A VIEW FROM HERE
by deb weiss

A Voter's Guide To The 21st Century
August 16, 1999


The yearning for perfect democracy is once again in vogue. You hear it from such sages as CNN's Bruce Morton who, following Saturday's Iowa straw poll, primmed his lips and declared, "No, Judy, this isn't democracy."

The willingness of 25,000 Iowans, brave and true, to devote a gorgeous summer Saturday to this engaging American moment, wasn't good enough for Bruce. Money had changed hands, and you can't have that in a democracy.

Oh, yawn.

Frankly, most visions of perfect democracy creep me out. I hate these trendy blitherings that range from future-shock stuff about electronic plebiscites (picture a nation glued to television screens and computer consoles, voting in real time on hot-button issues), to the priggish paradigm of campaign finance reform espoused by John McCain, the press establishment, and Clintonian Democrats (which should tell you just about all you need to know about campaign finance reform).

EMAIL: DEB WEISS

Then there's the 'make democracy easy' movement, which seeks to spare us the last, fragile burdens of citizenship through a series of Mom-like indulgences. Vote-by-mail. Weekend voting. Instant registration. Don't get up, darling, Mother will get it for you.

Already, we can register to vote automatically when we apply for drivers' licenses or food stamps. That's so we won't have to figure out how to register all by ourselves, Making us figure it out ourselves is undemocratic, because some people find it prohibitively difficult. (As far as I'm concerned, these simpletons should be disqualified from ever being allowed to vote at all, under any circumstances: but there I go, being judgmental again.)

Lately, the citizenship requirement itself is being phased out, at least in some of our hipper municipalities. It's, like, so unfair to bar people from voting just because they didn't happen to be born here. We're all citizens of the world, aren't we?

All these fine democratic ideals beg some questions.

For instance, in a world of slick image-hucksters and Orwellian mind-games, does the left really want binding electronic plebiscites on, say, school choice and racial preferences? Does the right really want them on national defense and 'progressive' taxation?

And do we really think it's wise to make voting still easier for people who can't even figure out how to look up 'voter registration' in their local phone book?

Sure, that fancy talk about opening up the process is catchy: and it's not altogether misplaced. Unfortunately, it's also uniquely useful to the fascists among us, who are well aware of how easy it is to inflate and manipulate cynicism by appearing to invoke idealism.

Reformers grumble that the current GOP frontrunner has 'bought' his way to the top with the connivance of the money establishment. Perhaps so. Still, how very odd of them to turn around and demand that we clean up the money mess by placing funding in the hands of the political establishment and debate in the hands of the press establishment.

Anyhow, the same folks who moved heaven and earth to paint Pat Buchanan's face on the GOP back in 1992 are now indulging in a national pout because he can't afford his own paint.

They seem quite convinced that if only Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt could control the process -- if only Jim Lehrer and Tom Brokaw could control the conversation -- then the GOP frontrunner might be John W. Citizen, or maybe even Jane W. Citizen, instead of George W. Bush. (Sound cue: "Fanfare for the Common Man.")

Well, here's the thing. Though I'm a great believer in the common man, when it comes to leadership, I prefer uncommon ones.

I want a leader who's shrewd, principled, tenacious, passionately patriotic, and canny enough to recognize good advice when he hears it. I want somebody who knows that we don't need a 'new' constitution for the 21st century, but rather a revitalized commitment to the one that's seen us through more than 200 years. I want someone who believes deeply in the nation's institutions, not his own grandiose capacity to transform them.

Like Diogenes, I'm not at all sure he's out there: but if he is, he's the one for me. And I have the strangest hunch that caucuses and backroom deals (smoke-filled is no problem whatsoever)are likelier to produce him than McCain-Feingold, the League of Women Voters, and the editorial pages of the New York Times all put together.

When you come down to it, I'd sooner settle for old-fashioned politics, full of old-fashioned sin, than live in a nation of democratic lab-rats clutching their federal voter guides and staring edgily at the tiny screen as they wait for Dan Rather to tell them when to activate the Home Elect-Inator.

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A VIEW FROM HERE archive

A Good Town -- August 12, 1999

Singing The Praises Of Government News -- August 9, 1999

The First Couple's Chamber Pot -- August 5, 1999

Lifetime's Woman of the Year -- August 2, 1999

Thinking Over This Tax Cut Thing -- July 29, 1999

The John John Show -- July 26, 1999

America's One China, Two Alka Seltzer Policy -- July 22, 1999

The Politics of Speaking Ill of the Dead -- July 19, 1999

The Nasty Legacy -- July 15, 1999

All in a Slow News Week... -- July 12, 1999

Traps For The Young -- July 8, 1999

Remembering Michael Dukakis -- July 5, 1999

R.I.P., O.I.C. -- July 1, 1999

Mr. Clinton's Post-War Vengeance -- June 28, 1999

Guns, Cuisinarts and the Bill of Rights -- June 24, 1999

Attack of the Concerned Advocates -- June 21, 1999

FTC Nation -- June 17, 1999

The Very, Very Coincidental World of Bill and Hillary Clinton -- June 14, 1999

Water-boiling in Our Time -- June 10, 1999

Crisis and Peace -- June 7, 1999

Reinventing God -- June 3, 1999

On This Memorial Day -- May 31, 1999

The Un-McCarthy Era -- May 27, 1999

Unspeakable Spin -- May 25, 1999