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Puffing Up John McCain, POW
“A proven leader, and a man of integrity,” the New York Post called John McCain in its editorial endorsement. “A naval aviator shot down over North Vietnam and held as a POW, McCain knew that freedom was his for the taking. All he had to do was denounce his country. He refused–and, as a consequence, suffered years of unrelenting torture.”
This standard summary of McCain’s five and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton, repeated in thousands of media accounts during his 2000 campaign and again this election year, is the founding myth of his political career. The tale of John McCain, War Hero prompts a lot of people turned off by his politics–liberals and traditional conservatives alike–to support him. Who cares that he “doesn’t really understand economics”? He’s got a great story to tell.
Scratch the surface of McCain’s captivity narrative, however, and a funny thing happens: his heroism blows away like the rust from a vintage POW bracelet.
In the fall of 1967 McCain was flying bombing runs over North Vietnam from the U.S.S. Oriskany, an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. On October 26, the 31-year-old pilot was part of a 20-plane squadron assigned to destroy infrastructure in the North Vietnamese capital. He flew his A-4 Skyhawk over downtown Hanoi toward his target, a power plant. As he pulled up after releasing his bombs, his fighter jet was hit by a surface-to-air missile. A wing came off. McCain’s plane plunged into Truc Bach Lake.
Mai Van On, a 50-year-old resident of Hanoi, watch the crash and left the safety of his air-raid shelter to rescue him. Other Vietnamese tried to stop him. “Why do you want to go out and rescue our enemy?” they yelled. Ignoring his countrymen, On grabbed a pole and swam to the spot where McCain’s plane had gone down in 16 feet of water. McCain had managed to free himself from the wrecked plane but was stuck underwater, ensnared by his parachute. On used his pole to untangle the ropes and pull the semi-conscious pilot to the surface. McCain was in bad shape, having broken his arm and a leg in several places.
McCain is lucky the locals didn’t finish him off. U.S. bombs had killed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians, many in Hanoi. Ultimately between one and two million innocents would be shredded, impaled, blown to bits and dissolved by American bombs. Now that one of their tormentors had fallen into their hands, they had a rare chance to get even. “About 40 people were standing there,” On later recalled. “They were about to rush him with their fists and stones. I asked them not to kill him. He was beaten for a while before I could stop them.” He was turned over to local policemen, who transferred him to the military.
What if one of the hijackers who destroyed the World Trade Center had somehow crash-landed in the Hudson River? How long would he have lasted? Would anyone have risked his life to rescue him?
An impolite question: If a war is immoral, can those who fight in it–even those who demonstrate courage–be heroes? If the answer is yes, was Reagan wrong to honor the SS buried at Bitburg? No less than Iraq, Vietnam was an undeclared, illegal war of aggression that did nothing to keep America safe. Tens of millions of Americans felt that way. Millions marched against the war; tens of thousands of young men fled the country to avoid the draft. McCain, on the other hand, volunteered.
McCain knew that what he was doing was wrong. Three months before he fell into that Hanoi lake, he barely survived when his fellow sailors accidentally fired a missile at his plane while it was getting ready to take off from his ship. The blast set off bombs and ordnance across the deck of the aircraft carrier. The conflagration, which took 24 hours to bring under control, killed 132 sailors. A few days later, a shaken McCain told a New York Times reporter in Saigon: “Now that I’ve seen what the bombs and the napalm did to the people on our ship, I’m not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam.”
Yet he did.
“I am a war criminal,” McCain said on “60 Minutes” in 1997. “I bombed innocent women and children.” Although it came too late to save the Vietnamese he’d killed 30 years earlier, it was a brave statement. Nevertheless, he smiles agreeably as he hears himself described as a “war hero” as he arrives at rallies in a bus marked “No Surrender.”
