Campaign Lies

by Sheila Connolly

It's over.  The election is finally over. Seems like it's been going on for years, doesn't it?

 

Mark Twain once said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

 

Now we can state clearly:  everybody lies.  Only in politics, it's called "spin."

 

A long time ago I took a college-level course on statistics.  I did this not because I was fascinated about how to manipulate information to serve an end, but because it was a requirement for admission to an MBA program I planned to apply to, back when I was working for an investment banking firm.  Let me be perfectly clear:  in all the years I worked in business, I used statistics exactly once, when I proudly charted not the increase in membership applications at a nonprofit museum where I worked, but rather the rate of increase. In other words, people were applying for membership faster.  It made a pretty graph.

 

We have endured months of political commercials, from both national and local candidates, on an hourly basis at all times of day.  After a while you can tune them out mentally, or hit your "Mute" button and ignore them.  You've seen them all before, anyway—dozens of times.  But what is curious about these back to back ads is that they are saying diametrically opposed things—and they can't both be right.

 

There are statements like, "Candidate X voted 100% of the time to support the Save the Aardvarks Bill."  Correct, because the bill came up only once (and was roundly trounced by the opposition party, as Candidate X knew it would be) when s/he voted for it. Who does this statement influence?  The aardvark lovers already know the voting record for every candidate on their favorite issue; people who wouldn't know an aardvark if it bit them really don't care. But the general impression the statement gives looks favorable for the candidate, right?

 

Statements like this aren't lies, exactly; they are manipulations of the truth. The creators (diligent campaign hacks, er, experts) choose their words with great care, making sure that nothing is exactly untrue (in the legal sense) but that whatever they say puts their candidate in the best possible light for the target audience.

 

But how stupid do the wordsmiths think we voters are?  When you see conflicting commercials one after the other, you know they can't both be right.  It has been said that the vast majority of voters know who they're going to vote for from the beginning, and they seldom change their minds in the course of a race.  Voters have even been known to vote for incarcerated candidates, because he belongs to the right party and he's been good to them, or so they think (if wasn't their money he embezzled, right?). Party loyalty runs deep—and voting a straight party ticket avoids all that decision-making stuff.

 

So the target for ad-crafters is the Undecideds, who can't seem to make up their mind until they hold the ballot in their hand on Election Day.  Do they flip a coin?  Do they vote because they hated Candidate Y's pink necktie, or Candidate Z's clunky earrings, in the last ad they saw? Conversely, do they reject a candidate because they hate his or her gravelly or squeaky voice? The candidate may be a brilliant person, with a mind like a steel trap and honest to the core, but can his or her election hinge on vocal chords or wardrobe choice?

 

But campaign staffers still go after voters with words, rather than brute force or cash offerings (most of the time, anyway).  They believe that by choosing the right, the perfect words, they can convince us.  The words matter, and I suppose that we writers should be happy about that.

Politics

by Sheila Connolly

Did I say I wasn't going to write about politics?  If I did, I lied.  Or the press took my words and twisted them to make a more sensational story.  My latest book, Sour Apples, was released this week, and it's about…politics.

No, I don't have an axe to grind, or a party platform to promote--just a book.  But politics is an inescapable part of our daily lives, even in off-years, so for a writer to ignore it entirely in the fictional communities we create seems unrealistic.

Besides, politics is fun.  I've never run for office, but I've been part of several campaigns, both federal and local, and I can tell you that the excitement within a campaign is electric. 

I first got involved before the computer age (way, way before), typing envelopes for my hometown political committee at a penny apiece.  I got the job because I babysat for the committee chairperson.  I also handed out buttered corn at a local fair at which one of my state's congressional candidates gave a speech (and I was told in a whisper that "everybody knows that he drinks"—he was re-elected anyway).

In college I volunteered for a gubernatorial campaign, mainly out of curiosity, and most of my efforts involved handing people pamphlets on street corners, and on one memorable night, at a Bruins game at the old Boston Garden. And smiling a lot.  If you're a nice young lady, most people will take what you hand them.

 

When I lived in California, I volunteered for Jerry Brown's PAC (I had to do a quick check:  that was after his first stint as governor and his losses in a Senate race and two presidential bids, but before his time as mayor of Oakland and his second round as governor).  I must admit that I had no idea what a PAC was or what it was supposed to do, but my brief role got me onto the floor at the 1984 nominating convention in San Francisco, and I got to ogle a lot of Big Names I actually recognized.

