07.09.08
Reconsidering the Presidency
In today’s show, written by Brevy Cannon, General Assignments writer for University of Virginia Media Relations, we look at a recent Center for Politics event, “Reconsidering the Presidency” held at the University of Virginia in April 2008.
“The vast and ever-increasing amounts of money spent on U.S. political campaigns are a detriment to our democracy. And, contrary to public opinion, the Electoral College is a quirk of American politics that should not be tampered with…”
Those two opinions were shared by three former governors, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Lowell Weicker of Connecticut and Virginia’s Doug Wilder, during the Center for Politics event, “Reconsidering the Presidency” in April 2008.
Center director and event host Larry Sabato noted in his introduction that he expected a lively debate from these three political veterans from across the political spectrum, and the trio did not disappoint, offering many diverging suggestions on how to reform U.S. politics and the presidential nomination process.
Sununu, a former three-term governor of New Hampshire, White House chief of staff and co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire” political news show, defended the widely criticized tradition of his home state being the first to hold presidential primaries.
Critics contend that being first gives New Hampshire an outsized influence; that the predominately white population isn’t reflective of the nation; and that voters there get the opportunity to personally meet with each candidate several times, while voters in other states may not even be visited.
Doug Wilder, former governor of Virginia, recalled his own run for president in 1992 and complained that recent presidential candidates haven’t campaigned enough in Virginia. He said, “It’s not right for certain areas of the country to be constantly courted to the degree that the residents there expect it … and others are surprised just to get a handshake or a chance even to be in the room with a presidential candidate.”
Sununu went on to say, “I think people don’t understand that the nominating process should demand from our citizens an equal commitment to the election process as the general election.” If another state goes first instead of New Hampshire, contended Sununu, that state should have some of the same merits as his state: a voter turnout rate near 75 percent, engaged citizens who ask serious questions and a place that doesn’t require lots of money to start being noticed by the public.
Wilder, who became the first African-American governor in U.S. history when elected in 1989, suggested that primary election rules could be “modernized” by having a longer timeframe, such as two weeks, in which to cast ballots, rather than just one day.
Weicker was elected governor of Connecticut in 1990 as an independent after serving three terms in the U.S. Senate as a Republican. He drew attention to the “extra hoops” that those outside the “two-party duopoly” must contend with in order to run for office. He proposed a constitutional amendment that would standardize the requirements for a presidential candidate to qualify to be on the ballot in any given state, replacing the widely varying requirements that inhibit independent candidates.
According to opinion polls cited by Sabato, contrary to the view of 70 percent of Americans who would like to do away with the Electoral College, all three governors felt it should stay. Weicker and Sununu both said that the current system (wherein a candidate wins all or none of the electors representing each state) makes candidates campaign in all 50 states.
All three panelists condemned what they all termed the “obscene” amounts of money involved in today’s politics, with Weicker going so far as to declare, “I think money is destroying politics in the United States.”
Only Wilder offered a substantive suggestion of how to address that issue. He said, “Copy a little bit from the British system, shortening it and saying the campaign will start on such and such a date and end on such and such a date… rather than as soon as George Bush took his hand down from swearing… taking his oath as president, this campaign started. That doesn’t make any sense at all, we got to shorten that.”
Sununu also decried how today’s media have “poisoned the minds of the public” with flawed coverage of political issues like the Florida recounts in the 2000 presidential election. While one questioner defended the role of the media as “the fourth branch of government,” no participants even entertained the idea that political advertising might benefit the political process, such as by increasing voter knowledge and participation, as recent research from U.Va. politics professor Paul Freedman has found.
You’ve been listening to the Oscar Show, I’m Jacob Canon. Join us next week when we look at the annual Walter A. Ridley Distinguished Lecture at the University of Virginia, held recently in the Rotunda’s Dome Room.
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