Sex, September 11, and the separatist vote

An affair will not derail John Kerry’s presidential hopes, but Ralph Nader just might, writes Tom Wright from Washington.

THE race for the Democratic nomination continues to defy pundits’ predictions. Senator John Kerry’s improbable rise seem destined for disaster a little over a week ago when the Drudge Report, an internet scandal sheet, alleged that major media organisations were suppressing evidence of an affair between front-runner Kerry and Alexandra Polier, a young journalist at Associated Press. However, the ‘scandal’ never took off.

The major networks and broadsheets all but ignored it. It was left up to the foreign press to do the digging. Within a week, the scandal that wasn’t appeared to have faded from the mind of voters before it was even firmly planted there. Yet, speaking off the record, media executives indicated they had plenty of salacious details on Mr Kerry’s private life but would not publish or broadcast them unless they shed light upon some wrongdoing or other issue of legitimate public interest.

In recent elections, the press hounded candidates to uncover indiscretions in their private lives. In 1988, leading Democratic candidate Gary Hart, in response to press inquiries, challenged reporters to come up with evidence of his infidelity. They spectacularly succeeded, photographing Mr Hart with a model on board a yacht appropriately named Monkey Business. Long before Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign had to deal with a number of “bimbo eruptions” from his days as Governor of Arkansas. Mr Clinton survived, Mr Hart didn’t, but in each case the scandal mattered.

Similarly, sex scandals reportedly played a role in Al Gore’s decision not to pick Mr Kerry as his running mate in 2000. Over the past 20 years, many other candidates ruled themselves out of successive presidential elections because they feared that their private life could not stand up to public scrutiny.

In light of speculation surrounding the skeletons in Mr Kerry’s closet and the practice of elections past, one can fairly ask the question whether this year will be any different. Can we expect the media and the Republicans to delve into Mr Kerry’s past? If he is the nominee will he be dogged by scandal? Should primary voters be concerned about Mr Kerry’s electability? Already there are signs that the subterranean influence of the scandal may have hurt him in Wisconsin, where John Edwards secured a stronger than expected second place showing.

It’s hard to say how primary voters will behave but insofar as the media is concerned, the answer may well be no; personal scandal, even if plentiful, may play less of a role this year than any year since 1984. The reason is simple: September 11. The terrorist attacks that day were a severe shock to the entire American system and the blame was not confined to intelligence agencies and government. Media executives were heavily criticised for passing titillating personal trivia and scandal off as news during the late 1990s while an overseas terrorist threat was gathering and preparing to strike.

Following a period of painful reflection, the message the media learnt was that news still matters, foreign news matters profoundly, and reporters should go back to telling people what they need to know, not what they want to hear. That lesson still resonates. It is probably the reason why the “Kerry intern scandal” was not covered widely. It is probably why personal indiscretions will be relatively ignored. It is a fundamental shift in the way campaigns are fought and it is likely to continue as long as a major terrorist threat is perceived to exist and foreign policy tops the agenda.

The new rules of engagement may have other far-reaching effects. Already, the primary campaign has been the cleanest in recent memory. There have been few personal attacks of the nature we have come to expect. Candidates have concentrated on issue differences and their opponents’ records in public service. The national election is also likely to be issue-focused.

Back in 2000, the parties’ similarities were more striking than their differences. Now, those differences are stark. Many observers are comparing 2004 to 1980 or 1960 as an epochal election that will make a real difference to the direction in which the US is headed. There will still be negative attacks but they are likely to be on the candidates’ political rather than personal character.

Meanwhile, a wild card was thrown into the race on Sunday when consumer advocate Ralph Nader announced on Meet the Press that he will run again for the presidency as a third-party candidate. Many in the democratic base have some sympathy with Mr Nader’s left-wing position but they have been pleading with him to put his agenda aside in order to make George W Bush easier to defeat. In a close election, the votes that he siphons away from the Democratic nominee may be as decisive as they were in 2000 when his tiny vote in Florida was more than enough to send Mr Bush to the White House. Now that Mr Nader has ignored, and, indeed, ridiculed these pleas, Democrats are likely to turn nasty, arguing that a vote for Mr Nader is a wasted vote.

For the moment though, Democrats are chiefly concerned with the unfinished primaries. Super Tuesday on March 2, when 10 states vote, is likely to be decisive. Mr Kerry continues to hold a strong lead in the polls. He has weathered an alleged scandal that could have been a show-stopper. Unless another, more devastating, incident emerges he remains likely to endure.

Furthermore, the structure of the contest also means that Mr Kerry is almost unstoppable. Unlike the Republican Party, where the winner of each primary takes all the spoils, the delegates for the Democrat’s presidential nomination are allocated proportionate to the vote that each candidate receives in each primary as long as they exceed 15%. Given Mr Kerry’s lead, this means it will be very difficult for John Edwards to gather the 2,162 delegates he needs even if he were to sweep the board on Super Tuesday.

Mr Edwards’ only hope is that a late surge may cause a political earthquake that encourages the party’s power brokers to take a second look at John Kerry.