As a child growing up in a small Minnesota town, I remember elections as a time of activity and wonder. With eight children, my mom and dad voted in shifts, but vote they always did. Many of my grade-school classmates sported campaign pins. The “I Like Ike” buttons were more popular, but I wore my Adlai Stevenson pin proudly, even though something told me that ours was a losing cause. Campaign leaflets would appear at the house in the hands of neighbors or slipped between the doors. They were also found on store counters or on windshields when farmers came into town on Saturday night. Campaign posters were slapped on posts or taped to store windows. Summer evenings were spent watching the party conventions. There wasn’t anything else available on TV, but the conventions would have been the program of choice in most homes anyway.
Elections don’t look and feel like that anymore, and haven’t for a long time. During the past four decades, the United States has had its longest sustained period of decline in election participation, including but not limited to the vote. Elections are now conducted on high, beamed from war rooms and newsrooms. We are invited to send a check and to vote on Election Day. Increasingly, we don’t bother to do either one.
It is mythical, of course, to claim that elections were once bottom-up affairs that thrived solely on the effort and interest of ordinary citizens. But today’s elections are unmistakably top-down affairs, conducted in ways that suit candidates, journalists, and officials. These professionals are not unmindful of or uncaring about the public, but they put their own needs first. The gap between the practitioner and the citizen—despite the intimacy of television and the immediacy of polling—has arguably never been greater. The world occupied by the hundreds at the top and the world populated by the millions at the bottom still overlap at points, but they do so less satisfactorily than before. The juice has been squeezed out of elections. The blinkered professionalism that marks other areas of American life has taken over politics and journalism, which are among the areas of modern life that actually work better when a spirit of amateurism prevails.
Absent that spirit, Americans are likely to continue to withhold their checks, their votes, and their attention. This prospect led to the Vanishing Voter Project on which this book is based. With the generous support of the Pew Charitable Trusts, we conducted weekly interviews with national samples of 1,000 Americans to discover how much attention they were paying to the 2000 presidential election campaign. We sought to discover what draws people to a campaign and what keeps them away. We did a lot of interviewing. Today’s campaign lasts a full year, easily the longest among the world’s major democracies. By the time the 2000 campaign ended, we had conducted nearly 90,000 interviews. We had not expected the outcome to go into overtime. But it did, and so did we, gathering an additional 10,000 interviews while Americans waited to hear whether George W Bush’s or Al Gore’s legal team would win out.
Our Vanishing Voter Project benefited from the advice of a great many scholars, practitioners, foundation officers, and staff members. I begin my thanks with Sean Treglia of The Pew Charitable Trusts, who was the program officer for our research grant. Sean provided sound advice at critical stages of the project and represented Pew with distinction at our public forums. I am also indebted to Paul Light, who was at Pew when we proposed the project. Paul’s backing was crucial. I am grateful for it, as well as for the support received from Michael Delli Carpini, Pew’s Public Policy Program director, and Rebecca Rimel, Pew’s president. Through its many grants, The Pew Charitable Trusts has made a singular contribution to improving American democracy. It is a towering force in our civic life. It is also a hands-off foundation once a grant has been awarded. The opinions expressed in this book are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Throughout the Vanishing Voter Project—literally from beginning to end—I had support, counsel, and friendship from Marvin Kalb. Marvin and I hatched the idea of the project, secured funding for it, and directed it together. Marvin’s experiences in journalism and the academy helped shape every aspect of the study. To my delight, but not to my amazement after having already worked with him for several years, Marvin was adept even at devising survey questions. Marvin also pulled together our two successful Washington conferences and our two stunning national party convention forums. Always generous in his advice and polite in his disagreements, Marvin is what one hopes for, and is lucky to find, in a collaborator and colleague.
