Direct Democracy can be Ugly: A Case Study

Once upon a time, the programmers at the Bush-Cheney '04 website allowed visitors to the site to create customized Bush-Cheney '04 signs that could be downloaded as PDF files and printed on any printer. As the website promised, "your message here". [link] The idea was simple enough -- if your local knitting group favors Bush-Cheney in '04, you could create a sign that said "Knitters for Bush-Cheney '04" in the same typeface used by the campaign itself. There was even a footer reading "Paid for by Bush-Cheney '04, Inc."

But alas, the pranksters of the Internet found out about it, and began making signs that weren't, ahem, in keeping with the tone of the campaign. Things like "Orwellian Slogan Makers for Bush-Cheney '04", "Halliburton is supported by Bush-Cheney '04", and two of my personal favorites, "Announcing the Marriage of Bush-Cheney '04" and "Five out of Nine Supreme Court Justices Prefer Bush-Cheney '04". Examples may be found at, among other places, Wonkette.com [link and link]

So the Bush campaign people began filtering the slogans to eliminate certain words. When that didn't work, they deactivated the customizer, and now, you can only customize the posters to include pre-approved messages. Apparently, direct participation by voters is too, well, democratic and uncontrollable, and therefore too dangerous, for the Bush campaign to countenance.

This isn't the first time that the Bush people have eschewed unvarnished contact with real voters, by the way. Among other things, to send an email to the White House from the whitehouse.gov website, you must identify your name and home address and whether you are sending a "supporting comment", a "differing opinion" or a "general comment"; then you must select from a list of "approved" subjects. [link] Similarly, when the Bush campaign set up a campaign blog, they neglected to provide any means for readers to add public comments. [link] Contrast this to Howard Dean's campaign blog, in which the comment sections hosted some of the liveliest political debate that this country has seen in years.

In any event, here are the only ways in which the posters can now be customized:

African-Americans for Bush-Cheney '04
Arab-Americans for ...
Asian-Americans for ...
Farmers and Ranchers for ...
Firefighters for ...
First-Responders for ...
Hispanics for ...
Hi-Tech Workers for ...
Homeschoolers for ...
Investors for ...
Jews for ...
Labor Workers for ...
Law Enforcement for ...
Lawyers for ...
Service Men and Women for ...
Native Americans for ...
Conservationists for ...
Pro-Lifers for ...
Small Business Owners for ...
Sportsmen for ...
Veterans for ...
Young Professionals for ...
Students for ...
Families for ...

A couple of observations:

First, I am somewhat troubled by signs proclaiming "Jews for Bush-Cheney '04" not because Jewish voters can't support the President, but because it is the only religious group named as such in the approved list. In particular, there are are Arab-Americans for Bush-Cheney, but no "Muslims for Bush-Cheney". Why is that?

Also, maybe it's the vaguely messianic cult-like sound of it that bothers me -- it sounds too much like "Jews for Jesus", which has as its main message to convert Jews to a duplicitous and intellectually dishonest version of psuedo-Christianity. Logically, I know that there's no connection between that group and Bush-Cheney '04, but when I hear "Jews for Bush-Cheney '04", it makes my skin crawl.

And while we're on the subject of religious groups, I am fascinated by a group that is not on the approved list, particularly in view of the fact that Jews, Arab-Americans, Asian-Americans and Native Americans all are on the approved list: Christians. Apparently, if you're Christian and support the President, the Bush-Cheney folk don't want you to advertise it.

Another point: I found that the way the various groups are described on the website is interesting. In order to create the poster, you select your favorite "coalition group" from a list. Let's leave aside that I'm not really sure what they mean by "coalition group" (coalition of what?). Most of the list are straight-forward -- selecting "Students" from the list produces a poster that says "Students for Bush-Cheney '04". But one isn't -- to get "Conservationists for Bush-Cheney '04", you would select "Natural Resources" from the coalition group list. Another one is interesting insofar as the list description is slightly, but significantly, different from the poster result -- that is, if you select "Pro-Life" from the list, the poster reads "Pro-Lifers for Bush-Cheney '04". Now, it's a subtle distinction, but I am willing to bet that there are people who are comfortable decribing themselves as "Pro-Life voters" but who would nevertheless be uncomfortable describing themselves as "Pro-Lifers", since that particular iteration of the term has come to be associated with the aggressive tactics of groups like Operation Rescue and a few nuts who think it's okay to hunt and kill gynecologists who perform abortions.

Finally, I was struck by how some of these groups are very narrowly defined, while others are defined quite broadly. Take, for example, "homeschoolers", "farmers and ranchers" and "hi-tech workers" (which, I note, uses the shortened "hi" instead of "high"; I imagine that most high-tech workers, being highly educated, use the latter term to describe themselves, if they even bother to use the "high" at all). Are these really important swing constituencies?

For contrast, consider the sweepingly broad coalition group "investors". I mean, really, when it comes to supporting a candidate, who realistically describe themselves as "investors", particularly when more than half of the country is invested in the stock market either directly or through pension plans? By that logic, what's next, "Drivers for Bush-Cheney '04"?

At the end of the day, score one for the pranksters. By forcing the Bushies to limit their list, the pranksters inadvertently forced them to give us a peek into who are and are not important in the political calculus underlying the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign.