Mr. Berke went on to conclude that a substantial number of Bush supporters like the candidate for largely personality and incidental reasons, rather than necessarily agreeing with his stances on the issues. Berke’s theory followed on the heels of New York Times polling data a few weeks earlier which indicated that about 7% of Americans thought that the Texas governor was the same person as the former president, his father. It’s moments like these that make democracy feel more than a little scary.

In his home state of Texas, Gov. Bush fares no better. A fall 1999 Texas poll found that the vast majority of Texans could not name a single accomplishment of their beloved governor, who won his 1998 re-election bid by a 2-1 margin.

Yet in poll after poll, Bush trounces his nearest Democratic competition by anywhere from 7-12 points. In fact, even before he was a declared candidate, Bush was beating all contenders, announced and otherwise, by wide margins. At that point, back in the spring and summer of 1999, virtually no one but a handful of Texas political observers knew anything about George W. Bush.

How can someone so mysterious be so popular? Is Governor Bush so hypnotically seductive that Americans feel no need to ground their adoration in actual reasoning? The phenomenon is a kind of political love at first sight, an attraction so powerful and visceral that it defies, even repels, logic and clear judgment.

It may very well be that Governor Bush has discovered that hidden trip-wire in the human brain that shuts down rational thought and activates raw obedience. This ability is normally reserved for entertainers like the Backstreet Boys or dehydrator salesman Ron Popeil, whose popularity are absolutely dependent upon the numbing of the conscious mind.

But I don’t think that’s what’s going on. For further clues as to the real cause, we need to examine the Post story by Dan Balz and Richard Morin. A few key excerpts:

The authors summarize recent polling results from New Hampshire, finding that on a majority of significant substantive questions, McCain has a comfortable advantage. To wit:

On nine of 11 candidate traits measured in the poll, Republican voters viewed McCain more favorably than Bush.

By a 69 percent to 53 percent margin, GOP voters say McCain understands the "problems of people like you."

Nearly three in four say the former Vietnam prisoner of war is "an inspiring candidate," while barely half say Bush inspires them.

More Republicans see McCain as a strong leader, as able to "bring needed change to Washington" and the most likely to tell the truth to the American people, "even if it's not politically popular."

But here’s the clincher: No matter how much New Hampshirites like McCain, even prefer him to Bush, they don’t think he can win. The poll found that barely 27 percent of respondents said McCain had a chance of capturing the White House. Two out of three said that Bush is most likely to win in November.

What about the Democrats you say? Same song, different verse:

Just as with the GOP respondents, few New Hampshire Democrats are banking on "Dollar Bill" in the general election. Fifty-six percent of those interviewed said Gore offers the best chance for victory in November. Not even a third--30 percent--say Bradley represents the Democrats' best hope this year.

We’ve covered a lot of ground so let’s try and summarize. 1) There is little if any evidence that Americans support Governor Bush because of his positions on issues, nor that they view him as inherently more qualified than other Republican candidates. 2) Polling results indicate that there is a significant difference between who Americans think is better for the job of president, and who they think will win. If they were congruous, McCain and Bradley would be the presumptive leaders (more on this later). 3) Bush and Ricky Martin have the same agent.

In the interest of parsimony, I will not expend rhetorical energy detailing the absurdity of some voters using family connections and name recognition as criteria for selecting the next leader of the free world (New York Voters take note). By this theory, Ronnie Reagan, Jr., and Roger Clinton would make excellent commanders-in-chief. If anyone has polling numbers on those two, I’d love to see them.

The real process in play here, I believe, is what one could call "winner-take-all" politics. Borrowing from the excellent book "The Winner-Take-All Society" by Philip Cook and Robert Frank, this phenomenon is based on fear and misperception. Some modification of the hypothesis will be necessary, as we are not dealing with bonafide "winners" in this election context, only front-runners.

