By Dick Miller
CONNECT THE DOTS: Historians may decide the real beginning of the nation’s political war against civility occurred in 2004. (Henceforth, that’s “Pee-WAC” for short.) Some would argue this assault against civility in our Democracy began in 2000 when George W. Bush got fewer votes nationally than Al Gore.
The 2000 race featured a razor thin margin in Florida after a prolific argument over the hanging chads punched (or not punched!) out of voter cards followed by a “party-line” vote of the U.S. Supreme Court. Still, it was Gore who did the civil thing, conceding rather than continuing to litigate.
“Pee-WAC” achieved “full-scale, take-no-prisoner status in 2004” with the defeat of Tom Daschle, the Democrat leader of the Senate.
Daschle, of South Dakota, was the first person to hold a US Senate leadership slot and lose re-election to his seat in 52 years. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., broke the Chamber’s unwritten protocol and campaigned personally in South Dakota for the winner, John Thune.
Two years earlier, Thune had failed to defeat Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson by only 524 votes, but — in an expression of civility – did not ask for a recount.
In 2004, Karl Rove called many of the shots in the Thune-Daschle race from his White House roost. The turnout was a record for South Dakota.
The $30 million spent made it the year’s most expensive “local” election. No one disagreed that only the Bush-John Kerry race cast a longer shadow. On Election Day, Daschle secured a court injunction to prevent Republican poll workers from intimidating Indian voters.
The 2004 election year was also significant for another political tactic. In every battleground state that had a referendum process (PA doesn’t.) Rove attempted to get the same-sex marriage issue on the ballot. He believed that more voters inclined to oppose same-sex marriages, coming out, would boost Bush’s fortunes.
While computers had been put in play to re-draw voting districts, manipulation became really effective using the 2000 census data. The party controlling the process in every state could not only gerrymander to its maximum benefit, but make it more difficult to overturn such tactics in court. Republicans seemed to “own” this process because they tended to win control of state legislatures and courts in states that traditionally voted Democrat for President (PA included.).
Republicans are fighting “Pee-WAC” on two fronts. Winning elections, of course, is always what politics is about. Putting people in office who agree with you is how to elevate your ideas to reality in a Democracy.
“How” to win elections — an evolving process — is the second “Pee-WAC” front. Not having party membership exceeding your opposition is the problem and comes with varied solutions, according to the “Book of Karl.”
One solution requires voter identification when presenting yourself to vote. The majority of elderly registered to vote are Democrats and many are easily intimidated by the I.D. requirement. There are “tweaks” within the requirement that extends this war tactic. In Texas, for example, using your concealed handgun permit as a form of voter I.D. is okay, college student registration cards are not. Ending same-day voter registration and shortening early voting periods are two more voter depression tactics.
The latest “Pee-WAC” tactic is an assault on the Electoral College. There are only two states now (Nebraska and Maine) that award Electoral
College votes in a Presidential election to the winner of each Congressional District plus two more votes for “winner-take-all” statewide. Virginia is on a legislative tract to become the third state. The remaining states each hold “winner-take-all” elections.
Republicans want to change to the piecemeal process in at least four states where that party controls state government, but President Obama won the popular vote in both 2008 and 2012. In addition to Virginia, the other three states are Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Democrats, including Obama, have been long on rhetoric, railing against these tactics, but short on the guts and intelligence necessary to wage a successful war. And most disappointing, Democrats have been known to not show up for “Pee-WAC.”
One test comes up next year with the re-election campaign of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY. More on that as it develops.
