Perot and Con
Georges, Christopher
Perot and Con Ross' teledemocracy is supposed to bypass special interests and take the influence of money out of politics. It won't by Christopher Georges By the time of the Major League All...
...cy, while certainly part of a larger movement is currently led by Ross Perot...
...Andrew Jackson gave the masses a louder voice a few decades later with universal white male suffrage...
...Final ly, factor in the most recent and significant de velopment: the flourishing of technologica tools that will allow anyone with a TV, a phon< line, and a few minutes to spare to vote on any issue, any time...
...just ask the Whit* House operators, who on a busy day during th< Reagan years might have fielded 5,000 calls but in 1993 are busy with 40,000 a day...
...has never held a national referendum, 26 states now permit citizens to put measures on the ballot for a June 1993/The Washington Monthly 39...
...More than two thirds of all Americans favor national binding referenda on major issues, according to a 1993 survey by the Americans Talk Issues Foundation...
...This technology is expected to be on line by the time we elect our next president, and th( 38 The Washington Monthly/June 1993 public apparently has few reservations about jsing it...
...These days, if you're unsure whether to vote for a candidate, you can call him up on "Larry King" and interview him yourself...
...Or did they know Martinez was the best man, but still wanted to see the hobbling Fenway legend in one more All Star go-round...
...Back when Madison and company ruled America, the nation was governed by the elite, thanks to devices such as the election of senators by state legislatures and property qualifications for voting...
...poll, for example, said that the "country need...
...You don't have to be a talk shov junkie to spot this trend...
...Gradually, political parties, replete with blustery conventions, opened the door a crack wider, and in 1968, the grassroots were further empowered through nominating primaries...
...Of course, populist yearnings among th( American people—from Thomas Jefferson t( Robert LaFollette to Bill Clinton—have beer as common as House scandals...
...So while Seattle Mariner Martinez garnered 500,000 votes from the bleacher set—finishingin the third base plebiscite—he wasn't even close to Boggs's 1.2 million...
...At the same time, the public is mon eager than ever to give the government a piec< of its mind...
...Whatever the reason, Boggs's selection raises a broader question: The All Star selection process appeals to the fans, but does it produce the best team...
...It won't by Christopher Georges By the time of the Major League All Star game last July, Edgar Martinez was near the top of virtually every stack of numbers in the big leagues: third in the league in hitting (.319 average), 46 runs-batted-in, 14 home runs—and a standout third baseman...
...Or is it...
...All of which helps explain the rise of a populist like Perot, who can preach with complete credibility, as he did during the campaign, that "we can show everybody in Congress what the voters want, and we'll be programming [Congress...
...That drift towards direct democraResearch assistance for this article was provided by Nicholas Joseph and Ann O 'Hanlon...
...In the meantime, while the U.S...
...All Star starters aren't selected by experts, but by the fans in a popular vote...
...And at the same time, in a single stroke, we'd wipe out the clout of the nasty special interests...
...Were the fans duped—fooled perhaps by the cachet of the Boggs name...
...Mass appeals That question has been developing steam longer than Con Edison...
...So what will it be...
...Gallup surveys have put the figure at nearly 70 percent...
...Should we, in short, stick with represen-tarian Madison or turn to majoritarian Perot...
...Teledemocrats figure that if only we turned the levers of power over to the people, well, we'd fix all that...
...For one, the people, by going over the heads of Congress, could quickly eliminate the tiresome, time-consuming political haggling and, say, decide to outlaw fat cat political contributions tonight at 10, and, if we felt so inclined, approve stricter gun laws tomorrow at noon...
...Problem is, th< Prince of Populism's vaunted teledemocracy will not only give us more Boggs's and fewe Martinez's, but rather than, as advertised, "tak ing America back," it may well hand it over t( the special interests...
...It's the best way I know," says Mike McManus, organizer of USA Vote, a Maryland-based group attempting to organize national televotes, "to empower the people against the special interests...
...By the eighties, TV had further eroded the filter between the governors and the governed, and, as the most recent election showed, even the Dan Rathers are being brushed aside...
...Perhaps technology has made their experiment in government obsolete...
...That's because the people cannot be bought, making all the lobbying by the monied interests as relevant as eight-track tapes...
...For one the public's frustration with government—anc with Congress in particular—has reached nev heights: Eighty percent of those surveyed earli er this year in a Washington Post/'ABC New...
...That's the way it's supposed to be...
...Despite the rhetoric of populists like McManus, the evidence is that the closer we get to direct democracy, the more we disempower the common man, and at the same time enhance—or at the very least keep intact—the muscle of the monied interests...
...As we take our first timid steps towards Perot's push-button Utopia, it's worth pausing to consider what we might forfeit in the process...
...Perhaps it's time to deposit those interminable Federalist Papers in the recycling bin and move our system of government into this century...
...But come the big game, starting at third was not Martinez, but struggling Boston Red Sox Wade Boggs, whose ho-hum .268 average was 64th in the league, and who had 25 runs-batted-in and 6 home runs...
...What Perot's getting at—and what most advocates of teledemocracy preach—is that empowering the people with a direct vote in policy-making is the surest cure for the two great plagues of our representative system: It is strangled by special interests, and it moves at a glacial pace...
...But today, thre< forces have converged to make direct democra cy a viable, even appealing, option...
...The answer is relevant to more than just readers of Baseball Digest, because in a very different realm—the political one—we are creeping ever closer towards the kind of system that put Boggs in the All Star lineup: a direct, let-the-majority-decide democracy...
...So why did Boggs get the nod over Martinez...
...And while teledemocracy, no doubt, can short-circuit the haggling that throttles Congress and jump start our chronically gridlocked process, that much maligned horse trading may, in fact, be more valuable than any legislation it holds up...
...to make major changes in the way governmen works...
...No doubt, James Madison and bookish fellow Framers were bright guys, but they weren't seers: Let's face it, America's no longer a nation of yeomen...
Vol. 25 • June 1993 • No. 6
