As one of Richard Nixon’s chief political strategists, I was pacing the floor late one night in 1971, trying to figure how to win labor support in the coming elections. All of our well-crafted position papers hadn’t made a dent. My assistant threw his hands in the air. “Look,” he said. “People don’t read policy statements! Don’t give them a speech, show them a symbol!”
I was dubious, but he was right. Within days we invited a group of construction workers to the White House; they lined up, sun-creased faces beaming under their white hard hats as they stood in a semicircle around the President. The picture made the TV networks, Time, Newsweek, and the Washington Post—and it galvanized labor support. Working folk liked the idea of hard hats in the Oval Office.
Symbols are strong things, and nations have long rallied, both for good and ill, under their power. In the years since that 1972 election, we have seen images increasingly take center stage—with the troubling result that sound bites and photo ops too often replace political discourse and debate.
The 1988 presidential election surely showed us that. It seemed every time we turned on the television there was George Bush standing in front of the biggest American flag he could find. And who can forget Michael Dukakis’s efforts to show his concern for defense? Driving a tank and wearing a large army helmet, he looked like an oversized attack rodent.
Diabolical Images
One image from the ’88 elections was far more diabolical than silly, however, and it continues to haunt us. It’s the specter of Willie Horton, the furloughed murderer whose dark story evoked a powerful response in American voters. And politicians today—on both sides—continue to Hortonize the electoral process.
The Texas race for governor has produced some of the most notorious offenders. During the primary, former Gov. Mark White ran a TV ad showing him walking a corridor lined with huge photos of criminals executed during his term. “Only a governor can make executions happen,” he intoned. “I did. And I will.” But, as columnist Richard Cohen dryly observed, “These men, it seems, died in vain. Mr. White was defeated in the primary.”
He left behind two other Democrats, Texas Attorney General Jim Maddox and State Treasurer Ann Richards. Maddox’s ad boasted he had attended 30 executions. Richards, who hadn’t had the advantage of death as a spectator sport, could only assure voters, “I don’t know anybody on Death Row. I’ll carry out the law.”
Next month Richards will face off against Republican Clayton Williams, who supports the death penalty and has asserted his noble plans for retribution for offenders; “I’ll introduce ’em to the joy of bustin’ rocks.”
Well, we might assume, that’s just Texas, home of big hats and tough-guy political talk.
But the same dark atmosphere has pervaded the two sunshine states as well: in California, former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein was not doing too well in her primary race for governor until she ran a 30-second ad claiming she was “the only Democrat who favors the death penalty.” She shot up 19 points in the polls. (Proabortion and pro-capital punishment is the new prodeath campaign theme that seems to work well with many voters.)
Florida’s Republican Gov. Bob Martinez came straight to the point in his TV ad: “I have now signed some 90 death warrants in the state of Florida.” Behind him, in a sort of posthumous endorsement, was the face of serial killer Ted Bundy. Democrat Bill Nelson’s first response featured the murders of two policemen by convicted killer Charlie Street, who was released under Martinez’s administration. (After charges of mudslinging, Nelson replaced the ad with the simple message of a jail door slamming shut.)
This is ugly stuff: Willie Hortonism plumbing new depths.
Dignity’S Demise
Thankfully, many columnists have written well about this nasty political manipulation; many voters have shaken their heads in disgust. Let me add my voice to theirs.
First, hate campaigning is not only disgusting, it is dangerous to our electoral process. When an otherwise sensible candidate brags about how many convicts he has seen die, as if this is the sole qualification for the governor’s mansion, he shows his contempt for the voters—as if they are Pavlovian dogs hooked up to shock machines, conditioned to vote a certain way if they see a picture of an electric chair.
When voters are treated like this, they in time become cynical, then apathetic. According to projections, only one-third of those eligible plan to vote in next month’s election.
Well, some say, politicians and their media advisors wouldn’t run such ads if they didn’t work. If that is true, “giving the people what they want” is no defense. There is an educational process between candidates and voters, and in a healthy democracy each expects the best of the other. To pander to the worst is a terrible indictment of both sides.
This leads to the second problem. At root here is an awful denigration of human life and dignity, which, by the way, does not turn on one’s view regarding capital punishment. I oppose the death penalty, for a number of reasons I have stated elsewhere and don’t have space to relate here. But I believe that if we must exercise this ultimate punishment, we should do so with sorrow and heaviness of heart. No matter how heinous the crime, we are executing a person created in the image of God himself. We are taking human life.
Today’s political demagoguery denigrates both voters and criminals, mocking the one and electroshocking the other as it reinforces hatred, fear, and contempt. Respect for human dignity already seems condemned to die in this last decade of the twentieth century. And we will bear the responsibility if, by our votes, we appoint the executioners.
