Operation Clark County: the British dabbling in American politics

The scheme quickly attracted attention around the world, reflecting a global interest in shaping the outcome of the election. Operation Clark County became a brief blimp in media coverage of the campaign. CNN and other networks descended on the newspaper’s London offices.

The operation’s lack of success became apparent as soon as the Guardian website began posting responses from Clark County. Arranged under the headline of “Dear Limey assholes”, the responses ranged from “Real Americans aren’t interested in your pansy-ass, tea-sipping opinions” to regular references to 1776 and Britons as “yellow-toothed snobs”. Even the more positive responses were double-edged: “Your invitation to your readership and rationale for offering it are provocative at least, and laudable at best.”

The general tone was that the rest of the world should mind its own business and leave voting to the American people. This was even advocated by anti-Bush Americans who knew the campaign would backfire. The Guardian hope that telling Ohioans how to vote would not be seen as inflammatory reflected the alcohol-fuelled origins of the quixotic idea.

The ultimate results of course were not in the tea-leaves but in the voting records on November 2, 2004. Al Gore won Clark County in 2000 by 324 votes; Ralph Nader garnered 1,347 votes. In 2004, Bush won the county by 1,620 votes. Of the 15 Ohio counties Gore won, Clark was the only one Kerry lost.

Of the 3,142 American counties, Clark County was one of only 34 that switched from Democrat in 2000 to Republican in 2004. It is difficult to judge precisely how much influence the Guardian letter-writing campaign had, but it certainly failed to help Kerry preserve the Democratic majority won by his predecessor.

Some may feel Americans have become particularly inoculated against outside criticisms since September 11, 2001, but a similar campaign launched by concerned Americans to unseat Tony Blair (or by Britons to unseat John Howard) would surely also have backfired. In a world of nation states, citizens from any country rarely appreciate outside criticism, no matter how well intentioned it may be.

In defending the scheme, Ian Katz wrote: “Somewhere along the line, though, the good-humoured spirit of the enterprise got lost in translation.” The urge to satirise and laugh at politicians is alive and well in Britain. It is hard not to laugh at “Two Jags” John Prescott being recently called “Two Shags” by the tabloids. This desire to laugh at the powerful is partially fulfilled for many when they watch President Bush on the nightly news, though humour has its limitations. If you are going to write a personal letter calling someone’s president an “idiot” or suggesting that they pretend to be Canadian when travelling abroad, this may not be interpreted as clever or amusing.

A Pew poll after the 2004 election showed Bush’s victory had worsened the attitudes of most foreigners towards the United States. This feeling was expressed bluntly by the front page of the Daily Mirror on November 4: “How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?” However, the same Pew survey showed the US tsunami relief efforts had engendered favourable responses across the globe to the way people viewed America, reminding us that policies make a difference.

There are those who believe that the Democrats “were robbed” again in 2004. Claims of electoral malfeasance generally centre on Ohio and the behaviour of the aggressively partisan Republican Ohioan Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell. In the weeks leading up to the 2004 presidential election, the Guardian and other newspapers did a good job reporting on Blackwell’s efforts to reduce the number of Democrats on the electoral rolls and make the voting process as tedious and lengthy as possible in Democrat strongholds. Blackwell used an obscure electoral law that allowed self-appointed challengers to question anyone in the voting queue.

Blackwell’s preferred tactic was to bus in young Republicans to target booths and question anyone who looked different. This tactic, which aims to have voters either declared ineligible or intimidate them so that they don’t vote, was successfully used earlier in America’s history to prevent blacks from voting. In Ohio, it was prohibited at the last moment by a state judge.

Blackwell’s efforts, and state and county-based electoral rules and registration which were seen in action in Florida in 2000, have led many to ask whether America can be called a democracy. My response tends to be that this style of electoral politics is an example of the excesses of majoritarianism. This is what can happen when elected politicians, rather than impartial administrators, decide how elections are conducted and administered.

Blackwell’s actions in Ohio, although unsavoury, may not have been crucial in the 2004 election, though they have left a tainted odour. Bush won the state by 118,775 votes. This view was recently challenged in Rolling Stone magazine by Robert Kennedy Jr, one of the eleven progeny of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy. His claim that the election was stolen raises important concerns about Ohioan officials, electronic voting and exit polling, but it exaggerates the case for fraud and fails to deal adequately with contradictory evidence.

Kennedy’s article or Le Carré’s sounding off at American voters are just two is a string of examples of what I have call the “anti-American cop-out”. Instead of carefully critiquing America for its many failings and suggesting alternative policies and procedures that would possibly win popular support, many prefer conspiracy theories, pouring scorn on America and damning it. This is often driven by a dislike - even hatred - not just of what America or Bush is doing, but what America apparently is. Paradise is seen as poisoned.

This view tars all American actions with the same brush, and fixates on the worst of the present. As bad as the Bush presidency has been, much recent commentary on America will soon look histrionic and tiresome. Over the remaining years of this decade, American society and foreign policy are likely to lurch into a variety of new directions, some as worrying as the worst of the present, but many others much more commendable.