By Harold Meyerson
First published by The American Prospect
November 6, 2002

They had no message. They were an opposition party that drew no lines of opposition. They had nothing to say. And on Tuesday, their base responded by staying home in droves.

The Democrats lost the Senate, lost seats in the House, and picked up significantly fewer statehouses than they had counted upon.

On what should have been the Democrats’ defining issues, they endeavored to be indistinct. They could never bring themselves to oppose Bush’s tax cut, his trillion-dollar handout to the rich, though that made it impossible for them to advocate any significant programs of their own. Nor could they bring themselves to oppose the White House’s headlong charge into Iraq, though polling showed over two-thirds of the American people oppose a unilateral war. So Missouri’s Jean Carnahan, Colorado’s Tom Strickland, New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen and Georgia’s Max Cleland — Democratic Senate candidates in close races — backed the president. All of them lost.

The candidates were merely following their leaders. Senate Majority (now Minority) leader Tom Daschle condemned the tax cut but did not call for its repeal. House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt supported the president’s Iraqi adventurism and pushed it through the House at the earliest possible moment, so the Democrats could refocus the nation’s attention on their domestic message. Which, unfortunately, did not exist.

This past Sunday, The New York Times published a poll in which voters were asked whether the two parties had a clear plan for the country if they gained control of Congress. By a 42 percent to 39 percent margin, voters said the Republicans did. By a 49 percent to 31 percent margin, voters said the Democrats did not.

On election night, the AFL-CIO conducted a poll of 1020 union members, 68 percent of whom said they had voted for a Democratic House candidate. The members were asked whether they thought the Democrats had clear plans for strengthening the economy and creating jobs. Forty percent of this heavily Democratic working-class group said yes. Forty-seven percent said no.

They were right: In a nation where economic anxiety is high and rising, the Democrats had no economic plan. On corporate reform, they did nothing more than pass a bipartisan bill instituting some accounting reforms, but they squelched stronger legislation that would really have cracked down on corporate abuse — and which Republicans would have opposed. That was Daschle’s doing; he was afraid of alienating the Silicon Valley CEOs who wanted to preserve their stock options. Now, with wall-to-wall Republican control, the CEOs will preserve their stock options. The Democrats also promoted bankruptcy legislation that would have ruined working-class creditors. That was Daschle’s doing, too; he was afraid of alienating big banks. Now, with Republican control, the big banks will be able to run amok.

So Tuesday was a great day for the business interests with whom the Democrats sought to curry favor. Actual existing Democratic voters, on the other hand, couldn’t figure out what their party stood for. The Republicans knew very well what their party stood for; the president spent the final two weeks dashing from state to state promoting a message — get tough on Saddam, get tough on liberals — that roused the GOP base. The Democratic base remained unroused. An election eve Gallup Poll found 64 percent of Republicans saying they were especially motivated to vote; just 51 percent of Democrats said the same.

The base stayed home. In Georgia, where Zell Miller, the Democrats’ most rightwing, Bushophilic Senator, counseled his fellow Georgia Democrats to run to the right lest the good-ol’-boy vote turn, the good-ol’-boy vote turned anyway, while African-American Atlanta didn’t come to the polls, dooming not only Cleland but heavily favored Democratic Governor Roy Barnes. In Maryland, working-class Baltimore voted light, and longtime favorite Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Kennedy Townsend went down to defeat. In state after state, the Democrats waged a futile campaign to win over their periphery, while failing to mobilize their core. And midterm elections, as they bewilderingly forgot, are all about mobilizing your core.

If the Democrats had a paradigmatic candidate in this debacle year, it was the guy they recruited to go up against Jeb Bush, super-attorney Bill McBride. Early on, it had looked like the Democratic candidate was going to be Janet Reno, Bill Clinton’s controversial attorney general, who seemed to have no chance whatever to win. The state’s teachers unions then recruited McBride into the race. A fabulously successful lawyer with an affable demeanor, McBride had neither held nor run for office previously; he had taken no positions that could damage him with voters. Nor did he take any in the course of the campaign. After narrowly defeating Reno in the primary, he went up against the governor by criticizing Jeb’s record on education. He offered no detailed education plan of his own, however, and declined to take positions on anything else. He needed to mobilize the state’s African-American, Haitian and non-Cuban Latino constituencies, yet he had nothing to say on economic-security or other issues that concerned them. McBride was simply the anti-Jeb, and on Tuesday, that wasn’t enough of an identity to pull much of the Democratic base. He lost to Bush by 13 points.

