INDEPTH: US ELECTION 2004
Fear and voting in Las Vegas
CBC News Online | October 20, 2004
Reporter: Carol Off
Producer: Alex Shprintsen
Americans say they will vote for the man who best stands up to their enemies, no matter what the cost. And there is evidence under the neon lights of one of America's election battlegrounds.
With the lights, slot machines and glittering prizes, Las Vegas would seem a long way from mainstream American life. But it's one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States. Politically, it's also a toss-up state so it's a place to watch when the votes are counted on Nov. 2. Like many Americans, voters in the Nevada city are sharply divided. They're anxious and uneasy.
A city of sex and sleaze, fantasy and fortunes made and lost, Las Vegas takes in 35 million mostly American visitors a year. There's a Paris casino with an Eiffel Tower, an Egyptian pyramid that lights up, and a generic, non-threatening Middle East, the world transformed into a playground for adults, where people can forget their country is at war. But Las Vegas, Nev., is also a battleground where presidential candidates campaign furiously.
"The policies of my opponent are dangerous for world peace. If they were implemented, they would make this world not more peaceful, but more dangerous," President George W. Bush says.
Nevada is a swing state, one of about 10 that will determine who wins the election.
"The president this morning was in absolute full spin mode about the CIA report," Democratic candidate John Kerry said at a rally.
Even in this neon-bathed town of high stakes and winner-take-all, voters are not willing to gamble with their security.
For the first time since the Vietnam War, national security and foreign policy are among the top most pressing issues for Americans in a presidential campaign. The polls show people are deeply afraid they'll be the target of another attack, that their safety is under constant threat, and that they feel they're better off being feared by the world than being loved by it. So, despite the fact their economy is a shambles, Americans say they will vote for the man who best stands up to their enemies, no matter what the cost.
Among the simple slogans and cheap shots, there's a sense of mission around one group of people. They want to defeat Bush in this election, but their campaign is more than just partisan politics. They believe the United States is on the brink of disaster, and they have to save it.
They're a part of Driving Votes, a small nationwide army of Democrats. This group is from California where John Kerry is fairly secure in the polls. They're headed to battleground Nevada where they hope to make a difference.
Tricia Silver knows this is more than just a tight election. This is a contest where people believe their lives and their country now depend on which man is elected.
At an early morning training session, she jokes with volunteers.
"Someone tells you that they're voting for Bush, OK…. We're taking them off our list. We're never talking to them again, and hopefully they'll try and vote on November 3rd."
They'll go to pre-selected houses where they believe closet Democrats are lurking. They'll offer to register them to vote.
Another group, America Coming Together is funded through backdoor party contributions, and, to stay legal, the volunteers can't instruct people to vote for John Kerry, only suggest it.
Erik Aldays is like most people who live in Las Vegas. He's from somewhere else. He came here, as others did, following the American Dream: affordable housing, no state taxes. Nevada is the fastest-growing state in America. But Eric Aldays is a police officer with the school board, and he's worried about a crime wave here that rivals that of Los Angeles. There's no money for law and order. The economy is on the skids.
"That bothers me. I mean, I worry about that. I mean, I see the deficit and that definitely bothers me," Aldays says.
Under the Bush administration, the United States has a deficit projected to reach into multi-trillions of dollars. Jobs are disappearing. The American Dream for so many Nevadans is going bust. Aldays is concerned about all of that, but he says there's a much higher priority, protecting America from its enemies.
"They're ruthless, and I keep hearing this word people use, 'Evil in the world.' From what I've seen, they're evil," Aldays says. "What I saw in Russia and what we saw in New York, I mean, you can't get any more evil than that. You have to put your foot down and say we're not going to tolerate that. As long as you try to hurt us, we're going to hunt you down. I think that's where we're at. I think it's that simple. It's sad. But I think it's that simple."
Late night talk shows pick up the energy of one of the most polarized election campaigns in U.S. history.
Satire and sarcasm characterize Bill Maher's program on HBO. Maher says George W. Bush pushes all the right buttons in this election campaign.
"He appears to be resolute. He appears to be strong. He clears brush and he looks like the Marlboro man. If you see him in pictures, he stands like he's about to draw a gun and he uses cowboy language and he's from Texas. So to people who don't think it through very much, he looks like a guy who's standing up to the bad guys," Maher says.
