Y2Ka Watershed Election?

It isn't news—at least in New Hampshire—that the 2000 presidential campaign began in January 1997. At that time, many campaign experts and political strategists began predicting that a "big bang" election would materialize once November 2000 approaches, and they staunchly believed in the necessity of one. They claimed the backlash on the Republican Party as a result of the drawn-out impeachment would be huge, creating a massive upheaval in the party system, and that there would be a surge in high-quality Democratic challengers.

Linda Fowler, government professor and director of the Rockefeller Center, disagrees. She does not foresee that the 2000 presidential election will be a "watershed election." The field of candidates is not terribly strong and competitive, she says. The Republicans are aligning themselves with Texas Gov. George W. Bush, a man who has no identity on national and international issues. Fowler offers that "Al Gore claims he is the heir of all the good things from the Clinton Administration—which is questionable."

Fowler proposes that there will be no clear mandate in the year 2000, no charge from the electorate to direct the country and low voter turnout. Furthermore, she predicts, voter disaffection will be instigated by the media, which continually discover ways to scandalize whoever wins. "Electoral politics can't happen, because there is no place for it to happen in the media," she says.

Fowler also cautioned that the watershed elections in our country's history were marked by great social and economic crises: the hardship and scarcity of the Depression in 1932, the violent turmoil leading into the Vietnam War in 1962. These events drew the attention of large populations of both affluent and poor individuals to exert their voting power at the polls. These situations, says Fowler, will not be replicated in 2000.

Rockefeller Center's Linda Fowler says watershed elections happen in times of hardship.