BAD WORSE - What do you do when you don't like your choices?
BAD WORSE - What do you do when you don't like your choices?
By Rex W. Huppke
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published October 22, 2006
The people of this state are poised to select their next governor, an act that apparently will make many feel like acid-reflux sufferers choosing between a bowl of spicy chili and a plate of hot tamales, with nary a bromide in sight.
A recent Tribune poll found that more than half of potential voters are dissatisfied with the two main-party candidates, Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Republican challenger Judy Baar Topinka. That's a sad state of affairs, even in Illinois politics, and yet another reflection of the widening gulf between consultant-driven politicos and the people they aspire to represent.
"When you're confronted with two people you wouldn't want to spend time with at all, how do you choose?" asked Barbara O'Connor, director of Sacramento State's Institute for the Study of Politics and the Media.
In 2002, more than half of Californians were unhappy with their gubernatorial candidates: incumbent Gray Davis and Republican Bill Simon Jr. Voters were facing what O'Connor called a "level of despair" similar to that currently expressed by folks in Illinois.
Davis won the election, but his marginal popularity sunk so low that he was recalled by voters a year later. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was voted in to replace him. If Illinois were to follow suit, that would put Vince Vaughn in the governor's mansion in Springfield by late 2007.
So, barring a sudden entry by Kanye West, how is a well-intentioned voter to decide?
Robert J. Weber, Northwestern University's Frederic E. Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Decision Sciences, seems an ideal person to ask.
He offers five options:
- Abstain to show both parties you're unhappy.
- Vote for a third-party candidate (which in Illinois is Green Party candidate Rich Whitney), even if he or she is unlikely to win.
- Vote for your less-preferred main-party candidate, to encourage the party you prefer to come up with better candidates.
- Vote for the candidate of the party not currently in office (the "throw the bums out" approach).
- Simply vote along party lines.
"One way or another, you're making a statement, even if you abstain," Weber said. "Unfortunately, given how large a fraction of the voting population abstains in the first place, it's not clear if the parties would get the message."
They certainly haven't gotten it thus far. The result is that voters across the country routinely look at their candidates and say: "Jeez, is this really the best we can do?"
"How many times have you heard people say that in the last 20 or 30 years?" asked Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "Every presidential election [people say], `How did we end up with these two turkeys?' People say it by the millions every election year."
Competing scandals
Sabato recalled the 1994 Virginia senatorial race between Democrat Chuck Robb, who a few years earlier had been embroiled in a scandal involving a former Miss Virginia and a nude massage, and Republican Oliver North, he of the Iran-contra scandal. Robb won, but it wasn't easy for voters.
"That was one of the toughest elections anyone can remember in terms of casting a ballot," Sabato said.
The professor of politics, when faced with undesirable choices, has often opted to cast a write-in vote for native Virginian and founding father Thomas Jefferson.
"He has received more votes from me than any living American," Sabato quipped.
Like many political experts, however, he stresses that not voting is certainly not the answer. "I always tell people, Make sure you vote. Who you vote for is your business, but you want to show up. You don't want to use the fact that you don't like either major candidate as an excuse for not voting."
On a sprawling ranch in Montana, a non-partisan group called Project Vote Smart is working hard to keep voters engaged and, more important, informed. The group has information on nearly 40,000 candidates and elected officials on their Web site, www.vote-smart.org, and on a toll-free hot line, 888-VOTE-SMART or 888-868-3762.
Adelaide Kimball, the group's senior adviser, said it's a constant battle to persuade voters to move past their dissatisfaction and go to the polls adequately informed.
"If citizens are frustrated, if they are unhappy with the choices, if they don't like the way candidates run for office, then they've got to speak up--not just during an election year but all the time," Kimball said. "They have to get to candidates and convince them that they have a responsibility to the voters, not to their political consultants."
Just as it took years for American voters to grow disillusioned, Kimball acknowledged, it's going to take time to improve the quality of political candidates.
"In terms of this election year, you've got what you've got," she said. "But in the long view, changes can be made."
O'Connor, of Sacramento State, empathizes with the numerous voters across the country who, come Nov. 7, will punch their ballots with a sigh.
"It's really counterintuitive to give a vote to somebody you don't like," she said.
Maybe next time, four years from now, Illinois voters will find someone they can truly get behind.
Joan Cusack for governor, anyone?
