Candidate offers voters an unusual deal

In the 1972 presidential election, President Richard Nixon drubbed Sen. George McGovern, but the ensuing Watergate scandal cast the Nixon campaign in the worst possible light.

A post-election national survey asked voters which candidate they had supported.  In several states McGovern had lost, the poll found a majority saying they had voted for him.  In fact, he would have made it a close race, if what they said was true.

A book entitled “How McGovern Won the Presidency” was published.  An obvious work of fiction, it suggested everybody knew he would lose, so he had done something bold enough to change the result.

He told voters he understood, just as they did, that he was going to lose to the incumbent president.  He asked them to vote for him, reducing Nixon’s margin and sending the president, who supported the Vietnam War, a message denying him their vote of confidence.

In this story, McGovern’s request to the voters had brought the impossible result.  McGovern won. 

Of course, that is a political fairy tale, and McGovern never made the proposal.  But it makes the point candidates should talk honestly and realistically with voters, recognizing they should make political deals with voters instead of with financial backers, political leaders or other candidates.  Then, surprising things can happen.

In fact, candidates almost never make deals with voters, other than to pander to them by making promises they won’t or can’t keep.

The “almost never” is in that sentence, because it just happened here in Maine.

First, here’s the setting for the proposed deal.  In the 2010 governor’s election, 61 percent of the voters supported one of two candidates running against Republican Paul LePage who won, having received more votes than either of his competitors.

Second-place finisher independent Eliot Cutler split the rest of the vote with Democrat Libby Mitchell.  Newspaper polling reports had shown that either of them had a chance of defeating LePage.

Voters who thought either Mitchell or Cutler would be preferable to LePage were left in a quandary about who to support.  The published polling was misleading, causing many voters to wait until the last minute to decide.  Finally, the votes began flowing to Cutler.

But the shift came too late for him, and he lost by a narrow margin with the Democrat far behind.  You can understand how Cutler must have felt and why he was anxious for another shot at being governor.

The Maine electorate remains split.  Governor LePage has his strong support, likely from about the same share of the voters as gave him the Blaine House last time.  Whether they support Democrat Mike Michaud or Eliot Cutler, the rest of the voters probably agree in opposing another term for LePage.

So Cutler, now trailing Michaud in the polls, is asked about the risk of a 2010 election repeat, giving LePage four more years.

He notes the Legislature has declined to change the election procedure to prevent Maine having a minority governor.  He reports he and Michaud have not made a deal.  Such deals among candidates don’t happen, he says, because the two will later end up disagreeing about its terms.

But Cutler says he will make a deal with the voters.  Here’s what he proposes.

Cutler says people who think he would make the best governor of the three candidates ought to go all out in campaigning for him.  In this difficult race, nothing less than truly active campaigning can make him the winner.  He will stay in the race until the end in the hope his supporters and his platform can get him elected.

The second part of his proposed deal is what is almost historic.  He says when his supporters vote, if they think he cannot win, they should vote for another candidate.   

Many politicians might think this deal amounts to political suicide.  Is Cutler conceding in advance?

In reality, Cutler is showing more trust in the wisdom of voters than do most candidates.  He is dealing upfront with the greatest concern people have about his candidacy.  He wants to win, of course, but he asks his supporters not to turn him into a mere spoiler.

He has shifted the burden to the voters, where it belongs, and to Michaud, who now should offer his supporters the same deal. 

In my columns, I do not endorse candidates, so this is not an endorsement of Cutler.  But it is admiration for a rare moment in American campaigns when a candidate takes a big political risk to offer an honest deal to voters.

Israel, Palestinians Ignore Mitchell’s Advice

After former Sen. George Mitchell ended his role as Middle East mediator, he told a Maine audience the failure of Israel and the Palestinians to sign a peace agreement was yielding increasingly negative prospects for both of them.

The Palestinians were losing territory, he said, and Israel was losing friends.

In 1947, the United Nations had proposed to divide Palestine between Israel and the Palestinians.  The partition would have had the divided territory of both new countries meet at a single point on the map.  Neither would have to cross over the territory of the other.

The founders of Israel accepted the proposal, but the Palestinians and surrounding Arab countries rejected it, believing they could take over all of Palestine by military force.

A few months later, Israel, supported by the United States, the Soviet Union and others, won the war.  Its territory was larger than the U.N. had proposed.

Some Palestinians could not accept the existence of Israel and resorted to terrorist acts in hopes of wiping it off the map.  As their acts became extreme, Israel responded with increasing force.

Successive Arab attacks on Israel led to successive setbacks.  More territory came under Israeli control.  It began building settlements in territory it had gained so that, even if a Palestinian state came into existence, Israel would be able to dominate it.

If the failure of some Palestinians to accept Israel caused their territory to shrink, Israel found that its settlements policy, punishing the Palestinians and making it more difficult for them to accept an imposed peace, began reducing its support in world opinion. 

