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Does Fear Mongering Work?
Demagoguery over Social Security privatization was to be a key strategy in the Democrat
Party's 2002 election campaigns. To test their tactics, both state and national Democrats poured time, talent,
ground troops and a couple of million bucks into a Tidewater, Virginia special election for Congress.
The vitriolic rhetoric didn't work at the polls, even in a district where conventional wisdom said it would. The
Democrat candidate lost 52-48 this week. The victory gave the Republicans 222 seats in the U.S. House to 210 for
the Democrats.
The special election to fill out the remainder of a current term was caused by the death March 29th of Representative
Norman Sisisky, a very popular conservative Democrat who had served in Congress for 18 years. The Democrats first
invited Representative Sisisky's son, Mark, to run but he declined to remain at the helm of the family Pepsi Cola
bottling business. The party then turned to state Senator L. Louise Lucas, 57, an owner of group homes for mentally
ill adults. An African-American, Lucas was the first woman to ever be named a ship fitter at the Norfolk Naval
Shipyard. Her working life has been mostly spent as a teacher.
The Virginia Fourth District runs from just south of the city of Richmond to the North Carolina border. Composed
of some 22 counties, the eastern section -around Hampton Roads - has a population made up of current and retired
military and defense industry workers. The economy is based on shipbuilding and naval repair facilities. The western
portion of the district is typical rural south with an agricultural economy largely dependent on peanuts. Just
under 40 percent of district voters are African-American. Only 32 of the nation's 435 districts have a higher percentage
of black voters.
The Fourth is a classic swing district with countervailing voter blocs. Bill Clinton won twice with very narrow
margins. George W. Bush just beat Al Gore by a few hundred votes and Virginia Governor George Allen defeated incumbent
Senator Chuck Robb in the U.S. Senate race by two percentage points.
The Republicans answered the Lucas challenge by selecting state Senator J. Randy Forbes, 49, a lawyer and former
state Republican chair who has been active in state politics since 1989. Forbes, who is white, has a base in the
politically important city of Chesapeake, a swing area and one of the larger cities in the district. The issues
were framed as each candidate's General Assembly voting record applied to the broader issues of tax relief, Social
Security reform and national defense.
The two national parties spent equally, about $2.5 million on volunteers, direct mail, radio and television. In
a special election, turn out is critical. Donna Brazile, from the Gore campaign, lent her expertise on voter turn
out. Their 1,000 volunteer door-to-door campaign achieved a 38 percent total voter turnout, significantly higher
than expected.
The Democrats had plenty of money, a favorable history bequeathed by a popular incumbent and what they thought
was the great scare issue - Social Security Reform.
The Democrat strategy relied heavily on scaring seniors and low-income whites. (Some 50 percent of district voters
are over 55.) They poured money into a series of radio and television advertisements attacking Republican Randy
Forbes for supporting the idea that younger workers be allowed to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes
into individually-owned private accounts. The highly-emotional ads strayed far from fact and truth. One, for example,
criticized the recommendations of the Bush Social Security Commission before it had even met the first time. The
most famous Lucas ad was the "angina attack" ad where an off-camera narrator implied that Social Security
reform would lead to heart attacks among seniors because they wouldn't be able to stand the stress of stock market
ups and downs.
As silly as these ads seem, the political issue was whether or not scare tactics would work. If the Republican
lost, Social Security reform could be put off until 2005. In the ego and prestige department, Virginia Governor
Jim Gillmore is also the current chairman of the Republican National Committee and didn't need a black eye in his
home state. White House strategist Karl Rove would lose his debate over using Social Security reform as a 2002
campaign issue with Rep Tom Davis (R.-VA) the National Republican Congressional Committee Chair. If Forbes lost,
Davis insisted, GOP members of Congress would run for the hills every time a Democrat shouted "Social Security."
The other unspoken future national election issue was the election tactics surrounding race. The average black
turnout in the district has been about 25 percent. In presidential years, it rose to 38 percent. The problem was
that Lucas also needed some 30 percent of the white vote to win. Instead, the Republican Forbes received a larger
percentage of the African-American vote that Lucas received of the white vote. Polls showed that issues prevailed
over race.
As noted by columnist Rich Galen, House special elections give voters a way to express discontent to the party
in charge of the White House. There have been 19 special elections in the past 25 years in which a seat switched
parties. In only three elections prior to this one did the party in the White House gain a seat from the opposition.
The national implications of this special election are very large. Winner Forbes noted "Senior citizens are
not buying false claims about social security." Polls nationally support his contentions. A Zogby poll this
year indicates nearly 70 percent of voter's support giving younger workers the option to privately invest a portion
of their social security funds. This Virginia Fourth election demonstrates that politicians can support individual
social security accounts without fear of being automatically fried by the Democrats.
The Democrat strategy had been to paint the Bush Administration as extreme and out-of-touch. As Democrats ardently
defend the status quo with fear mongering and erect procedural barricades to the 21st Century in the U.S. Senate,
the question becomes "which party is extreme and out-of-touch?" The party that proposes to compel ever-higher
taxes to pay for a retirement pool that earns at little more than one percent each year and has no vested ownership
for the contributor? Or the party that proposes to use the compulsory payroll tax to create personal wealth that
can be passed on to others and a retirement fund that earns a sufficient return that the stress of poverty is vanquished?
Let's see - $1,200 a month until death or $3,600 a month until death plus a balance of funds to leave loved ones?
Which should we choose?
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