Glad That Politics Is Never Over
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

It’s a gorgeous fall day in the upper Midwest – a good day for taking in the foliage. As I stroll around my suburban block, though, the most striking thing is not the leaves but the rapidly proliferating yard signs: Bush/Cheney, Kerry/Edwards, and so on. Which brings to mind a remark that invariably caps most conversations about politics these days: I’ll be glad when it’s over.
But the reality is that it’s never over. Wednesday morning, no matter who wins, the 2008 campaign will begin. And when you give more than passing thought to the matter, you realize that that’s a very good thing. In societies where it’s “over,” after all, there is no freedom, no democratic process, no choices.
Okay, so those yard signs can be irritating and those political advertisements on television can be obnoxious. But the former will be gone soon and the latter are arguably an improvement on those endless commercials for Viagra and Cialis.
Another common remark this fall has been that America has never been more divided. Hard evidence is rarely adduced to prove this. True, there has been a lot of hard-hitting rhetoric on both sides, polls have suggested a close election and thousands of lawyers have been hired to monitor the ballot boxes. But one can think of lots of close elections and bitterly fought campaigns in the past.
The young republic’s third election – the first to take place after the departure of the god-like George Washington and thus arguably the most important election in our history – had to be decided in the House of Representatives. Moreover, the presidency went to the man who had placed third in electoral votes, John Adams, who made a deal with the backers of Aaron Burr to deny Thomas Jefferson the White House. Jefferson’s backers raged for years about this supposedly stolen election.
True, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll, 72% of Americans think this is a critical election, up from 47% in 2000 and 41% in 1996. But the two earlier elections took place in what appeared to be unusually benign times, after the end of the Cold War and before the War on Terror. No wonder most Americans think this is a consequential moment.
Public division over how best to handle the problems confronting America is a lot different than division over fundamental goals, however. Senator Kerry has been harshly critical of President Bush’s war management, but he has never questioned the need to take the fight to the terrorists. And while Mr. Kerry disagrees with Bush about the specifics of tax policy, both men, at least nominally, agree that there should be tax cuts of some sort.
Differences over the specifics are important, indeed vital. And there is always the question of which candidate would actually deliver on his or her promises. But the point is that American elections, even the most heated elections, are mainly about how best to implement principles on which there is broad agreement.
The Founders carefully constructed a political system in which all groups would have a chance to make their case. The more debate the better. But this is not division; it’s the democratic process.
As for the possibilities of legal trench warfare over the election itself, this is more likely to be a matter of messiness than a collapse of our electoral system.
Despite all the hullabaloo about Florida four years ago, authoritative studies have showed there was no widespread voter fraud, no organized effort to deny the vote to blacks, no conspiracy to cheat Vice President Gore out of the election. In other words, nothing like the sort of fraud alleged in the 1960 election, when the Daley machine was accused of delivering thousands of dead voters for John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon.
The big argument today seems to be whether voters should be required to take responsibility for getting themselves to the right precinct before casting their ballots – a pretty easy call even for the liberal-dominated Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which stayed efforts to require the counting of provisional votes in the wrong precincts in Ohio and Michigan.
So let’s keep our cool, folks. Every generation faces serious challenges. Every election is important. The temptations for fraud, cheating, and lying are great. But then they always were. So as we go to the polls, we shouldn’t confuse the quadrennial political hyperbole and the breathless doom mongering of the press for reality. And we should keep one other thing in mind above all else: this is a great country. One of the biggest reasons it is great is that American politics is never “over.”
Mr. Bray is a Detroit News columnist.