The Elections of 2006

November 8, 2006

I think I speak for Emily as well when I say that it was nice to vote for some winners. The incumbent Democratic governor of Wisconsin won re-election.. and most crucially the Democratic congressional candidate Steven Kagen soundly beat Republican John Gard. The only downside in the election was the passage of an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.. thus excluding the possibility of gay marriage.

A problem in American politics is the tendency for voters to identify with their "team." Here in Wisconsin we get special coverage of the Green Bay Packers, and fans write in to talk about the necessity of staying with the team even in bad times. The "true fan" stays even when the going gets rough. This is fine when we are talking about a sports team (only one team can really win each year, after all), but when we come to good governance voting should not be about a team.. but about performance.

In the past few years I have been amazed at the way Bush's numbers have held up (they are low, granted, but still around 40% express approval!)—even when things are going so badly in Iraq. What would happen to the CEO of, say, Disney if he came out strongly in favor of a certain new direction.. 3D animated movies!.. and then after putting the finances and prestige of the company behind the venture, it failed miserably. I have no doubt that shareholders would react angrily and remove that CEO. It would not be a matter of sentiment, but of judgment on poor performance. In fact, any CEO who had run a corporation as incompetently as Bush has led this country would have been gone long ago.

So what has kept voters from a general uprising? Team spirit, it seems to me. Voters have learned to approach politics more like a Packers game than a business venture. With the elections last night one sees the strains that have developed in this approach.. reality keeps leaking in.. but it is still there: a sense that the honorable thing to do is to stay with the team.. even when times get tough.