Electoral Politics as Campaigns for Private Interests

Electoral campaigns are not waged every two years to enlighten voters on relevant national issues and incite productive debate on such issues. They are undertaken to sway voters to elect politicians in the most cost-efficient manner. Schier has demonstrated the combination of the lowest costs and highest return has become the strategy, which happens to target segments of the population who are more likely to vote in the first place (such as Evangelical Christians, a group I didn’t realize encompassed such high participants in elections). Schier laments the rise of the campaign industry and machinery that has developed to support it. It’s highly elite and expert driven, extremely expensive and also excludes many citizens from the campaigning process altogether, another activity of citizen participation political scientists probably find valuable. In essence, this process is undemocratic or less democratic than the mobilization strategy pursued in previous eras, which aimed to spur participation across the population, rather than among these narrowly targeted groups. And not only does this type of campaigning isolate segments of voters, it also excludes many citizens from running, even gaining a shot at holding public office and making their voices heard.

One important point, Shier touched on, but did not necessarily delve into and build a strong case against, was fundraising and campaign finance, a key, if not central aspect of the electoral machinery. After all, these funds pay for the kind of expertise that targeted election strategies require. But they also represent a less-democratic quality of electoral politics and one that has repeatedly come up in the past couple months with regards to the recent midterm elections. Many Democrats, whose claims have been largely proven true by media accounts, are admonishing “secret” special interest groups who have been donating significant amounts of money to Republican campaigns without having to reveal themselves. (One op-ed column in the Washington Post today discusses it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/24/AR2010102402216.html) Secret or not, powerful special interest groups are obviously not representative of the larger interests of the American public. Yet by paying for ads and supporting certain politicians, they get to decide “who can get in the game” and what issues are of national relevance. While the Obama administration has tried to make transparency in government, including within electoral politics, a priority, there evidently needs to be stricter rules and fewer loopholes around campaign finance.

At the end of this column today in the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne quotes:

"An election is a public good, not a private exchange," he says. "If I want to buy a car from you, that's an exchange between you and me." But elections "are not a private commodity, candidates aren't private commodities." That's right: Elections are there to be won, not bought.

I think this echoes many of the sentiments implicit in today’s readings. As public goods, elections should be free, fair and open to a broader cross-section of the voting public. Yet, as we have seen again and again in this course, making a public good readily available to the entire public while representing their interests, is quite a challenge.