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Press Coverage - 2004 American Democracy Conference
UVA Top News Daily
American Democracy Conference Takes Aim at 2004 Election
By Peter Jackson
UVA Center for Politics
December 17, 2004
With an all-star lineup of journalists and political operatives from both sides of the aisle, the seventh annual American Democracy Conference sponsored by the U.Va. Center for Politics took aim at the good, bad--and yes, the sometimes ugly--moments of the 2004 election season last Friday.
The conference, titled "A House Divided? Polarized America and the 2004 Election," was the seventh joint venture between the Center and The Hotline, the National Journal Group's daily political briefing. Each of the three panels aimed to deconstruct the candidates and the voters in an attempt to further explain the ideological divisions in the electorate.
Moderated by Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato, the first panel focused on the ins and outs of the election. After giving each panelist an opportunity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Bush and Kerry campaigns, Sabato encouraged a lively discussion of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertising campaign aimed at Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's military service in Vietnam. While many--including Chris LaCivita, the Swift Boat Veterans' political adviser--saw the ads as fair game in the blood sport that politics has become, others--such as senior Kerry strategist Mike McCurry - were apt to call them "the most dishonorable thing I have seen in my career in politics."
To explain the media's role, Hotline Editor Vaughn Ververs assembled a panel of experienced journalists - including Mike Allen of the Washington Post, and Dotty Lynch of CBS News - and peppered in their midst a staffer from each of the presidential campaigns. The result was a comprehensive look at the feeding frenzies that dominated campaign 2004: Howard Dean's "scream" after his loss in the Iowa caucuses, the bulge in the back of George W. Bush's suit during his first presidential debate, and allegations of an affair between Senator Kerry and one of his campaign staffers.
The final panel took aim at the future of the Democratic Party. Hotline Editor-in-Chief Chuck Todd assembled a familiar cast of Democratic standard-bearers: Donna Brazile, Al Gore's presidential campaign manager; Rep. Brad Carson (D-OK), candidate for an open Senate seat in Oklahoma; and, Jim Jordan, former Kerry campaign manager and current head of America Coming Together, a Democratic 527 group. While each panelist had their own vision of the party, each saw the need to expand the party's appeal to southern and rural voters, instead of focusing on the "left" and east coasts.
"I do believe that the Democratic Party is not dead but, as my father recently told me, 'just gone fishing,' and perhaps it's time to change our bait," quipped Brazile in response to a question about the failures of her party in the 2004 election.
However, not all of the critique was focused on the national party. Jordan's America Coming Together, and other so-called 527 organizations such as MoveOn and the Media Fund were portrayed as renegade organizations that didn't always serve the Democratic Party's best interests.
"It's never comfortable to come out and say the operation was a success but the patient is dead, but we didn't have any illusions about what our role in this whole process would be," said Jordan. "We were at the margins; we were about jacking up Democratic turnout by 4 or 5 or 6 percent, and that's exactly what we did. Ground operations don't win or lose presidential campaigns--that's what candidates are for."
According to Joshua Scott, director of programs for the Center for Politics, the purpose of the American Democracy Conference "is to bring together the nation's top political minds to reconstruct the year's political cycle and then deconstruct the results."
Scott says, however, that elections are not about the latest public opinion poll and the so-called horserace phenomenon of modern day political contests.
"While the majority of our registrants were Beltway insiders, we had tremendous turnout among community members who love to discuss politics," said Scott. "The success of 'A House Divided?' was not just its ability to give us insight into this election year and beyond. Rather, it showed us how the Center's events have been able to attract more and more people to the political process, helping them to find their own voice in government."
The Center for Politics holds their next event on Jan. 25 at 7 p.m., when they host a forum featuring today's top political cartoonists in an attempt to further understand the role of political satire and humor in today's polarized political climate.
2004 American Democracy Conference Home
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Copyright © 2004 U.Va. Center for Politics. All rights reserved.
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