The only reliable friend of Israel turned out to be the United States.  But even American policy questioned the continued creation of settlements in the territory of the would-be Palestine.

Mitchell’s analysis and forecast turned out to be the most succinct and accurate view of the Middle East situation.  By leaving his role as mediator in 2011, he seemed to say that the situation had no chance of improving in the reasonably near future.

Not only did the settlements complicate the outlook, but so does a divided Palestine.  In the land between Israel and Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party, control.  In Gaza, a separate area along the Mediterranean near Egypt, the terrorist Hamas Party is in charge.

In Israel, Arab terrorist attacks have abated, thanks partly to Abbas.  Prosperity has grown and people have increasingly focused on their own lives and less on making a deal with the Palestinians.  The prospects for peace have become more remote, and settlement building continues.

Recently, Hamas has lost support from war-torn Syria.  And the Egyptian military government has cut off many of its sources of supply. 

Last week, Fatah and Hamas announced they would form a unified government and then hold elections.  Abbas issued a statement strongly condemning the Holocaust, which had cost the lives of six million Jews and had stimulated the creation of Israel.

Both events seemed like possible good news.  Both were rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  The United States stepped back in its efforts to promote a peace agreement.

Have the Palestinians reached the conclusion that continued hostility toward one another only causes them literally to lose ground?  If they succeed within the next few weeks to create a unified government, they can change the negotiating equation.

Netanyahu is undoubtedly correct that you cannot negotiate with someone whose objective is your disappearance.  But, if Hamas, as part of a unified Palestinian government, accepted the existence of Israel, he could claim a degree of victory.  If he would then continue to reject dealing with the Palestinian Authority, Israel could face even more isolation.

With problems in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq pressing, the American focus on Israel and the Palestinians may be receding.  Political candidates may keep up their strong support of Israel, but the practical effect may be less.

Of course, a mere willingness to negotiate, should that happen, does not ensure success.  Terrorism from Palestinian territories must be controlled, while Palestine should gain all the attributes of a sovereign country.  Israeli long-term security, its settlements, and the status of Jerusalem would have to be decided.

Both sides would do well to accept Mitchell’s wise advice, which until now they have resisted.

Why should Americans care?  We spend billions each year to support Israel, the Palestinians, and Egypt.  Aside from sharing the universal desire for peace, we have a right to expect honest efforts to end Middle East conflict in return for our investment.

Money wins; campaign finance reform is dead

Perhaps the biggest issue hanging over the American political system has been the role of money.

Reformers fear wealthy individuals and corporations dominate decisions made in Washington and in some state capitols.  They believe such dominance renders powerless average citizens whose only political assets are their votes.

These concerns overlook the long history of money’s major role in American politics.  In George Washington’s time, political opponents created partisan newspapers for the sole purpose of attacking him. 

Throughout U.S. history, money has been spent on issues ranging from banking to agriculture, from taxes to trade.  Recent developments may have given the impression the rich have become more even powerful.

Money in politics appears in two ways.  It can boost the campaign chances of candidates who are likely to support the donors’ interests.  And it can influence how legislators vote.

It is bipartisan.  Republicans may be associated with higher income people and big corporations, but Democrats increasingly have access to wealthy donors and continue to look to labor union support.  Both parties seek and accept big money.     

With greater wealth concentrated in the hands of people with personal political agendas, contributions have reached enormous, possibly counterproductive, levels.  The largest single gift record may be held by former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich whose unsuccessful 2012 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination received $10 million from a one-issue contributor.

For a brief period, change seemed possible.  The 1972 re-election campaign of President Richard M. Nixon backed a break-in at the Democratic National headquarters in Washington’s Watergate complex and followed it with an elaborate cover-up.  An outraged public demanded reforms.

The central change was legislation to control federal campaign spending.  It contained two elements: limits on the amount an eligible entity could contribute and public disclosure of contributors, recipients, and amounts contributed.

The passage of these laws, including the well-known, bipartisan McCain-Feingold Act, created a false sense of comfort that finally the influence on money in politics could be controlled and reduced.

Just as with tax laws, moneyed interests found or created loopholes in the campaign finance laws.  Committees independent of parties and candidates were organized to spend money on campaigns.

To enforce the limits on what parties, candidates and independent committees could do, Congress created a regulatory body, the Federal Election Commission.  But, by establishing a six-member body with three members from each party, Congress produced a deadlocked and completely powerless regulator unable to make decisions.

Most significantly, the Supreme Court has gradually been whittling down campaign spending reforms.  It defines money as speech, meaning that free speech equals free spending.  That means the gradual end of limits on campaign spending.

Two recent decisions by the Supreme Court, where a majority is opposed to spending limits, have killed campaign finance laws.  In 2010, in the Citizens United case, the Court ruled there could be no limits on independent political spending and the identity of donors to huge independent political organizations need not be disclosed.

