Among the liberal pundits who cry Anybody But Bush, it's "open season" on Ralph Nader and the Green Party. Some wonder why the Democratic leaders and intellectuals attack Nader and the Greens, especially given that more Democrats voted for Bush than Nader in 2000: "Bush received the votes of 12 times more Democrats than Nader did, and 5.25 times more self-identified liberals than Nader did in Florida" (Tim Wise, "Why Nader is NOT to Blame," November 8, 2000, <http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10065>).
The answer lies in the post-modern political science of electoral campaigns and the Democratic Party elite's aversion to working-class voters (even though working-class voters vote more Democratic than richer voters do). Attacking Green candidates in particular or the Green Party in general as an Evil Spoiler and trying to scare or guilt-trip registered Greens (and registered voters who may consider voting Green) into backing the Democratic Party make _perfect sense_. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties "hunt" the votes by "targeting" and "reducing the universe" of voters, i.e. "excluding people who are not 'profitable' to work" (Marshall Ganz, "Voters in the Crosshairs," _The American Prospect_ 5.16, December 1, 1994, <http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V5/16/ganz-m.html>). Excluding the poorer Americans, enabling whose participation is costly, in turn allows the power elite to define the political agenda contrary to working-class interests and opinions:
***** _The American Prospect_ 5.16, December 1, 1994. Voters in the Crosshairs Marshall Ganz
. . . For the last couple decades, campaign consultants have been perfecting ways to restrict the electorate by "reducing the universe" of voters, long before Ed Rollins caused a furor by claiming he paid New Jersey ministers not to encourage their congregation members to vote in the gubernatorial race last September. The computerization of voter registration files and emergence of "list vendors" who purchase tapes of these files and convert them into customized, campaign-specific lists make possible this new approach to targeting. Matching voter files with tapes of phone directories, ethnic surname dictionaries, county assessor records, and voter turnout reports makes it possible to generate lists of voters individually profiled by their party affiliation, age, gender, marital status, homeowner status, ethnicity, and frequency of voting. Consultant Matt Reese explains how this information is used:
Targeting is a process of excluding people who are not "profitable" to work, so that resources are adequate to reach prime voters with enough intensity to win them. Targeting provides an ultimate "lift" to the voter contact process, allowing maximum concentration of resources to a minimum universe.
Voter registration, for example, is rarely considered because newly registered voters are less likely to turn out than established voters. Also, it requires a "ground force" of volunteers or paid registrars. In the absence of an ongoing program, there are numerous problems of management, recruitment, and quality control in creating such a team for a single campaign.
The effects of this new campaign ethos can be seen in a hypothetical district, where 55 percent of the registered voters are Democrats, 35 percent are Republicans, and 10 percent are independent or "decline to state." The first step in applying the new strategy is to buy computer tapes that describe the district by party and by voter turnout. Of all registered voters, 24 percent have no record of voting, suggesting that they are gone, and 39 percent vote only occasionally, mainly in presidential elections. These voters are ignored because they are unlikely to turn out unless stimulated. The likely voters, a bedrock 37 percent of registered voters who vote in most elections, are the prime targets of the campaign. Among these, priority is assigned to the Democratic 10 percent, Republican 5 percent, and independent 2 percent judged to be "swing" voters based on their electoral or individual histories (a Republican living with a Democrat, for example). This 17 percent is targeted for persuasion and becomes the heart of the campaign, the real determiners of the issues the campaign will address. The remaining 20 percent of the electorate who are likely voters and are likely to be loyal to their parties are contacted mainly to inform them of the candidate's identity and affiliation. They are not mobilized because they are regular voters.
As of election day, 63 percent of registered voters will not have been contacted by anyone. If, as is typical, only 60 percent of the eligible electorate were registered, 78 percent of the eligible voters in the district would never be contacted. These uncontacted voters are far more likely to be of lower socioeconomic status than those who are contacted. They never hear from a campaign and thus will likely stay at home on election day or vote the way they always have. . . .
<http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V5/16/ganz-m.html> *****
The registered Greens, who are motivated enough to lend support to such a difficult struggle as Third-Party Building, are among the likely voters, "a bedrock 37 percent of registered voters who vote in most elections" (Marshall Ganz, "Voters in the Crosshairs," _The American Prospect_ 5.16, December 1, 1994, <http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V5/16/ganz-m.html>), who are the most cost-effective to "hunt," as Ganz explains well (the entire article is worth reading).
Best of all, bashing the Green Party doesn't cost the Democratic machine _anything_, not even a dime. Intellectuals of the Anybody But Bush crowd _volunteer_ their time, skills, and energy to do so entirely on their own. That's how hegemony works in an advanced capitalist nation -- by consent, as Antonio Gramsci presciently theorized. -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
