Panel discusses Democrat losses
A post-election analysis panel named values, the campaigns and the candidates themselves as some of the main reasons behind the Democrats loss in this year’s election last Thursday afternoon.
The panel was made up of three Utah State University professors; Michael Lyons, political science; Roberta Herzberg, political science; Ted Pease, journalism and J. Quin Monson, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University.
Each member of the panel expressed his or her view as to why the Democrats lost both on a local and national scale this year.
Monson said Democrats lost in local elections because the party simply did not persuade a sufficient number of Republican voters.
“A Democrat, to win state-wide, needs about a quarter of the Republican vote,” Monson said.
Morality and family values ended up being key in this year’s election, despite exit polls that initially showed otherwise, Herzberg said. When most believed that issues such as terrorism and Iraq would be the most important, family values and core religious views brought more people out to the polls, she said.
Steve Stoddard, a senior majoring in political science, said he agreed and no one thought moral issues would be a factor instead of the economy, Iraq and the war on terror.
Lyons said this year’s presidential election was the most disappointing since 1968 when Republican Richard Nixon beat Democrat Hubert Humphrey.
The current administration did not deserve re-election, Lyons said, because the war in Iraq was based on lies, and the administration took a balanced budget four years ago and acquired a huge deficit. However, he said he doesn’t blame the Republicans.
“I blame the breakdown in this election on the Democrats,” Lyons said.
The Democrats, by nominating John Kerry to run for president, nominated an unelectable candidate, Lyons said. The Democrat Party, Lyons said, has the habit of nominating intellectual liberals who don’t appeal enough to “middle America.”
Lyons said voters aren’t stupid, but they are uninformed, and that even though someone as intellectual as Kerry would do a great job as president, the Democrat Party needs to pick a presidential candidate that will appeal more to the majority of Americans.
Pease said he feels “disheartened,” not only by the outcome of the election, but by the press and media during the election coverage. The job of the press is to be a watch dog to warn American citizens about what is going on in the nation and the world, Pease said.
However, he said he feels this duty has been silenced by fears of terrorism, a presidential administration that has gotten very good at getting their “own version of reality” out to the public, a population that “rallies around the flag,” even when it’s not right, and a mass media system that is overly controlled by corporations and public approval.
Herzberg said the media has turned into cheerleaders instead of watch dogs and young people didn’t get out and vote enough either. Lyons said he also feels Democrats need to use more symbolism and catch phrases such as the “New Deal” Roosevelt offered America in 1932 and “The War on Terror,” “Iraq,” and “Homeland Security” used by the Republicans.
Both Lyons and Pease commented on the cultivated idea over the past decade or two, that an individual can’t have values or be patriotic and be a Democrat. Pease said these myths, images and ideas are also picked up by the media because it is easy.
The panel suggested the Democrat Party nominate a Democratic governor with middle-class origins for the 2008 election.
Joe Bowen, a sophomore majoring in history, said she was curious about the election and learned a lot from each panelist’s point of view.
-hilaryi@cc.usu.edu