A couple of days a week, Joan Kuhn stands behind the counter at a little candy store in Highland Park, working at a part-time job that bathes her in the scent of wonderful chocolates. Amid the jimmie-covered pretzels and bittersweet chocolate orange peels and a thousand other nuggets, she greets people, talks with them and sells them little bags of delights. She seems happy at her work. The subject shifts easily from the little store’s compelling inventory to talk of politics.
This might seem a strange place to go searching for the roots of American political behavior. But that is only because what Joan Kuhn is doing at the moment, putting chocolate-coated pretzels into plastic bags, is no reflection of Joan Kuhn as political entity, as a player in the game that helps decide the course of events in a democracy.
This is a lesson about what rests beneath the surface in modern American politics. It’s not about which candidate is going to win on Nov. 7. It is about which voters are going to make the decision.
Measure Joan Kuhn demographically: She is 57 years old, married and has a daughter. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in elementary education. She lives with her husband in Highland Park and has, by economic measures, a comfortable life. Her household income exceeds $75,000 a year.
Most important of all, she always votes.
“I would be a fool not to vote,” she says. “If you don’t vote, you are negating the whole idea of democracy. . . . It is just one vote, but I go out and I vote and I feel like I am doing something right.”
Just now, on the eve of the election, she is trying to catch up on health care reform proposals and watching George W. Bush and Al Gore closely to see where they stand on issues that are important to her: women’s rights, gun control and education, among others.
If you look at the American electorate as a collection of numbers, which is ultimately how politicians take our measure, this friendly candy-shop woman is a soldier in one of the most important political battalions of all, people with household income of more than $75,000 a year. In 1996, according to U.S. Census election figures, 73.6 percent of those people said they voted in the presidential election. They cast some 17.1 million votes. On the other end of the economic scale, only 32 percent of those with household incomes of $10,000 or less said they voted, and they cast 3.1 million votes.
The numbers reflect a trend that has been building since 1980, an election in which only 5 percent of the people who voted reported income of more than $50,000 a year. By 1984, that group made up 12 percent of those who voted, according to exit polling figures. In 1988, it was 24 percent, dipped to 20 percent in 1992 and, the same figures show, reached nearly 40 percent in 1996.
If you start at the bottom rung of the American economic ladder and climb up as income increases, it’s impossible to avoid an important conclusion about how politics works. The more you benefit economically, it would appear, the more likely you are to vote. When America elects a president on Nov. 7, people who have done very well financially will play a much heavier role than ever in modern history.
This change has had an obvious impact. Both major political parties have adopted agendas that carry them much closer to the ideological center of the American electorate. The Democrats have forced their more liberal cadres into the shadows, even as the Republicans have pushed hard on themes that target keeping personal wealth intact through tax cuts.
Shrinking the cost of government has been a rallying cry for Republicans for decades. Now Democrats have joined the chorus as their own collection of dependable voters has moved up on the income scale. Social agendas have changed from income redistribution, welfare benefits and minimum-wage campaigns to retirement planning, estate taxes, welfare reform, education and the environment.
Bill Clinton’s advice that people who want to live like Republicans should vote Democratic was not just an idle thought. That was a message aimed at an electorate enjoying new-found wealth.
There is a historical irony at work here: Having a wealthy elite run things was pretty much what the founding fathers intended. They feared that the great unwashed mass of whiskey-swilling, uneducated immigrants populating America might be easily swayed by demagogues and charlatans of all political stripes, which would make this new politics confusing, mercurial and difficult to control. They wanted the right kind of people to make political decisions.
People just like them. White, land-owning males.
But, in a triumph of political evolution and good sense, the nation moved way beyond those early fears. Modern American politics is vibrant and inclusive, welcoming African-Americans (after a long struggle), women, young people, anyone with citizenship. On Election Day 2000, every American 18 years old or older can vote!
But that’s not going to happen.
About 54 percent of eligible voters went to the polls in 1996, and that number is expected to decline when the results are tallied after this presidential election.
The accuracy of that statistic and the other numbers that describe the modern American democracy are the subject of an ongoing debate in the political community over accuracy. The Census Bureau and exit polls over the years often have presented different, conflicting statistics. But the important point is not who has the most solid numbers and which collection methods are the most pristine, but what all of these numbers point to over time.
They all show just about the same thing. The United States, for all its inclusiveness, is increasingly what the founding fathers envisioned, a nation in which people of wealth and substance make the political decisions.
