Looks at the presidential election

...they want to be kept in mind...

...Whether contributors get everything they want or not, now or later, their money corrupts the democratic system...

...And voters trying to sort out the endless television ads are at least engaged in a kind of democratic decision-making, which the bribery system radically undercuts...

...They want attention most of all...

...Is it an advantage that money is now spent on campaign expenses rather than (as it used to be) on bribing candidates...

...What does all the money mean...

...But we should worry about the strength of democracy and the commitment of our fellow citizens if most people turn out to be indifferent and ignorant—or if large numbers of them, as in the United States today, are passive in the face of wealth and power and cynical about the proposition that elections make a difference...

...So "campaign reform" is one of the central issues of the campaign...

...Most of them have DISSENT / Winter 2000 n 5 COMMENTS & OPINIONS a history on this issue, so it's possible to assign degrees of plausibility (and implausibility) to the different promises...

...I suspect that private interests are better served here—and served more quickly and quietly...

...MICHAEL WALZER is co-editor of Dissent...

...Maybe democracy itself, the value of organization, mobilization, and public discussion over against the value of money, ought to be our focus in 2000, but maybe not...

...the interests of wealthy contributors are sure to come into conflict with each other (even when the rest of us are out of the picture), and elected officials have to decide on a kind of political triage...

...But, whether that is true or not, the disillusionment with politics, which is one of the effects of all the getting and spending, is certainly greater here...

...They mostly understand that results can't be guaranteed...

...But, down the road, I will do something else for you...

...What should the issues be...

...What do the contributors want...

...Well, this indirect path requires more money, which may be good for the economy...

...It does matter, of course, who wins, for a Democratic victory, especially if it extends to Congress, opens the way for left initiatives of many different kinds, while a Republican victory means four more years of defensive politics...

...I am not sure anyone knows...

...Suppose further that it wasn't possible to reach these voters by spending tens of millions of dollars on television advertising...

...And how many of us would bother to vote...

...A center-left party with steady commitments (even a European third-way social democracy) would surely provide a strong defense of public schooling and a program for strengthening the public schools...

...I am not sure that the people who give so much money to political candidates actually get what they presumably think they are paying for (I am skeptical in the same way about commercial advertising...

...A party of Dissentniks, for example, would surely try to make an issue of the vast inequalities of American society and the growing vulnerability of poorer Americans, and many middle-class Americans too, to market forces...

...and too many journalists are watching, so it isn't even prudent...

...But it is a depressing spectacle, nonetheless, to see candidates spending half their time begging for money and the other half using the money, with "expert" advice, to manipulate the voters...

...So maybe citizens should insist on electing representatives to the focus groups...

...I still incline to the view that it's a good thing in a democracy if many people vote, the more the better, at least until a substantial majority of the electorate is engaged...

...What would American politics be like if 75 percent of the electorate participated...

...But they must get something, and what they get must at least sometimes be tangible, else they wouldn't keep writing checks...

...It is an inadequate but still a useful stand-in and, apparently, enough of the focus groups have focused on it, so that the cost and quality of care have already figured at least in the Gore and Bradley campaigns...

...Focusing on the campaign obscures so many other things...

...The corrupting effects intensify as campaigns get more and more expensive and contributions increase to match the expenses...

...it pays a lot of salaries for ad writers, camera crews, television producers, make-up artists, travel agents, public relations specialists, and advisers of all sorts, and maybe this money trickles down to the rest of us...

...But how much money would it cost to get elected...

...1T IS HARD to figure out what the stakes are in this year's presidential election...

...It would be an experiment in democracy...

...Once again I have a romantic image of the way things ought to be: political parties should work hard to shape the issues in ways that match their longstanding ideological commitments...

...The most interesting questions, at this early point, have more to do with the process than with the possible outcome...

...In recent years, health care has been a stand-in for this larger issue, because of the marketization represented by HMO expansion and the steadily increasing numbers of uninsured Americans...

...Apparently focus groups decide on the "issues" these days, and I have never been asked to focus in a group...

...All the candidates run corrupt campaigns, assure the voters that they are only doing this because everybody else is doing it, and promise reform...

...Defenders of the status quo argue that corporate wealth has no greater influence here than in countries that finance elections with tax money...

...Should we be concerned that fewer and fewer people vote or only that fewer and fewer of "our" people vote...

...It once was a maxim on the left that the greater the turnout, the better the chances of liberal and center-left candidates...

...But it looks now as if the chief domestic issue will be education, with the Republicans defending vouchers and "school choice" and the Democrats . . . doing what...

...It is true, though, that a simple reversal of what happened in 1994—when many workers and union members stayed home and newly mobilized men and women from the Christian right replaced them—would restore the Democratic congressional majority, even if the same percentage of eligible voters (37 to 38 percent), and no more, showed up at the polls...

...In a presidential year, it's certain that more people will show up (just under 50 percent last time), but still, the numbers are going to be low, and the campaigns will address themselves to the relatively small groups of citizens at the margins, who may or may not vote, or who may vote for either party...

...And if contributors are turned down on this or that request, they expect the officeholders they helped elect to say something like this: "Look, I can't do whatever-it-is for you...

...there are too many other factors involved...

...Compassionate conservatism" looks very much like a Republican version of the "third way," and the third way looks more and more like a Democratic version of compassionate conservatism...

...I assume that the Democrats will stand on this side of the question, but they are, apparently, consulting their focus groups before deciding exactly where on this side to stand...

...suppose that they had to be reached by reinvigorating political parties, organizing at the local and state levels, finding party workers in the wards and precincts of our cities, knocking on doors and passing out leaflets....no, no, it's a romantic fantasy...

...But high expectations aren't likely to be the mark of election 2000...

...But attention is sufficiently important, especially when you think about what it means never to be attended to by political leaders...

...Even so, I am torn between thinking that how we elect presidents really ought to be the central issue of this presidential election and thinking that the other issues, social and economic, are much more central...

...In this television age, the gifts of time and energy that ordinary citizens can bring never seem to balance the gifts of wealth—which may help to account for the steady withdrawal of ordinary citizens from the political arena...

...After that, it's probably just as well that people who are indifferent to politics or ignorant about the issues stay home...

...What do the numbers mean...

...6 n DISSENT / Winter 2000 A new ball game or more of the same...

...Now there is disagreement among the students of electoral behavior, some of whom believe that the critical question isn't how many, but who...