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Instant (insistent) replay Everybody Loves a WinnerBy Rick Horowitz
This was on the sports page somewhere just the other day: "All we need is a field goal," the quarterback kept telling his teammates. "Yes," added the reporter, "and all the Democrats need is about 10 million more votes." Actually, it was closer to 43,000 more votes. A perfectly distributed 43,000 votes, needless to say, landing in ideal proportions in two touch-and-go Senate races, to flip last Tuesday's results on their ear. Needless to say, it didn't happen. But 43,000 is a lot less than 10 million, yes? Still, that's what it's come to. The Democratic Party, a national political organization with a long and proud tradition, is now a punch line. On the sports page. And the hits just keep on coming. You think the Democrats had a bad time on Election Night? Things have only gotten worse since then. The latest polls are out, and the Dems are losing ground. The voters saw them even less favorably on November 10 than they did on November 5. Less favorably overall, and less favorably when it comes to solving the country's problems. President Bush, meanwhile -- who is not a Democrat (you probably noticed this), who runs against Democrats every chance he gets -- saw his own approval ratings bounce back up toward 70 percent. What's going on here? A little bit of substance, and a large serving of group think. Call it the media multiplier effect. Substance first, and credit where credit is due: The president may have preferred ignoring the United Nations in dealing with Iraq, but when push came to shove, he agreed to give diplomacy one last chance, and he came up last Friday with a 15-0 vote in the Security Council. Plenty of Americans still have plenty of misgivings about adding another war to our already crowded schedule, but if we're going to do it, they feel much better about it if we've got the U.N. in our corner. For the moment, at least, that's where we've got them. In our corner. For the moment, at least. Score one for the prez. The rest of the GOP post-election bounce, though, is more nebulous. It's people wanting to be with a winner, even after the fact. It's people climbing aboard a bandwagon. And, of course, it's TV, which since Election Night has pointed out approximately ten million times that the Republicans, to put it in football terms, had taken it to the house (not to mention the Senate), while the Democrats had taken it right on the helmet. A little of that goes a long way. A lot of it goes even further. Then of course -- also on TV -- we've had the edifying sight of the Democrats attempting to "learn from" their losses, which mostly means ripping one another to shreds, while the Republicans have managed (just barely) to keep their gloating under wraps and the hardiest of their hard core out of the spotlight. For the moment, at least. The Republicans ran the more effective election campaign, no doubt about it. But the Republicans have also run the far more effective post-election campaign. The television screen is a magnifying glass, a signal booster. The message reinforces the message reinforces the message reinforces... Anyway. Remember what the experts used to say about the Electoral College in presidential elections? That one of its supposed advantages was that it transformed even excruciatingly small margins in a given state into winner-take-all bonus points? And that giving slim winners more decisive-looking victories, putting more space between the victors and the vanquished, made it easier for the winners to govern? There are no Electoral Colleges in congressional races. No bonus points. Not to worry, though -- your friends in the media are more than ready to tackle the problem. Posted 11/12/02.
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Rick Horowitz
