It’s that time of the year in campaigns where various interest groups are sending candidates questionnaires and petitions demanding fealty to whatever causes they espouse. The most innocuous ones seem to genuinely want to know candidates’ positions. Others almost threaten them if they don’t adhere to orthodoxy. I recommend candidates sign or fill out as few as possible, especially if they’re asking them to take narrow positions with no context.
There’s a particularly bad one floating around among Democrats right now. Some group that calls itself “The Future Now Fund” is asking Democrats to sign a pledge to support a whole range of policies. While they all seem like standard fare on the surface (Good Jobs, Affordable Quality Healthcare, Investing in Children, etc.), their specific objectives are costly and difficult to pass. They pretty much sum up why Democrats have lost small businesses and have been defined as the tax-and-spend party. Anybody who is in a competitive district should stay away from this one.
Republican consultants will have field day with this petition. It has 21 policy “goals” with no explanation of how to achieve them. I’m sure GOP researchers have already totaled up how much the program would cost in terms of jobs and money. Candidates who sign it can expect to see a barrage of negative mail or TV ads based on their pledge of support.
For instance, signers pledge to support “100% of jobs pay a livable wage” and “paid family, vacation and sick leave for 100% of jobs.” That sounds great—unless you’re a small businessperson with two or three employees and barely making it year to year. Maybe there’s a plan to pay for it, but to a business owner, it just sounds like another expense, and a costly one at that.
Back in the 1990s, every candidate filled out a Project Vote Smart questionnaire. Mainly composed of yes-no or support-oppose answers, Project Vote Smart was designed to inform voters and help them make better choices. However, opposition researchers started using it to give credibility to their hit pieces and campaigns bashed their opponents for their positions from the questionnaire. Today, Project Vote Smart is still around and provides great information about the candidates and elected officials, but not many fill out their Political Courage Test.
On the Republican side, Grover Norquist started Americans for Tax Reform that asked candidates to sign a pledge not to support any new taxes. Anybody who broke that pledge could be expected to be attacked by Norquist for raising taxes and by Democrats for hypocrisy. Consequently, Republicans have become the party of fiscal irresponsibility because nobody has the political courage to stand up to Norquist and his pledge, leaving the GOP with few options to increase revenue to pay for their painfully predictable tax cuts.
Politics is really the art of nuance, or should be. Most questionnaires and pledges offer no room for subtleties. They’re looking for adherence to narrow policy options that shrink the parties’ tents. Some may offer financial support, but the $250 or even $1,000 they might give won’t counter the tens of thousands of dollars of mail or TV attack ads that expose positions taken without context. So candidates, think long and hard about signing any pledges or filling out questionnaires that could come back to bite you, especially if you’ve got a competitive race this fall. Besides, if you win, your job is to govern, not bow to some special interest.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
I agree but would tell a candidate to refuse to fill out all of these survey and/or questionnaires. As long as voters have no better sense than to expect such absolute promises on issues, they will get the worst in candidates, not the best. Democracy demands, indeed cannot survive, without compromise. Just don’t ask me to enjoy it. I reserve the right to grumble, and to challenge some “compromises.”