Cook and Frank posit that contemporary society features so such fantastic gulfs between the very top and the rest of us because people are, now more than ever, afraid of losing. The classic example is Microsoft, and how they became so dominant so fast. Back in the late 1980s, Microsoft was still having to persuade PC makers and buyers to adopt Windows and Windows-driven products. Though it had a healthy share of the market already, MS was aiming, as we now know, for total market penetration. The tactic their "technology evangelists" used is called FUD – fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Basically, Microsoft would scare manufacturers and consumers into adopting MS programs on the claim that their competition was unstable, badly managed, too small to stick around, and so on. MS used their one undeniable characteristic, their size, to their advantage. Why go with a little upstart like Netscape when you can choose a proven outfit like Microsoft?

It’s a bit of marketing genius that flies in the face, if not entirely destroys, the traditional American value of supporting entrepreneurship. The same argument holds for what Oprah’s people told advertisers considering a move to Maury, or what Michael Jordan’s people told Nike and the rest. Bigness breeds bigness breeds bidness, nothing succeeds like success, and yes, the rich get richer.

As a competitive marketplace, modern politics is no different. Voters have a menu of choices, and they want to make a sound decision. They seek orientation, guidance, and reliable information. Instead they get horse-race, who’s-up-who’s-down, poll worship, and confusion woven together by opportunistic wannabe-press secretary reporters. The media’s abdication of civic education here can hardly be overstated. Voters react by using a method many of use for everyday decisions; we follow the pack. There is safety in numbers, or so we believe.

Such a process puts a premium on the very genesis of the expectations game, in this case, the spring of 1999 when speculation first began about a George W. Bush campaign. Even back then, with only his party identification and his all-powerful surname, Bush was handily defeating Gore in hypothetical match-ups. Though dismissed by most pundits as meaningless trial ballooning, such premature polls had a hidden but powerful effect on the next nine months. By appearing so powerful from the prologue, Bush began to reap the benefits of the winner-take-all mentality. Why should we put our money on anybody else if this guy is already kicking butts and it’s only April?

Deep-pocket Republican financiers, desiring solely that a member of their party win in November, saw these intimidating poll numbers as evidence of a good investment opportunity. They would have sent money to Chuck Woolery for President if he had such numbers. Substance mattered not; if Bush can generate a 10 point victory with no campaign, that’s good enough.

Thus, the process is underway. Pointless early polling generates meaningless popularity contest results, Big Money takes notice, delivers the coin, the lead grows, the press dutifully reports the ever-swelling campaign coffers, people fear supporting anybody else, and before you know it, you’ve got your nominees, hand-delivered in April. And what’s more, you never had to get into the whole nasty business of determining if he’s fit for office, or even asking the people who they really want. Beautiful.

Of the many disturbing facets of this process, the most troubling for me is the fatalistic, resigned attitude that it perpetuates amongst voters. People talk about the election as though they were predicting the Super Bowl victor. Politics, despite all artifices to the contrary, is not a spectator sport. Unlike the Super Bowl, we make the outcome, we decide who wins. I’ve always been dumbfounded by the belief of some that they shouldn’t vote for Perot or Bradley or Keyes because "they don’t have a chance." Says who? Ten percent of Iowans? David Gergen? Why, in the name of all things holy, should we listen to them? Of course, this is a classic self-fulfilling prophecy. If we don’t believe they have a chance, even though we like them, they absolutely will fail. But by no means is it predestined. Democracy is finished when voters are peripheral to the process, mere rubber stamps on the manufactured elite decision.

We like to think that through the caucus and primary process, American voters are narrowing the field, separating men from boys, players from posers, yada yada yada. An unfiltered examination, however, reveals that by the time voters get a chance to act in any meaningful way, all of the real selecting has been done for them by polls, the media, and the most insidious of all political diseases, expectations. If one day we got really honest with our political system, we would have the three major networks, the national press corps, and the pollsters sit down in a conference room and tell us who we could vote for over bagels and coffee. It would save us all a lot of time and frustration, and let New Hampshire go back to being the forgotten state it is for the other three years.

There’s nothing permanent or inevitable about this state of affairs, however. What’s needed is a host of campaign reforms that begins with getting Big Money out and ends with putting free candidate air time in. In the middle are brave steps that parties and the media can take to help voters understand why politics matters and how it affects their lives. They need to boldly affirm that America is going to have a democracy, and get rid of this cheap sports bar imitation.

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