Why Is It Even Close?

Perhaps the most amazing and depressing aspect of the current presidential election campaign is the fact that all the polls tell us that at this point it is going to be a close race. How can that be?

Barely six weeks ago a group of 26 highly respected former American diplomats and military leaders came out against the Bush administration's conduct of foreign policy as "unilateral" and damaging to U.S. interest and prestige abroad. Their group, "Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change," includes former ambassadors appointed by presidents from both major U.S. political parties and retired career military leaders. Some members are quoted in newspapers as saying Bush's policies have undone the diplomatic results they and their colleagues have worked hard to achieve during their careers.

But still it's an extremely close election.

Piling on this week were 200 business leaders endorsing Kerry/Edwards. These individuals join the growing ranks of prominent business leaders like Warren Buffett, Lee Iacocca, Steve Jobs, Jim Sinegal, John Thompson and Barry Diller who are supporting change in Washington. The newest group includes Owsley Brown, Chairman and Chief Executive Brown-Forman; Peter Cheering, President and Chief Operating Officer News Corporation; Charles Gifford, Chairman of Bank of America Corporation; Charles Phillips, President of Oracle Corporation; and Penny Pritzker, President of Pritzker Realty Group.

But still it's an extremely close election.

And the next day, a broad range of America's most respected recording artists announced a six-pronged, eight-day concert blitz of key battleground states under the banner of a "Vote for Change Tour." How directly or passionately the artists may speak up on stage for John Kerry will vary among the individuals, but they all feel deeply that America is in danger at this point in history and the Bush/Cheney ticket must be turned away in November.

But still it's an extremely close election.

Equally noteworthy, to say the least, in mid-July more than 4,000 scientists — including 48 Nobel Prize winners and 127 members of the National Academy of Sciences — accused the Bush administration of distorting and suppressing science to suit its political goals. "Across a broad range of policy areas, the administration has undermined the quality and independence of the scientific advisory system and the morale of the government's outstanding scientific personnel," the Union of Concerned Scientists said in their letter.

But still it's an extremely close election.

Let's point out the obvious here: We are not hearing this message from a fringe of predictable political partisans. Set aside the vocal left in Hollywood--though they represent thoughtful analysis from some of our culture's most creative individuals. And ignore for the moment the not insignificant impact that Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is having nationwide. The outcry this year is coming from highly responsible, moderate, generally cautious leaders from every corner of American society. It makes one wonder, just who is left to support the Republican cause and its leadership.

How can this race be neck-and neck? And why would anyone at this point respond with "undecided" when ask for a choice? This week's New Yorker's lead commentary in The Talk of the Town asserts that "George W. Bush is the worst President the country has endured since Richard Nixon, and even mediocrity would be an improvement."

Yet, we are told, the contest will be a squeaker. How can it be?

This may sound dumb, but one has to wonder where all the bright-eyed, thoughtful, informed, logical, progressive-minded people who register as Democrats early-on in their adult lives go over the years. It's clear that youth leans left. When MTV celebrities urge their fans to Rock the Vote, or P-Diddy warns that it's a Vote or Die situation this year, they're not thinking of sending that vital 18-24 demographic to the polls to support the Republican agenda.

It's not universal, of course; there are plenty of Young Republican enclaves on college campuses across the nation, and there is no shortage of Democrats over 50, but stand back and look for broad political trends and it's clear that if all those young Democrats kept faith with their ideals as they aged and sorted themselves out into careers and personal pursuits, a presidential race with this degree of stark contrast between candidates would never be a close call. A lot of leopards, it would seem, are changing their stripes.

So what's happening?

First, let's dispense with those useless labels "liberal" and "conservative." They have become so laden with inaccurate connotations that they condemn any discussion of the American political spectrum to endless tail-chasing. I prefer the universal markers, left and right.

For various reasons, people move to the right as they experience more, compete for advancement, work toward lifetime goals, and start to feel successful. Selfishness, cynicism, stubbornness, and callousness all have a tendency to evince themselves in our behavior as we move from youth to middle-age. When we enter adulthood we have high ideals but little stake in the society that we'd like to reform. We have a natural urge to share and not to worry about where or when those shared resources will be replenished or repaid. As we take partners in life's enterprise, then become heads of families, we find there is territory to defend, careers to advance, wealth to guard, and even descendants to provide for.

We become evermore scornful and impatient with those who aren't keeping up. Why should we want to tie our fate to elements of society that aren't as competitive as we are, or who seem to always remain on the margin. Catch phrases like social justice, equality of opportunity, due process, civil liberties may ring clear when we are sitting in college seminars or when we first become aware that poverty and discrimination have human faces and historical consequences, but something tells us that no matter how we try, we won't be the breakthrough generation that cures this disease.

All this generates momentum toward the right. Those who don't make such great strides toward the American Dream are likely to remain firmly, even actively, on the left. Call it the Ma Joad effect, if you like, but ingrained humility goes a long way toward opening one's heart to fellow citizens.

Our Calvinist heritage, on the other hand, leads others to believe that success in life is a matter of divine pre-election. Our wealth, our stature, our popularity is a matter of personal virtue. This is precisely where that smarmy, almost lubricious smirk on George Bush's face and that Beavis and Butthead cackle in his voice comes from whenever he tries to defend the indefensible. He is the wealthy scion of an important family, not because of native intelligence or charisma, but because such people are pre-ordained to power and influence. Money, in this view of things, is not the result of virtue, but rather its worldly emblem.

And one other process seems to be a work as well. Voters tend to simplify their thinking and let their opinions calcify as they live through election after election. They long to be done with critical thinking, get over the need to follow issues in depth, or listen to lively debate. It's the "been there, done that" approach to politics. Life is messy enough without having to keep listening to diplomats, scientists, entrpreneurs, and artists, much more so reading broadly on one's own.

Does that explain the drift? Perhaps not, but something's going on here. This is clearly not a contest between differing but equally credible viewpoints, If we were a rational nation that fully understood its place in the world, there would be no contest at all.

Four years ago we made a huge mistake, the sort that a true democracy--even one as crippled by special interest influence as ours is--is entitled to make now and then. But the facts are now in plain sight, the record is public, the investigations have been conducted, the informed parties have made their public statements, the news media have done their job; there are no acceptable reasons to repeat the blunder.

Chas.