Or perhaps the Democrats’ paradigmatic candidate was Texas’ great Latino hope, gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez, an oil and banking gazillionaire who dropped about $60 million of his own money into his campaign, and who also failed to craft a message of his own. Like McBride, Sanchez assailed his opponent, Republican Governor Rick Perry, for the state of the schools, and also for being beholden to the state’s imploding insurance industry. He had nothing to say, however, to the hundreds of thousands of dirt-poor Latinos, who would have gained greatly from a living-wage law that the legislature had passed but that Perry had vetoed; the issue was not on Sanchez’s radar screen. Nor was he on Texas’; Latino turnout fell understandably short of the Democrats’ projections and the Republicans won both the gubernatorial and senatorial contests in Texas going away.

Or maybe the paradigmatic Democratic candidate was California’s own Gray Davis, who eked out a scant five-point victory over Republican Bill Simon, a candidate of industrial-strength ineptitude. Davis took office in 1998 with a stunning 20-point victory, but he spent the first three-and-a-half years of his term estranging the Democratic base by vetoing countless pieces of progressive legislation, and estranging almost the entire state by his relentless focus on fundraising. In the past couple of months, he was compelled to shore up his base by signing some groundbreaking liberal bills, but it was barely enough to pull him through. For the most part, though, Davis spent his $60 million campaign boodle on relentless attack ads against Simon, driving a disproportionate number of late-deciding voters to the Green Party’s candidate.

California is so Democratic that not even Davis could lose it. The Democrats ended up sweeping all eight statewide offices, though the turnout of the base was so depressed that some of statewide contests that should have been won handily were turned into squeakers. (Of the four incumbent Democrats running statewide, Davis had the smallest margin of victory.)

From one end of the country to the other, the Democrats had nothing to say. And the nation will suffer for their silence.

It will suffer in all the rightwing judicial appointments that will be ratified, for the Supreme Court on down, now that the Republicans control the Senate. It will suffer in the lack of scrutiny that the administration will receive now that the Democrats control no committees. Only the filibuster now stands between the nation and the unchecked rule of the most rightwing, xenophobic and belligerent administration in the nation’s history.

The first order of business for Democrats is clear: They must dump the utterly discredited masterminds of their disaster. Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, a let’s-make-a-deal businessman and fundraiser of no discernible strategic savvy, went up against a popular president by crafting an indistinct message for undefined candidates. Labor leaders from AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on down should throw their considerable weight behind the efforts to drive these money changers from the party’s inner sanctum.

Were there extenuating circumstances that account for the Dems’ defeat? There are always extenuating circumstances. Corporate money poured in at the end to pay for commercials that vilified the Democrats; the drug companies alone spent enough money to cure cancer had the thought occurred to them. But the Democrats had a record level of money, too. Their problem was less the quantitative imbalance of the commercials than the qualitative one: The Republicans had a coherent theme (backing the president); the Dems didn’t.

The second order of business for the Democrats, then, is message. In a nation where economic insecurity is routine; where anxiety over jobs, retirement and health coverage is widespread; the failure of the Democrats to connect on any of these causes is astonishing. Unions can help Democrats to make those connections: Among union members, according to the AFL-CIO poll, awareness of the two parties’ differences on economic issues is such that 62 percent of white men and 65 percent of gun owners voted Democratic on Tuesday. But only 13 percent of the U.S. work force is unionized; for the rest of America, the party must look to itself to draw distinctions. It must now craft plausible policies that will restore some security to the economic lives of Americans — and that cannot be done without challenging the all-wealth-to-the-wealthy economics of the administration. The party must also move to restore some security to the social lives of Americans; in particular, to defend abortion rights now that administration may soon be able to nominate potential justices who’d create an anti-choice majority on the Supreme Court.

The Democratic Leadership Council and other center-right Democrats will doubtlessly argue that this election proves that Democrats dare not deviate from fiscal conservatism at home and hawkishness abroad. But the dwindling of the Democratic base this Tuesday argues precisely the opposite: that when Democratic candidates cease to be Democrats, Democratic voters cease to be voters. Republicans may have worked to depress Democratic turnout in this week’s election, but the real scandal is, so did the Democrats.