McCain’s tragic flaw: He knows the right thing. He often sets out to do the right thing. But he doesn’t follow through. We saw McCain’s weak character in 2000, when the Bush campaign defeated him in the crucial South Carolina primary by smearing his family. Placing his presidential ambitions first, he swallowed his pride, set aside his honor, and campaigned for Bush against Al Gore. It came up again in 2005, when McCain used his POW experience as a POW to convince Congress to pass, and Bush to sign, a law outlawing torture of detainees at Guantánamo and other camps. But when Bush issued one of his infamous “signing statements” giving himself the right to continue torturing–in effect, negating McCain’s law–he remained silent, sucking up to Bush again.
McCain’s North Vietnamese captors demanded that he confess to war crimes. “Every two hours,” according to a 2007 profile in the Arizona Republic, “one guard would hold McCain while two others beat him. They kept it up for four days…His right leg, injured when he was shot down, was horribly swollen. A guard yanked him to his feet and threw him down. His left arm smashed against a bucket and broke again.”
McCain later recalled that he was at the point of suicide. But he was no Jean Moulin, the French Resistance leader who refused to talk under torture, and killed himself. According to “The Nightingale’s Song,” a book by Robert Timberg, “[McCain] looked at the louvered cell window high above his head, then at the small stool in the room.” He took off his dark blue prison shirt, rolled it like a rope, draped one end over his shoulder near his neck, began feeding the other end through the louvers.” He was too slow. A guard entered and pulled him away from the window.
I’ve never been tortured. I have no idea what I’d do. Of course, I’d like to think that I could resist or at least commit suicide before giving up information. Odds are, however, that I’d crack. Most people do. And so did McCain. “I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate,” McCain wrote in his confession. “I almost died and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the doctors.”
It wasn’t the first time McCain broke under pressure. After his capture, wrote the Republic, “He was placed in a cell and told he would not receive any medical treatment until he gave military information. McCain refused and was beaten unconscious. On the fourth day, two guards entered McCain’s cell. One pulled back the blanket to reveal McCain’s injured knee. ‘It was about the size, shape and color of a football,’ McCain recalled. Fearful of blood poisoning that would lead to death, McCain told his captors he would talk if they took him to a hospital.”
McCain has always been truthful about his behavior as a POW, but he has been more than willing to allow others to lie on his behalf. “A proven leader, and a man of integrity,” The New York Post says, and he’s happy to take it. “All he had to do was denounce his country. He refused…” Not really. He did denounce his country. But he didn’t demand a retraction.
It’s the old tragic flaw: McCain knows what he ought to do. He starts to do the right thing. But John McCain is a weak man who puts his career goals first.
(Ted Rall is the author of the book “Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?,” an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America’s next big foreign policy challenge.)
COPYRIGHT 2008 TED RALL
COLUMN: INTEGRITY LITE
Puffing Up John McCain, POW
“A proven leader, and a man of integrity,” the New York Post called John McCain in its editorial endorsement. “A naval aviator shot down over North Vietnam and held as a POW, McCain knew that freedom was his for the taking. All he had to do was denounce his country. He refused–and, as a consequence, suffered years of unrelenting torture.”
This standard summary of McCain’s five and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton, repeated in thousands of media accounts during his 2000 campaign and again this election year, is the founding myth of his political career. The tale of John McCain, War Hero prompts a lot of people turned off by his politics–liberals and traditional conservatives alike–to support him. Who cares that he “doesn’t really understand economics”? He’s got a great story to tell.
Scratch the surface of McCain’s captivity narrative, however, and a funny thing happens: his heroism blows away like the rust from a vintage POW bracelet.
In the fall of 1967 McCain was flying bombing runs over North Vietnam from the U.S.S. Oriskany, an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. On October 26, the 31-year-old pilot was part of a 20-plane squadron assigned to destroy infrastructure in the North Vietnamese capital. He flew his A-4 Skyhawk over downtown Hanoi toward his target, a power plant. As he pulled up after releasing his bombs, his fighter jet was hit by a surface-to-air missile. A wing came off. McCain’s plane plunged into Truc Bach Lake.