Almost 4 of every 10 voters in 1996 had a household income of $50,000 or more, a group that makes up only about 20 percent of the population. Go up the income scale, no matter whose statistics one uses, and the same behavior plays out. In the highest bracket, $75,000 and above, the registration rate was 82.4 percent, and three of every four voted. At the other end of the scale, only 47.9 percent of the people with incomes of less than $5,000 registered, and only one in three of those people voted.
Crunching the numbers, the Census Bureau filled out its portrait of likely voters: Women are 21 percent more likely to vote than men. The older you get, the more likely you are to vote. African-Americans are 1.5 times more likely to vote than whites, while Hispanics and those of other races are less likely to vote than whites. Married individuals are 30 percent more likely to vote, but divorced, separated and widowed individuals are 19 percent less likely to vote.
Get some college and you are more likely to vote than a high school grad or dropout; be a professional and you are 43 percent more likely to vote than those who aren’t. Make more money, obviously, and you are more likely to vote. Own a home, and you are headed toward voting.
“Those who are more established in society are the most likely to register and vote–older individuals, homeowners, those with a longer length of time at current residence, married couples and people with more schooling, higher incomes and good jobs,” the Census Bureau reported.
Put yourself in a politician’s place. Whose voices are you going to listen to?
People at the low end of the money scale seem to be disenfranchising themselves, opting out of political decision-making and leaving the field to those who still play the game.
Why?
Political thinkers have attacked this subject from every conceivable direction. They conclude that people are turned off, frustrated, poor, under-educated, disconnected from the system. When the Census Bureau examined the problem, it found that 21.5 percent of 21.3 million people who stayed at home in 1996 said they couldn’t take the time to vote because of work or school; another 15 percent claimed illness, disability or family emergency. Thirteen percent said they didn’t like the candidates and 15 percent said they were just not interested.
But the problem goes deeper than that. Last summer the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press published its presidential campaign analysis, which warned that voter participation may slip again in the November presidential contest. The survey concluded that a significant number of potential voters say it just doesn’t matter who is elected.
“Nearly half of Americans believe things will pretty much stay the same regardless of who is elected; less than half [45 percent] say that, as far as making progress on the important issues facing the country is concerned, it really matters who wins the 2000 presidential election,” the Pew Center reported.
Looking more closely, the survey concluded that a growing proportion of those who don’t vote say they have developed a distaste for politics. One of the likely reasons for that is a longstanding assumption that individuals really don’t have much say in politics, that the field is increasingly dominated by corporations and interest groups that give millions upon millions of dollars to political candidates. The assumption is that these contributions buy politicians and influence, which is undoubtedly the case, and special-interest money has been the target of political reformers for years. But the change in the economic status of the electorate may be having just as great an impact. The interests of these wealthy voters are likely to get much more attention than the interests of those who don’t vote.
Amid all the attention paid to non-voters and political apathy, not much has been heard about the reasons people do vote. Not surprisingly, talking with regular voters is like visiting another universe.
Lorna E. Propes is an attorney at Cahill, Christian & Kunkle and a well-known figure in Chicago political circles. An Evanston Democrat, she has been named by two governors to the state racing commission, is active with the trial lawyers association locally and nationally, and votes at every opportunity.
Propes, 55, is married to a judge, lives in north Evanston and has a household budget that goes well beyond the $75,000 level. She resists the argument that economics alone dictates voting behavior. It’s all part of a package, she said.
“That top 18 percent of the population buys into a lot of things,” she said. “It’s not just voting. They buy into school. They read. They go to school themselves. They go to college. They buy into the system. . . . I think it is part of an ongoing indoctrination into the system, which you can see in a lot of ways.”
She may be a good case in point.
A middle-class kid from Dolton, she attended Indiana University and then Columbia Teachers College in New York, where she got a master’s degree in education and counseling. She was a teacher and guidance counselor at Evanston Township High School before she got her law degree at Loyola. Along with DePaul, Loyola is known for turning out attorneys who stay deeply connected to Chicago politics. Northwestern grads end up at the big firms and read The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, she noted. Loyola and DePaul folks read the local papers, treasure and nurture their local contacts and devour politics.
“Everybody I know is connected in some way with politics,” she said.
She argues that if you look at people who don’t vote, in many cases you see more than just problems with voting. You might see people who don’t get their kids to school, don’t pay much attention to the forces that influence their lives, and may feel more the victims of politics than its beneficiaries.
“I bought into it,” she said.
Donald Burrows votes because he understands the sacrifices that have made dem-ocracy possible.
He is 80 years old and long retired from his job as a business rep for the auto mechanics union in Chicago. He lives in Palm Beach County, Fla., with his wife, but was in Villa Park recently to see some old friends.
