I’ve had a profound sense of déjà vu for the past few weeks and this year, it’s not coming from the Red Sox. As we enter the final, agonizing weeks of the election campaign it’s become clear that the Republican Party has revived, on a national level, a device that was once the specialty of municipal Democrats – the political machine.
We tend to think of machine politics as fodder for 10th-grade history texts, 19th century artifacts illustrated with reproductions of Thomas Nast cartoons. That’s wrong; the machine still runs.
Look at some classic symptoms:
Ward Heelers – As the name implies, ward heelers walked through city wards, making sure constituents’ concerns were looked after and, more important, collecting contributions and enforcing loyalty to the machine. These were the folks who’d smile in your face and stick a knife in your back. For Bush-Cheney ’04, they’re called Pioneers and Rangers and they hustle their networks to gather hundreds of thousands of dollars in $2,000 increments.
The House Organ – An allegedly independent news outlet that only tells the machine’s side of the story. When Huey Long was governor of Louisiana, any business that hoped to land a state contract knew it had to buy ads in the Louisiana Progress. Now it’s Fox News, headed by Republican operative Roger Ailes. It’s a GOP propaganda channel and ads purchased from Fox do not have to be reported to the Federal Elections Commission. Now that the Republican-leaning Federal Communications Commission is allowing greater consolidation in the ownership of network affiliates, look for more companies like Sinclair Broadcasting Group to do at the affiliate level what Fox does at the network level.
Rigged Elections – If Florida 2000 wasn’t enough, the Republicans have taken the franchise nationwide. In Nevada, they’ve been caught destroying Democratic voter registrations; in Wisconsin, the GOP Milwaukee county executive tried to limit the number of ballots sent to African-American precincts; Michigan state legislator John Pappageorge (R) spoke openly of the need to suppress the “Detroit” (i.e., black) vote and Florida tried to pull the “felon list” stunt again this year, as well as their “no recount” computer voting machines and the placement of polls far from black neighborhoods.
Graft and Patronage – Political machines are only indirectly interested in power; power is just a means to get money. Graft is money paid out in return for political support, so the machine can take in a much larger sum of money. Patronage refers to the awarding of jobs or contracts with the same end in mind – large sums of money for the machine. In the old Democratic municipal and state machines, this usually meant the misappropriation of tax money and taxes were levied on individuals or (in Long’s case) corporations. The widest plank in the Republican machine’s platform, however, is anti-taxes. So where’s the money that fuels the machine come from? Two places – regulations and deficit spending. George Bush brags that he’s given tax relief to “every American who pays taxes.” A working stiff might get a $200 federal tax break, but Bush’s appointees relax regulations and the stiff winds up paying $2,000 more for insurance and $3,000 more for prescription drugs. Meanwhile, crony contractors are getting billion-dollar no-bid contracts (e.g., Halliburton), financed by borrowed money our children will have to pay back. Those are not tax breaks, they’re tax shifts, from the public sector to the private and from the present to the future. Either way, the Bush machine (with the aid of Fox screamfests) escapes blame.
Party Bosses and Empty Suits – Erastus Corning was mayor of Albany, NY for over 40 years, but he was never his own man. He was just the pretty face of the O’Connell machine that ran the city. Erastus served their interests and was craven enough to make them his own. So it was with Ronald Reagan, who took afternoon naps at the White House, but was actor enough to pull off the performance. Not so with the current occupant of the Oval Office; the machine’s machinery tends to bulge at the back of his suit.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of machine politics is the mainstream (non-house organ) media, which obtusely refuses to acknowledge the presence of a machine until a decade after it has ceased to exist. The national living room is quickly crowding with (appropriately) elephants. How long before the floor joists collapse?
The Machine Age
I’ve had a profound sense of déjà vu for the past few weeks and this year, it’s not coming from the Red Sox. As we enter the final, agonizing weeks of the election campaign it’s become clear that the Republican Party has revived, on a national level, a device that was once the specialty of municipal Democrats – the political machine.
We tend to think of machine politics as fodder for 10th-grade history texts, 19th century artifacts illustrated with reproductions of Thomas Nast cartoons. That’s wrong; the machine still runs.
Look at some classic symptoms:
Ward Heelers – As the name implies, ward heelers walked through city wards, making sure constituents’ concerns were looked after and, more important, collecting contributions and enforcing loyalty to the machine. These were the folks who’d smile in your face and stick a knife in your back. For Bush-Cheney ’04, they’re called Pioneers and Rangers and they hustle their networks to gather hundreds of thousands of dollars in $2,000 increments.
The House Organ – An allegedly independent news outlet that only tells the machine’s side of the story. When Huey Long was governor of Louisiana, any business that hoped to land a state contract knew it had to buy ads in the Louisiana Progress. Now it’s Fox News, headed by Republican operative Roger Ailes. It’s a GOP propaganda channel and ads purchased from Fox do not have to be reported to the Federal Elections Commission. Now that the Republican-leaning Federal Communications Commission is allowing greater consolidation in the ownership of network affiliates, look for more companies like Sinclair Broadcasting Group to do at the affiliate level what Fox does at the network level.
Rigged Elections – If Florida 2000 wasn’t enough, the Republicans have taken the franchise nationwide. In Nevada, they’ve been caught destroying Democratic voter registrations; in Wisconsin, the GOP Milwaukee county executive tried to limit the number of ballots sent to African-American precincts; Michigan state legislator John Pappageorge (R) spoke openly of the need to suppress the “Detroit” (i.e., black) vote and Florida tried to pull the “felon list” stunt again this year, as well as their “no recount” computer voting machines and the placement of polls far from black neighborhoods.
Graft and Patronage – Political machines are only indirectly interested in power; power is just a means to get money. Graft is money paid out in return for political support, so the machine can take in a much larger sum of money. Patronage refers to the awarding of jobs or contracts with the same end in mind – large sums of money for the machine. In the old Democratic municipal and state machines, this usually meant the misappropriation of tax money and taxes were levied on individuals or (in Long’s case) corporations. The widest plank in the Republican machine’s platform, however, is anti-taxes. So where’s the money that fuels the machine come from? Two places – regulations and deficit spending. George Bush brags that he’s given tax relief to “every American who pays taxes.” A working stiff might get a $200 federal tax break, but Bush’s appointees relax regulations and the stiff winds up paying $2,000 more for insurance and $3,000 more for prescription drugs. Meanwhile, crony contractors are getting billion-dollar no-bid contracts (e.g., Halliburton), financed by borrowed money our children will have to pay back. Those are not tax breaks, they’re tax shifts, from the public sector to the private and from the present to the future. Either way, the Bush machine (with the aid of Fox screamfests) escapes blame.
Party Bosses and Empty Suits – Erastus Corning was mayor of Albany, NY for over 40 years, but he was never his own man. He was just the pretty face of the O’Connell machine that ran the city. Erastus served their interests and was craven enough to make them his own. So it was with Ronald Reagan, who took afternoon naps at the White House, but was actor enough to pull off the performance. Not so with the current occupant of the Oval Office; the machine’s machinery tends to bulge at the back of his suit.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of machine politics is the mainstream (non-house organ) media, which obtusely refuses to acknowledge the presence of a machine until a decade after it has ceased to exist. The national living room is quickly crowding with (appropriately) elephants. How long before the floor joists collapse?
(c) Mark Floegel, 2004