Mai Van On, a 50-year-old resident of Hanoi, watch the crash and left the safety of his air-raid shelter to rescue him. Other Vietnamese tried to stop him. “Why do you want to go out and rescue our enemy?” they yelled. Ignoring his countrymen, On grabbed a pole and swam to the spot where McCain’s plane had gone down in 16 feet of water. McCain had managed to free himself from the wrecked plane but was stuck underwater, ensnared by his parachute. On used his pole to untangle the ropes and pull the semi-conscious pilot to the surface. McCain was in bad shape, having broken his arm and a leg in several places.
McCain is lucky the locals didn’t finish him off. U.S. bombs had killed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians, many in Hanoi. Ultimately between one and two million innocents would be shredded, impaled, blown to bits and dissolved by American bombs. Now that one of their tormentors had fallen into their hands, they had a rare chance to get even. “About 40 people were standing there,” On later recalled. “They were about to rush him with their fists and stones. I asked them not to kill him. He was beaten for a while before I could stop them.” He was turned over to local policemen, who transferred him to the military.
What if one of the hijackers who destroyed the World Trade Center had somehow crash-landed in the Hudson River? How long would he have lasted? Would anyone have risked his life to rescue him?
An impolite question: If a war is immoral, can those who fight in it–even those who demonstrate courage–be heroes? If the answer is yes, was Reagan wrong to honor the SS buried at Bitburg? No less than Iraq, Vietnam was an undeclared, illegal war of aggression that did nothing to keep America safe. Tens of millions of Americans felt that way. Millions marched against the war; tens of thousands of young men fled the country to avoid the draft. McCain, on the other hand, volunteered.
McCain knew that what he was doing was wrong. Three months before he fell into that Hanoi lake, he barely survived when his fellow sailors accidentally fired a missile at his plane while it was getting ready to take off from his ship. The blast set off bombs and ordnance across the deck of the aircraft carrier. The conflagration, which took 24 hours to bring under control, killed 132 sailors. A few days later, a shaken McCain told a New York Times reporter in Saigon: “Now that I’ve seen what the bombs and the napalm did to the people on our ship, I’m not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam.”
Yet he did.
“I am a war criminal,” McCain said on “60 Minutes” in 1997. “I bombed innocent women and children.” Although it came too late to save the Vietnamese he’d killed 30 years earlier, it was a brave statement. Nevertheless, he smiles agreeably as he hears himself described as a “war hero” as he arrives at rallies in a bus marked “No Surrender.”
McCain’s tragic flaw: He knows the right thing. He often sets out to do the right thing. But he doesn’t follow through. We saw McCain’s weak character in 2000, when the Bush campaign defeated him in the crucial South Carolina primary by smearing his family. Placing his presidential ambitions first, he swallowed his pride, set aside his honor, and campaigned for Bush against Al Gore. It came up again in 2005, when McCain used his POW experience as a POW to convince Congress to pass, and Bush to sign, a law outlawing torture of detainees at Guantánamo and other camps. But when Bush issued one of his infamous “signing statements” giving himself the right to continue torturing–in effect, negating McCain’s law–he remained silent, sucking up to Bush again.
McCain’s North Vietnamese captors demanded that he confess to war crimes. “Every two hours,” according to a 2007 profile in the Arizona Republic, “one guard would hold McCain while two others beat him. They kept it up for four days…His right leg, injured when he was shot down, was horribly swollen. A guard yanked him to his feet and threw him down. His left arm smashed against a bucket and broke again.”
McCain later recalled that he was at the point of suicide. But he was no Jean Moulin, the French Resistance leader who refused to talk under torture, and killed himself. According to “The Nightingale’s Song,” a book by Robert Timberg, “[McCain] looked at the louvered cell window high above his head, then at the small stool in the room.” He took off his dark blue prison shirt, rolled it like a rope, draped one end over his shoulder near his neck, began feeding the other end through the louvers.” He was too slow. A guard entered and pulled him away from the window.
I’ve never been tortured. I have no idea what I’d do. Of course, I’d like to think that I could resist or at least commit suicide before giving up information. Odds are, however, that I’d crack. Most people do. And so did McCain. “I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate,” McCain wrote in his confession. “I almost died and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the doctors.”
