Amid an avalanche
of campaign money and attack ads, it is easy to miss the real
story - partisan fights may be hitting a fever pitch, but a popular
backlash is brewing. Electorates are growing less predictable
in their politics and the red state-blue state divide is beginning
to be exposed as overly simplistic.
Perhaps the
best example is the one closest to home. With the possible exception
of San Francisco, no city in America has been more crudely caricatured
as knee-jerk liberal than New York. But when New York seems poised
to vote for a Republican mayor for the fourth consecutive election
- by what might be an historic margin - the old labels no longer
fit.
The mayor's
cruise toward reelection indicates not only the strength of his
record in office and the success of his centrist campaign strategy,
but also the power of unlimited campaign cash. Extensive outreach
to immigrant communities in native language ads, as well as ads
featuring testimonials of support from celebrity Democrats in
a seven month blanketing of the airwaves have transformed a mayor
who had not been able to exceed 50% job approval rating during
his first three years in office into the overwhelmingly favored
candidate across ethnic, religious, and political grounds. This
looming landslide has taken shape with surprising civility.
In contrast,
the election in New Jersey has sunk to new depths of sleaze and
negative attack ads. Multi-millionaires Jon Corzine and Douglas
Forrester have adopted a scorched earth policy focusing on personal
attacks in the final days of the campaign, fueled by an estimated
$75 million. While Mr. Corzine once commanded a significant lead
in the polls, his party's association with local corruption scandals
and the disgraced former governor, James Mc-Greevey, created an
opening for the Republican, Mr. Forrester. Many of Mr. Forrester's
ads, like Mr. Bloomberg's, focused on testimonials from disaffected
Democrats declaring their intention to vote Republican for reform.
These have been "balanced" with attack ads that have
driven Mr. Corzine's negative ratings up, as news of his romantic
and financial relationship with a local labor leader, Carla Katz,
came to light. In recent days, allegations of affairs have been
traded between the campaigns and an unusually harsh if revealing
ad was released by the Forrester camp in which Mr. Corzine's ex-wife
is quoted as saying that her ex-husband "let his family down
and he'll probably let New Jersey down, too."
The swamp-fest
that is New Jersey politics has gotten improbably worse and the
next governor's moral authority and ability to lead will be deeply
compromised. Somewhere the ghost of Richard Nixon - who spent
the last decade of his life living in Basking Ridge, New Jersey
- might be smiling at the ruthless political combat, but he would
just as surely shake his head at the senselessness of the civic
destruction.
New Jersey
is a "purple" swing state in which both parties are
competitive. This retreat from predictable partisanship is also
extending into Virginia, where an improbably close race is pitting
a Republican attorney general, Jerry Kilgore, against a Democratic
lieutenant governor, Timothy Kaine. The campaign is being seen
as both a referendum on the popular term-limited Democratic governor,
Mark Warner, and a barometer of President Bush's weakening support
even in his base states. One year ago, President Bush was re-elected
and hailed as a conquering hero of the GOP. This year, Republican
strategists were wringing their hands as to whether a visit from
the president for a campaign fundraiser would help or hurt their
candidate's chances. If President Bush is a polarizing figure
in Virginia, the GOP has got plenty of thinking to do between
now and next year's mid-term election.
Another sign
of challenge to assumptions of privilege by a state's prevailing
political party is evident in California and Ohio, where redistricting
reform referendums have made their way onto the ballot. In California,
Arnold Schwarzenegger's current unpopularity is being exploited
by Sacramento Democrats who want to protect their incumbency,
even as groups such as the Democratic Leadership Council caution
that "Schwarzenegger is right about the problem, and California
Democrats would be wrong to oppose the very idea of redistricting
reform as a GOP plot." In Ohio, it is the Republicans who
control most statewide offices and it is they who are bitterly
fighting to get redistricting reform rejected. The commonality
of these two actions by opposite parties shows that self interest
is their primary motivating force, not the fundamental openness
or fairness of our democracy. Voters are beginning to reject the
influence of incumbent parties, and this trend will have significant
implications for 2006 and 2008.
Do the math:
New York City looks poised to vote for a Republican mayor for
the fourth consecutive election; New Jersey and Virginia are not
written off as solid blue states or red states, but instead see
highly competitive elections; and voters in delegate-rich states
such as California and Ohio are fighting for redistricting reform
against the desperate objections of their states' incumbent parties.
It all adds up to the beginning rumbles of a realignment in American
politics. The false edifice of the red state, blue state divide
is beginning to crumble as voters challenge their states' stale
and often corrupt status quo. The message that voters are sending
is remarkably comforting in its common sense: we do not live in
red states or blue states but in the United States. Faced with
the bottom-line accountability of elections, maybe Washington
insiders will begin to take notice.