----------
rhuppke@tribune.com
By Rex W. Huppke
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published October 22, 2006
The people of this state are poised to select their next governor, an act that apparently will make many feel like acid-reflux sufferers choosing between a bowl of spicy chili and a plate of hot tamales, with nary a bromide in sight.
A recent Tribune poll found that more than half of potential voters are dissatisfied with the two main-party candidates, Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Republican challenger Judy Baar Topinka. That's a sad state of affairs, even in Illinois politics, and yet another reflection of the widening gulf between consultant-driven politicos and the people they aspire to represent.
"When you're confronted with two people you wouldn't want to spend time with at all, how do you choose?" asked Barbara O'Connor, director of Sacramento State's Institute for the Study of Politics and the Media.
In 2002, more than half of Californians were unhappy with their gubernatorial candidates: incumbent Gray Davis and Republican Bill Simon Jr. Voters were facing what O'Connor called a "level of despair" similar to that currently expressed by folks in Illinois.
Davis won the election, but his marginal popularity sunk so low that he was recalled by voters a year later. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was voted in to replace him. If Illinois were to follow suit, that would put Vince Vaughn in the governor's mansion in Springfield by late 2007.
So, barring a sudden entry by Kanye West, how is a well-intentioned voter to decide?
Robert J. Weber, Northwestern University's Frederic E. Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Decision Sciences, seems an ideal person to ask.
He offers five options:
- Abstain to show both parties you're unhappy.
- Vote for a third-party candidate (which in Illinois is Green Party candidate Rich Whitney), even if he or she is unlikely to win.
- Vote for your less-preferred main-party candidate, to encourage the party you prefer to come up with better candidates.
- Vote for the candidate of the party not currently in office (the "throw the bums out" approach).
- Simply vote along party lines.
"One way or another, you're making a statement, even if you abstain," Weber said. "Unfortunately, given how large a fraction of the voting population abstains in the first place, it's not clear if the parties would get the message."
They certainly haven't gotten it thus far. The result is that voters across the country routinely look at their candidates and say: "Jeez, is this really the best we can do?"
"How many times have you heard people say that in the last 20 or 30 years?" asked Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "Every presidential election [people say], `How did we end up with these two turkeys?' People say it by the millions every election year."
Competing scandals
Sabato recalled the 1994 Virginia senatorial race between Democrat Chuck Robb, who a few years earlier had been embroiled in a scandal involving a former Miss Virginia and a nude massage, and Republican Oliver North, he of the Iran-contra scandal. Robb won, but it wasn't easy for voters.
"That was one of the toughest elections anyone can remember in terms of casting a ballot," Sabato said.
The professor of politics, when faced with undesirable choices, has often opted to cast a write-in vote for native Virginian and founding father Thomas Jefferson.
"He has received more votes from me than any living American," Sabato quipped.
Like many political experts, however, he stresses that not voting is certainly not the answer. "I always tell people, Make sure you vote. Who you vote for is your business, but you want to show up. You don't want to use the fact that you don't like either major candidate as an excuse for not voting."
On a sprawling ranch in Montana, a non-partisan group called Project Vote Smart is working hard to keep voters engaged and, more important, informed. The group has information on nearly 40,000 candidates and elected officials on their Web site, www.vote-smart.org, and on a toll-free hot line, 888-VOTE-SMART or 888-868-3762.
Adelaide Kimball, the group's senior adviser, said it's a constant battle to persuade voters to move past their dissatisfaction and go to the polls adequately informed.
"If citizens are frustrated, if they are unhappy with the choices, if they don't like the way candidates run for office, then they've got to speak up--not just during an election year but all the time," Kimball said. "They have to get to candidates and convince them that they have a responsibility to the voters, not to their political consultants."
Just as it took years for American voters to grow disillusioned, Kimball acknowledged, it's going to take time to improve the quality of political candidates.
"In terms of this election year, you've got what you've got," she said. "But in the long view, changes can be made."
O'Connor, of Sacramento State, empathizes with the numerous voters across the country who, come Nov. 7, will punch their ballots with a sigh.
"It's really counterintuitive to give a vote to somebody you don't like," she said.
Maybe next time, four years from now, Illinois voters will find someone they can truly get behind.
Joan Cusack for governor, anyone?
----------
rhuppke@tribune.com
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 8:40 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home