Pssst... We're All Out Here

Pssst... We're All Out Here


Published: September 5, 2004

It was bad enough when citizens in most of the nation - in a mere 33 states or so - were written off by presidential campaign managers as dwelling outside this year's political battlegrounds and therefore hardly worth serious attention. But thanks to the wonders of computerization and modern survey research, both red and blue campaign generals are narrowing the area of interest still further. The 17 presumed battleground states have been further parsed for purposes of campaigning and spending to what are being called the Big Ten and the Little Seven. And now, an überarena dubbed the Very Big Three seems to be fast emerging above all of the others.




The rest of us abandoned out here in Chopped Liver Land may or may not know that the Very Big Three are Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, whose electoral votes are rated the most decisively in play. Win two of those three and the White House is inevitable, goes the updated estimate of campaign strategists. Naturally, they foresee an overwhelming share of the candidates' time and advertising pouring into those three states as the day of the election approaches.

"And if it keeps narrowing that way," says one respected field marshal, "the real battlegrounds for November could be defined down to Tampa, Columbus and Pittsburgh." Don't laugh; Columbus already is reeling from an estimated 7,500 campaign ads, with the real blitz only beginning. No surprise that the balloons had barely hit the floor at the Republican National Convention before President Bush was hustling out of town to the Very Big hustings of Pennsylvania - even as Senator John Kerry was dishing V.B. vox pop in Ohio.

Out here beyond the pale, some people may wonder why Senator Kerry likes to pose often in hunting garb, shooting birds in battleground states while the existing law controlling assault rifles is quietly left dying on the vine. Similarly, you can puzzle why a free-trader like President Bush spent so much effort on a doomed attempt to protect the steel industry from foreign competition during the off-year elections of 2002. The answers to such questions involve candidate contortions carefully choreographed for special facets of the vote within battleground states.

Travel packagers might consider offering bus trips to voters out in the evolving Very Little 47 who want to travel to Cincinnati or Harrisburg to catch a glimpse of the candidates in the flesh and experience the full array of 2004 TV ads. Otherwise, those who don't like this version of democracy will have to vote with their feet and move somewhere else


Are you irrelevant. Have the political pundits determined that your state is locked up and in their pocket one way or the other? Has the time come for the electoral system be abandoned and give every vote in the US equal weight? One man one vote?