Aug. 13, 2000

CYNICAL ADVICE FOR POLITICIANS

The Aspen Institute is deeply concerned about "30 Million Missing Voters.'' That's the title of its latest effort, subtitled "a candidate's tool kit for reaching young Americans.'' As if politicians needed instruction in how to pander.

Thirty million is the estimated number of Americans age 18-30 who didn't vote for president in 1996. Less than 33 percent of those 18-24 voted in 1996, and less than 20 percent in 1998. Perhaps that's bad. But it's not self-evidently bad, as proponents of higher voting levels assume.

On average, people who vote are better informed about issues and candidates than people who don't, though in order not to insult any individual I will cheerfully acknowledge that there are exceptions in both directions. So if the percentage of people voting increased sharply -- from 20 percent to 80 percent, say, in the present instance -- the qualifications of the electorate would decrease.

Whether having more people vote would change election outcomes is unknown. There's polling data suggesting that voters and nonvoters split about the same way, at least in presidential elections.

David Skaggs, executive director of Aspen's Democracy and Citizenship Program and a former Colorado congressman, stopped by the Denver Rocky Mountain News to talk about the tool kit. He believes higher voter turnouts are crucial to democracy.

Why? As a veteran of many elections, he thinks politics would be more civil, less polarized, if the people who care fervently about certain things did not have a disproportionate effect. The influence of those who turn out the volunteers, or raise the soft money, would be diluted.

I know I'm not doing justice to his argument, because I don't understand it. Yes, if there were more people who don't care much about politics active in politics, it might be less heated. But I can't see why that would happen if the only thing that changed was that more people voted.

Aspen's explanation for low turnouts is that "Candidates pay little attention to young Americans because they don't vote; and young Americans don't vote because candidates ignore them.'' A vicious cycle, they call it.

Of course, the civic duty to vote exists independently of whether candidates court one to perform it. And it doesn't rest on the remote possibility that one's single vote will prove decisive. But I agree with Skaggs that schools are doing too little to train students in the theory and practice of American government.

Does anyone still teach civics?

Preaching civic duty to voters, however, is not the point of this exercise. It's to recruit candidates to the cause.

"Make your campaign speak to and for young Americans. Take time to listen and learn about their concerns; their worries and their hopes aren't all that different from those of older voters.'' But if the same message is appropriate for all ages, appearing to target it to a particular group of voters serves no purpose but to flatter their vanity. That, and promising them something for nothing, pretty well describes campaigning anyway.

Moreover, it's too glib by half. Under-30 and over-60 voters are on opposite sides of Social Security, and their interests cannot be reconciled within the system as it now exists.

The tool kit further recommends that candidates "direct at least 10 percent of your resources to under-30 voters (and) select younger people to speak for your campaign whenever possible.''

It reminds me of "trust no one over 30,'' but the boomers are well past that now.

Sample campaign materials that did well in focus groups are described in terms like this: "A casual action-oriented photo shows that the candidate is down to earth and involved in the community.'' Shades of Al Gore's earth tones.

It's not so much that the advice is bad; the producers of the Republican convention were reading from the same playbook, and the Democrats no doubt will do the same. It's just that it's so cynical.

Why should that surprise me?

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