It wasn’t the first time McCain broke under pressure. After his capture, wrote the Republic, “He was placed in a cell and told he would not receive any medical treatment until he gave military information. McCain refused and was beaten unconscious. On the fourth day, two guards entered McCain’s cell. One pulled back the blanket to reveal McCain’s injured knee. ‘It was about the size, shape and color of a football,’ McCain recalled. Fearful of blood poisoning that would lead to death, McCain told his captors he would talk if they took him to a hospital.”
McCain has always been truthful about his behavior as a POW, but he has been more than willing to allow others to lie on his behalf. “A proven leader, and a man of integrity,” the New York Post says, and he’s happy to take it. “All he had to do was denounce his country. He refused…” Not really. He did denounce his country. But he didn’t demand a retraction.
It’s the old tragic flaw: McCain knows what he ought to do. He starts to do the right thing. But John McCain is a weak man who puts his career goals first.
COPYRIGHT 2008 TED RALL
As If the Primaries Had Never Happened
The blog PunditFight notes that, in a year when everyone says that all the pundits were wrong, there was an exception: me. They quote the hosts of Air America’s “Majority Report”:
Marc Maron: What we’ll find out in the next few months is if the big “fix” by the big “they” is really in. We’re gonna find out in the next couple of months.
Sam Seder: Yes! Ted Rall came on the Majority Report, this must have been over a year and a half ago. And he said that he believed that McCain and Clinton were gonna win, were gonna be the nominees because they had the most money and there had never been a time where somebody had had that much money that far out and hadn’t won. So it’ll be interesting to see if that comes around.
Yes, I do happen to be right most of the time. But it’s not because I’m a magician. I study history. Most of the time–almost all of the time–past performance IS a good indication of future returns. This year’s election, in which the two best-funded candidates are once again emerging as their party’s likely nominees–is no exception to the rule.
Meanwhile, the New York Times hires William Kristol for its Op/Ed page–not me. Of course, it’s not his fault he’s usually wrong. Have you ever noticed that he rarely, if ever, refers to historical precedent?
McCain Revisited
Reader Kim asks:
now that mc cain is starting to really move in the repug primaries, i was wondering if you would consider re-running a column you wrote a couple (few?) years ago about why he really isn’t the independent’s friend. You remember the one? i think it would be a good service to remind people, ASAP, i guess, at it is nearly “super tuesday”.
Indeed, there’s some stuff here, especially toward the last half of the column, that independent voters may want to think about as they head to the polls on Tuesday (or whenever). I hope you enjoy this trip back to 2004…
Column from 6/15/04: How Democrats Are Their Own Worst Enemy
Now we know what John Kerry has been up to this spring. Other politicians, having wrapped up their party’s nomination early in March, might have devoted those extra months to honing their stump speech, shaking down contributors and strategizing for the long slog to November.
Not Kerry. Kerry, it seems, spent the last three months begging Republican John McCain to run as his vice president. He didn’t ask officially (whatever that means) but he asked seven times. “I don’t want to formally ask because I don’t want to be formally rejected, but having said that, would you do it?” an aide who ran messages between the two senators quoted Kerry’s approach to The New York Times. Each time, each of seven times, McCain’s answer was the same: an unequivocal no.
Hey, John, wanna be my veep?
No thanks.
I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that. So. Shall we print up some buttons?
No.
Come on, man. I need you.
Nope.
You’re kidding! You know the Republicans will never nominate you for the presidency! They hate your ass!
Whatever. I said no.
Dude! Don’t be like that. Yes is such an easy word to say. Say it.
Get a life, John. Don’t contact me unless it’s about legislation. Got it?
Look, I’ll be honest. The CBS poll says you’ll give me a 14-point boost if you join the team. I gotta have you. I can’t take no for an answer.
No means no, John. No. No. No.
Hey, thanks, I appreciate it. I’ll call a press conference for noon. Kerry-McCain 2004!
I’m getting a restraining order against you, you jowly bassett-hound-eyed freak!!!
Seven times. Has John Kerry lost his mind?
