Why The Democrats Lost the 2002 Election

By Keith Boykin, in politics
Wednesday, November 6 2002, 12:21PM

"Stand for something," James Carville said. That was the lesson he said Democrats should take from the disastrous midterm elections yesterday. It's good advice.

The congressional election results were so bad that DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe was reduced to cheering the late night resignation of S.E.C. Chairman Harvey Pitt as the party's major victory last night.

The other highlight for the Democrats was the party's success in the governor's races in Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but the Democrats still lost big governor's races in New York, Florida, Georgia, Maryland and Massachusetts. Something is seriously wrong with the Democratic Party when it can't win elections in heavily Democratic New York, Maryland and Massachusetts.

No Reason to Vote for Democrats

In the end, the Democrats gave the American public no reason to vote for them. What exactly was the Democratic message in the election? With nothing to motivate progressive voters, even the Democratic base abandoned the party and African American turnout was small.

Democratic analyst Paul Begala blamed the election results on the party's willingness to concede too much to the Republicans. If you don't stand up to the president on the economy and you don't stand up to the president on foreign policy, why should people vote for you? By going along with the Bush tax cut and the war on Iraq, the Democrats never distinguished themselves from the Republicans.

Since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, the Republican message seems to be nothing more than an appeal to individual greed. "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Reagan asked. Never mind the other guy; as long as we get our tax cuts we're happy.

That's not the route the Democrats need to follow. John Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can for your country." But even as the country careens toward war, debt and recession, today's Democrats are too timid to make the case for change.

The Media

Unaided by exit polls, which crashed when Voter News Service announced technical problems Tuesday afternoon, the networks had to wait for actual results to come in before they could call elections. On CBS, Dan Rather started the evening in his trademark folksy style by suggesting the races were "tighter than a botox smile."

All the networks used various visual aids to explain the results last night. Rather used an old-fashioned pencil to point to states on a computer screen. On NBC, Tim Russert pulled out his board, while George Stephanopoulos on ABC used a John Madden-style computer writing pen.

By 11:30, James Carville was so embarrassed by the results that he actually hid his head under a trash can on live TV on CNN. At 2:05 a.m., Senator Jean Carnahan walked on stage at the Chase Hotel in St. Louis to concede defeat in the closely watched election in Missouri, at which point CNN immediately broke into her speech to announce that Republicans had taken control of the Senate.

The Voting Process

For me, the voting process in New York was ridiculously difficult. In my first general election as a New York voter, I went to vote at my assigned polling place on the corner near my house. Waiting in line, I overheard the poll workers tell the man in front of me that he was at the wrong location, and he was sent to another polling place.

With my official "Acknowledgment Notice" in hand, I knew I was in the right location. When I made it to the front of the line, I was told that the notice from the New York Board of Elections was incorrect and I was sent to another polling place five blocks away at P.S. 175.

I was never given any advance notice about the change in polling place, and I suspect that such last minute changes negatively effect voter turnout, especially in predominantly African American communities like Harlem. After walking to the second polling place and waiting in line again there, I was finally able to cast a ballot.

But the voting process is incredibly outdated in New York. Unlike voters in the District of Columbia, where I had lived before, New York voters are not given a ballot to take to the poll machine. Instead, I had to walk into a fragile 1960s-looking metal contraption where I navigated my way through a Byzantine series of metal levers that did not properly align with the candidates names.

Twice I turned the wrong levers for the wrong candidates and had to go back and change my vote, and I almost missed the lever on the far right corner of the bottom to vote on the New York City charter referendum. When finished, I pulled a long red handle that looked like an emergency brake on a truck and walked out of the booth in a daze. "Is that it?" I asked. "Yes," the poll workers told me. No receipt. No voter acknowledgment. And a sinking feeling that I might have voted for the wrong guy.

The Future

Now that the election is over, so-called moderate Democrats will try to convince the public that the liberal Democrats are responsible for the failure. Conservative Democrats are already saying that Senator Max Cleland lost in Georgia because Senate Democrats wouldn't give Bush his homeland security bill. But Max Cleland is no bleeding heart liberal. He voted for Bush in the war on Iraq and on other issues.

The conservative Democrats would have us believe that the only solution for the Democrats is to become Republicans. If that's the case, then why have Democrats at all? Why would anyone vote for a Republican lookalike when they can vote for a Republican and have the real thing?

The truth is the Democratic Party has become much more conservative in the 14 years since Michael Dukakis lost. But what has that conservatism achieved for the Democrats other than electing Bill Clinton president? Even the African American owner of Amy Ruth's soul food restaurant in Harlem stood on stage with Republican Governor George Pataki last night.

Don't misinterpret the poll results. Perhaps the main reason why Democrats lost is because Democrats did not show up at the polls. African American Democrats, in particular, did not show up. That's not good news for the Democratic Party. As long as Democratic leaders continue to act like Republicans, then Democratic voters will have little or reason to show up at the polls.

While the Democrats regroup, we will see a sharp rise in the number of conservative judges appointed to the federal courts, more tax cuts for the wealthy, more money to the already bloated defense budget, and more support for the president's war on Iraq. Faced with a budget crisis that was hardly discussed in the campaign, the president will be forced to choose between cutting popular programs or presiding over huge new deficits and a dramatic increase in the federal debt.

© Copyright 2002 by Keith Boykin.