Inside the Smoke-Filled Room
A guide through the confusing world of politics
By Brian Reisinger

Back when he taught social studies at River Valley High School in Spring Green, Wisconsin, Mick Showen always pushed his students toward political involvement.

Graphic courtesy of KRT

Whenever an election was approaching, for example, he offered extra credit to any student who convinced an adult to vote. It didn’t matter who the adult was, he said. Take your grandparents or drag a drunk off the street. Hell, you can even tell them who they should vote for. And if you’re eighteen already, voting is the only direct way to fight back against the people with the power (the old people, that is).

Sometimes the comment about the drunk would cause his students to laugh, but Showen’s message was a serious one –that young people need to get involved and express their concerns.

“They do have a voice, but I just don’t know what’s going to pull them in,” Showen said, adding that none of today’s issues really grab younger voters.

Showen’s sentiments may be on target. Though the 2004 presidential election drew 60 percent of all eligible voters, fewer than half of voters age eighteen to twenty-four made it to the polls, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The group with the largest turnout was forty-five years and older, with 79 percent of eligible voters casting their ballot.

Political experts say that people avoid political activity because they don’t feel a real connection to any one party. In order to decide who to support, they said, voters should think about what they expect from government and what that means for individual issues. Doing so ensures that government continues to serve the interests of the average citizen.

“It starts with your philosophy of what government should do,” said Rodd Freitag, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. “Each individual party has a particular answer to that.”

Freitag and colleague Geoff Peterson, also an associate professor of political science at UW-Eau Claire, agree on how groups split up political beliefs in the United States and what people need to know to make informed decisions.

By and large, they said, conservatives want the government to take a “hands off” approach to the economy. Conservatives argue that the success of the American people depends on government staying out of their business and keeping taxes low. For the most part, these conservatives identify with Republicans.

Peterson and Freitag agree that liberals, in contrast, think government should push for change. Their belief that government should try to make society better often leads to pressure to create public programs addressing poverty and other undesirable aspects of society. Democrats are generally the party of choice for such people.

But it’s not that easy, both Freitag and Peterson warn. Social issues like abortion, gay rights and others don’t seem to fit within these philosophies.

Social conservatives, who usually prefer the Republican Party, want the government to ban abortion, regulate gay rights and preserve “traditional values.” Social liberals, however, believe these are issues of people’s personal lives that government shouldn’t regulate.

This situation, Peterson argues, is a problem for American politics–one that frustrates voters, turning them away.

“Both parties have [formed] around an inconsistent set of issues,” he said. “Sometimes social interests run against economic interests.”

Overcoming the confusion, he said, requires voters to decide which sorts of issues they care about the most.

“Really, it comes down to what set of issues are most important to you.”

Andi Lamont, a junior at River Valley High School, said she thinks politics is important and indeed relates to her life. Whether her peers or even the general public know enough to decide what they want from government, however, is a different story.

“There are a lot of things that people want to know, but they don’t know,” she said. “I think we need to be more informed.”

But Freitag and Peterson agree that not everyone feels like he fits into one party or the other, and research backs that up.

According to a survey by the Pew Research Institute, a group that conducts surveys on public perceptions of the press and politics, about one-third of the American public prefers the Republican Party, one-third the Democratic Party and one-third avoids committing to either.

There are other groups out there, Freitag said, that seem to mix and match the basic philosophies of the two parties. Libertarians, for example, want less governmental involvement on both economic and social issues. Members of the Green Party, meanwhile, tend to be more “liberal” on both economic and social issues than Democrats.

But other parties or groups, he said, find it hard to build themselves up to the level of the two main parties. In the current system, the two main parties have amassed greater amounts of money and resources, and can simply scoop up the issues that other parties advocate.

But in general, Freitag and Peterson agree, government will become what voters make it.

“The parties are in the business of winning elections,” Freitag said. “The government can allocate a society’s resources for betterment. In essence, government is acting for us.”

Peterson echoed Freitag’s sentiments, saying that the political parties’ desire to win elections ensure that if enough people are motivated, they can always inspire change.