Paul Spoonley: Angry rhetoric dominates effort to recast political centre

Michelle Obama is trying to mobilise disappointed Democratic voters. Photo / AP

Opinion

As the days count down to the mid-term United States elections, the intensity of campaign ads and the barnstorming of key figures has increased.

Michelle Obama has arrived in town. The President's wife is visiting to raise funds but also to ensure that Democrats will bother voting at all.

These elections are proving to be important in recasting the political centre of US politics. A rather different America lies on the other side of November 2.

The Republicans will almost certainly gain the majority in Congress although it is less clear that this will also be the case for the Senate. Given the anti-Washington, anti-Obama and anti-spending messages that have dominated campaigns, President Barack Obama's brief opportunity to extract major policy change might be coming to an end.

This is not helped by the disappointment of many Democrats with the President's inability to achieve change. Healthcare was one success but the mess that is the US housing market and a poor outlook on employment, and Obama's failure to do much about either, are telling in the polls.

Moreover, African-Americans, Latinos and the young who voted for Obama in the presidential elections are not going to bother voting, at least in anything like the historic highs of 2008.

But more significant has been the ability of conservative voices to shape this election. Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and senior Democrat Harry Reid have been cast as the cheerleaders for a secular agenda that is fiscally and socially irresponsible - many on the right label it socialist - despite the moderate politics and religious enagagement of all three.

The opposition is best represented by the Tea Party and Fox News. The Tea Party have moved from being a loose coalition of the disgruntled on the margins of national politics to something more powerful. They have succeeded in gaining nominations in a number of states and have significant financial support.

Fox News and Glenn Beck have played an important role in mobilising support for the Tea Party. Fox now outnumbers CBC and ABC in terms of television audiences. And if Jon Stewart and the Daily Show were the key media influence in the presidential election of Obama, Fox have now assumed a similar role. Their influence can be seen in the ability to cast the Obama Administration as un-American, in the promotion of Tea Party candidates and in defining what is important.

Watching US television at the moment means watching wall-to-wall political advertisements. They are largely attack ads that criticise opponents, often in personal ways, with little to tell those watching what a political candidate stands for.

Huge amounts have been spent on these campaigns. An independent watch agency estimated that so far US$1.1 billion ($1.5 billion) had been spent. Right-leaning, non-party agencies have also spent US$200 million - with the Chamber of Commerce attracting of lot of interest for its role - while left-leaning ones have spent US$94.4 million.

The Democrats' ads have targeted the more extreme conservative candidates, with some effect. A few weeks ago, it looked like a done deal - the Republicans would win. But the polls have been closing and where candidates were neck-and-neck, such as in California, the Democrats have actually gained or are in the lead in terms of the polls.

As someone who has been present during past US political campaigns, this one feels different. There is a sense of disappointment and a lack of engagement among some constituencies while others have been energised by the possibility of reshaping the political landscape. A fiscal conservatism predominates and a strong anti-federalism has emerged but little to indicate what that means in terms of how Washington will work.

And almost nothing, beyond rhetorical flourishes, to say how the housing market will be restored or jobs created.

Professor Paul Spoonley from Massey University is currently at the University of California Berkeley on a Fullbright grant.