He was a Daley Democrat while he lived in Chicago, but that’s not why he voted. It was that last good war, World War II, that sealed his contract. “I spent four years defending everyone’s right to vote, fighting for the liberty to do that,” said Burrows, who was stationed on a transport ship in the Pacific.
There has never been a time he didn’t want to vote. He views it as a part of his responsibility as an American. Although he is comfortable in retirement and makes beyond that $75,000 in annual income, voting is not about money for him.
“I think a lot of the people today don’t realize what this country and its people have gone through for generations to earn that vote,” he said. “They aren’t bothered by that sacrifice. There is too much work to do to take an hour off after work to go vote. I don’t know how you would inspire them.”
He has a lot of friends in his age group in Florida who wouldn’t think of missing an election. These voters aged 60 and older accounted for 25 percent of those who went to the polls last time around, and this group has been playing a bigger and bigger Election Day role since 1980, when they made up 18 percent of those who voted.
Look down the demographic scale by age and another reality of voting behavior becomes apparent: The younger you are, the less likely you are to vote, and those numbers have been declining since 1980. Only 17 percent of the voters were between 18 and 29 years old in 1996, exit polling data shows. They made up 23 percent in 1980.
While household income may be the measure that has changed the most over the past few decades, age is viewed by specialists as the most important factor in registration and voting patterns. Only 55 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 29 are registered, compared with 80 percent of those over age 50.
For some reason, voting is not yet a habit for many young people. The best guess about these younger non-voters is that a lot of them will be voting later in life, when they start to share in some of the benefits of democracy. They will marry, have children, buy homes, make some money and start recognizing that it is important to have a say in what government does, even if it is only a single vote.
But some voters get their political bug very early in life, and it stays with them.
Marianne Hiland, an educational book reader and editor for National Geographic, lives in Wilmette and divides her time between working in her suburban Chicago office and visiting Geographic headquarters in Washington.
Now in mid-life, she grew up in suburban Philadelphia in a blue-collar family–her father was a carpenter, her mother a secretary–that was totally wrapped up in politics. “The family always paid attention to social issues,” she said.
“There were always a lot of conversations about elections. When I was in the 8th grade, my brother was for Barry Goldwater and I was for Lyndon Johnson. We had big posters in our rooms at separate ends of the house. My mother voted for Dick Gregory once as a protest vote. We went to lots of anti-Vietnam War demonstrations.
“My own politics are not so much along the lines of which candidate to vote for, but which social issues are involved in the election.”
While family influence launched her early political interest, she participates now because she has seen the benefits of government and democracy in her own life. “I got an education because of the grants and scholarships I received from the government at University of Pennsylvania,” she said. “I think I am still a beneficiary of democracy today.”
Her husband is in publishing too, and their combined income is above $75,000. She volunteers in Chicago with Campfire Boys and Campfire Girls and is constantly reminded of the role government plays in the lives of the children she tries to help. All her friends in Wilmette are active voters, and her co-workers and Washington contacts are passionate about politics.
What separates these voters from the people who don’t vote?
One word might explain it: belief. For their own reasons, they believe in American democracy because they can see its impact on their lives. Whether they view it as an obligation, as a hard-won blessing defended in war, as an expression of a way of life, or as an extension of the way they were raised, the pull of politics is so magnetic that it drags them to the ballot box every couple of years and wraps them into the system as decision makers.
And what of those who don’t vote? Their numbers approach half of the pool of eligible voters and are growing, even though casting a ballot is easier than it has ever been. A range of registration drives four years ago, many of them extensions of campaigns that pushed for more participation all through the 1990s, did little to increase participation in the political process.
Non-voters all have reasons, of course, or rationalizations about a system they believe has failed them, candidates who don’t address their concerns, logistical difficulties on Election Day and a hundred other things.
Cynical, angry or disconnected, the effect is the same. With every election cycle, their voice in the process grows weaker and government pays less attention to their problems. They risk becoming a silent majority that watches the game of American politics from a lonely distance.
MONEY AND VOTING IN 1996
73.6% of people with household income over $75,000 voted in the presidential election.
32% of those with household income of $10,000 or less voted.
17.1 million votes were cast by those in the highest income bracket.
3.1 million votes were cast by those in the lowest income bracket.
MARITAL STATUS AND VOTING
60% of married and widowed people vote.
50% of divorced people vote.
44% of people who are separated or never married vote.
AGE AND VOTING IN 1996
32.4% of people age 18 to 24 voted (49.6% in 1972).
49.2% of people 25 to 44 voted (62.7% in 1972).
64.4% of people age 45 to 64 voted (70.8% in 1972).
67% of people 65 and older voted (63.5% in 1972).
