"Big money and gerrymandering have placed government out of the reach of most Americans." So true!

October 30, 2006
NYTimes Op-Ed Columnist

The System’s Broken

By BOB HERBERT
Greencastle, Ind.

The middle-aged woman filling her gas tank on a day of endless rain laughed when a reporter asked her about the coming elections. “Politics,” she said, “are for silly people. Those ads come on television and I reach for the remote.”

I asked if she was planning to vote on Nov. 7.

“No,” she said. “That stuff really turns me off.”

If you pay close attention to the news and then go out and talk to ordinary people, it’s hard not to come away with the feeling that the system of politics and government in the U.S. is broken. I spent the past week talking to residents in Chicago, southern Michigan and Indiana. No one was happy about the direction the country has taken, but not even the most faithful voters were confident that their ballot would make any substantial difference.

“I vote,” said Angela Buehl, who lives in a suburb of Indianapolis, “but I don’t think anybody in Washington is listening to me.” She mimicked talking into a telephone: “Hello ... Hello ...?”

The politicians, special interests and the media are in a state of high excitement over next week’s midterm elections. They are addicted to the blood sport of politics, and this is a championship encounter. But that excitement contrasts with what seems to be an increasing sense of disenchantment and unease that ordinary Americans are feeling when it comes to national politics and government. For far too many of them, the government in Washington is remote, unresponsive and ineffective.

Voters and nonvoters alike expressed frustration with the fact that we are stuck in a war in Iraq that hardly anyone still supports but no one in government knows how to end.

Several people mentioned that their families were struggling financially at a time when the stock market had soared to all-time highs and the Bush administration was crowing about how well the economy was doing.

Nearly all said they were repelled by the relentless barrage of tasteless and idiotic campaign commercials. “Talk to me,” said a woman in Mishawaka, Ind. “Don’t assume I’m an imbecile.”

A pair of front-page articles in The Times last week showed the stark contrast in the way that insiders and outsiders view the off-year elections. Corporations, reacting to the possibility that the Republicans might lose control of one or both houses of Congress, are hedging their bets by pumping up campaign donations to Democratic candidates. One way or another, they will be in the loop. That story ran on Saturday.

A day earlier, The Times reported on Democratic concerns that black voters, disillusioned by voter suppression efforts and a pervasive belief that their votes will not be properly counted, may not turn out in the numbers that the party was hoping for.

The system is broken. Most politicians would rather sacrifice their first born than tell voters the honest truth about tough issues. Big money and gerrymandering have placed government out of the reach of most Americans. While some changes in the House are expected this year, the Brookings Institution and the Cato Institute tell us (in a joint report) that since 1998, House incumbents have won more than 98 percent of their re-election races.

Millions of thoughtful Americans have become so estranged from the political process that they’ve tuned out entirely. Voters hungry for a serious discussion of complex issues are fed a steady diet of ideological talking heads hurling insults in one- or two-minute television segments.

DePauw University held a two-day conference last week on issues confronting the U.S. I was struck by the extent to which the people who attended the forums were interested in seeking out practical, nonpartisan, nonideological solutions to the wide range of problems discussed.

The frustration with the current state of government and politics was palpable. One man, Ned Lamkin, asked me if it wouldn’t be a good idea to create some sort of national forum for a serious extended discussion of ways to fix, or at least improve, the system. He’s on to something. Among other things, I’d love to see a nonpartisan series of high-profile, nationally televised town hall meetings that would explore ways of making government and politics fairer, more open and more responsive to the will of the people.

American-style democracy needs to be energized, revitalized. The people currently in charge are not up to the task. It’s time to bring the intelligence, creativity and energy of the broader population into the quest for constructive change.