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Posted November 13, 2001
Now It’s ‘Our’ Government
By Alan Greenblatt
Looking at the results of last week’s elections, there appeared to be little noticeable fallout politically from the September 11 attacks. Everything had changed, and yet nothing had changed. “In this business, it’s still fundamentals all the time,” said Steve Jarding, who managed Democrat Mark Warner’s winning bid for governor in Virginia. The candidates with the most money, the strongest messages and the most unified party behind them won the marquee races in New York City, Virginia and New Jersey.
After the campaigns emerged from a 10-day deep freeze in the immediate wake of the attacks, they turned to the messages that had carried them thus far — the usual litany of jobs, taxes and education. According to polling presented Monday at a National Press Club forum sponsored by the Alliance for Better Campaigns and the University of Pennsylvania, voters did not make any connection between the attacks and what they expected state and local officials to do. They also didn’t choose to express their renewed sense of patriotism by voting. Voter turnout continued its decrease from earlier cycles.
But there are political ramifications from the attacks that extend beyond President Bush’s sky-high approval ratings. Support for government is up, according to polls, but cynicism and frustration about politicians remains high. “At the same time they’re telling us government is more important,” said pollster Allan Rivlin, “they’re telling us party is less important.”
The fact that people are more supportive of government than they’ve been since the 1960s, though, is good news for Democrats. Rivlin and his boss, Peter Hart, found that 68 percent of people refer to government as “our” government, as opposed to 42 percent who think of it more distantly as “the” government. That’s up from just 45 percent of people who saw themselves aligned with “our” government just two years ago. Since Democrats are generally cast as the pro-government party, that’s got to help them.
This dynamic certainly didn’t help the anti-tax message that this fall’s leading Republican hopefuls turned to reflexively. Kim Alfano, a consultant for the losing GOP candidate in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, said, “I think people are willing to let government spend more money if they think it’s going to make them safer.”
To paraphrase Bill Clinton, in other words, the era of big government is not over. And Democrats who steal a page from Warner and incoming New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, and at least claim to be conservatives who won’t raise taxes, may leave Republicans very little running room.
Alan Greenblatt is a Governing staff writer.
Recently in View:
Election Reform, Now or Never: will an opportunity be missed? (posted November 7, 2001)
Issues Unchanged: the post-September 11 electoral landscape (posted November 7, 2001)
Where Is City Hall?: a small victory for the terrorists (posted October 31, 2001)
Governing in the Age of Bioterrorism: new challenges (posted October 21, 2001)
Allies in the Wake of Terror: a new relationship for law enforcement (posted October 8, 2001)
Complete index of previous columns
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