Neither Bush Nor Gore Are Candidates for Mount Rushmore
Molly Ivans 16oct00
Would it then be named |
WE ARE a nation divided, cleft, twain for the duration. For those of us in states such as Texas, where George W. Bush will sweep, or California, where Al Gore is up by 13, this presidential election is being phoned in. You have to go to the swing states to find out what the race actually feels like. It's a whole other level of intensity.
If you're in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Illinois or Missouri, the presidential race is high-tension and inescapable. The continuous blat from the air wars the television and radio advertising campaigns is everywhere.More money is being spent on this presidential election than ever before, but it's being spent in fewer than a dozen states, so the concentrated effect is practically stunning.
Because most of the swing states are in the Rust Belt of the Midwest - only Florida, Oregon and Washington are in play outside the Midwest - this peculiar fallout of electoral votes is also affecting the content of the campaign. Marc Sandalow of The San Francisco Chronicle notes that Midwesterners, as a bunch, are more socially conservative than Right or Left Coasters, so Gore has taken the environment, abortion and gun control off the table.
This is an impression, not a poll, but it seems to me that the swing staters now like the candidates even less than voters elsewhere. That's what ad campaigns do - you start with two relatively decent candidates, and by election day, no one can stand either one of them.
It's a good year to be dispassionate about the candidates because neither of them, if elected, is likely to end up on Mount Rushmore.
To the extent that this dispassion keeps throwing the light back on the issues, it seems rather a good thing. It's just that the amount being spent on getting people to dislike these guys is depressing.
On L'Affaire McKinnongate, as we now call the flap over who pinched Bush's debate material and sent it to a Gore campaign honcho, the media seem to be operating in a curious historical vacuum. The Texas press has managed to recall that we have seen similar events before, but the national media remain clueless.
| Ralph Nader continues to draw these extraordinary crowds that actually pay to see him, while neither major party candidate can give it away for free. |
In 1984, Karl Rove - the campaign manager now known as "Bush's brain" - was working for Bill Clements in the gubernatorial election against Mark White. A bug was allegedly found in Rove's office by a private security firm a few days before the televised debate between White and Clements.
The case made headlines around the state. The FBI was called in to investigate - more headlines. The implication was clear: dirty work at the crossroads by the White campaign. White lost. The culprit was never found.
Again in 1990, when Rove was working for Rick Perry (who was then running against Democratic Ag Commissioner Jim Hightower), Rove leaked news of another FBI investigation - this time against Hightower for alleged misuse of funds.
Hightower was never charged with anything, although three of his aides were later convicted. Texas Democrats became quite paranoid about the pattern of the FBI being called in to investigate Democrats just before an election.
Rove was questioned about the pattern during his Senate confirmation hearing to a board of regents position, and as I reported in a column, there are discrepancies between his answers to the Texas Senate and his answer on a U.S. Senate questionnaire later obtained by subpoena. McKinnongate has a familiar feel.The national media remind one of the Bob Dylan song: "Something is happening out there, and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"
The media claim that they pay no attention to Nader because he's not moving in the polls. The polls, as we all know, are surveys of "likely voters." Try the number of unlikely voters in the Nader crowds - previously unregistered, previously didn't vote, previously barfed at the mere thought. Something is happening out there.
CREATORS SYNDICATE, I NC.Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth StarTelegram.
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