The last time Americans elected a cross-party ticket was 1796, and with good reason. President Adams, a Federalist, feuded over matters personal and political with vice president Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party. The resulting spectacle was so appalling that Congress amended the Constitution to minimize the chances of such a fiasco reoccurring.
Not since 1932 has it been so important for Democrats to win the presidency. George Bush, a dangerous, deranged demagogue, has got to go. Anybody But Bush: I coined the phrase, and I still mean it. But it would be the height of folly to brush off the implications of the Kerry-McCain dalliance. The Democratic nominee-apparent’s judgment, and that of his advisors, has been grievously compromised.
Liberals believe that McCain is a soft-spoken moderate Republican. The shabby treatment he received in 2000 at the hands of Bush and Karl Rove, whose operatives falsely claimed that he had fathered an illegitimate daughter with an African-American hooker, earns him sympathy from the left. So does the maverick style he employed to push for campaign finance reform.
But McCain isn’t what people think he is. “At the end of the day,” said the chatty aide, “he’s a Republican.” His campaign finance reform banned soft money contributions, a much bigger source of funds for Democrats than Republicans. Later in 2000 he played Bush’s bitch, campaigning for the man whose staffers had smeared him. By all accounts his understated tone quickly rises to accommodate a sharp temper. Most of all, McCain’s Arizona constituents vote for him because his conservative politics match theirs.
“I am pro-life,” McCain wrote on his 2000 campaign website. “I oppose abortion except in the case of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in danger. I support the constitutional amendment to prohibit the physical desecration of the American flag. [I will] curb the gratuitous violence in the media that is desensitizing our culture to violence. Bearing arms is a constitutionally protected right.”
How could liberal voters support Kerry-McCain knowing that a pro-life, flag-burning-obsessed, pro-censorship gun nut was a heartbeat away from the big leather chair? Why should anyone trust a candidate or a party so uncertain about their principles that they’re willing to sell them out for a short-term jump in the polls? Kerry should thank McCain for turning him down; in doing so a Republican may just have rescued the Democratic Party from suicidal oblivion.
Both parties, and Democrats in particular, are in trouble. The last few decades have witnessed a rise in ideological blurring. Aping the Republicans has made the Democratic Party less appealing to increasingly apathetic liberals. This has occurred during a period of unprecedented polarization, when swing voters have all but vanished. As I prescribe in my book “Wake Up, You’re Liberal!: How We Can Take American Back From the Right,” the key to Democratic success this fall is motivating the long-neglected left-wing base. That means stronger, not weaker, party identification. Democratic Congressmen who vote along with the Republicans should be thrown out of the party. Democrats must act like Democrats. And you don’t do that by nominating, or running with, Republicans.
Please Kill Me
A spam email from The Nation:
In an effort to illuminate the importance of literary and cultural matters of the moment, TheNation.com has just launched a new fortnightly column.
The Short of It will be the home of riffs, rants, raves, obituaries, reportage, appreciations, light essays, character sketches, vignettes and digressions. The inspiration is the urban sketch found on the back pages of daily journals and magazines in the nineteenth century.
The debut piece by Barry Schwabsky explores the new New Museum–the building, the opening show, the bookstore and more. Coming up are pieces about the music playlist of Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll; a rave about the jazz musician Albert Ayler; an appreciation of Doc Humes, novelist, beat, and old Paris Review hand; a lament about the decline of academic lit crit and a rant about mandarins who lament the supposed decline of reading.
Bullshit is the ultimate unstoppable vampire monster that will kill us all.
Oh, and:
There are no “literary or cultural matters of the moment” that are of “importance.” Fiction died with Steinbeck. Photography killed painting; TV killed photography. Elvis and Chuck Berry and Howlin’ Wolf killed jazz, and thank God for that. Poetry never mattered.
There is more meaning in one Paul Verhoeven film than in the global history of “digressions.”
Death to pretension!
Who’s Afraid of Mike Huckabee?
There they go again.
Yesterday, the corporations that order the media around got their way. The best candidate, possibly America’s last chance for redemption and reform, John Edwards, was pushed out of the race—the victim of the media’s decision not to cover his campaign. Now they’re doing it on the Republican side.
