whoever they may be this morning, to put some of their energy and clout to work to give us a better system. That would be the right thing to do. And, from a pragmatic point of view, it would be good politics to line up on the right side of this issue, given that change is coming anyway.
Two points: One is about the choices involved in old-fashioned politics and the other about the inevitability of Internet-driven change.
First, the politics. Here's where the winners can show that their standard lamentation about the negativity of campaigns is something other than self-serving boilerplate to be forgotten the moment the votes are counted. It will require them to encourage members of the General Assembly to adopt a less-partisan method for drawing political districts. Granted, statewide campaigns, such as for U.S. Senate or the governor's office, are not directly affected by redistricting. But they sit, if you will, atop a process that is poisoned by partisanship, the kind of rabid political tribalism that is a turnoff to most people.
The way redistricting is done now, the party that controls the General Assembly can use computers and sophisticated mapping technology to draw "designer" districts that strengthen incumbents, especially those who are members of the majority party. What's the outcome? Most General Assembly elections, for the state Senate and the House of Delegates, are nearly meaningless because the incumbent is either unopposed or faces only a weak candidate. This is true because the party that's out of power knows that the demographics of the district are so unfavorable that it is, bottom line, a waste of time and money to try to run.
Draw the lines further apart for the larger congressional districts, and you still have the same issue. Republicans know they can't beat Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott in the 3rd District, so Scott won Tuesday -- unopposed. In too many elections, there is simply no meaningful choice because the system is designed, at its core, to serve the interests of the incumbents.
To get the General Assembly to change this process will be something akin to getting barking dogs to purr. Pressure from U.S. senators and members of the House of Representatives might help.
Second, the Internet. Recall that $20 million Allen and Webb spent. What did the voters get for that money? What did they actually learn about the candidates or the issues?
Here's a good answer: something midway between nothing and next to nothing.
Television advertising is what drives the costs of political campaigns. Yet the format for such ads -- 20 seconds, maybe 30 -- is singularly unsuitable for meaningful discourse. It isn't about thinking. It's about getting people to turn off their brains and react emotionally. It isn't about discussing information. It's about butchering bits and pieces of "facts" and rearranging them to produce lies.
The Internet is not without its flaws, but here's where it holds immense promise for changing the nature of campaigns:
It's cheap. You don't need a lot of money to have a big presence online.
It's volume friendly. Air time, and therefore information, is constrained on television. The Internet is a veritable galaxy of information.
It's user friendly. Voters can seek, maybe even demand, the information they need in a time and place they define. Alternative views are readily available. The truth squad is online.
Politics is a rough-and-tumble affair, and that isn't necessarily bad. But if voters are to have a reasonable expectation of a decent result out of Washington, they have to have an intelligent process determining who and what goes in. This just-concluded, wretched campaign will have done some good if it undermines the current process and gives us something new and better.
Copyright (c) 2006, Daily Press, Newport News, Va.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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