By Richard Kimball, Project President
In a very real sense the need for Project Vote Smart was born during the Constitutional Convention. Concerned that unbridled power would corrupt, that "factions" might deform their vision and turn it to serve selfish interests, and that an informed people was essential to success, the founders adopted a number of administrative protections chief amongst them a system of checks and balances and the Bill of Rights.
Had they been able to witness the great fortune of their design they would be pleased. However, had they also been able to witness the future ability of "factions" to torture truth, influence the structure and purpose of their creation by effectively frustrating the people's ability to be informed, they clearly would have created Project Vote Smart or something very much like it.
It was out of this awareness, along with discussions with U.S. Senators Barry Goldwater and George McGovern, Congresspersons William Frenzel, Jim Leach, Geraldine Ferraro, William Clinger, and League of Women Voters Executive Director Peggy Lampl about their experiences with the changing character and conduct of candidates and campaigns that Project Vote Smart was born.
For me, the Project started one night in 1986 when I was making my closing remarks in a televised debate as the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. My consultants, fearing that I was falling behind in the polls, had me practice a vicious attack against my opponent--a typical political strategy for the candidate in trouble. However, when the time came, I could not do it, and instead I turned to the camera and said these words:
"UNDERSTAND WHAT WE DO TO YOU; WE SPEND ALL OF OUR TIME RAISING MONEY, OFTEN FROM STRANGERS WE DO NOT EVEN KNOW. THEN WE SPEND IT IN THREE SPECIFIC WAYS: FIRST WE MEASURE YOU, WHAT IT IS YOU WANT TO PURCHASE IN THE POLITICAL MARKET PLACE -- JUST LIKE CAMPBELL'S SOUP OR KELLOGG'S CEREAL. NEXT WE HIRE SOME CONSULTANTS WHO KNOW HOW TO TAILOR OUR IMAGE TO FIT WHAT WILL SELL. LASTLY, WE BOMBARD YOU WITH THE MEANINGLESS, ISSUELESS, EMOTIONAL NONSENSE THAT IS ALWAYS THE RESULT. AND WHICH EVER ONE OF US DOES THAT BEST WILL WIN!"
It wasn't a very effective argument for getting votes, nor did it make my campaign staff very happy. But a week later it would lead to the beginnings of Project Vote Smart. I was sitting alone with Barry Goldwater (he was retiring from the Senate seat I was running for) in his office and discussing the debate. As an old friend of my father's, I expected him to chastise my liberal positions, but no, his interest was in my closing argument. The Senator was saddened and angrily pointed out that the nature of campaigns had changed and a candidate could no longer spend their time and energy on matters of public concern. He said he just didn't want to do it anymore. I was both dumbfounded and inspired: that was why he was getting out.
Those many years ago I had my moment of clarity and I began a long series of discussions with others, eventually including my opponent in that Senate race, John McCain, who would later become a strong proponent of the Project and join its board.
It was unclear what might be done to ensure that citizens had at least one independent source to easily acquire accurate information about those who govern or those who wish to replace those who do.
In 1988 we incorporated so that we might raise a little money and test various methods of providing citizens information that would be both trusted regardless of the citizen's political point of view and relevant to their own unique interests.
What we eventually decided upon remains the heart of Project Vote Smart today. We would acquire from every candidate, with or without their cooperation, a detailed application of employment -- the same kind of information, in the same categories that an employer would insist upon from one applying for any job. We asked ourselves: what does an employer need to know in order to hire prudently?
Political scientists and journalists were brought into the discussions and we designed a system that would both collect the information and then provide what we called "at your whim" access to information for citizens.
Student interns and volunteers, strictly supervised to ensure the accuracy and usefulness of the data, would do the information collection. Then the information would be available to citizens over a toll-free Voter's Research Hotline - much like a local library. A citizen would simply pick up the phone, dial a number, and get their own researcher to look up whatever they needed to know about any candidate they were interested in. A source of accurate, dependable, relevant information to which any citizen -- right wing conservative or left wing liberal -- could turn to in absolute confidence. We would soon learn that our approach would not just be used to get basic information, but that citizens, frustrated by the manipulative tactics of the modern campaign, would use it to check the credibility of candidates' often misleading claims.
In 1990, the group decided to test their idea in the North Carolina and Nebraska Congressional Elections. Volunteers and students researched 135 foundations that seemed to have some interest in governance and applied for grants. None of the foundations were willing to fund the test. Many felt that the Project was too "academic," voters would not go to the trouble of using it. One cynical candidate would later say, "They won't use it unless it comes with a free ginzu knife," or as one foundation said, "It simply isn't sexy enough."
As a result, board members contributed $40,000 to fund the two-state test. Senator William Proxmire, Congressman Jim Leach, and other board members flew to Raleigh, North Carolina and Lincoln, Nebraska, held press conferences (the only advertising we would do) and announced: If the citizens of North Carolina and Nebraska were tired of the often self-serving claims made by the campaigns they simply needed to pick up their phones, call 888-Vote-Smart and they would get a real human being who could look up any information they needed in five basic categories:
Wanting to prove that citizens were perfectly able and willing to defend themselves from misinformation or lack of information, students and volunteers staffed 8 phones, 24 hours a day, for two months leading up to the general election. The staff handled just over 2000 inquiries in the two days following the press conference with the lines reaching saturation (all lines tied up) 18 times before Election Day.
