Almost from the start of this Presidential campaign, there have been wide swings and fluctuations in the polls, suggesting that the support of both main party candidates is not very deep. Bush was up by close to 20 points after the Republican convention, but then Gore went racing ahead by close to 10 points after the Democratic convention -- swings too wide to be explained entirely by convention 'bounces'. No doubt, this situation has developed in no small part because neither man cuts a very inspiring figure. But it may also reflect a long-term secular trend in the electorate. Walter Dean Burnham has suggested that it no longer makes sense to talk of shifts in the electorate in terms of realignments, in which one party shapes a relatively stable majority and ruling coalition, such as the New Deal Coalition, and the other is consigned to long-term minority status. Rather, he suggests, there is something more like "dealignment" going on, in which the number of independent (non-aligned) voters increases and voters become more and more alienated from the electoral process altogether. A symptom of dealignment may very well be these relatively large fluctuations of support in the polls. However, when you take a look at NY State, where Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio have been in a close contest with very little change in the numbers, you become more cautious about such generalizations. It could be that the NY State contest just reflects an unusually high degree of strong, well established sentiment, both ways, about Hillary Clinton, but it could also be that the Presidential contests reflects the lack of attractiveness on the part of the two candidates.
What I find interesting is the almost complete collapse of the Buchanan vote. A year ago, all of the discussion of a third party threat that could effect the outcome focused on Buchanan and Bush; today, it is clearly Gore that has the problem with Nader. I can think of some reasons for that -- the implosion of the Reform Party was not a pretty sight -- but they don't seem like entirely satisfactory explanations. [BTW, how many saw the Village Voice advertisement by the Lenora Fulani crew attacking Nader for lacking the "courage" to join with her, and take the New York State Reform Party line which the New Alliance types control?]
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass --