$1 billion buys a lot of votes, but
Election was no mandate for war
By Deirdre Griswold
The election that just gave the Republicans a majority in
the House and Senate also put more advertising revenue in the
pockets of the media giants than ever before: $1 billion was
spent on political spot ads on television. This was twice the
amount spent during the last midterm election four years
ago--and even far exceeded the $771 million laid out during the
2000 presidential election. What is now called the "political
market" way outperformed the rest of the advertising
business.
At the same time, coverage of the candidates and their
platforms by the networks on their nightly news programs
declined to just 2.3 minutes a night, compared to eight minutes
in 1994.
So while news coverage of the midterm election was dropping
by 72 percent, paid ads were taking over, according to the
Center for Media and Public Affairs.
Many of these ads were funded by big corporations,
especially in the pharmaceutical industry. They used deceit to
confuse the voters. For example, "The Pharmaceutical Research
and Manufacturers of America and the deceptively named United
Seniors Association--largely funded by the big drug
companies--spent more than $12 million on television and radio
ads such as one that lauded GOP nominee Jim Talent, who won the
hotly contested Missouri Senate race, for backing a
market-based prescription drug program." (Washington Post, Nov.
10)
What is a "market-based prescription drug program"? It's no
program at all. There's a real crisis, especially among the
elderly, over the high price of prescription drugs. The only
thing that will help is a program that puts people's needs over
the profits of the drug companies. "Market-based" means
guaranteeing the pharmaceuticals fat profits.
If the older people in need of medicine who were induced to
vote Republican by this kind of deceptive advertising were
given a real choice, wouldn't they take it? What if they could
vote for a program to provide drug items to seniors for no more
than $2 a prescription? That would certainly enliven the
election.
But the supposed "alternative" to the Republicans--the
Democrats--dare not propose any such thing because they, too,
are a party of, by and for the capitalist profit system.
The small country of Cuba has reduced infant mortality to
the lowest in this hemisphere and has more doctors and nurses
per person than any other place on earth, thanks to its truly
socialized health system, which provides care to the people
free. If, in the wealthy United States, the profits were taken
out of the health-care industry, including prescription drugs,
there would be no health-care crisis.
Blame war on the people
The Bush administration immediately claimed the vote in this
election was a mandate for its planned war against Iraq. Tom
Daschle, leader of the Democrats in the Senate, agreed with
them.
It was a shameful effort on his part to cover up his own
party's capitulation to Bush in the congressional vote for war
that had preceded the election. Blame the war drive on the
people.
Most of them are so weary and turned off by capitalist
politics that they don't vote at all.
Even with all the money spent on this election--the
California governor's race alone cost $90 million--only a
little over 39 percent of the voting-age population voted. This
was slightly more than the last midterm election, reflecting a
well-financed and vigorous Republican campaign to get out the
vote. However, among workers, especially from oppressed groups,
the turnout was down.
The turnout of voters in wealthy areas was often twice that
of working-class communities.
The traditionally low proportion of voters in the United
States reflects many factors. One is that millions of people in
the United States are not eligible to vote because they are not
citizens.
Millions more are excluded--sometimes falsely, as was shown
in Florida in 2000--because of felony convictions. In 2000,
this kept 4.2 million people off the voter rolls. One-third
were African American men.
The racist injustice system has replaced the poll tax as a
mechanism for disenfranchising Black people.
Only about 12 percent of college students vote. Because they
often live somewhere other than where they go to school, they
would have to return home or cast absentee ballots--a
cumbersome process. Most states do not have direct voting-day
registration.
Millions of workers now move frequently to look for work as
stable, full-time jobs become harder to find. They also are
less likely to be registered.
Black turnout way down in Florida
Turnout was down in Jeb Bush's Florida in those communities
most angry over the Democratic Party's capitulation to the Bush
forces in the 2000 election. The statewide turnout of Black
voters, most of whom are registered Democrats, dropped from 72
percent in 2000 to only 43 percent this time, according to
newspaper exit polls. The turnout of Republicans was up,
however.
Many people who are against Bush's war but have habitually
voted Democratic are angry that their party failed to put
forward a program very different from the Republicans. They
know that there is a growing anti-war movement in this country,
and think the Democrats should lead it, or at least make a bid
for its votes.
The Democratic Party, however, has never been an anti-war
party. On the contrary. It was Democratic presidents who
started the Korea and Vietnam wars, the covert war the CIA
waged against Afghanistan beginning in 1979, and the CIA-backed
invasion of Cuba in 1961.
On closer look, it is clear that the vote, even while it
favored Republicans, was not a mandate for war. Take the Senate
race, for example. Four Senate seats changed hands from one
party to the other, three of them moving over to the Republican
side. Of the three Democrats who lost their seats, only one had
voted against the war--Paul Wellstone of Minnesota--and he died
in a plane crash just before the election. The other Democratic
senators who were up for re-election and had voted against the
war resolution all retained their seats.
The manipulation of the public for election purposes has
never been greater or cost more money. That will not change the
fact, however, that the vast majority of the population in no
way participated in ratifying the Bush administration's war
drive. There is every reason to expect that the grassroots
anti-war spirit, seen in mass demonstrations in October, will
continue to grow.
Reprinted from the Nov. 21, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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