The Foxholes of Politics
NIEBURG, PATRICK E.
The Foxholes of Politics Elections are won and lost in the wards, where politics is more business than game By Patrick E. Nieburg The recent Presidential election, which John Kennedy won by a...
...But until we find something better, the dirt of the political foxhole will continue to fertilize our political battle fields...
...Get the streets repaved and have garbage collection improved, play up to neighborhood snob appeal...
...if not, he will drop it...
...As much as it may be decried, the "hyphenated American" does play an important part at the ward level...
...But since most men in the political foxholes are rarely in the ideal position of having enough time and money, they have to make do as best as they can...
...The opposition party, fearful that the candidate would win in a general election, decided to help defeat him in his own primary...
...A candidate for national office recently lost a primary election despite his party's endorsement...
...Instructors were recruited almost exclusively from one party...
...Most have retained the belief that you can "bargain" with Government officials, and they are fiercely loyal to anyone who helps them...
...The chairman carried his ward for the ticket by a comfortable margin, reversing previous election trends...
...Usually, they are the people who would not dirty themselves to clean it up...
...To him, politics is a secondary interest, or a passing one...
...In the political foxholes, the battle is fought for keeps...
...Politics has done a lot for me, he admits frankly...
...Chances are a Presidential candidate will never know, nor care to know, his connection with local garbage collection...
...In return, Jim competes keenly with his opposite number, a popular contractor, in a district that can go either way...
...Faced with a choice between a man who could win, and "one of our own," the electoral district chose the latter...
...A candidate is the purchaser shopping for votes...
...A personal talk with these groups will soon tell a trained committeeman where their sympathies or interests lie...
...It's too easy for him to let personal matters interfere with the job at hand...
...As a result, candidates' public images are "remade," platforms tailored to the likes, preferences and prejudices of the individual voter...
...In one medium-sized town, the Chamber of Commerce started a course in political action...
...Today, they are regarded as an incentive for party workers...
...Now his question to his friends is simple, his argument straightforward...
...The "outs" therefore will have to do with the second-best alternative —promise of a job if they get in, or outright cash payments...
...This led her into politics...
...A clear example of the relative importance of candidates was recently given at a large party rally...
...What happens if the purchaser refuses to make payment after the goods have been delivered...
...It may sound simple to turn out the hardcore vote, but at times it may be difficult to translate into action...
...Frequently this is true, though there are definite limitations...
...Maybe so...
...If the vote could be held to a minimum, it could be controlled by members of the special interest group who would turn out in full strength...
...Now people came to him to ask favors and when he takes his seat in the PTA meeting he can at least command the undivided attention of those present...
...Dirty politics...
...In reality, however, such payments have become fairly widespread irrespective of whether they are for compensation or not...
...Primarily for their own good —to protect something they already have, or to obtain something they hope for—the ward chairmen and committeemen will leave no stone unturned to produce the desired results...
...For when the oratory subsides and the glamor of televised conventions and debates fades, the campaign ultimately ends up in the foxholes of precinct politics...
...Intuitively, however, she knows how to persuade people...
...The candidate was defeated by a margin of 1 per cent of the total vote cast...
...What the students did not realize, however, was that their lists were taken home by the instructors—presumably for corrections and checking—and turned over to one party...
...Postcards with that man's authorized signature were then sent out to all members of the opposition party in that block...
...If further justification were needed, the local pro can always find it in the old adage that to the victor belongs the spoils...
...There is one major flaw in this free interchange of give and take...
...But it produced results...
...Russ and Al jointly operate a service station...
...Stripped of all extras, the emphasis is on "produce...
...Unlike most committeemen they don't have to make the rounds since their voters usually drive into their service station regularly...
...In her first term as a committeewoman, her party's registration in the district increased 37 per cent...
...A postmortem revealed some interesting facts...
...Too many political pros have too much at stake to play it any other way...
...The neighborhood snubbed the newcomers and Lucy missed social contacts...
...The latter were carefully checked against party affiliation lists...
...This was forcefully brought home during a recent primary election...
...Ernie is a machine operator in one of the local plants and a committeeman...
...Except in heavily lopsided wards where there is no alternative, the party faithful prefer to work on the swing-vote, the stay-at-homes and the new voter...
...You just don't elect an Italo-American, for instance, in a Polish-American neighborhood...
...The competent ward chairman is keenly aware of this danger...