Winning Nevada is crucial to Bush's chances at electoral success. Criticism that he appears a quick-on-the-draw cowboy doesn't affect him much in frontier towns like Vegas.
Kate O'Beirne is a columnist with the magazine The National Review. In these perilous times, says O'Beirne, people want someone like George Bush.
"The sense that Bush might be a tad too aggressive, too quick, doesn't hurt him.
A fella who might be a little too quick to act, a little too aggressive against our enemies, not going to be tied down by allies or international organizations like the UN, or somebody who's going to want, you know, the world community on board before he dares act. I mean, if those are the choices, I would predict the American public would go with the former and live with the guy who might be a little too quick, who might have a hair trigger."
Three thousand new people a month move into the sprawling suburbs of Las Vegas. They've left other regions of the country where jobs are disappearing. Despite economic problems, though, people are far more passionate about the war in Iraq. Opinion is equally divided between Bush and Kerry.
Into this charged atmosphere, Tricia Silver and her gang arrive to register voters. The air temperature is over 30. The political temperature is much higher. Tricia's spirits are boosted when she tries to register someone who shares her feelings about George Bush.
"Four years, he did nothing!" John Souzio says. "Now he's saying what he's going to do the next four years, rob us blind! What else is new! Bin Laden and the people in Saudi Arabia there, they're all friends. They're investing together in oil stocks and shares and whatever. He's in with all them people. Then he gave a tax cut to who? To the rich people. So they can make more money and the poor people got to work their ass off."
Bill Maher is not afraid to ridicule the president of the United States: "George Bush knows one thing... We don't know what it is yet, but he knows one thing," Maher says.
Even though his old program Politically Incorrect was cancelled after he did just that. "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away," he said at the time.
Critics of the White House say that freedom of expression has been seriously eroded under Bush. Maher says Americans are their own worst enemies, and that's Bush's chief advantage.
"This is a fear election. This is an election that has been framed along the lines of elect this guy or you'll die. Don't vote for the wrong guy or you'll be dead. Johnny Jihad will drive a car bomb into your house if you elect a Democrat," he says.
The wheel of fortune has spun in John Kerry's favour since the presidential debates, and he's now running even with Bush. But even vehement Bush-bashers are only lukewarm Kerry fans.
"He's not a man of the people. This is a guy who, let's get real, married not one, but two heiresses. He's not Joe Sixpack. He's Klaus von Bulow," Maher says.
"Despite the misgivings about whether or not it was the right thing to topple Saddam Hussein, given the absence of weapons of mass destruction stockpiles at least, they still think George Bush is better able to handle Iraq," O'Beirne
says.
Republican attack ads against Kerry show him soft on the war on terror. A recent poll suggests that Americans want a foreign policy that makes the U.S. more feared by the world than loved by it, something they say George Bush is delivering. Would America be better off if it was feared or if it was loved?
"The love seems pretty remote at the moment. I don't think the American public thinks there's anything they're conscious of doing all during the '90s to have invited the attacks during the '90s, to have invited al-Qaeda's declaration of attack on us during the '90s," O'Beirne says. "I don't think they feel it's because America's not well enough loved around the world. So I think they'll settle for feared."
"I think America has a need to rule," Silver says. "I don't know that I necessarily think that that is healthy, but I believe that there is a way to be a benevolent ruler. There's a way to be kind and good and generous, and have your country's best interests at heart while also having the world's best interests at heart. I really believe that there's a way to do that, but that is not what we are doing right now."
Las Vegas University playing football against Reno, Nev., is a hotly-contested match in this state and more popular than the heated political one. This is the other side of Vegas where Erik Aldays and his wife Leanne can take the kids. Their daughter Lindsay joins a halftime act.
People here crave a wholesome American lifestyle, but the casino world overwhelms. There are about three murders a week in Las Vegas. Drugs and guns are in the schools, and the city has almost the highest teen suicide rate in the country.
But with constant reminders of war, Leanne has one overarching fear. "What happened on 9/11 made me feel probably more fearful for my family and wanting to keep my kids safe, you know, and then the things that have happened like in Russia when those terrorists went into the schools. You think, oh, my gosh, that could happen. Thank God that didn't happen here."
"I mean, they're willing to kill themselves to prove a point. How do you deal with somebody like that?" Erik Aldays asks. "You have to kill them first. I think George Bush, in one respect, whether people like him or not, I think people in the world that are not our allies, that are our enemies, I think they look at him and think this is a guy that, if given the chance to wipe us out if we try to cause a problem for America, I think this is a guy that will do it."
