The Political Notebook 7.15.22
Voting initiative's strategic vulnerability. Ignore meaningless victory and concession speeches. Bowers and the Trump temptation.
Arizona Fair Elections Act initiative’s strategic vulnerability
Those who drafted the Arizona Fair Elections Act initiative took the kitchen-sink approach. That probably was a strategic mistake.
The initiative, which nominally has enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot pending review by election officials, has a slew of provisions. These range from allowing Election Day voter registration, to legalizing ballot harvesting, to increasing what publicly-financed candidates receive in campaign funds, to establishing a minimum corporate income tax.
Undoubtedly the campaign plan is to get all these disparate provisions swept into law under some high-minded general rubric. The self-proclaimed title, Fair Elections Act, suggests the approach. I anticipate there being solemn proclamations about protecting voting rights along the way.
If there is a funded opposition campaign, which I suspect there will be, and if the opposition campaign is competent, a more dubious proposition these days, that will be a tough path to victory.
My data and experience are dated, but it used to be that when there was a reasonable level of funding on both sides of a ballot measure, the no side prevailed a substantial majority of the time. In fact, in the political consulting industry, it was known as the burden of the yes vote. I doubt that times have changed.
A no vote, which sustains the status quo, is the safe option for voters. It is the vote with no potential unpleasant surprises.
To win, the no side only has to come up with a single compelling argument. And it can be a different argument for different voters.
To win, the yes side has to rebut all the no arguments and provide a compelling argument in favor, to overcome the safety of the status quo.
The Arizona Fair Elections Act is a target-rich canvas for a death-by-a-thousand-cuts opposition campaign. Opposition to its various provisions could easily be accumulated, given money and commitment.
The best chance the initiative has is if the opposition also decides to run a general-theme campaign, probably something along the voter fraud lines. There are provisions in the initiative, such as legalizing ballot harvesting, for which that is a concern. But running a general-theme “no” campaign, instead of getting into the details and accumulating opposition for a wide variety of reasons, would be the lazy way out and one that might come up short.
Ignore meaningless victory and concession speeches
Kari Lake and Mark Finchem, the two leading members of the Trump cult ticket in the GOP primary, have said that if the official vote count finds them on the short end of the stick, they still won’t concede. This produced alarm and tut-tuts within the political community.
There is much the Trump cultists are doing to seed unjustified doubt about the legitimacy of our elections that warrants alarm and condemnation. But not being willing to make a concession speech isn’t one of them.
In fact, the ritual of candidates declaring victory or conceding defeat causes more difficulties than it confers benefits.
The ritual has no legal significance whatsoever. If candidate A declares victory and opponent B concedes, but the official vote total shows that B actually prevailed, A doesn’t nevertheless take office. B does.
While legally meaningless, the media nevertheless treat declarations of victory and concessions as real events, signifying the effective end of the election. Just as they treat their own projections of who has won an election as real events, when such projections also have no legal significance whatsoever.
Supposedly the victory declaration and concession speeches are symbols of respect for the democratic process and its peaceful transfer of power. In this day and age, however, that makes them weapons for the likes of Trump, Lake and Finchem to use to the opposite effect. Republicans excuse much bad democratic behavior in their ranks on the grounds that Stacy Abrams never conceded defeat to Brian Kemp in the 2018 governor’s race in Georgia.
The speeches themselves are inevitably formalistic cant. In the victory declaration speech, the candidate pledges to be the whatever office holder for all the people, including those who voted against him. And then proceeds to recite all his campaign themes which, even in a landslide victory, some 45% of the electorate will have just rejected. In the concession speech, the candidate inevitably also recites his campaign themes and contends that, while they came up short this time, the cause endures.
These speeches are empty bombast by, in most cases, empty suits. They should be de-weaponized by treating them as such.
Bowers and the Trump temptation
State House Speaker Rusty Bowers has received national attention and wholly warranted acclaim for flatly saying no to attempts to enlist him in Trump’s attempted coup of the 2020 election, irrespective of how intense or high-ranking the pressure.
Then, in an interview, Bowers said that if Trump were the 2024 GOP nominee, Bowers would vote for him. The national bloom withered in some quarters.
In a more recent interview, Bowers walked that back, in a way that again revealed what makes him an appealing public figure: he’s a genuine, principled guy trying to negotiate his way to providing public service in a system frequently artificial and unprincipled.
Bowers didn’t attempt to say that he was misquoted. He owned up to the original quote. He explained that supporting the party’s nominee, whoever it was, was an instinctive political reflex.
“As kind of a sad evasion,” Bowers reflected, “I just said that. And it gets me out of a discussion and into a hotter fire.”
This illustrates the subtly corrosive influence of partisan politics, that it can trip up even a stand-up figure such as Bowers. In America’s two-party system, politics for those running for office is a team sport. And you are expected to support the team’s candidate irrespective of how much of a cad you might think the guy to be.
In a nonpartisan top-two primary system, Bowers would probably win his race for a state senate seat walking away. However, it will be at least a bit of a surprise if he wins the Republican primary against his opponent, a full-throated Trumpian.
Bowers winning that primary would be a small sign of a healthier Arizona Republican Party. Trump going 0-4 with his endorsements for statewide office (U.S. Senate, governor, secretary of state, attorney general) would be a big sign, and one with national significance.
Reach Robb at robtrobb@gmail.com.