...So successful was this campaign that only 12 per cent of the eligible voters went to the polls...
...This is the hardcore vote in the precincts and wards, the basis from which a candidate must build...
...As long as a party controls the local government—county or city— and party workers hold political jobs, the problem is simple...
...I hope you share my feeling and will vote for —." For added impact these cards, and two follow-ups, were written in Serbian, Croatian, Polish and Italian, as well as in English...
...The Foxholes of Politics Elections are won and lost in the wards, where politics is more business than game By Patrick E. Nieburg The recent Presidential election, which John Kennedy won by a slim margin of less than two votes per precinct, has focused national attention on the basic units of American politics: the precincts and wards...
...Similarly, a candidate who does not belong to the dominant ethnic group he hopes to represent faces an uphill battle, unless he is a compromise candidate between equally strong minorities...
...And as party lines are blurred, personalities are played up...
...POLITICAL cynics contend that given the time and money, they can swing any ward or precinct in any desired direction...
...It is nice to have them on your side, but let's face it, they are hard to control, independent and often unreliable...
...As a committeewoman, she knows little about issues...
...By the time he had reached the bottom of the list, he had completely forgotten about Congressional candidates...
...In short, well-meaning, non-partisan civic drives for larger voter registration will get the support of only those ward chairmen who stand to gain by it...
...Jim, a young teacher, usually had his voice drowned out at PTA meetings...
...Who but the party can help you, and will help you, when you are in trouble...
...Each is a committeeman in the third district of the 17th ward...
...To do so, special business interests within the candidate's own party were approached (by their business partners affiliated with the opposition party) and convinced that the endorsed candidate was an "unpliable" person not to be counted on...
...In a light-hearted moment of introspection, a highly successful ward chairman once summed it up with this little ditty: Oh come all you faithful, I'm calling the roll, For all who want favors—produce at the poll...
...However, such efforts to convert members of the opposition party are more perfunctory than sincere...
...They did it for me, didn't they...
...However, at the local level this sentiment is so pronounced that the opposition was forced to pull a rapid, last-minute switch in candidates to counter this prejudice by putting up a man of the same ethnic origin...
...A candidate who previously has held office and has demonstrated his willingness to settle his accounts is preferable to a new, untried customer...
...There is no room in the political foxholes for the trimmings which cloak politics at a more exalted level...
...But more significantly it points up two facts: First, at the foxhole level, politics is based upon personal interests and relationships, rather than issues or platforms...
...Russ, therefore, has the upper hand politically, because every fixed ticket is converted, during election time, into a vote...
...For the degree of interest a committeeman may take in a candidate is likely to be determined by the number of jobs (or other favors) he may control...
...It's a question of pride, one committeeman explained...
...From the viewpoint of an enlightened community, a large voter turnout is welcome and desirable...
...The "outs" have a more difficult time, for at best a political organization is a loose structure with little discipline, held together frequently by patronage...
...In another case, a city committee set to endorse candidates postponed its decision until the day before filing of petitions, just to be able to counter the opposition's choice with a man of like nationality...
...Russ has an in with the city judge and can fix parking tickets...
...On a block-by-block basis, each committeeman had to produce the name of a well-known, well-liked member of the opposition party who would lend his name to campaign literature...
...It did not pay much, but enough to cover the mortgage payments on his modest home...
...But the truth is that it will help him carry Lucy's district...
...Basically, therefore, his first task is to assure his party's candidates the votes of every committeeman or woman, their immediate families and friends...
...Officially, cash payments to party workers are compensation for time and pay lost at work...
...Many political workers are not quite up to this delicate task and consequently the image or impression created frequently has no resemblance to reality...
...Only the detergent which can dissolve the public's political apathy can clean up politics...
...Lucy did all this...
...Some may call it dirty politics...
...To those who actually defeated the candidate, his politics could not matter less...
...one is a Democrat, the other a Republican...
...When he was laid off and was out of work for nearly a year, the party got him a job as custodian of voting machines...
...When he became a committeeman things changed rapidly...
...If they favor his party, the committeeman will work hard to garner the vote...
...More people get parking tickets than need licenses...
...second, an organized minority can win (and not infrequently does) where the votes are counted in tens rather than hundreds or thousands, provided it turns out in strength while the majority remains apathetic...
...And because there are more organization men than non-organization men who win elections, it follows that this is accepted as the successful combination for victory at the polls...
