No one likes swing voters, really. People just pretend.
With the presidential race headed for another photo finish, the party activists are performing back-flips to amuse this dyspeptic slice of the electorate. They must bitterly resent the exercise. After all, they can never tell whether it’s getting them anywhere. A micron of news can suddenly change the undecided’s vote. Independents are undependable. They are nobody’s friend.
This cycle’s crop of independents tends to be liberal-to-moderate in outlook, according to a Zogby International poll. That can’t be good news for George Bush. Some 70 percent of the independents polled want Washington to vigorously protect the environment. The Bush environmental policy is a disaster. Sixty percent back federal programs to help the poor, also not Bush’s strong suit.
On the other hand, 91 percent of the independents thought the federal government should hang tough in defending the homeland against terrorism. Bush gets high points there.
Your writer shares the tendencies described above. Like others of her ilk, she is tough on incumbents (which helps explain her ‘92 vote for Democrat Bill Clinton but her ‘96 vote for Republican Bob Dole). Her vote at this moment is swinging toward John Kerry.
For people who order their politics a la carte, social gatherings have become uncomfortable of late. I had dinner recently with arch-liberals who knew all about my political infidelity. We started out amicably, though it was a cold peace. I emphasized our shared outrage at the Bush’s hostility toward embryonic-stem-cell research. I characterized his assaults on gay marriage as a waste of time. And I declared solidarity on the tax cuts: I forcefully condemned Bush for selling piety to the cheap seats while delivering hard cash to the air-conditioned boxes.
But that amount of agreement wasn’t enough to make me a solid person. I had not bought the whole store. I had supported the war in Iraq on weapons-of-mass-destruction grounds. When the WMD argument fell apart, I still thought it a good idea to get rid of the monster, Saddam. I ventured that the United States must use force in ways that it would not have before 9-11. I opined that in the age of terrorism, our national survival would require some loss of individual liberty.
This was more than my companions could bear, and the conversation got loud. Never mind my assertion that the Bush administration had botched relations with the rest of the world. Never mind that I called the administration’s post-Saddam plans for Iraq sloppy and its failure to reduce dependency on Mideast oil a scandal. I was playing to an empty theater.
Later in the week, I had lunch with an elderly acquaintance, a manufacturer who is quite conservative.
“Some of my friends say you’re a liberal, but I tell them you’re right down the middle,” he said, making a slashing gesture inches from my rib cage.
He then moved onto a favorite subject, which is his tax burden. I no longer seemed so evenly divided.
“The rich are getting most of the tax cuts,” he said, “because they pay most of the taxes. The liberals are ruining America.” (He ends every thought that way.)
“The rich pay most of the taxes,” I responded, “because they make most of the money.”
I further noted to my dining companion that the taxman had apparently left enough behind for him to live like a Pasha with homes all over. And I inquired into whether the government was sending him his Social Security checks on time. And, oh yes, was Medicare still treating him right?
Now and then, I find myself at gatherings of voters without a team. These can be pleasant occasions. I recently had drinks with some relics of Rockefeller Republicanism. Internationalists by breeding, they had become anybody-but-Bush voters. We exchanged knowing and weary looks.
Many have tried to crack the mind of a journalist friend known for his Zen refusal to show his political hand.
“What is your thinking about the upcoming election?” I slyly asked him.
“I have always believed that any dynastic leadership situation is bad,” he said. “I don’t like dynasties of any kind.”
“So you’re not going to vote for Bush,” I offered.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’m a deadline guy.”
Froma Harrop is a Providence Journal columnist. Contact her by writing to fharrop@projo.com.
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