My readers know where I stand on Huckabee. Still, despite his flaws—and they are grievous—he has been notable for introducing elements of populism and actual Christian concern for the poor and suffering into the Republican primary race. Unlike McCain and Romney, he isn’t a 100 percent corporate shill. Which makes him dangerous.
Here comes the Edwards treatment.
Consider this from today’s New York Times: “With Rudolph W. Giuliani and John Edwards withdrawing from the race, the two parties have what is, in effect, clean two-way battles for the nomination as they roar into this week leading into Tuesday, when 20 states will vote.
Point one: Huckabee was always more viable than Giuliani. He did, after all, win the Iowa caucuses. Giuliani didn’t win a single primary. And Huckabee polled higher than Giuliani all along. So Giuliani’s withdrawal logically leaves McCain, Romney and Huckabee. Except that the media wants to get rid of Huckabee.
Directly next to the above quote are poll results that directly contradict the framing of the GOP contest as a two-man race. Huckabee, according the Times‘ own polls, is favored to win Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. He’s running second in Missouri. He polls no less than nine percent—significant by any standard—in every state.
I’ve been watching politics my entire life. Never have I seen the media engage so brazenly in using its coverage to choose which candidates receive the attention they need to survive the primary process.
Flash! Edwards Dropping Out
And there goes the Democrats’ best chance to win in the fall. I hope he’ll unite with Obama or Hillary in exchange for the nod as vice president, since that would mean all the difference. Amazingly, the Republicans appear once again to have benefited from liberal numbskullery. The trouble is, this economy can’t take any more Republican supply-side bullshit.
COLUMN: INDEPENDENTS GO HOME
Open Primaries Are Killing Democracy
Check out this political mystery: Liberals, a.k.a. the Democratic base, are angry. They’re so angry that they tried to unseat senior senator and former vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman in 2006, who had become synonymous with bipartisanship. Bipartisanship, hell. They’re in the mood for payback.
So why is Barack Obama, a bipartisan accommodationist who promises to appoint Republicans to his cabinet and praises Ronald Reagan, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination? Why is Hillary Clinton, militant centrist of the DLC, running a close second?
Mystery #2: Liberal primary voters are obsessed with choosing a nominee who can win the general election in November. And yet, according to a hypothetical head-to-head match-up, neither Obama nor Clinton qualifies. The most electable Democrat, found the most recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. match-up poll, is John Edwards.
“Edwards is the only Democrat who beats all four Republicans, and McCain is the only Republican who beats any of the three Democrats [in November 2008],” says Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director. But Edwards hasn’t won a single primary.
What’s going on? Why are angry, electability-oriented Democrats voting for the two candidates least likely to win–candidates who want to sing Kumbaya with the Republicans?
As we discussed last week, the media has frozen out Edwards because their corporate owners are scared of him. But there’s a second reason that the Democratic primaries have “gotten terribly off track,” in the words of The New York Times‘ Paul Krugman.
A lot of non-Democrats are voting in Democratic primaries.
Twenty-three states now have so-called “open primaries.” Registered independents are allowed to vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary. “What’s everybody talking about now? Independents,” Morris Fiorina, a professor of political science at Stanford says. Huge numbers of Democratic primary voters aren’t Democrats at all: 20 percent in the Iowa caucuses, 44 percent in New Hampshire, 23 percent in South Carolina.
As you might expect, candidates whose appeal crosses party lines have benefited from these open primaries. “Obama is winning independents, McCain is winning independents,” says Professor Fiorina.
Political scientists differ over the moderating effect of open primaries, but history paints a clear picture. There hasn’t been a left-wing Democratic nominee since George McGovern in 1972, or an overtly right-wing Republican one since Barry Goldwater in 1964. (Though they governed differently, Reagan and Bush II campaigned as uniters, not dividinators.) Both parties see open primaries as part of a “big tent” strategy–people who vote for party X in the primaries are said to be likelier to vote for Party X’s nominee in the fall. Open primaries are also supposed to winnow out “extreme” candidates (see McGovern and Goldwater, above) while selecting for those with broad appeal to the overall electorate. But the advantages of open primaries–which have yet to be statistically proven–come at a steep price.
