Tobacco Policy: Bad Politics for Dems

Today the Curmudgeon talks about an admittedly "old" issue, tobacco policy.

[We do note that today's Washington Post has a positive story on Harris Miller to balance its negative story of yesterday on Jim Webb. But we expected that.]

During the Clinton years, the war on Big Tobacco was in full swing, with both federal and state governments taking many active steps to combat tobacco use in the United States.

The Curmudgeon, which is dubious about most "tobacco control" policies--other than increased taxes on tobacco, which are proven to reduce consumption--won't debate the wisdom of those policies.

However, one of the Curmudgeon's observations during that period was that political proponents of tobacco control couldn't translate their activism into favorable results in the political arena.

In particular, a number of state politicos who made a big name for themselves promoting tobacco litigation and related policies either failed when they tried to move up in the elective ranks, or retired when it became obvious their future political prospects were limited.

These included Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, who championed that state's successful "cost-recovery" lawsuit against the industry, but who subsequently retired without running for higher office. In Minnesota, both attorney general Hubert "Skip" Humphrey III and lead tobacco trial lawyer Mike Ciresi--who together pursued another successful lawsuit against the industry--failed in their bids to advance to, respectively, the Governor's Mansion and the U.S. Senate, despite being in a heavily Democratic state.

In Massachusetts, attorney general Scott Harshbarger failed to advance his career, again in a friendly Democratic state.

Texas AG Dan Morales also went nowhere (ok, he plead guilty to mail fraud in connection with a tax evasion case) despite a very successful settlement for his state (which ultimately got mired in very ugly litigation among the various trial lawyers, and even Morales himself, over the spoils of victory). Florida's AG suffered similarly.

And in Washington (state), former AG Christine Gregoire, a lead negotiator on the national tobacco settlement, barely eked out a victory--by a couple hundred votes--as a Democratic Governor in a state that John Kerry carried by more than 200,000 votes.

(Al Gore also championed the tobacco fight--it may have contributed to his problems at the polls.)

(An interesting project for an aspiring young political scientist would be to analyze some of these elections to determine how big the "tobacco effect" was--Minnesota would be a particularly good test.)

Guess What? Smokers Vote Too!

Why doesn't activism on the tobacco issue translate into votes at the polls?

The reason is pretty simple. Tobacco users--mostly cigarette smokers--make up about 20-25 percent of the electorate. They are not organized in any kind of political bloc, and apart from the cigarette manufacturers have never had any kind of lobbying organization, so lawmakers don't hear much from them.

Smokers, however, do vote. In most parts of the country they are more likely to be white, independent, and blue collar and somewhat less likely to vote or be active in politics.

Smokers know that cigarettes are bad for them. Most want to quit. But more than anything, they want people--especially people they don't even know--to leave them alone about it. And, they know that no matter what solution some policy maker comes up with to reduce tobacco consumption, it's going to be paid for out of their pockets.

(Indeed, smokers have had to pony up billions of dollars just to pay the plaintiffs' lawyers who were the real beneficiaries of all that litigation in the 1990's).

So when some politician goes on an anti-tobacco crusade, they're turning off a significant block of mostly silent voters. They won't hear a lot from these voters, but when it comes election time they'll be disappointed when the votes are counted.

On the other side of the equation, precious few voters really care all that much about tobacco policy. It certainly isn't--and hasn't ever been--one of the top issues in any poll, and only a handful of small interest groups really care.

Tobacco's not a hot issue today and certainly won't figure in the fall elections. But as Democrats make inroads, the temptation will be there. Resist it.