Harold Meyerson is editor-at-large of the Prospect.
©The American Prospect

First published, November, 2002 (some items updated in 2020)

Our federal election fiasco in 2000 exposed numerous critical flaws in our electoral process and spurred a new flurry of reform efforts, but despite all the attention generated, the actual changes have been little more than band-aids.

Why? One reason may be the approach taken by most reform proponents that essentially asks “what can we do to make this deeply flawed system less corrupt?” What might change if the approach was to ask “what conditions are necessary for a truly representative democracy?” and “how do we get there?”

It’s a fundamental difference in approach. We view as a fundamental requirement for democracy that each person’s political influence result directly from the quality of one’s ideas and the energy put into promoting them — independent of a person’s wealth to the greatest degree possible.

The excessive power assigned to money, especially in federal elections, is glaring. In the 2002 Congressional races (in which money was less dominant than in 2000), 95% of all House seats and 75% of Senate seats were won by the higher-spending candidate. Incumbents won 97% of races in which they ran.

And money is a conclusive determinant of who can compete. One-third of all those running for the House (157 candidates) — effectively ran unopposed. Thirty-five had no opponent at all, while another 122 faced challengers who spent less than $5,000. No wonder only 75 of the 435 House races were even marginally competitive (margin of victory less than 20 points).

The depth of our problems in some specific realms such as campaign financing is explored in detail in other articles. Here, we aim briefly to explore an overview of some of our most vitally needed electoral reforms.

1. Abolish the “Money Equals Speech” Doctrine

2. Revoke the Precedent of Granting Bill of Rights Protections to Corporations
These two destructive Supreme Court creations both lack Constitutional basis. The first precedent dates to the late 1800s when the Court applied the Fourteenth Amendment and “due process” guarantees–designed to protect the rights of freed slaves–to corporations, an entity mentioned nowhere in the Constitution.

The 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision authorized some limits on political donations, but equated campaign spending with speech and legalize political donations at levels beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest Americans. Just one tenth of one percent of Americans gave a $1000 contribution in the 2000 election–one-quarter the present $4000 limit for investments in an individual candidate per election cycle.

While we fully support public campaign financing, we must also confront those two root problems. While banning “soft money” may prevent direct corporate funding of parties, it doesn’t touch corporate interference in democracy via advertising, lobbying, and many other activities.

Consider the combined effect of these two premises: give an institution (the corporation) with an unlimited ability to amass wealth many key rights of citizens, then allow money to translate freely to political power. Now ask yourself if we can possibly realize the ideal of one person, one vote with these two perversions of our Constitution intact. These issues are at the heart of our diseased democracy.

See “When Money Is Speech, Speech Cannot Be Free” and Corporate Personhood.

3. Establish a Constitutional Right to Vote
Voting is one of the fundamental elements of citizenship and democracy, and most Americans assume universal suffrage to be a struggle already won–but we lack any Constitutional right to vote! Yes, the 15th, 19th, and 26th Amendments outlaw voting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or age, but those protections are hollow because all citizens may be disenfranchised so long as it is done without bias. The Supreme Court on at least three occasions has affirmed that voting is a privilege granted at the discretion of those who hold power in state governments.

Our lack of Constitutional voting rights enabled many of the worst abuses in the 2000 elections (such as the mass disenfranchisement in Florida) and continues to invite gross injustice in elections. The deliberate suppression of targeted voting blocks that occurred in 2000 will only worsen in years ahead now that its effectiveness is proven and public opposition was muted.

Our lack of voting rights also allows the United States government to deny residents of Washington D.C. any voting representation in Congress whatsoever. A constitutional amendment is needed to rectify this problem.

Read more on the missing right to vote or see our proposed Right to Vote Amendment.

4. Institute Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)
The unhealthy dilemma of voting one’s conscience versus voting for the “realistic” contender should be eliminated. IRV offers a neutral and proven method for correcting this problem. Voters simply rank candidates in order of preference. If a candidate receives a majority of first choice votes, she/he wins. If no candidate receives a majority of first place votes, the candidate with the fewest first choices is eliminated, and ballots cast for that candidate are counted for one of the remaining candidates according to those ballots’ second choices.