As Larry Gerston writes in the San Jose Mercury-News, “people who identify as Democrats or Republicans operate with different opinions than independents. Partisans tend to have stronger opinions on leading issues, are more aware of current events, have well-developed political value sets and tend to be more involved politically on an ongoing basis. For most independents, politics is much more a spectator sport. These folks are more amused than committed, tend to know less about the leading issues and candidates, and commonly operate with a less defined set of political values.”
Independents complain that “closed primaries”–Democratic primaries are only open to Democrats, Republican primaries to Republicans–deny them a voice. In truth, registered independents choose not to vote in primaries. There is no practical reason to register as an independent. If you want to switch from one party’s primaries to the other’s, all you have to do is fill out a form. And, in the general election, you can vote for any party regardless of party affiliation.
The potential for mischief, on the other hand, is enormous in open primaries: conservatives voting for the worst Democrat, liberals for the worst Republican. Even “honest” independents queer the process by reducing the chances of a hardcore liberal or conservative winning their party’s nomination. This year, they’re boosting Obama and McCain, neither of whom have generated much enthusiasm from their party’s bases. (If these two men face off in November 2008, McCain will enjoy an edge since the GOP tends to better coalesce behind its nominees. Republican party loyalists will also find McCain’s right-wing voting record to their liking. Obama, on the other hand, repeatedly voted to fund the Iraq War.)
Polarization is good for democracy. Voters may claim not to like mudslinging campaign battles, but they turn out in greater numbers when the parties nominate candidates whose views are significantly different. In 2000, Gore and Bush were seen as so ideologically indistinct that many liberals cast protest votes for Ralph Nader. (Little did we know!) Turnout was 51.3 percent. It went up to 55.3 percent in 2004, high water mark of the red-blue divide.
Moderate nominees, er, moderate the enthusiasm of the liberals and conservatives who make up the two major parties’ bases. When your party’s standardbearer doesn’t promise much, there isn’t a lot to win. Nor is there much to lose if the enemy party’s nominee seems relatively reasonable. The Democratic and Republican parties, already so similar on issues like trade, immigration and abortion, become more broadly indistinguishable. Elections offer fewer, less relevant options. Citizens tune out. Over time, some will start to yearn for another, less free but more effective form of government.
Open primaries, wrote Gerston, are “akin to casual sports fans having a voice in the selection of college playoff schedules or newly arrived residents of a town affecting the decision of a long-disputed, festering public policy issue.” If we want to get rid of the two-party system, great. Until then, let Democrats pick the Democratic nominee and Republicans choose the Republican nominee. If independents want to play too, let them fill out a form.
COPYRIGHT 2008 TED RALL
Open Primaries Are Killing Democracy
Check out this political mystery: Liberals, a.k.a. the Democratic base, are angry. They’re so angry that they tried to unseat senior senator and former vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman in 2006, who had become synonymous with bipartisanship. Bipartisanship, hell. They’re in the mood for payback.
So why is Barack Obama, a bipartisan accommodationist who promises to appoint Republicans to his cabinet and praises Ronald Reagan, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination? Why is Hillary Clinton, militant centrist of the DLC, running a close second?
Mystery #2: Liberal primary voters are obsessed with choosing a nominee who can win the general election in November. And yet, according to a hypothetical head-to-head match-up, neither Obama nor Clinton qualifies. The most electable Democrat, found the most recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. match-up poll, is John Edwards.
“Edwards is the only Democrat who beats all four Republicans, and McCain is the only Republican who beats any of the three Democrats [in November 2008],” says Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director. But Edwards hasn’t won a single primary.
What’s going on? Why are angry, electability-oriented Democrats voting for the two candidates least likely to win–candidates who want to sing Kumbaya with the Republicans?
As we discussed last week, the media has frozen out Edwards because their corporate owners are scared of him. But there’s a second reason that the Democratic primaries have “gotten terribly off track,” in the words of The New York Times’ Paul Krugman.
