The obvious explanations are that Florida Fatigue is still at play; Democrats and Republicans alike want to move on instead of stewing in last winter’s juices. And of course the media is otherwise occupied obsessing over the Chandra Levy-Gary Condit case.
But there are two other possible explanations for why this big and well-executed story didn’t get more traction: one involves the changing media; the other the unchanging Democratic Party.
First, the media. Story selection is all in the “framing”-the lens placed on the news. The frame in this case was whether any new information about Florida voter irregularities might change the outcome of last November’s election. If the Times story had suggested that the outcome would have been different, the story would have received more play. Instead, the paper quoted a Harvard statistician as saying essentially that George W. Bush would have won anyway.
This seems to me to be an awfully narrow way to determine whether a story is newsworthy. It’s a little like the people who say, “Don’t bother me with a story about the death penalty until you bring me an innocent man who has been wrongly executed.” There’s some room between a headline reading: “Study Shows Gore Really Won the Election” and no follow-up coverage at all.
Part of the explanation is that The New York Times no longer sets the news agenda the way it once did. For an astonishingly long period-more than half a century, perhaps-if the Times said it was big news, everyone stood up and saluted it as such. If the Times gave it four and a half full pages, as it did in this case, the rest of media would have spent a week digesting it.
The Times is still a tremendously influential newspaper, but it is not as dominant as it once was, because print journalism is not as dominant. When TV news consisted of 22-minute evening news broadcasts, the Times retained much of its authority; television news executives were still a tad insecure about their judgments. But in the era of 24-hour cable, TV producers make their assessments independent of the Times, which on stories ranging from O.J. Simpson to Chandra Levy, finds itself following cable, not leading it.
The more conservative bent of cable and the Internet might also be a factor. Remember, the Times established that overseas military ballots cast improperly (without a postmark, as required by law) were counted anyway in Republican counties. In a sidebar, the paper established that a Republican member of Congress, Rep. Stephen Buyer of Indiana, improperly used the House Armed Services Committee to obtain from the Pentagon the e-mail addresses of sailors, so that they could be contacted for political purposes.
Now imagine if the shoe were on the other foot. Imagine if Al Gore had been elected and six months later, the Times came forward with a story out of Florida showing that African-American voters had illegally cast their ballots for Gore in Democratic counties. Imagine that the paper had shown that, say, the Congressional Black Caucus had used the Pentagon to reach out to black veterans, who then voted improperly for Gore.
Does anyone honestly believe that it wouldn’t have become a public relations firestorm? Rush Limbaugh would have been fanning the flames all week.
But that’s just more armchair conjecture. The main reason the Times story didn’t resonate more was the same reason the Democrats lost in Florida in the first place-they aren’t as aggressive and effective as the Republicans in the basic blocking and tackling of politics. And the Dems are much too defensive on national defense, which reflects a deep-seated insecurity stemming all the way back to the Vietnam War.
The most telling part of the Times series (and the most familiar) recounted how Joe Lieberman went on the Sunday talk shows in November and all-but-hoisted the white flag. Recall how the Republicans had mobilized a fierce attack against the Gore forces, featuring retired general Norman Schwarzkopf, among others. The charge could not have been more serious: unpatriotic behavior. The evidence was a memo from a Florida Democrat outlining how to challenge improper overseas military ballots.
Gore and Lieberman, having lost the military vote on Nov. 7 overwhelmingly, were fearful that any victory would be tainted if it were seen as having been won by disqualifying military absentee ballots. They also felt it was contradictory to their overall message, which was to “count all of the votes.” So Lieberman went on TV and basically said that all overseas military ballots should be counted, regardless of circumstances. This in essence allowed counties to count votes that had been cast after the election. The Times proved that on the ground this cost Gore plenty of votes.
Now, again, imagine for a moment an issue on which the Republican Party has been weak recently-say, attracting black voters. And imagine that evidence surfaced that African-American votes had not been fully counted. Actually, you don’t have to imagine, because this happened in Florida’s Duval County, among other places.
You know the rest: Instead of being defensive about it, instead of thinking, Lieberman-style, that it might be harder to govern in a Bush administration if black voters felt disenfranchised, the GOP just barreled ahead, determined to win the election.
I’m not exactly sure why Democrats are still insecure on defense, while Republicans are not insecure on race. It could be that it’s easier for Republicans to hurl the epithet “unpatriotic” at Gore than it is for Democrats to hurl the epithet “racist” at Bush. (Some do so, but not the leaders of the party.)
Or it could be that some of the old stereotypes still apply: hand-wringing, woolly-headed liberals versus rock-ribbed, bull-headed conservatives. In any event, the GOP-being the out party-just seemed to want it a little more last year. Combined with the home-field advantages Jeb Bush brought to the Florida struggle, that was the margin of victory in the closest presidential election in history.
All of that came to mind when the Times story appeared. But of course it wasn’t news. No need to follow up. Let sleeping chads lie.