The Nevada desert blooms with suburbs – a new house built every 20 minutes spreading out from the hub of Las Vegas casinos that provide people jobs but leave little real wealth in the community. Erik Aldays wants more taxes.
"We could have any school we wanted in the United States if [we spent as much as] Caesar's Palace and Mandalay Bay and all of those big casinos that cost over a billion dollars apiece to build. We have schools within eyeshot of the Mandalay Bay where kids can't afford textbooks."
"Taxes are an investment in where you want to live. They're an investment in your community," Silver says.
Erik and Leanne share so many of the values of Tricia Silver. They want better social programs, more funding for schools and libraries, a clean environment, and a clear separation of church and state. They not only sound like Democrats, but they are both registered as Democrats. Tricia is much encouraged until her colleague, Anna, pops the question.
"You've made up your mind? Which candidate are you thinking of supporting?"
"Bush," Leanne says.
"You're going to support Bush? OK. Same for you?" Anna asks Erik.
"Yeah," Erik replies. "What happened in September of '01 had a lot to do with it because it was unscripted. He was untested. I thought he handled it pretty good."
"There's so much happening that the polls can't capture, but then you meet a guy like Erik and you wonder how many of him are out there," Silver says. "He's so close to believing in everything that I believe. He's so close to having the same kinds of ideals that I have, and then you come up against 9/11, and it's like he turns into a different person. It turns everything that he is and wants to be on its head. I guess all of us agree that the war on terror is a higher priority than Iraq. I mean, when it comes right down to it. Am I correct in assuming that or..."
"I think it is, but I also believe that we can't do it by ourselves. I agree with you. First time I ever saw it, we had a president that would literally stand up and say 'I don't really care whether you want us to go in or not. We got attacked. It's in our interests. We're going to do it. Whether that's diplomatic or not,'" Erik says. "Well, at the time it occurred, history may prove us all wrong. You know, next week they may find something there and you go, whoa, gosh, you know what, now we're all wrong."
People are saying it's the fear election.
"I'm afraid of losing my rights. I'm afraid of America not – the only thing that differentiates the American democracy from any other democracy on the planet, because there's lots of them, is our Bill of Rights, you know, those 10 amendments to the constitution," Silver says. "They're sacrosanct. They've already been infringed upon by the Patriot Act, and, to me... that makes me afraid."
"The Patriot Act, you know, there's been a lot of people that talk about how that interferes in people's lives, but, you know, I've never met anyone yet that's been dragged out of their house or had their phone tapped," Erik says. "Sure, it's happened, but, in this country, George Bush is not going to circumvent the constitution by himself. We have so many checks and balances. See, I believe that if he goes that far off the wall, our country is set up in such a way that we have checks and balances. I mean, that when things like that happen, there's another group that's going to say, 'no, this can't happen.' I don't think it's just all going to fall apart overnight."
"He seemed to enjoy having someone to spar with and to challenge his own ideas, and I can respect that. But he's not going to have that right for much longer, and how can he support someone who wants to take his right to disagree away?" Silver says.
Tricia Silver says she feels that what separates her from Erik Aldays is a differing belief about what has to be done about 9/11.
"And she has a valid point," Erik says. "Who's to say that we're doing it the right way? Maybe we're not, you know. But something had to be done. You know, you can't sit back and just allow these people to do what they're going to do….If someone could come up to me right now and say at the time the information that George Bush had, if he knew at the time that we weren't into Iraq that they were not a threat and that this was not about terrorism and that this was some – simply came down to making money for certain individuals that are in his cabinet or his family, absolutely I would change my vote. There's no doubt about it."
If George Bush wins again, Tricia Silver says she and her husband will explore options of moving to another country. "I feel that fearful about it…Because I don't know that – if the majority of American people think that this is the kind of country that is free, then I don't know that I can call myself an American."
Las Vegas is a place of instant winners and losers, of dreams made and broken, but for Tricia Silver and her friends, this election is the biggest gamble of all.
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Voting age population (VAP) in 2000:
205,815,000
Eligible voters (VEP) in 2000:
193,199,543
Voter turnout (% of VEP) in 2000:
54.5%
Numbers of seats up for election (2004):
House: 435 (all of them)
Senate: 34 (of 100)
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