Like letter writing with email and iPhone, voter manipulation has become high tech. Newspapers owned by crotchety, old, rich prostate sufferers are no longer able to decide winners. Neither unions nor parties can deliver hordes of instructed voters. Even the current GOP state-by-state attempt to revive Jim Crow by disenfranchising voters is faltering. It is no longer possible to purchase votes outright – at least in enough numbers to matter. Today, it’s brainwashing by the boob tube.
When he ran for the House of Burgesses, George Washington provided free poll-side beer and rum. For years after the Civil War, when the railroads discovered the cupidity of political parvenus, gifts of stock were generously distributed among lawmakers (Maine’s own Blaine House is thought to be a testimonial to the practice). At the turn of the century Tammany Hall (and its facsimiles) disbursed turkeys and jobs to keep political offices safe for posterity. In 1960, Joe Kennedy gave weighty envelopes to local sheriffs in West Virginia to capture a crucial primary for his boy Jack. For generations, gobs of cash have persuaded preachers in the Deep South to ensure that their congregations did, or did not, violate the sanctity of the polling booth.
But these techniques atrophied when Jack Kennedy showed the power brokers that TV had become the 800-pound gorilla.
And now, with the recent beneficence of a Supreme Court that awarded corporations the privilege of free speech, anyone (or thing) who feeds this gorilla can remain unaccountable, unknown and unrestrained. Consequently, a Niagara of TV money is carving new gullies in the sandstone of democracy.
Observe the TV mini-dramas flooding the tube here in Maine bought by money that has never seen a Down East coastal fog or feasted on a bean-hole bean suppah. GOP satraps have set out to capture impoverished Maine for the U.S. Senate. Especially egregious examples are the diatribes purchased by the National Chamber of Commerce that contradicted what Maine chamber members actually believe. Political despotism to a breathtaking level.
Misleading (and false) “attack” ads are standard fare – but this time the deans of defecation have reached out into Machiavellian space. As in the pool hall, they are using “bank shots.” The Republican senatorial campaign committee (read Karl Rove Inc.) was spending more on behalf of the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate than she was spending herself. This Democrat (whom they would actually want in Washington about as much as the bubonic plague) doesn’t stand the chance of the proverbial snowball. If they can persuade enough voters to leave the favored Independent in order to support the hopeless Democrat, their Tea Party pony – supported by his hard core of reactionary Republicans – can trot his sulky right into the paddock.
Clever, clever – them rich folks! Put a little spin on the ball, and Maine yokels will tug forelocks and doff hats to their political ‘”betters.”
But, all ridicule aside, it might work. Day in and day out, Fox News turns a handsome profit by selling panic, horse manure, and virulent anti-liberal bias – and some of that profit comes from right here in Maine.
Win or lose, such unmarked, distant money – whether it is union money, church money, corporate money or billionaires’ droppings – is bad for democracy. Campaigning would be arguably better off with earlier, openly crooked methods of persuasion. At least those historical methods required personal contact and voters received something for their votes besides a high electric bill.
But wait! There is a hidden benefit. This tsunami of out-of-state TV advertising may not be all bad. This cash bonanza showered on Maine’s TV empires bids fair to offset such occasional state economic flu as potato blight, declining university enrollment or, this year, a glut of lobsters. The net income of one TV weatherman equals at least three lobster boats, and each of the clear-eyed, well-endowed female “newscasters” who read the newspapers aloud with such flair must be bringing in as much loot as two potato farmers. And while TV station salaries rarely reach the stratospheric levels of university remuneration, station managers must come close to assistant deans. As the motto “Vacationland” implies – outside money can benefit rocky Maine after all. As long as its message is not believed.
Rodney Quinn, a former Maine secretary of state, lives in Westbrook. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com
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