...Significantly, nobody in the ward sees anything wrong in this procedure...
...These cards would read, "Dear Joe: You know I am a life-long member of the —— party...
...The result carried over from local to national elections...
...One ward chairman, working from a minority position, invaded opposition territory with what turned out to be blockbusters...
...It is the payoff for many hours invested in patient listening to other people's trouble...
...From the practical politician's viewpoint, it does not pay to register a voter for the opposition party...
...The supplier takes a calculated risk...
...Let me give some examples, not fictional people or hypothetical cases, but in which the names and locale have been changed...
...The best purchaser, from the supPatrick E. Nieburg, an editor of Economic World, was a recent candir date for Congress from New York...
...The road of least resistance—what you would like to hear—points to emphasis on likeness rather than differences between parties...
...Nowhere are these cold realities more apparent than in precinct and ward politics, because to many practitioners at this level, politics is a means to an economic end...
...The candidate's opponent was instructed to do nothing that might possibly generate interest in the primary...
...This, the practical politician reasons, is what attracts votes and wins elections, not some intangible national benefits...
...His only recourse against bad accounts is a long memory which will foreclose another shopping spree by the purchaser...
...This year, however, I am going to vote for—, because...
...Lucy is a housewife whose husband moved the family into the silk-stocking district before they could afford it...
...The majority of the voters in the district are first- or second-generation citizens of South European extraction...
...This article is based on his personal experience as well as his extensive research into the workings of politics...
...It is good business for them to team up...
...There is no logic or reason to it...
...Because the political pro takes this pragmatic approach, he is also prone to frown on volunteer groups and do-gooders...
...But the political beneficiary was the opposition party whose own candidate now became assured of election...
...This may be good enough as far as it goes, but when a special interest group decides to throw its financial weight into the scales of a political contest, the results may become unpredictable...
...TO win an election in their ward, party organizations will play on every sentiment and prejudice peculiar to their local situation...
...If all is fair in love or war, politics undoubtedly should be added to this list...
...Well balanced...
...To the ward chairman it is not a question of civic pride, but of winning elections...
...The political organization man realizes and accepts this approach, and he acts accordingly...
...Party platform and official campaign literature not withstanding, the job of the man in the political foxhole is to employ the ammunition most effective for him...
...Ward chairmen and committeemen are interested in the tangible results of political action—patronage for the voters in their immediate neighborhood...
...To make such payments is often a must for candidates who aspire to offices which control little or no patronage...
...There are other examples...
...While it is against the law to buy votes, there is nothing on the statute books which could prevent anyone from giving voters and committeemen an "incentive" to stay away from the polls...
...All this was part of the course and quite legitimate...
...And, incidentally, only in exceptional cases does the purchaser find alternate sources of supply...
...that is the word passed down from national, state, city and town committees to the foxholes of the wards and precincts...
...Not counting time or effort, this campaign in a single ward cost in the neighborhood of $1,200...
...Better schools was the excuse with which they talked themselves into the move...
...Next come the election inspectors, their families and friends...
...It is here that votes are "produced"—and elections won or lost...
...Representative of this attitude is the remark of one ward chairman, "Give the volunteer a job, and you never know whether it will be done, or done in time...
...Here politics is more like a business than the game that it is frequently alleged to be...
...The party organization is the prime supplier which furnishes them...
...He and his family vote—or else...
...There is only one answer...
...This is the time to collect political debts...
...Most of his friends and neighbors in the district also work in plants and his approach to them comes from personal experience...
...During a recent election, a candidate for supervisor of the county board of supervisors lost by eight votes—those of one committeeman's family which was out of town on election day...
...Participants were asked, as part of their homework, to canvass their neighborhoods and make detailed lists of all non-registered citizens and prepare lists of stay-at-homes...
...For non-partisan political actions, ward chairman harbor a natural suspicion...
...Al is on good terms with the license commissioner...
...Aware of his audience's interest, the rally chairman first introduced county candidates, proceded to city offices, and finally moved on to judges and state legislators...
...plier's point of view, is one who has already established his credit rating...
...While advertised as strictly non-partisan, the Chamber, which is a special interest group itself, adroitly exploited it to benefit one party...
...Payment is made after the votes have been delivered to the polls, duly inspected and counted...
Vol. 43 • November 1960 • No. 46
