Guest: Dr. Arthur Miller, UI Political Science Department ("AM")

Nicholas Johnson ("NJ"):  Hello. Good morning.

It has been said that all politics is local but apparently all discussion is national.

So I would like to put a question involving politics and elections in Iowa City and another one involving the hostility of Iowa to third parties to get Professor Miller’s response.

During the Vietnam War period we used to say, "What if they had a war and nobody came?" I think we’re confronting in Iowa City the question, "What if we held an election and nobody came?"

We have one tomorrow. We’ll be lucky if we get more than five or ten percent of the electorate to turn out for the school board election.

Does the professor see a danger there at some point, or does he hold with those who say, "Well, if people don’t come it must mean that they’re satisfied"?

The second question involves the treatment of third parties by Iowa, and whether he believes there are benefits that have come from third parties historically over the last century? If so, does he support bringing Iowa up to the standard of the civilized nations of the world, and some of the more progressive states in the United States? This could be done, for example, by permitting fusion endorsement by a third party of the candidates of other parties, or instant run off voting.

Thank you.

AK: OK. Thank you, Nick, for your call, and I will talk to Professor Miller.

AM: Yes, both of those are interesting subjects.

Let's take the local elections question first.

Yes, there is a school board election coming up tomorrow. Part of the problem here is that if you went out today and asked people whether there was an election coming up tomorrow I’d be willing to bet that something like 90-95 percent of the public would say, no, they don’t think that there is an election coming up. So whose fault is it if the election is not advertised and if people are not aware of the elections?

Now those people that have children in schools, presumably they are aware of this, and they have a great deal at stake. And let's hope that, you know, the majority of those people at least get out to vote.

So there are two sides to this.

One is, do we want everyone -- even the uninformed or ill-informed people -- going out to vote in elections or do we, basically, hope that we can get the informed people?

And Nick was right that, even if you take 5 percent as the turnout rate, that 5 percent of Iowa City doesn’t account for all the people who have children in schools. So what that means to me is that people don’t even go out and vote when they seem to have something personal at stake. And we can ask, "Why is this?"

Well, we know in part why this is. And it’s because many people feel that their vote really doesn’t count for very much today. And all we have to do again -- you know, I hate to jump from local politics to national, but I think that there are many people who question the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. And I know you were pointing to this new book that’s coming out that basically says, you know, this is an accidental President. That’s the title. It will be out later this week.

By chance we got a President who wasn’t elected by the popular majority, and people often feel that,"What difference does it make?" "It doesn’t make any difference if I go out and vote," or, "I really don’t trust those politicians." And they get turned off from politics. And it’s not that the people that stay at home are satisfied. The people that stay at home, our studies show, are actually the cynical ones; the ones who believe it doesn’t matter if they do go out and vote because nothing changes even when they do vote.

Now in terms of third parties, are third parties the solution? Well, this country has a long history of hoping that third parties will get organized and get off the ground and become somewhat competitive. It doesn’t happen.

And many people, again, would point to the impact of Ralph Nader in the 2000 elections. And it’s quite clear that if Ralph Nader’s voters, just in Florida alone, had not been voting for Ralph Nader Al Gore would be President today. So, yes, third parties do have an impact but often they play the role of spoiler, not the role of the party that’s going to do something positive.

Ross Perot is another example of this. Many people say that George Bush, Senior, would have been re-elected if it hadn’t been for the fact of Ross Perot.

So I think that, at least in terms of history, you know there the "oughts" of all of this. What ought to happen?

I study countries in the former Soviet Union area where they have thirty to forty different parties. And yet I don’t think having that many parties, or necessarily having a multi party system, is an easy answer. And parties have to be responsible and they have to be organized.

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