I was reading an article in The Washington Post yesterday about Maryland's Republican candidate for Senator, Michael Steele. The title was, "Where's The Party? Nowhere To Be Found in Steele's Ads." The article, written by Paul Farhi, focuses on Steele's campaign ads and their lack of party identification. It said:
"The spots never mention that Steele is running as a Republican, or that he is the second-highest-ranking member of his party in Maryland. Or that he was once chairman of the Maryland Republican Party. Indeed, the word 'Republican' doesn't appear anywhere on Steele's Web site, and his official bio omits his tenure as party chairman. When Steele won the Republican Senate primary last week, his campaign's official news release reported only that he won 'his party's primary' without bothering to say which one."
There are several reasons why Steele's camp decided on this strategy, one being that Republican is a dirty word of late when it comes to political opportunities. The other reason is that Steele is trying hard to appeal to blacks in Baltimore, Prince George's County and Montgomery County who, like most other Marylanders, vote overwhelmingly Democrat. Steele wants the voters to see him, not a party. The idea got me thinking: Wouldn't it be great if candidates didn't reveal their party affiliation at all in their campaign ads, Web sites, or literature?
We've turned into a society that looks for blue or red before hearing the issues or even attempting to learn about the candidate. Is he or she on our side, we ask ourselves without hearing a word uttered from their mouths. We yearn to see some label so we don't have to think or do
any of the work involved in actually figuring something out. What if we didn't have the path of least resistance available to us?
There is a Web site called SelectSmart (www.SelectSmart.com/politics) that gives you various options to select different positions on important political issues. It includes all of the major candidates for the hot Congressional and Governor's seats in 2006 as well as the top 25 candidates for President in 2008. You don't get to select your candidate. You only get to select where you stand on the major issues facing our country and the world today. You share your opinions on the war, Social Security, school choice, trade issues, taxes and labor issues. Then it spits out the best candidate for you based on voting records, special interest group ratings and the candidates' statements.
What happens if you get someone who belongs to "the dark side?" Would you forgo voting for them because of the party they belong to? Would you vote for them anyway but be ashamed to tell anyone you did? What if all we had were our own beliefs on the issues and the ability to match those beliefs to a candidate who believes the same?
It's unrealistic, of course. The party machines are too powerful and dependent on party loyalty as opposed to candidate loyalty to get them to the promised land, but wouldn't it be nice to get past all the labels and filters? Just a thought.
Angela Winters is a student at the Washington College of Law and a moderate columnist for The Eagle.
