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The Year of the Election
January 4, 2008
Watson Scott Swail, President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute
I am pleased to welcome everyone to 2008—the Year of the Election. This isn’t just a US thing, as federal elections are also expected in Canada in 2008. Looking at the current G8 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK, and the US), France and the UK debuted new leaders in 2007, Italy in 2006 and Germany in 2005. This year, we will see a new President in Russia (big whoop), a new President in the US, and possibly a new Prime Minister in Canada. While not in the G8, Australia also has a new leader, finally tossing Howard out of office.
Of course, the main race in the US finally started in earnest last night, with the Iowa Caucuses. After living for 17 years in the US, my sense continues to grow that the US electoral system is totally antiquated for this millennium. While John McCain said last night that the Iowa Caucus proves that elections can’t be bought (a pointed attack at Mitt Romney), the $100M raised by Obama hasn’t hurt him a bit. Without that coin in his pocket, it is very unlikely he would have won the state. Currently, Clinton has six points on Obama in New Hampshire, which will go to the polls on Tuesday. It seems that John Edwards did the best for the money (beating Clinton) on the Democrat side. The bottom line is that money matters and it is a problem that democracies are facing globally, because, in reality, you can buy an election. John Kennedy proved it, as did George W. Bush (and arguably, every other presidential candidate since 1789).
Right before the Holiday break, we posted a new Policy Perspective view on the 2008 US Federal Elections in anticipation of the Caucuses and Primaries taking place over the next several months, knowing full well that this thing is basically over February 5 (Super Tuesday). This commentary won’t go over that information again, but I will direct you to download that piece for your own edification.
At the start of the New Year, with plenty to be thankful for and many resolutions to be broken, the question on many people’s minds is “what will this change in leadership mean? From a US perspective, probably not much, depending on what happens. Legislatively speaking, Congress will become idle for most of 2008 because everyone will be campaigning. The No Child Left Behind Act, which was to be reauthorized by Congress last year, won’t get done this year because no one will agree on what to do with it. It will become an election platform for both parties, with Republicans stating that they started it and Democrats arguing that they will fund it.
There will continue to be budget woes--which will plague education--because the War will continue, the economy will plunge, and tax revenue will continue to decline because of previous tax cuts. All of this forms a “perfect storm” (an overused descriptor; read Bill Maher’s opinion of a “perfect storm”) that will cause considerable consternation in the US for the next year and beyond.
As with most elections, and as we’ve already seen, this election—once promised by the media and pundits to be about the Iraq war and international relations—will return to be a domestic decision, because people vote with their current, personal status. In Iowa, people talked about the economy; in Jasper County, caucusers were worried about the 1,800 jobs lost two months ago when the Maytag plant and headquarters closed down. Iraq isn’t a big issue now because the media has turned their backs on it; it isn’t sexy anymore, one guesses.
But 2008 and 2009 will be tough years for the United States, to be sure. Americans are always full of hope, and they will need it. Barack Obama is running on a “hope” campaign (funny, so is Clinton and Huckabee!), saying that things will be different under his watch. Every president says that (remember the 2000 campaign of Bush II—against Washington insiders), but Washington is Washington. It truly doesn’t deserve the rap it gets, because all 535 voting members of Congress come from outside Washington, DC and are elected by their constituents. Truth is, voters are hypocrits and really don't take any responsibility for their votes. DC doesn’t change much because Washington is formed by all of the elected members, their staffs (who really run Capitol Hill), and the political parties at the federal, state, and local levels. That is what makes Washington, DC, and the political system. I have yet to see a federal leader who wasn’t mostly doing what his party was telling him to do, and I don’t think Obama will be the first, even if he does become president.
So, while the economy purges and things go a flutter for the next while, at least us political aficionados can relax with C-SPAN, NPR, CNN, Fox, MSNBC (and CBC in Canada, of course) and enjoy the circus. At some point, it may even come in under three rings.
Happy New Year
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