The political bigheads all over the country are sifting through the available evidence, trying to determine if this election is one that will turn on swing voters and swing states or on which side can better turn out its base. It may come as a surprise to some that it can't be both. But that's what the punditry is for, to keep you apprised of the overtones and undercurrents not obvious to the ordinary eye. So consider yourself informed: The debate is starting to rage -- turnout or swing, base or persuadables?
With the gazillion of dollars being spent in 18 swing states from Maine to New Mexico, we know that at least television-ad buyers on both sides believe it's going to be the season of the swingers. The problem, however, is that there are fewer and fewer of them, spread over more of more states. There may, in fact, be more swing states than swing voters. In very short order, the number of swing states has gone from five -- Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri, Florida, Ohio -- to a list of 18, including a couple of shockers like Wisconsin and Louisiana.
Still, the fact of the matter is that Al Gore and George W. Bush each got just over 50 million votes in 2000. Gore got about a half-million more, but there were not enough swing voters among them. It's a fair assumption that about the same number of people will show up this November. Poll after poll has shown that 94 percent to 96 percent of them have already made up their minds. Which leads to the mind-boggling conclusion that the billion dollars that will be spent on this election is really about convincing 4 million to 6 million people to move off the dime. Do the math: Swing voters are expensive.
That's what accounts for some of the recent swooning over the base on either side. Democrats think they're winning the base game, having been angrier and more focused since those heady days in Florida in 2000. They have an inviting target in the president to focus their anger on, and they are tired of losing. But Democrats, it seems, have not bought into the either-or proposition framework for this election: They are trying to hit from both sides of the plate. While they are a party energized largely by opposition to the war in Iraq and an almost bottomless antipathy toward the commander in chief, their presidential ticket is headed by two men who voted for the war in Iraq. Hopefully, swing voters are paying attention and see not contradiction or hypocrisy but moderation and agreeableness.
Republicans, on the other hand, find themselves in something of a hole. Four years ago they wooed swing voters with a message masterstroke: “compassionate conservatism.” And maybe the sharply conservative tone taken by the administration since that campaign was a way to reassure conservatives that the slogan was just a way to win the election, not govern the country. Those chickens may be coming home to roost. After a difficult and costly preemptive war, compassionate conservatism is off the table, no longer a strategic option.
That heightens the need for an energized base. And that, more than anything, explains what's been happening on Capitol Hill this week with the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have turned into constitutional mandates many of the provisions of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (or, as it affectionately called, DOMA). There is DOMA and then there is Dumber. It's hard to see how this helps the GOP cause.
The scene that has played out on the Senate floor over the past few days has been remarkable: With no chance of getting the 67 votes to actually pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as an act between one man and one woman, Republicans used the debate to write campaign materials and to energize the part of the GOP base that believes gay marriage will rot the very foundation of society. It was a clear attempt to force difficult votes on Democrats, elevate the issue in some tough congressional races, and embarrass John Kerry, who comes from the state where judges have granted gays the right to marry.
By necessity, the debate was at times inane.
“We argue that heterosexual marriage must be deliberately fostered because it involves much more than copulation,” offered Senator Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Republican, who is one of the main sponsors of the amendment.
He admitted that gay marriage was not really a threat to heterosexual relations -- but that was not the point.
“People will continue to hook up,” Santorum acknowledged, but at a high cost to society. “Will heterosexuals continue to, you know, copulate? Sure. But will they build families?”
It is worth noting that that little soliloquy makes Santorum the second high-ranking Republican in recent weeks, the vice president being the first, to choose the Senate floor as an arena for the discussion of sexual acts. In truth, the whole gay-marriage-amendment debate has taken on an air of desperation for the Republicans. Santorum, who chairs the Senate Republican Conference, admitted that he couldn't count on winning a simple majority for the amendment, even with 51 GOP senators. And nothing may show the depth of the GOP's concern more than the White House's decision last week to use the president's weekly radio address to wade headlong into the debate on gay marriage.
“Overreaching judges could declare that all marriages recognized in Massachusetts or San Francisco be recognized as marriages everywhere else,” the president lamented. “ … The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, and the law can teach respect or disrespect for that institution.”
Bush urged passage and ratification of the amendment. It won't happen, but his base will be happy -- and that makes political sense, because the president understands that for him to win, his base has to be very, very good to him.
Terence Samuel is the chief congressional correspondent for U.S. News & World Report. His column about politics appears each week in the online edition of The American Prospect.