Then we moved to Pennsylvania, and after a couple of years I found myself the chair of one of our local political committees, in a town with only a couple of thousand registered voters (most of whom were like-minded).  That gave me some direct contact with county and state politics—and believe me, that was an eye-opener.

And finally, I ended up as a paid staffer for a Senate candidate.  It was one of the most exciting experiences of my life.  There were a few seasoned professionals running the show, but otherwise the staff was made up of eager, enthusiastic younger people.  We worked very hard, and we had a wonderful time.  And our candidate lost, but for the right reasons (like refusing to play some traditional political games just to get votes). 

So how could I not use this experience in a book?  If you're involved in politics at all, beyond a strictly local level (my character Seth Chapin is a Granford selectman, with no higher aspirations), you take it very seriously, because a lot of people are very invested in any race.  And that leads to important questions:  is there something in the candidate's past that will come back to haunt him or her?  Just how far will the candidate go to hide that? And could that lead to murder?

And that's what Sour Apples is about.

POLITICS IN 1684

By Sheila Connolly


No, this is not about the current contentious battles, local, state and nationwide.  I thought it might be fun to see what elections looked like in 1684.

As I've probably said ad nauseam, I do a lot of genealogy.  One of my earliest ancestors, John Floyd, my eighth-great-grandfather, born around 1636, was living in Lynn (then Romney Marsh), Massachusetts as early as 1662, and since there was a limited pool of able-bodied men back then, he served in various public offices over the years. Since Massachusetts was very scrupulous about keeping records, I can trace his political career.

Actually he's one of my favorite ancestors, not because he was brilliant and successful, but because he got into trouble a lot.  He was a lieutenant in King Philip's War (and may well have trodden the earth upon which I now dwell) and his men mutinied—twice.  In 1692 he was arrested as a witch (but not convicted). He died in Lynn in 1701 and is buried there.

So I'm always looking for interesting details about his life, and that's how I stumbled upon the Boston Town Records of 1683-84, which report,

At a publique meetinge of the inhabitants of Bostone upon lawfull warning for the election of officers of the towne for the yeare ensueinge were chosen for:

[Now, here's the fun part.  Old Captain John was elected as Surveyor of Rumny Marsh, but that was pretty tame.  However, among the other offices filled were:]

Clarkes of ye Market (four men, including Isack Goose and Benjamin Breame)

Sealers of Leather & to inspect the cuttings & Gashings of Hydes

Water Bayliffes

Packers of Fish & Flesh

Measurer of Salt

Scauengers (Scavengers)

Hogg Reeues (Reeves)

Cryers

Also, "Voted, That the Custome of practice taken vp by ye Towne at the chooseinge of Jurors, not to choose any to that service yt were present at the Meetinge, be hence forth made Voyde, & that it be free to choose as well of those present as out of such as are absent."

If I'm reading this right, up until March 1684, if you weren't at the meeting you could be called as a juror.  Maybe they weren't finding enough people for a jury, if they had to include the elected officials as well. (In April of that year it was noted "That for a more orderlie choice of Jurors for the time to come there should be a committee chosen to take a list of such pesons in all ptes of the Town, as are able & discreete men fit for that service…for amore orderlie choice then formerly that ye Courts may be the better supplied with able & suffitient men, & the burden of yt seuice not lie vpon a few." 

For all of that, there are also officers whose title we (at least in Massachusetts) would recognize today:  Moderator, Selectmen, Constable.  The group voted on road repairs and surveying of town boundaries.

I won't guess how many of the above positions were officially eliminated or which still linger on the books of various municipalities, but I haven't seen a hog reeve lately (nor any wandering hogs).  But if you live in Massachusetts, there a comforting sense of continuity: attend your town meeting and you're participating in a tradition over three centuries old. I guess we'll survive another year's worth of elections.

The Year of the Woman

by Sheila Connolly

Twenty years ago, I signed up as a volunteer for a U.S. senatorial campaign in Pennsylvania. The candidate was a woman, and that year was dubbed "The Year of the Woman" in politics.

I know we don't talk about political positions in this blog (always a minefield), but all of us regular bloggers are women, most of the protagonists we write are women, and the majority of our readers are women, so I hope I may speak about women and politics in general terms.

