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4/16/2007
Brilliant idea - voters need educating
Some pundit the other day defended Iowa and New Hampshire for having had a disproportionately large sway over the election of party presidential banner-carriers. He said these two states’ (and later throwing in South Carolina) voters know a very important responsibility lies on their shoulders – and hence they commit to making a very informed vote. Shaking hands isn’t the start of it. Standing toe to toe with these guys (yes, and Hillary) in living room after living room. This is what you call real retail politics (the kind of action Tommy Thompson is really good at). Where a voter can weigh the positives and negatives based on serious issues – as opposed to campaign slogans and marketing jingles. The real deal.
So there’s one answer to “campaign reform” – an informed, responsible electorate.
Can you imagine it? In order to vote, a Wisconsinite must be on record as passing one serious civics test. You know – questions like:
Name one famous battle from the Revolutionary War.
Name one of the things Abraham Lincoln did in his lifetime.
How many representatives serve in the House of Representatives?
Who is the Chief Justice of the United States?
What’s the difference between an embryonic stem cell and an adult stem cell?
What’s a W-2 form?
You know, simple stuff like that.
Ridiculous to ask everyone to take a test? Unfair?
Actually, in all fairness, I think our citizens have done a pretty good job lately, sorting the wheat from the chaff. Maybe, just maybe, folks have figured out negative campaigning doesn’t work. Robo calls, over and over, don’t work either. Try to regulate them all you want. The real regulating is when campaigns figure out those bothersome calls not only don’t work, but instead provide a disincentive to a voter.
I think I must have missed 80% of the Supreme Court election –the “cash-soaked special interest-contaminated smearfest” part. (Thank you Wisconsin Democracy Campaign for that trash-talk. April 20 and the meeting of the Judicial Commission will tell us just how much your innocent court filings contributed to the “smearfest.”) I saw serious people bring forward serious issues of yes, ethics, and also crime, Wisconsin’s business climate, school choice and legislating from the bench. And yes, they paid money to make their positions known. Horror upon horrors.
How about November’s 8th District Congressional race? Now – that was a smearfest. Too much of one. And I’d opine that Dr. Kagen came out on top because with all the money he spent he was perceived as being angelic and cuddly. Ok. I’m an old-school campaigner. Before that race I said “complain all you want, but negative campaigning works.”
Negative campaigning absolutely did not work in the GOP corner of that campaign.
FULL disclosure – yes – of any effort that even whiffs of campaign activity. But that’s as far as I’m willing to go. Talk about public funding as a solution all you want. I don’t buy it. Public funding gives too much edge to the incumbent, too much power to the “main stream media” and incents a political party to prefer wealthy, self-financed candidates. (See Jessica McBride's piece on this.)
Somehow we’ve got to create for ourselves an informed electorate. (Or get to the truth in campaigning – The Mexico Idea.) And as silly as it is, a mandatory civics test isn’t any more ridiculous than mandating public funding and/or piling on campaign finance limitations.
COMMENTS
Jo I fail to see how knowing who one of the Supreme Court justices is, or the name of a battle in the Revolutionary War will help someone make an informed decision on whether to vote for Hillary or Obama. Having an electorate educated on the issues of the day will only happen when the media stops covering the amount of money each candidate has raised, and starts reporting on how each candidate stands on the issues. That will only happen when campaign commercials cease to be a major revenue source for television stations (ie. not soon). So get ready to once again pick the least worst candidate next fall.
Good point about issue-oriented media coverage (or lack thereof). Voters uneducated in American civics and history (which is most of them/us) find it all to easy to pick the least worst candidate by listening to TV ads as opposed to digging into the issues. Ok, ok, it's Utopia.... but why can't it be a goal to which we aspire? JE
Don (Mon Apr 16 07:36:14 2007)
Having an informed, educated, electorate means people making decisions on some basis other than as passive consumers of what the media chooses to tell them. It means having perspective to take information with a grain of salt. It means having contextual knowledge of why today's issues are important in bigger pictures: historical, social, constitutional, economic. While I doubt we can or should implement a civics test requirement, proactive measures to encourage people to learn and decide for themselves are always worth considering.
So well said. We'll all have to think about what those proactive measures might be. JE
Terry Dawson (Mon Apr 16 11:51:06 2007)
When I was a youngster at Reedsville HS we had a sub while a particular teacher was out for a medical procedure. This sub was fond of giving us pop quizzes. These quizzes sometimes were only tangential to the class material.
One quiz he gave us asked to name our elected political leaders. I had no problems with answering the quiz, but the problem I had was the number of other students who had no idea of even who the governor was (it was either Drefus or Earl at the time I can not recall exactly what year that quiz was given).
It is important for those who vote to understand our history and our form of government for they are tied together. The Lincoln presidency was a time of huge transformation in our nation's understanding of itself. That is not trivial even today.
Voting is often called an important responsibility and in truth it is. I think it high time our society take it seriously. Trying to make voting easer & easier is trivializing the task.
Marcus Auerlius (Mon Apr 16 14:55:25 2007)
Voter education is a great idea. So tell me, who is the all knowing who can accomplish that ?
Yeah, I hear you Walt. Who are the "all knowing" who are teaching our kids Civics and American History? JE
walt kalata (Tue Apr 17 23:42:38 2007)
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