IRV ensures a majority winner, frees minor-party candidates from a “spoiler” role, and allows voters to express their true preferences rather than voting out of fear. It also spurs cleaner campaigns, as candidates have an incentive to avoid mud-slinging when they compete for second-choice votes. IRV can work at any level of government, and states are free to implement it for federal elections.

Visit the FairVote for much more on this issue. 

5. Adopt Public Campaign Financing at Local and State Levels
Taxpayer-funded campaigns are the greatest bargain on Earth when one compares the cost of a few dollars per person for public funding to the cost of paybacks by elected officials to major campaign donors. The results in Maine and Arizona, two states that have led the way in public campaign financing, are impressive: increased participation, more competitive elections, and greater public trust in government. 

6. Establish Democratic Presidential Debates
The nationally-televised presidential debates are the single most influential forum for most Americans to decide whether they should vote in the race and for whom. They offer a rare opportunity to hear candidates’ ideas unedited and in context.

Since 1988, these debates have been controlled by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a private corporation created and controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties. The CPD operates with no public oversight and exists primarily to further the interests of those two parties–to the detriment of democracy. The greatest harms to democracy are the exclusion of legitimate candidates outside of the CPD owners’ parties and the exclusion of many vital issues from introduction into the debates. Learn more about democratizing the debates.

7. Reduce Ballot Access Barriers
State laws often raise absurd barriers to political competition that enshrines a two-party duopoly. National standards must be enacted for all federal offices to prevent this discrimination. Non-partisan election officials also are essential to correcting these problems. Ballot Access News is the definitive resource on ballot access issues.

8. Abolish the Electoral College
Voters outside of the few true “swing states” are effectively disenfranchised in each presidential election. The argument that the Electoral College could prevent a dangerous or unfit person from taking power — while credible in the 1700s — led to the opposite in 2016. Moving to a pure popular vote requires Amending the Constitution, but Reclaim Democracy also supports the National Popular Vote alternative.

9. Independent Redistricting Commissions and Election Administration
Democracy is hollow when elected officials choose their constituents, rather than constituents choosing them, yet that’s our reality in elections for the U.S. House of Representatives today. The combination of partisan gerrymandering (drawing district boundaries to benefit particular candidates or party) of House districts with winner-take-all elections and the huge monetary advantages of incumbency means few citizens have the opportunity to vote in a competitive House election. Indeed, 98% of House members running for re-election retained their seats between 1996 and 2002.

The gerrymandering component of this problem should be addressed by citizens in every state demanding nonpartisan commissions to draw redistricting maps, as Iowa and Arizona already have done, while building a movement for national reform.

Similarly, allowing state elections to be overseen by partisan officials is absurd. All election administration officials should be non-partisan appointments. Additionally, we need federal standards for fair and consistent registration, ballot and voting procedures.

10. Expand Election Day to an Election Month
Too many citizens are impeded from voting because of limited voting hours and work obligations and sing;le-day elections invite sabotage to delay and deter voters in minority communities. All citizens should enjoy at least a two-week window to vote at their local election office.

11. Mandate Open-Source Code and a Paper Trail for Computer Voting Machines
We wince at the idea that this even needs to be said. Corporations must not enjoy total control over the counting of votes. Paper ballots and open- source codes are needed for transparency and confidence in fair results.

12. Reduce Barriers to Voting
Eliminate pre-registration requirements. Such laws are economically and racially discriminatory and a senseless deterrent to voting.

13. Stop Permanent Disenfranchisement
In Florida, over 400,000 citizens, including a whopping 30% of all black men, were prohibited from voting in 2000. Some did not even have actual felony convictions–the official justification–but were purged illegally from the rolls by a private corporation (Choicepoint Inc.) contracted by the state. While the choice of whether to disenfranchise those in prison is appropriately left to states, lifetime voting prohibitions for ex-felons, enacted by several states, are racist and violate the constitutional promise of equal protection of law. Disenfranchisement of those who have served their sentences must be banished.

Of course, this list is incomplete and many other ideas deserve consideration, but key to all truly fundamental reform efforts is to begin with the end goal in mind and to be aware of, but not controlled by, current leanings of the Supreme Court or “political reality.” Government of, by, and for the people only will result if the people repossess it.

Please see our Transforming Politics page for more detailed analysis of some issues summarized here and additional links to organizations focusing on these issues.