A "crisis of apathy" struck primary voters earlier this month, said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, to a panel of political analysts and professors during Wednesday night's speech "AU on the Campaign Trail."
Maryland senatorial candidates Allan Lichtman, professor of history at AU, and Jamie Raskin, a Washington College of Law professor, reflected on the midterm elections. Both highlighted media lethargy, voter indifference and negative campaign advertisements as faulty elements of the races.
Lichtman was arrested and faces one misdemeanor count of trespassing for his protest outside a Maryland Public Television studio debate between senatorial candidates. The station refused to allow candidates who did not have at least 15 percent support in the polls as of July 1 to participate in the debate, focusing their program solely on Rep. Benjamin Cardin and former Rep. Kweisi Mfume.
The media coverage took a disinterested approach to the election, according to the panel. Initial polling placed Cardin and Mfume as the frontrunners of Maryland's Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, but the panel agreed that the media pitted them against each other from the beginning.
Raskin, who won the Democratic State Senate ticket, took a new approach to campaigning: he became his own media.
"If you're going to run as an outsider, really run as an outsider," he said, reflecting on his win against the incumbent Sen. Ida Ruben.
Utilizing his Web site, he created articles about his debates, fundraisers and anything else that could pass his name around.
The lack of prominent media coverage from The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun had a crucial effect on election strategies. Lichtman set up MySpace and Facebook campaign pages to gain younger voters' attention the media wasn't grasping.
Negative campaigning dismayed many voters, Ruskin said
"It surprised me how in-your-face [negative campaigning] is here," said Josh Alcorn, a graduate student in the School of International Service.
Maryland resident and SIS sophomore Anna O'Neill said the negative ads make the state's politics "ineffective because people are too preoccupied with being elected and not enough with having effective and legitimate legislature."
The only candidate to use negative ads and win a party ticket in the election was Democratic Comptroller hopeful Peter Franchot.