The Vanishing Voter Project was also fortunate to have a dedicated research and administrative team. Tami Buhr was in charge of preparing the survey questions each week and getting the data in shape for analysis. She also participated in the preparation of the weekly news releases, our conference papers, and this book. Once the surveys were off and running, Tami was easily the project’s most valuable player. I am thankful for her many efforts, some of which required her to work evenings and weekends. She is a marvelously talented research scholar and deserves a large chunk of the credit for the project’s success. The Webmaster for our project was Ben Snowden, a skilled refugee from the private sector who is now in law school. Ben set up our Web site (www.vanishingvoter.com) and took charge of sending out our weekly news releases. The task of monitoring news coverage of the 2000 campaign fell to Alison Kommer. The data she so painstakingly prepared have found their way into this book. Also helping to shape the book were two first-rate editorial assistants, Parker Everett and Lynn Weil. Eric Anderson ably assisted in tracking news coverage of the project and in routing inquiries about the project to their proper place. Karen Hart capably handled the project budget. In Washington, Marvin Kalb had the assistance of Michael Barre. At the start of the project, my personal assistant was Melissa Ring. After the book was under way, Jamie Arterton moved into the position. Melissa and Jamie did it all, from helping with project inquiries to assisting in manuscript preparation. These two very talented young women learned to work around my chronic disorganization, imposing an order on the project that was a marvel to all in the office.
The office in this case is the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Few places in academe are as stimulating or comfortable as the Shorenstein Center, a reflection of the two directors it has had, Marvin Kalb and Alex Jones. Alex came on board as the weekly surveys were in the final stretch and gave his full support to the project. Few things are more appealing to me than working with Alex in the years ahead. The mainstay in the Center throughout the project was Nancy Palmer. Superlatives are not enough in her case. She had her own job to do but always found time to help with the Vanishing Voter Project. I wore out the path to her office, two doors away, during our study. She was the first reader for every draft chapter, the first contact whenever a major problem arose, and a valued advisor at all times. Edith Holway was also there throughout the project, lending her special ability at bringing people together. Our conferences and meetings went off without a hitch as a result of Edie’s skill.
Our surveys were conducted by International Communication Research. We paid for ICR’s services but received a bonus when Melissa Herrmann was assigned to our project. Melissa went beyond what was required, cheerfully accommodating our frequent last-minute requests to add more questions to the weekly survey. ICR’s A. J. Jennings and Chris Dinardo also helped enormously and have my thanks.
A project of this scope requires outside advice, and we had it in abundance. The scholars Robert Entman, Martin Wattenberg, Alex Keyssar, and Arthur LeGacy deserve special thanks. They served as readers of draft copies of chapters. Richard Morin needs to be singled out, too. Rich helped in preparing the initial survey and then worked with us on a special survey that became the basis for a Washington Post article. During various stages of the project, we received advice from numerous practitioners and scholars. With an apology to anyone inadvertently omitted, I would like to thank Iris Adler, Michael Alvarez, Steve Ansolabehere, Paul Begala, Nolan Bowie, Bruce Buchanan, John Buckley, B. J. Bullert, Sheila Burke, Tim Cook, Kathleen deLaski, Len Downie, Sam Fleming, William Galvin, Curtis Gans, David Gergen, Anna Greenberg, Stephen Hess, Maxine Isaacs, Marion Just, Dan Kennedy, David King, Andrew Kohut, Taeku Lee, Robert Lichter, Jenny Mansbridge, Deborah Mathis, Jim Nicholson, Pippa Norris, David Nyhan, Michael Oreskes, Gary Orren, Richard Parker, Roy Romer, Tom Rosenstiel, Fred Schauer, Frank Sesno, Matthew Storin, Cheryl Sullivan, Paul Taylor, Evan Thomas, Bill Wheatley, and John Zaller.
Ashbel Green, my editor at Knopf, was for a second time the source of wise advice. He was also editor for my earlier Knopf book, Out of Order (a brilliant title that he suggested). I will always be indebted to Ash’s kind and constructive response to a ragged first draft of this book. In addition to Ash, Knopf’s Jonathan Fasman, Ellen Feldman, and Robert Olsson all helped and deserve my thanks.
An election project followed immediately by the hurried writing of a book based on it places a heavy toll on family members, one that I promise not to impose again, despite the encouragement and forbearance they showed. Lorie Conway, my wife, spent most of a summer and many nights and weekends alone, as I worked on the manuscript. Lorie’s support was unflagging, as was that of her son Max. Lorie saw the light at the end of the tunnel long before I did, and she often mentioned it, perhaps to remind both of us that this strain would pass. I am thankful for her help and constant encouragement. She was the deep inspiration for this book. My children, Alex and Leigh, give me purpose that has sustained me through more than one book. They may not realize it, but time with them brings new energy and fascination. I like their company so much.
Thomas E. Patterson
Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 12, 2002