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.
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