05-11-2002

POLITICS: Power to the Swing Voters

Last week, the House passed a farm bill that would bust the federal budget
in order to cater to the needs of a powerful constituency. Within days,
seniors demanding prescription drug coverage had their turn. The elderly,
like farmers, are learning the secret of how to exert leverage over the
political system: Don't get caught up in ideology.


Farmers ended up getting what they wanted-a House vote in favor of
restoring the price-support system and boosting farm subsidies. What about
seniors? A lot of promises were made about prescription drug coverage
during the 2000 campaign. "Among the folks who ran for president and
Congress," Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., observed, "about one out of
every five of our TV ads was about doing something about prescription
drugs. Here we are two years later, and we still haven't done anything
about prescription drugs."


Farmers are swing voters. They vote their interests and are loyal neither
to party nor to ideology. With hotly contested Senate races this year in
Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and South Dakota, neither party wants to
alienate the farm vote. That's why the May 2 House vote on the farm bill
was amazingly bipartisan. Two-thirds of the Republicans and two-thirds of
the Democrats voted for it.


Shouldn't seniors get the same treatment? Miller thinks so: "Surely
our elders are as deserving of our time and representation as peanuts and
sugar and chickens."


Well, it's happening. House Republicans have unveiled a proposal to give
seniors prescription drug coverage under Medicare. Speaker J. Dennis
Hastert, R-Ill., declared, "House Republicans believe firmly that no
senior should be forced to choose between putting food on the table or
paying the rent or buying the medicines they need now."


One hour later, Senate Democrats unveiled their own proposal.
"Democrats are going to be pursuing this very aggressively,"
promised Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D. Meanwhile, House
Democrats and a bipartisan group of Senate moderates are working on other
prescription drug proposals.


President Bush has a plan, too-and Democrats are making the White House
proposal a campaign issue. The Democratic National Committee has released
a campaign video that shows Bush promising in 2000 to "help all
people with prescription drugs." The Democratic ad then says,
"By his own estimate, Bush leaves out more than two-thirds of seniors
in need of prescription drug coverage."


According to a Republican campaign memo released last month,
"Republicans passing a prescription drug benefit would go a long way
to leaving Democrats with very little on the table to try to use against
us." The memo, from Public Opinion Strategies, suggests that GOP
incumbents should target seniors via government-paid franked mail.
"Remember, Mr. Frank Mail's older brother is Mr. Senior Mail,"
the document advises.


Why are seniors suddenly at the center of the 2002 campaign? They've
become a swing voting bloc. In 1992, according to the network exit polls,
seniors voted for Bill Clinton by 11 points (50 percent for Clinton, 39
percent for George H.W. Bush). Seniors favored Clinton by 7 points in 1996
(Clinton 50, Bob Dole 43). By 2000, the senior vote was virtually tied: Al
Gore received 50 percent to 47 percent for George W. Bush.


In House elections, seniors have swung back and forth. A strong GOP
showing among seniors in 1998 is credited with keeping the House in
Republican hands. That was when Clinton's behavior had offended seniors.
In the 2000 House vote, Democrats outpolled Republicans among seniors
nationwide-but by only 2 points (50 to 48 percent).


Before the 1990s, seniors were reliably Democratic. But over the past 10
years, many voters of the Depression generation have died. What's left is
a gigantic interest group, guaranteed to grow as Baby Boomers begin to
reach retirement age in 2010.


Seniors are turning this year's midterm election into a bidding war for
their votes: On the table are a Bush prescription drug plan that would
cost $190 billion over 10 years, a House GOP plan that would cost up to
$350 billion, and a Senate Democratic plan that would cost $400 billion to
$500 billion. Democrats argue that Republicans really don't want a bill
and are merely looking for cover to keep angry seniors from flooding the
polls this November. Republicans claim that Democrats are promoting
grandiose plans because they, too, really don't want a bill. Democrats,
according to Republicans, just want to blame Republicans if nothing
passes.


Miller warns against playing politics with seniors. "I am not
interested in merely proposing a prescription drug benefit," he said.
"I am interested in passing a prescription drug benefit. And I mean
passing it before Election Day, and hopefully even before the August
recess. Anything short of that will be failure."


Back in 1996, Congress passed the highly ideological "Freedom to
Farm" bill, which eliminated government price supports and made
farmers more dependent on market forces. Then the farm market collapsed.
So last week, Congress voted to repudiate the 1996 bill and bail farmers
out. The goal for seniors is to remove the ideology from issues such as
prescription drug coverage and make them tests of responsiveness: Is the
government with us or against us?


William Schneider

National Journal