1992 was a special year in politics, one in which we believed that the status quo might actually be changing, and we were going to be part of it. I had only dabbled in political activities before that—typing envelopes in high school, handing out candidate flyers at the old Boston Garden in college. I'm not sure I held any strong political convictions then. Early on I tried to adopt my parents' party allegiance, but that never quite took (and they more or less switched parties by the end of their lives anyway). I didn't join the 1992 campaign out of any idealogical position. Mostly I was curious to see what a campaign looked like from the inside, since every four years (or less) campaigns take over a large part of our news.

So I showed up and was put to work, and before long I was managing the entire data entry process, and getting paid for it. In the few months leading up to the election, I input 60,000 contributions from 40,000 individual donors (and ended up with carpal tunnel syndrome, no surprise). In case you've never been part of a campaign, it really is thrown together from one or two paid consultants and a whole lot of young, eager, enthusiastic volunteers who will do just about anything—drive people around, make endless phone calls, fill out the crowd at events and rallies.

In this case the core staff numbered around twenty people. Maybe. This was a statewide campaign that drew some national attention, and a bunch of kids in a shabby rented office were running the show. Heck, I was one of the oldest workers there, and I was the stuffy one, with a husband and child and a house in the suburbs.

Without question, it was the most fun I've had in my adult life. I loved it. I met all sorts of people, both politicians and celebrities, whose names you'd recognize. I got to be in a commercial, as part of the crowd (I still have the videotape). There were breathtaking highs and lows, and we celebrated every success, no matter how small.

Our candidate lost. Not because of incompetence or even lack of funds, but because we didn't want to play some of the long-established political games that might have pushed our candidate over the top. We had nothing to apologize for. Some Internet sources such as Wikipedia claim our candidate lost because of inexperience. Yes, she was new to politics, and goodness knows the staff was. But we thought what we were doing was important and we worked our butts off.

So here we are, twenty years later. Has anything changed? The public flaps between opposing candidates and parties over the past few weeks—about women/mothers working, about the right to choose, and more—make me wonder if we're moving backwards, not forwards. We might have thought that these were issues that were settled a generation ago, but here they are again, striking nerves on both sides of the aisle.

How far have we come? Not far enough. I still believe that government would run more smoothly if there were more women involved.

P.S. If you want a real sense of what the behind-the-scenes feeling was in a campaign, Primary Colors (by Anonymous/Joe Klein, 1996) captures it well.

The Problem of Opinion

by Julia Buckley

Seth Meyers said something quite memorable in his 2011 speech at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, during which he discussed Congress and the fact that one Congressional Representative's behavior was lauded as "adult." Meyers said:

"Nothing is so depressing about politics than the fact that 'adult' is now a compliment. 'Adult' is only a compliment to a child: 'I'm so proud of you; you acted like an adult tonight. I'm glad I brought you to my boss's house for dinner. You even cut your own meat like a big boy.'

Also, Congress, there are a lot of things you want us to be impressed by that we are not impressed by: we are not impressed that you sat next to each other at The State of the Union. You know what the rest of America calls an evening spent politely sitting next to a person with wildly different political views? Thanksgiving."

We're not impressed when you complain that bills are too long to read. 'The Health Care Bill is almost 2000 pages!' Good! A bill that ensures healthcare to every person in America should be longer than THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Also while we're at it, I don't think you read bills anyway. I think you guys vote on bills in the same way the rest of us agree to updated terms and conditions on i-Tunes."

There were several elements of Meyer's satire that I found effective, especially his message to a Congress whose job approval rating, even back in December of 2010, was found to be "the worst in Gallup Poll history."

But I also agreed with Meyers' assessment of the family Thanksgiving. Are there any families out there who share similar political views and basic ideologies with other members of their clan? When I was young, I never understood the maxim that one should never discuss religion or politics at the table. Now that I've tried to do both, I realize exactly how it originated. I suppose it's hypocritical of me to criticize the polarization of Congress when I encounter the same sort of polarization within my family.

I foolishly entered a political debate with my own dear uncle, on Facebook of all things, and the entries on both sides grew longer and longer. Finally a dear friend and fellow mystery writer stepped in and posted, "I give you credit for trying, Julia. But you'll never change his mind."

It was true; my uncle and I agreed that we were deadlocked. He wasn't going to change my views, and I wasn't going to change his. But it's clear that we are both convinced the other person is just about 100% wrong. So I have learned: no voicing controversial opinions with family; no controversial statements on Facebook; certainly none in my classroom, which would be an abuse of the podium.

