QA With Charlie Cook

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JD: Lots of people let us know that they could do our jobs better than we do. The Internet can be tough because it basically allows people to continually reinforce their own point-of-view.

Q: Do you see yourself as an entrepreneur

CC: Only when I look at our health care costs, then I know I'm a business owner.

JD: Health care costs are our fifth employee.

CC: The other time was when I had to let go of the newsletter. I used to write every word of it, and now 90% is written by Jennifer and Amy Walter who covers the House. I take a pass at it, tweaking, editing and plugging in history, but by now I'm confident that they know my style. Still, at first, turning over the newsletter was like sending my child off to first grade.

Q: Are entrepreneurs truly an important constituency to candidates?

CC: If I'm a Republican I would rather have the NFIB backing than the Fortune 500 because the NFIB has tentacles that reach into every district and corporations play both sides, so they've lost their seats at the table. High-tech entrepreneurs are important to Democrats because they tend to be socially liberal.

Q: How do kitchen table economic issues drive elections?

CC: It used to be that income was the single biggest determinate in party affiliation, not anymore. In the South and states that border the region, rural, downscale white voters who ought to be Democrats vote on guns, abortion and other cultural issues and upscale white Northeastern voters in the older suburbs with six-figure incomes who ought to be Republicans vote the opposite. It's a fundamental shift in American politics.

Q: Why is it that almost everyone I know is more or less a centrist but the country seems so polarized?

CC: There are members of Congress who have never met a swing voter. The system doesn't reward centrist politicians, even though the vast majority of Americans are between the 30-yard lines. Redistricting is to blame, but also because there isn't a lot of relationship building across the aisles. It's a Tuesday-Thursday club where they go to five fundraising receptions a night.

When I started, this town was civil and they all used to play poker and golf, live on the same block and watch their kids grow up together. Now it's a badge of honor to campaign on "my heart and family is back home" and sleep on a couch even though I can tell you divorce rates have gone up enormously.

Another thing that happened in the 1990s was journalists and political adversaries started attacking candidates whenever they traveled abroad, for either using taxpayer dollars or accepting free trips. Most of them stopped traveling and the days when five, 10, 20 members of Congress with varied backgrounds got to know one another on a trip and created a bond are gone. There was abuse, sure, too many of them went to the Paris air show, but the thing about it is these people are voting on enormously important issues on foreign policy, trade, economics and so on, and they need to understand the world, which they don't get going back and forth to Pocatello. It hurts their knowledge base and their relationships.

JD: Everybody knows this place is dysfunctional and it's going to get worse because the moderates are getting winnowed out. It used to be more fun when there were more fish out of water. To fix it, though, will take members of Congress throwing themselves in front of a train, doing something for the greater good with the firm understanding that it's the last thing they will ever do in politics.

CC: You had a brief Kumbaya period after 9/11 but then it went right back to business as usual. Ads have gotten meaner and nastier, and its tit for tat where the bar is raised every year. This is not good for the country--it really isn't. One encouraging thing about our system though, is that this country has gone through tough times before and historically, whenever it gets really bad something happens to pull the pendulum back. It's unsustainable where it is.

Q: What has been interesting this election cycle?

JD: It's the Restoration Hardware election, new technology makes old things work better. Knocking on doors is back, but with a Palm Pilot that shows you an 18 second video on an issue like healthcare that you said was important to a telephone canvas. And yes, handlers did tests to determine that 18 seconds was as much attention as people were going to have.

CC: The sophistication both sides have had in this election is absolutely mind-boggling. They know if you subscribe to Cosmo or Nascar Today and will send you messages accordingly. And since there is a universal belief that this will be very close, I think we are going to have one hell of a turnout.

Q: How does it look for President Bush?

CC: A year ago, the Bush administration could have made four assumptions: the economy would be cooking, Iraq was a success and they would soon find WMDs, they would have a much bigger war chest than any presumptive nominee, and the Democrats would be their typically fractured selves. None of those things came true. Iraq is a liability. Imagine where President Bush would be if he hadn't invaded Iraq, I bet he'd be sitting at 60%.

Q: What can we expect in the Senate races

JD: Arlen Specter losing would be the biggest realistic surprise, but I wouldn't be shocked if the Senate looked exactly the same.

Q: The trillion-dollar question: Kerry or Bush in the White House?

CC: Functionally speaking, the race is equal, but among undecided voters, President Bush only has a 25% approval rating nationally, so I think it'll be uphill for him. Unless there is a major shake-up in the country, it will be hard for George W. Bush to get re-elected.

Read the full interview with Charlie Cook in the November 2004 issue of Inc. magazine.

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