The success of the test generated considerable excitement amongst the volunteers, students and board members. The success had three unexpected consequences that resulted in three unique self-imposed rules designed to protect the Project's independence, public trust and unquestioned credibility in the media.
The Project also recognized that to succeed it would need a constant supply of student interns and sufficient office space. Twenty-two universities competed to sponsor the Project on their campus, each one willing to provide our minimum bid requirements of 2,500 sq. ft. in office space on campus and 200 students interns a year to work for the Project.
Oregon State University was selected to house our first center. We opened our offices there and inaugurated Project Vote Smart nationwide during the 1992 elections, covering both the Presidential contest and 1350 candidates (third parties included) for Congress and governor. Although 450 students and volunteers worked on the Project's program that year, it was not sufficient to handle the 211,000 citizen inquiries we received through our Voter's Research Hotline. The Hotline became so popular (following PBS's program NewsHour which mentioned the Project's Hotline number) the telephone company registered 35,000 calls in the first 10 seconds. As a result and at the suggestion of Governor Michael Dukakis, a Project Board member, we opened a second center at Northeastern University in Boston for the 1994 elections.
During the following six years, use of the Project's expanding resources grew dramatically and a number of special features were added in order to help meet the demand. These included:
By 1996 the Project was confronted with a problem born out of its own success. At Oregon State University we were running out of space and student interns essential to the work. Every senior, junior and sophomore student interested in politics that could qualify for a student internship had interned with Project Vote Smart and we were now trying to survive on the incoming freshmen classes. Having a dependable supply of students and volunteers working on the Project was essential. In fact, one staff review done in 1998 showed that if we had paid all of the students and volunteers who had come to work at the Project from 1992 thru 1998 minimum wage, our budget would have increased over 300%.
Demands on the Project were exploding and while the universities were able to double our space they could do no more and our bright, competent, committed, CHEAP labor pool was beginning to diminish.
In 1999, after researching 15 locations in 7 states, the Project decided to build its own campus, with facilities to house dozens of student interns who were applying to our new National Internship Program.
The site was selected based on three criteria:
A ranch with its own rivers and streams surrounded by a pristine wilderness was selected following an agreement requiring the local utility company to provide 26 miles of underground fiber optics for T-1 lines and other communication needs.
The new facilities, which we named the Great Divide Ranch, would more than triple the Project's office space, housing space and web site capacities while also providing an extraordinary wilderness retreat experience for those who committed to the Project's efforts.
During the 2000 and 2002 elections it became apparent that growth in the Project's programs and in the public's demand for services would require new construction. A membership fundraiser was held enabling the Project to construct four new buildings, both increasing the size of the office and providing needed living facilities for the growing number of staff, national student interns and full-time volunteers.
By 2004, new program components were added including:
In 2005 we began to collect data on every elected and appointed judicial official in the nation and plan to cover all future judicial candidates in the following categories: US Supreme Court, US Court of Appeals, US District Courts, state supreme courts, state superior courts and state courts of last resort.
New grant funds have enabled us to begin a Community Outreach Program. Through this program we are contacting organizations and companies under the headings of Religious Organizations, Voter Registration Organizations, Fortune 500 Companies, the 400 Wealthiest Americans, County Political Parties, and Lobbying Organizations to offer our free services to their members, employees, and customers.
The Project provides what are perhaps the only truly positive experiences one can have in today's negative, cynical political environment. Today the Project often has more people wanting to join in and experience our Great Divide Ranch retreat research facility than we can accommodate.
When considering the enormity of the Project's workload and the paltry budget available for support, it becomes clear that our biggest gift comes from the student interns, volunteers, and Project staff who make the research and other operations possible. Second to those individual are the 45,000 other Americans who have heard of their efforts and contribute more than $1,000,000 (two-thirds of the annual budget) each year to support their work.
Although still in its infancy, three measures of the Project's value place our significance beyond a doubt.
Perhaps the most significant measure is that all of this is being done, not by some affluent media empire, not by some well-endowed university, but by a group of unpaid volunteers in their 70s and 80s, locking arms with hundreds of young students streaming in from every state in the union. All simply deciding that they could no longer sit back and tolerate political parties and candidates abusing their fellow citizens.
Just taking its first baby steps, the Project is nowhere near maturity.
Eighty-seven percent of the country still has no idea that this effort is being made and thus cannot use it. There are candidates we do not cover -- county and city campaigns or other statewide races (state attorney general, superintendents of education, mine inspectors, corporation commissioners, etc.); but they are all on our schedule for inclusion during our second ten years.
In the end, citizens will find out about Project Vote Smart and the millions who are tormented by the issueless, mudslinging politics of today's campaigns will find a new place to turn to in absolute confidence for the abundant, accurate, relevant information essential in a free peoples' struggle to self-govern.
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