A few weeks ago, the Court removed limits on the total amount a contributor could give to all campaigns combined.  Though the size of individual campaign contributions is still capped, an individual can give to an unlimited number of campaigns and then contribute an unlimited amount to independent campaign organizations.

Taking all these developments together, the country is just about where it was before Watergate.  Campaign finance reform is dead.  Money is once again free to rule politics.

But money doesn’t vote.  People do.  Money gives candidates power to influence voters.  Lavishly financed television campaigns strongly influence many voters.  Sophisticated and costly vote analysis enables candidates to identify their supporters and get them to the polls.

Campaigns relying on big money tend to pursue easily understood issues, often social concerns, and devote most attention to negative attacks on candidates.  When the ads come from independent groups, the candidates they support can claim to be completely removed from the message.

The Constitution could be amended to say that money is not the same as speech.  This week, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens proposed a targeted amendment allowing Congress to control campaign spending. 

Neither amendment is likely to be adopted, so the only way to counteract money’s influence is to educate voters.

Lawsuits aren’t enough, and they probably won’t work.  Good government advocates, opposed to money’s influence in politics, could do more. 

Civic groups like the League of Women Voters could run their own nonpartisan television ads simply revealing the contributors, the recipients, and the cash flows.  That might help people make more informed voting decisions.

“Checks and balances” misused, now paralyze government

The checks and balances in the U.S. Constitution and state constitutions are among the most valued and unique features of American government.  But their misuse now causes government gridlock.

The Founding Fathers rejected the British system where power was centrally concentrated.  The American Constitution created a system in which several bodies have some of the power – the balances – and each could exercise influence on the others – the checks.

They called the new system an “experiment,” because a government in which various parts were balanced and had checks on one another was previously unknown.  The experiment could only succeed if the participants acted in good faith.

In making federal laws, power was spread among the House of Representatives reflecting current popular views, the Senate with a longer view, and the president who can veto bills passed by the two houses.  Both houses can overrule the president by a supermajority of two-thirds.

Almost all states, including Maine, followed the same approach, though the distinct role of the Senate in Maine was watered down by making the terms of its members the same as those of House members.

To produce results, government leaders would have to cooperate and compromise, seeking to avoid conflicts that produced no response to public needs.

In practice, the federal legislative process includes conference committees between the two 

houses when they produce incompatible bills on the same subject.  Composed of leaders of both sides in both houses, they are to negotiate compromises.

Historically, the need for compromise to address major public issues, expected by the voters, overcame partisan objections.

These days, “checks” are used to prevent action.  “Balances” no longer exist when branches of government refuse to interact with one another.  Government is paralyzed.

In the House, now under Republican control, members pass bills they know have no chance of becoming law.  GOP leaders avoid conference committees with the Senate.

The purpose of the House votes is to draw a bright line between the positions of the two parties.  Rather than compromise, many members hope their rigid positions will attract enough popular vote support to give them the power to get their way in a future Congress.

Under the Constitution, the Senate sets its own rules.  Its rules include the filibuster, a means of preventing consideration of a bill without the agreement of 60 senators out of 100.  In short, the majority vote foreseen in the Constitution on most matters has been nullified by the filibuster.

The Senate filibuster rule means a proposed bill must get 60 votes for passage.  The majority Democrats must get five GOP votes to pass a bill.  A Republican senator may favor a proposal, but by accepting party discipline requiring 60 votes, that person actually votes to defeat the proposal.

Not all the blame falls on Senate Republicans.  Democrats want to keep the filibuster, so they can block bills if they cede control of the Senate.  They fear losing the supermajority requirement created by Senate rules, allowed by the Constitution but not foreseen when it was written.

Even if the GOP gains control of the Senate in this fall’s elections, this situation in unlikely to change.  While a Republican Senate could eliminate the filibuster, it would almost certainly not take such action for the same reason as the Democrats refrain today.

At the federal level, House unwillingness to compromise and Senate inability to decide has yielded deadlock.

President Obama seems to have stepped back and allowed the parties to struggle against one another in Congress.  His veto threat has been used mainly to let everybody know House-passed bills have no chance of becoming law, because neither house can muster the votes required to override a veto.

The conservative wing of the Republican Party is determined the federal government should shrink.  Political deadlock produces the inability to fund government, which accomplishes its goal.

Add to all this, the Supreme Court.  Making extensive use of the ability of five of its nine members to declare laws unconstitutional, it has become yet another legislative body.  A conservative majority uses its “checks” to overrule laws adopted with broad support in Congress.

In Maine, virtual legislative war exists between Gov. LePage and the Democratic-controlled Legislature.  The governor appears to interpret checks and balances to mean he gets to insist on laws written just his way – even if his objections are minor or peevish.

The Maine Constitution puts the Legislature in a priority position, because legislatures make the laws.  Veto by the governor is meant to force reconsideration and compromise, not to make the executive into a legislator.