So the question is--should we share our opinions at all? Are opinions meant to kept private, or should we be contributing more to the public dialogue? If it's B, how can we create a civil public discourse that allows respect for both sides?

It seems now more than ever everyone has an opinion, and it tends to be a strong one. Do you share yours or keep mum? Do you feel there is value to sharing it, or value to keeping it to yourself?

I certainly value your opinion here, no matter what it is.

Sound and Fury

by Sheila Connolly

My, what a week Congress has had!  Quite the drama, eh?  Impassioned speeches, nail-biting waits, posturing and preening for the cameras. 

I wish I were better informed about this country's political history, because I'm pretty sure there's nothing new about this pageant.  Maybe I could point to William Jennings Bryan's famous "Cross of Gold" speech in 1896 (in case you've forgotten, the issue then was whether to endorse the free coinage of silver at a ratio of silver to gold of 16 to 1, an inflationary measure aimed at increasing the amount of money in circulation and aiding cash-poor and debt-burdened farmers--yes, I had to look it up).  You know it must be important when it shows up as a Jeopardy answer.

I contend that most of the rhetoric this week was aimed at impressing each Senator's and Representatives's constituency back home, because, sadly, most people haven't got a clue about what they were talking about.  How many people had ever given the "debt ceiling" a moment's thought before this summer?  Show of hands, please.  Uh-huh, I thought so.

I'm not just venting.  I actually have some qualifications to discuss this, because I used to work as a municipal finance consultant, and I was part of the team that kept the City of Philadelphia from bankruptcy in the 1980s.  I attended meetings at Standard and Poor's and Moody's, so I know what a rating agency is, and how a rating affects the cost of borrowing money.  I was also a staff member for a senatorial campaign in the 1990s, so I know something about what it takes to elect a candidate.

But I also know that many politicians don't communicate effectively.  Sure, they trot out doom and gloom scenarios--and I won't say they aren't real possibilities--but I think the single biggest failing across the board, regardly of party affiliation, is the inability to translate the impact of federal policies on the individual voter.  Maybe they did a better job than usual this time around, threatening that interest rates on just about everything would go up.  But that doesn't mean that people understood why the U.S. government borrows money in the first place--and that you can't just stop paying the bills for money you've already spent.

Just this week I turned in a manuscript to my editor that features a Congressional race by a political newcomer; it will be published next August, in the thick of the political season.  I do not identify the candidate's party affiliation, nor is he modeled on any real individual.  I wrote about this because I wanted to explore why anyone chooses to run for office--and how far her or she, or his/her followers, will go to win an election.  As we have seen this week, there is a lot of passion involved in politics, and a lot of conflict.  What better subject for a book?

But in the real world, it gets harder and harder to find qualified candidates who are willing to put themselves through the relentless meat grinder of running for office and holding office.  That's unfortunate, because, like it or hate it, this is the system we have in place.  And what's more, we need a balanced mix of insiders and new blood to make it work.

Of course there's going to be a lot of head-butting, because what these elected representatives are talking about on the national stage affects all of us, whether we recognize it or not. And now the impact goes beyond our geographic boundaries, because we are part of a global economy.  Of course we should care--and we should vote.  I truly hope that those of each party who defend strong and polarizing positions do so out of conviction and a sincere desire to represent their constituents rather than an ego-driven need to be in the public spotlight.

I hope you recognized the title of this post as a part of a longer quote:  "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."  It's from Shakespeare's Macbeth.  Let's hope that what our elected Congress accomplishes in the next few months comes out a little better than that.

SEX, MONEY AND POLITICS

by Sheila Connolly

It has been said (by the ubiquitous "they") that the best way to keep a relationship, romantic or platonic, on an even keel is to avoid talking about sex, money and politics.  But where's the fun in that?

As a cozy writer, I am not allowed to write about sex, beyond a steamy liplock and a gently closing door.  Likewise, as a cozy writer I don't make a whole lot of money, so I don't have much to say about that.

Which leaves politics.  I confess:  I have worked on several political campaigns in my life, as both a volunteer and as a paid staff member.  This was not based on any deep-seated conviction or philosophy--I just figured I'd better get a first-hand look of something that occupies a major place in our social consciousness.  I'm glad I did, and the experience I gained there has stood me in good stead. 

