The Rise of the "E-Precinct"

In 1960, America experienced a defining election. I was still a cadet at West Point at the time, but I remember the issues: economic recession and the emerging civil rights struggle at home, a rising Soviet threat and an escalating crisis in southeast Asia abroad. The campaign was expensive, hard-fought, and closely contested: a switch of little more than ten thousand votes--representing roughly one-hundredth of the vote nationally--in five key states would have swung the results the other way. But when most political scientists and politicians are asked about the most memorable aspect of the election of 1960, they answer with one word: television.

The 1960 election marked the advent of televised debates between the two major party candidates, and TV's impact was huge. As just about everyone now knows, surveys taken after the first debate showed a remarkable split: Those who heard the debate on the radio judged Richard Nixon the victor, whereas those who watched on television deemed John F. Kennedy the winner.

The introduction of television as a major force in political communications changed American politics forever. Over the last four decades, the candidates who have succeeded on the national stage have been increasingly those who have mastered this powerful medium.

Remember, for instance, President Ford's gaffe in his 1976 debate with Jimmy Carter, when he said that Eastern Europe was not under Soviet domination? Or Ronald Reagan's gentle "There you go again" rebuke to Carter in their critical 1980 debate? Or Reagan's 1984 turning of the age issue against Walter Mondale, when he quipped that he wouldn't use his opponent's "youth and inexperience" for political advantage? Or Michael Dukakis's rambling answer to CNN anchor Bernard Shaw's question about whether he would still oppose the death penalty were his wife, Kitty, to be raped and murdered? In each case, the candidate who was more skilled before the cameras emerged as the winner of not just the debate, but the general election as well.

This year's election promises to be as defining as the election of 1960. Once again, our nation is at a crossroads. I believe that the direction advocated by the Republican Party leads to the advancement of freedom, increased economic opportunities for a greater number of our citizens, a strengthening of our defenses in the face of intensifying threats abroad, the restoration of constitutional government, and the revitalization of American families and American culture. The other direction, I believe, leads to an ever-expanding role for a more bureaucratized government, a heavier tax burden on America's families, a continued coarsening of the culture, and dangerous vacillation abroad.

For the first time in almost fifty years, there's a very real possibility--in fact, a likelihood, if recent polls are to be believed--that the American electorate will choose to give power to a Republican president and a Republican House and Senate all at the same time. Not since the first two years of Dwight Eisenhower's first term--before most of America's voters had been born--has a GOP White House been able to pass its legislative agenda without relying on the votes of Democrats.

What could a Republican president have accomplished with a GOP Congress in just the last six years? The budget would have gone from deficit to balance to surplus earlier, and a significant share of the tax overpayment would have been returned to the hardworking Americans who earned it. Those taxpayers would have invested and spent their money, which would have improved their lives, but not only their lives. It also would have created more jobs and more opportunities for more Americans, not least for the poor and disadvantaged. A job, after all, is the best antipoverty program ever conceived.

Welfare reform would have passed on the first try, not the third. Tougher laws to protect law-abiding citizens from dangerous criminals...