I haven’t given up on electoral politics, even though we’ve seen results now that could tempt even a passionate small-R republican to ask King Charles III to come back, and take over where George III left off. Because our system of choosing leaders has been doing a shocking job of showing off its failings lately.
I haven’t given up because there are still people out there worth electing, if only we could elect enough of them. And if only enough of them would run, because these days we’re talking about only a very tiny percentage of those who run. The good people are probably down in the single digits, because so few good candidates are willing to subject themselves to the process.
But as I said, we have some, and I’m grateful for each one. You’ll recall how pleased I was when Russell Ott became my state senator back in November. I had done what I could to help make it happen — doing such pitifully small things as going around and talking neighbors into putting up yard signs for him, and introducing him to friends and family a couple of times. Maybe I got him one vote, or even two — for which, if it’s so, I’m proud. But obviously, a lot of people were doing small things like what I did. And Russell was doing plenty all by himself.
Anyway, I’m very pleased at the result. So even now, I occasionally make a tiny gesture toward helping the occasional good candidate — even when I can’t vote for that person. So it was that some weeks back, I sent a miniscule cash contribution to Abigail Spanberger, the former congresswoman who is running for governor in Virginia.
I’ve never met her, but I’ve liked what I’ve read about her. My friend E.J. Dionne up in Washington has said a lot of good things about her, and sometime back he told me I would like her. I’m pretty sure he’s right.
Anyway, I bring her up today because I got an email from her campaign unveiling the first video ad of her campaign. You can watch it above. There’s not much to it, but what little there is reinforces my existing positive impression. My favorite factoid? When she boasts of having been named the most bipartisan member of Congress from Virginia. The fact that she wants people to know that is what’s important. What makes her appealing to me is that she aspires to such recognition. Almost no one else running campaigns these days would care about that. Too many ads tend to boast about how much the candidate hates the “other side.”
(My second favorite thing is that throughout the ad, she’s doing that “walking and talking” thing that we all know from “The West Wing.” But you know, I’m kinda West Wing crazy.)
But whether I liked it or not is beside the point. She didn’t spend all that money on an ad for me. She did it to try to explain, as well as anyone could in 30 seconds, who she was to people who have never heard of her — despite her having served three terms in Congress from the state.
She has to do that because of what has been, historically, the greatest flaw in democracy. Sure, there are plenty of people in Virginia — especially northern Virginia, where she’s from — who know far, far more about her than I do, and will vote for her as a result. By “plenty,” we’re talking a number somewhere in the thousands. But that’s not nearly enough. More than three million people voted in the last Virginian gubernatorial election.
You’ll recall, I hope, that when someone reportedly told Adlai Stevenson that “Every thinking person in America will be voting for you,” he replied, “I’m afraid that won’t do — I need a majority.” Well, he didn’t get that, losing twice to Dwight Eisenhower for president in the ’50s. Hey, I probably would have voted for Ike, too, given the chance. But I do appreciate a smart, perhaps too-honest candidate like Stevenson.
In his day, and even more in our own, the necessary majority contains a staggering number of people who don’t know who you are, don’t know much (if anything) about the powers and responsibilities of the office you’re seeking, don’t know the relevant issues, and have no overall understanding of how our political system works. I can’t cite you a percentage or anything, but there’s enough such people that you can’t win your majority without a large number of them.
You can only do so much toward turning those folks into “informed voters.” The first and most essential step is simply to expose them to your name, because a shocking number of them will vote on democracy’s most embarrassing basis — name recognition. And then — because your opponent will be grabbing for name recognition too — you’ve also got something to give them some kind of idea who the person behind that name is.
It was our biggest challenge when I was on James Smith’s campaign in 2018. I don’t have those polls we did in front of me, but I seem to remember learning from them that among voters who knew who James was, he was winning. But that number was too small, so we knew that our only chance at victory was to greatly increase it. But we could never afford to do that. We especially couldn’t do it after Henry had a week or so of giving lengthy hurricane briefings every day on TV, which didn’t cost him a dime. I’m not criticizing Henry for that, not a bit. He was doing his job, and our position on it was the say people should listen to the governor. But the political fact is that Jeff Bezos would probably have to scrape to pay for that much exposure, and every bit of it had the subtext, “I’m Henry McMaster, I’m the governor, and I’m keeping you safe.” Them’s the breaks, huh? We could never catch up with that.
Hey, I like Henry. But I knew James was the better candidate. Indications were that most people who knew both men agreed with me. But in our system, the people who actually know enough to be informed voters are too seldom enough for victory.
Just as was the case with Adlai Stevenson. But he lost to a great American. Poor Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump. So did Hillary Clinton.
So why are things so much worse today than in Stevenson’s day? After all, today we’re all drinking “information” from a fire hose, in a volume unimaginable in the 1950s. Trouble is, most of it is junk that comes at us because an algorithm has determined that this is what we want to hear, as opposed to what we need to know to be good citizens. And even the tiny remnants of legacy professional media — the kind people relied upon a generation ago — is affected by that poisonous distortion, in a couple of big ways (another long blog post, alas).
Anyway, to get back to Abigail Spanberger… I’m encouraged that as a congresswoman who served six years in Virginia’s 7th District, she’s got more of a head start than James ever had as a state lawmaker of 24 years. But introducing herself is still something she must do, successfully, to win.
So while I know I won’t ever be able to do enough to help her achieve that goal, I do like to chip in. If I can come up with a few (very few) more bucks, I’ll contribute again. I like to do my infinitessimal bit, when I can…
There was Henry on the telly ever day, telling us how to survive the hurricane…
Related Posts