It would appear that the campaign season has already started, if the television ads, telephone calls and multipart letters are any indication.  Thank goodness for the mute button and the caller ID function, which lets you silence the storm.  But wait!  Isn't the next federal election NEXT YEAR?  All these people are jockeying for position for something that won't happen for eighteen months?

Based on my in-depth experience (note:  in all the campaigns I worked for, my candidate lost), it's easier to watch this process as a big game.  On the one hand we have the incumbent.  Conventional wisdom holds that the incumbent has a distinct advantage, because (a) s/he has name recognition among constitutents, and (b) s/he is ideally situated to raise money, which is the lifeblood of any political campaign.  But pity the poor representative, who, facing a two-year term, must start raising money for the next campaign before s/he is even sworn in.

Then there are the contenders for the opposition, and here's where it is really interesting this year:  they are coming out in droves.  A full spectrum, from conservative to moderate, from highly qualified to absurd.  And they're all out there now, stalking the country, buying chunks of air time, making outrageous statements for benefit of the local newshounds and hoping that a major network will pay attention.  It's like watching a seething pot of stew:  a bubble/candidate rises to the top and then bursts, soon to be followed by another one--a process that ends only when the stew is reduced to sludge or burnt to a crisp.

And this will go on for how long?  Don't get me wrong:  this is our system, and we've got to love it.  Sure, it's unwieldy and darned expensive, but it's what we've got.  Changing it is all but impossible.  I recall writing a thoughtful paper about electoral college reform when I was in college.  I'm coming up on my 40th reunion, and how much has changed in the electoral college?  Nothing.

If you want to haul this discussion back to the literary realm, in my opinion Primary Colors, by Anonymous Joe Klein, best captures the mood within a major campaign.  Voters would like to believe there is a campaign plan in place, and competent people who are executing it.  Uh, not exactly, or not all the time.  But that's what makes it so much fun--the energy, the excitement, the high stakes involved.  In a way it's surprising there are not more good novels about politics, because all the elements are there--sex, money, and politics.  And conflict, and resolution, if not a happily-ever-after ending.  And if you're writing the book, you can speed it up!

[Aren't you glad I didn't talk about Rep. Weiner's weiner?]

THE ELECTION IS OVER

by Sheila Connolly

No, I'm not going to write about politics, exactly.  I'm going to wallow in the blessed quiet now that we are not being bombarded by mean-spirited and mendacious ads every five minutes.  And robo-callers, who managed to crash parts of the phone system in Massachusetts the other day through sheer volume.  BTW, Massachusetts had near-record voter turnout, so maybe all those calls worked.

Clearly some people get very invested in politics, local or national (that is, not the ones who say "I don't vote because what difference does it make?").  I understand that, because I was part of a couple of political campaigns, nearly twenty years ago now.

I have to say that the U.S. Senate race for which I was a paid staffer provided some of the most exciting moments of my life, before or since.  I showed up in typical volunteer fashion, because I was between jobs and had free time, and because someone I knew was doing it and I respected her opinion.  I knew little about the candidate and her positions, but I liked the idea of working for a woman candidate.  I started out doing data entry--if you can believe it, there was only one young guy doing it when I arrived.  I did this for a couple of weeks and then told the senior staff that they were about to get overwhelmed.  They put me on staff.  In the few months I was there, we processed 60,000 contributions (and I got carpal tunnel).

At 40-something, I was one of the oldest members of the staff, after the candidate and the campaign manager.  The rest were eager, starry-eyed kids--but I learned that you need that kind of energy to run any campaign.  It became an ad hoc family--we celebrated small victories, and griped about the unfairness of it all when people said mean things about our candidate in the press.  There was a persistent flavor of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney saying, "hey, let's put on a play!"  We were making it up as we went, and having a very good time.

On Election Day I woke up (around four a.m.) feeling like a kid at Christmas, eager to dive into the presents under the tree.  All things were still possible, and at campaign HQ we all believed that to our core.

We lost.  We lost for good reasons--our candidate wouldn't play ball with the city pols who wanted "walking around money" for their poll people.  We ran a good, honest campaign, but it wasn't quite good enough.  At least it was fair.

So I understand the excitement that surrounds elections.  People care--maybe for the wrong reasons, but they care enough to get involved and take action, and I applaud that.

And I'm going to tap into that in the next Orchard Series book I'm planning.  I want to look at local politics--and what would lead someone to kill for a campaign.  I think it's completely believable.