America Goes Forward – Again
Fighting via the ballot box keeps this country secure

The 2004 presidential election is history. We can almost hear a universal sigh of relief across America. Presidential campaigns exhaust the candidates, as well as the electorate.

For government devotees who wished for huge voter turnouts, their hopes were fulfilled. Sanctimonious observers believed the campaigns were too confrontational, too ruthless, too infused with conflict and inflammatory rhetoric, and that the campaigns did not “unite America.”

Presidential campaigns are not intended to create unity. Election contests are arenas for vigorous competition of ideas by candidates to convince voters of their positions on important issues. Urgency about the direction of government and distinct policy differences produce robust campaigns.

One syndicated writer reminds us that knock-down, drag-out campaigns are not modern inventions. Our founding fathers and their first- and second-generation sons, from Adams to Lincoln, ran elections where candidates accused each other of treason and sexual misconduct and set up newspapers for the express purpose of lying about their opponents. They gave whiskey to voters, traded offices for votes, fought duels and attacked the wives and children of opponents.

This kind of raucous election jolts the system once in awhile and pushes complacency off the stage. When much is at stake, citizens turn out at the polls. When it is perceived that not much is at stake, only the solid citizens show up to vote.

Issues drawing the electorate to the polls in 2004 were, among others, the murder of 3,000 American citizens on our own soil by foreign religious terrorists and an inconclusive war, a still-recovering economy, an unwelcome European intervention in America’s election, and a billion dollars spent by special interests and foreign billionaires.

McCain-Feingold legislation passed by Congress promised to stem special-interest spending in national political campaigns. In truth, it only limited spending by the two major parties while breeding hundreds – maybe thousands – of independent groups, which spent unlimited sums of special interest money. Opponents of that legislation correctly predicted exactly what has happened – gross, unlimited expenditures by an army of special-interest “committees.” The McCain-Feingold “fix,” an abysmal failure, was worse than the problem it purported to solve. From the beginning, it was merely “feel-good” legislation.

More appropriate areas for reform are the trends of states allowing 30 or more days for voting rather than continuing a tradition of one universal election day, and instant election day voter registration without requiring proof of identification. Both of these areas are clear invitations for voter fraud.

More Americans are beginning to understand that individual voters do not directly vote for the president and vice president, but rather for “electors” who cast a state’s “winner take all” votes for president. Only Maine and Nebraska split their electoral votes instead of “winner take all.” In fact, electoral votes do reflect the popular vote of each state. Each state has as many votes in the electoral college as the total of its senators and representatives in Congress.

While it was a “rock-em sock-em” election, the country now peacefully readies itself for the winner to take office in January, just as it has throughout American history. This election and these campaigns were little different from the nature of the early campaigns of our republic, and our country’s citizens accept the will of the voters.

Fighting by way of the ballot box keeps this country secure. Our revered constitution does not prohibit fierce, robust and energetic presidential campaigns. In fact, it guarantees the liberty of allowing just that kind of campaign. Long live the U.S. Constitution and God bless America.

Pat Freibert is a former Kentucky state representative from Lexington.
editorial@lanereport.com

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