Those who do Maine’s electoral math report that over $41,000,000 has been raised for our state’s senatorial race so far. Doing a little additional math we read the Maine’s 2020 population is 1,345,000 people which yields 828,000 registered voters (77.10% of the total population).
If we took the phrase “buying an election” literally that adds up to fifty dollars per vote (rounding off). We have no idea how many Mainers would sell their votes for cash. We only know for sure that some would leap at the chance to trade their democratic birth-right for the price of a moderate hang-over. We know this because all of us know some people would make that leap if the law allowed it. We also know that there are eager politicians would be eager to close such deals. We know that because there are laws passed to prevent them.
There are cynics who argue that it is common for candidates to buy votes by promising funds from the public treasury. Those who reject this argument actually know it’s true, but they don’t like being called cynical. It’s no accident that candidates who delivers a speech promising benefits to students, delivers it on a college campus. Nor is it accidental that promises of benefits to elderly citizens are made to elderly audiences. I invite any reader who knows about an exception to this rule to send word. My e-mail address can be found at the end of this column.
Leaving aside these generalities let’s consider how this $41,000,000 will be spent to win a seat in the United States Senate. Name recognition is always the first priority. Actors, athletes, incumbents, and military heros have name recognition from the start. Businessmen who advertise their product have the same advantage. Frank Perdue appeared in over 200 commercials, most of them featuring “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.” On the strength of name recognition he was often mentioned as a promising Maryland senatorial candidate,. By the way, he actually looked tough, in a curmudgeonly kind of way. A lot of voters like that look. Which is why candidates for office love to talk about “fighting” for the people.
Some money will go beyond names and faces to illustrate the candidates’ “human side.” Voters tend to cherish the illusion that their candidate resembles themselves to some degree. Photos of the candidate in shirt sleeves with his necktie loosened or missing and his jacket thrown over his shoulder helps. One smiling wife, two smiling kids (or more), and a cheerful looking dog all help. Cats don’t help. Bill Clinton was the only candidate in the history of any democracy who put a pet cat on display. “Socks” (March 15, 1989–Feb. 20, 2009) was turned over to Bill’s secretary after he was no longer needed to cajole cat-loving voters.
Yard signs and bumper stickers which generally contain no more information than the name of a candidate can be considered name recognition expenditures. There are no surveys or other statistical material but it is known that some voters show up at the polling place uncertain of who they are going to vote and simply fall back on a name they can remember from some simple display.
Paul Josef Goebbels, Hitler’s Reich Minister for Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, was a well-educated and highly intelligent evil little man. His rules for persuading people relied heavily on maintaining a government monopoly on “Public Enlightenment” (e.g.,“It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion.”) But he had some useful observations about persuasion. One of his rules is usually accepted by all political parties: “There is no need for propaganda to be rich in intellectual content.” I assume my readers have already noticed this rule. This observation sounds exaggerated, but Goebbels’ own experience supported it to a large extent: “It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas in disguise.”
It’s not communist or fascist or even particularly cynical to recognize that these observations are applicable to the arts of persuasion in democratic politics. The KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid, alternatively Keep It Short and Simple) seems to have originated in the U.S. Navy as a design principle but that rule also prevails in America’s political advertisement. James Carville, Clinton’s 1992 Campaign strategist coined the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid” as a reminder to stay on message. The simpler the message the better.
It seems to follow that Maine’s voters can expect unrelieved monotony for weeks to come. What else should we expect with $41 million worth of advertisements with intelligence strictly limited, and repetition seen as the essence of effective messaging? Advertising professionals have long recognized the danger of monotonous repetition resulting in revulsion, but with so much money to spend and so little to say how can the campaign managers avoid it? They have to spend that money or suffer disgrace.
We have occasionally seen successful campaigns that utilized humor. Although he doesn’t look, or sound, particularly humorous, Mitch McConnell won his first senatorial campaign by satirizing the incumbent’s evasiveness. I can’t see anything like that happening in Maine this year. Is it even possible for a female candidate to run a satirical campaign? I’m looking at Susan Collins and Sara Gideon right now. But think of Hillary Clinton. Nancy Pelosi? Elizabeth Warren?
I’ve heard of plans to invest serious money in“social media” for political messaging on a large scale. That medium is still new so we can hope for new and interesting efforts to relieve the monotony. If the candidates discover some bright young social media maven with new and unique talents the lad will be entitled to claim a fat fee from huge campaign budgets in desperate need of some useful method of disbursement.

John Frary of Farmington, the GOP candidate for U.S. Congress in 2008, is a retired history professor, an emeritus Board Member of Maine Taxpayers United, a Maine Citizen’s Coalition Board member, and publisher of FraryHomeCompanion.com. He can be reached at jfrary8070@aol.com.

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