There are just too many people making money trying to get out the vote. In Campaign 2000 the American public was bombarded with issue positions on everything from Social Security to prescription drugs to tax relief. But no matter how much Bush and Gore laid out their views on how they would change America, the voters were looking beyond the issues and trying to determine which of these two guys was a better man to occupy the White House. American voters are certainly smart enough to know the broad generalities of key public policy issues, but they also want to know that the man who enters the White House will not disappoint them or worse yet embarrass them. This may be the United States of America, but when it comes to elections it is the male vs. the female vote, getting out the African American and Hispanic vote, winning over the suburban electorate, widening the union base, and convincing the all important senior constituency.
Campaigns are individual appeals to individual demographic groupings within individual states.
Candidates may claim that they are talking to the American people, but they are really taking to voters who their polling has told them hold the key to victories. Winning elections is thus putting together scores of mini-elections. The election victor is thus the president of a narrow demographic alliance. The 2000 election should finally put the rest the oft-repeated phrase, my vote doesn t count. The razor-thin popular vote for president and the votes in Florida, New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin point clearly to the importance of the vote.