WELL, LADIES and gentlemen, that's it. Election 2004 is over. The candidates can pack their bags and go home, the voters need not even bother going to vote. George W. Bush has re-election in the bag, and it's time to get ready for four more years of war, fear and unaccountable government. A combination of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads and John Kerry's weak campaigning has swung the polls to Bush, and Bush's convention hasn't even had a chance to impact polling yet. Clearly, Kerry has no chance.
For those of you thrilled by the previous paragraph, don't get your hopes up. For those of you startled by it, don't despair. The above was not some prophecy (as compared to, say, Pat Robertson's spring revelation that God himself personally informed him that Bush would get re-elected in a landslide), but rather a summary of what political pundits, especially those on the 24 hour cable news networks, have been saying for the last week or so.
Pundits make a living off of bold assertions. This means a slight tilt in the polls is a "major momentum shift," and a slight lead in the so-called "battleground states" means the election is now one candidate or the other's to lose. The funny thing about pundits, though, is how quickly they change their minds. If this column were to have been written two weeks ago, the first paragraph would look something like this:
"Well, that's it. Election 2004 is over. We're going to have a new president after this election. This race is now John Kerry's to lose. Weak economic numbers and mounting casualties in Iraq have killed President Bush's poll numbers, and Kerry hasn't even spent a single dime in campaign advertising since the convention."
Funny how things can change. Yet, what the majority of pundits often seem to either ignore or gloss over when announcing who's presently in the lead is that Bush's present polling lead, and Kerry's previous polling leads, were both in the margin of error of every poll taken. That means that, statistically, the race has been tied since about May, even in all the so-called "battleground states."
The point is, to say that one candidate or the other has a commanding lead is simply incorrect. Saying two weeks ago that this is John Kerry's race to lose (as CNN did) was premature, and saying today that Bush's re-election is now looking very likely (as Fox News has now said several times) is also dangerously misleading.
Recently, a CNN.com online poll found about 7 percent of voters admitting that they could be strongly influenced in which way they voted based on who they perceived to be in the lead. Of course, an online poll is extremely unscientific, and the number being that high should probably be taken with a grain of salt. That being said, however, considering modern "me too-ism" and people's general desire to do what's popular, is it really that hard to imagine that 1 or 2 percent of people might change their vote based on who's in the lead? Well, if that's the case, then with the declaration of George W. Bush's likely victory after he took a 4-5 point lead in most polls in the days before the election, pundits and pollsters may very well have cost Al Gore the election of 2000. With this election also looking like it may be so close, pundits and pollsters may once again cost one candidate the election.
The root of this problem with pundits comes from the main resource they use to get their theories out, the media. The pundits get paid to give their opinion, and as a general rule, every news network wants to be able to say who's in the lead, since that is the kind of information that generates ratings. Therefore, it's no shock that pundits will give their opinion of who's winning so they can continue to be hired. If the culture of over-obsessed pundits helping determine election outcomes is ever to change, the news media must return to objective, responsible journalism, and stop trying to create stories where none exist, even if it may mean sacrificing a few ratings points.
More importantly, however, voters must take more responsibility in the votes they cast. We live in America, a country supposed to be governed by the people through representatives. As citizens, we have a civic responsibility to vote, and as voters, we have a civic responsibility to vote in a responsible manner. Voting for president of the United States, and moreover, leader of the free world, based simply on who we believe is going to win is an irresponsible abuse of our right to vote, a right millions of people around the world have died fighting for. Although we cannot control the pundits and the media, we do have control over ourselves and the decisions we make.
On Nov. 2, please do vote, but vote for the right reasons. Don't vote for someone you think will win, vote for someone you want to win, and then, maybe, we won't have to hear about how a November election is "over" by the end of August ever again.
Sam Leven's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at sleven@cavalierdaily.com.
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