A lot of non-Democrats are voting in Democratic primaries.
Twenty-three states now have so-called “open primaries.” Registered independents are allowed to vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary. “What’s everybody talking about now? Independents,” Morris Fiorina, a professor of political science at Stanford says. Huge numbers of Democratic primary voters aren’t Democrats at all: 20 percent in the Iowa caucuses, 44 percent in New Hampshire, 23 percent in South Carolina.
As you might expect, candidates whose appeal crosses party lines have benefited from these open primaries. “Obama is winning independents, McCain is winning independents,” says Professor Fiorina.
Political scientists differ over the moderating effect of open primaries, but history paints a clear picture. There hasn’t been a left-wing Democratic nominee since George McGovern in 1972, or an overtly right-wing Republican one since Barry Goldwater in 1964. (Though they governed differently, Reagan and Bush II campaigned as uniters, not dividinators.) Both parties see open primaries as part of a “big tent” strategy–people who vote for party X in the primaries are said to be likelier to vote for Party X’s nominee in the fall. Open primaries are also supposed to winnow out “extreme” candidates (see McGovern and Goldwater, above) while selecting for those with broad appeal to the overall electorate. But the advantages of open primaries–which have yet to be statistically proven–come at a steep price.
As Larry Gerston writes in the San Jose Mercury-News, “people who identify as Democrats or Republicans operate with different opinions than independents. Partisans tend to have stronger opinions on leading issues, are more aware of current events, have well-developed political value sets and tend to be more involved politically on an ongoing basis. For most independents, politics is much more a spectator sport. These folks are more amused than committed, tend to know less about the leading issues and candidates, and commonly operate with a less defined set of political values.”
Independents complain that “closed primaries”–Democratic primaries are only open to Democrats, Republican primaries to Republicans–deny them a voice. In truth, registered independents choose not to vote in primaries. There is no practical reason to register as an independent. If you want to switch from one party’s primaries to the other’s, all you have to do is fill out a form. And, in the general election, you can vote for any party regardless of party affiliation.
The potential for mischief, on the other hand, is enormous in open primaries: conservatives voting for the worst Democrat, liberals for the worst Republican. Even “honest” independents queer the process by reducing the chances of a hardcore liberal or conservative winning their party’s nomination. This year, they’re boosting Obama and McCain, neither of whom have generated much enthusiasm from their party’s bases. (If these two men face off in November 2008, McCain will enjoy an edge since the GOP tends to better coalesce behind its nominees. Republican party loyalists will also find McCain’s right-wing voting record to their liking. Obama, on the other hand, repeatedly voted to fund the Iraq War.)
Polarization is good for democracy. Voters may claim not to like mudslinging campaign battles, but they turn out in greater numbers when the parties nominate candidates whose views are significantly different. In 2000, Gore and Bush were seen as so ideologically indistinct that many liberals cast protest votes for Ralph Nader. (Little did we know!) Turnout was 51.3 percent. It went up to 55.3 percent in 2004, high water mark of the red-blue divide.
Moderate nominees, er, moderate the enthusiasm of the liberals and conservatives who make up the two major parties’ bases. When your party’s standardbearer doesn’t promise much, there isn’t a lot to win. Nor is there much to lose if the enemy party’s nominee seems relatively reasonable. The Democratic and Republican parties, already so similar on issues like trade, immigration and abortion, become more broadly indistinguishable. Elections offer fewer, less relevant options. Citizens tune out. Over time, some will start to yearn for another, less free but more effective form of government.
Open primaries, wrote Gerston, are “akin to casual sports fans having a voice in the selection of college playoff schedules or newly arrived residents of a town affecting the decision of a long-disputed, festering public policy issue.” If we want to get rid of the two-party system, great. Until then, let Democrats pick the Democratic nominee and Republicans choose the Republican nominee. If independents want to play too, let them fill out a form.
(Ted Rall is the author of the book “Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?,” an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America’s next big foreign policy challenge.)
COPYRIGHT 2008 TED RALL
