Unusual politics

The CNMI is sure a strange place to run for public office and become involved with politics. Many of the classic textbook rules do not apply. Campaigning for CNMI governor is not at all like campaigning for President of the United States.

Consider negative campaigning, for example. In the CNMI, politicians have to be very careful about who they attack, because, in many instances, they are not just attacking their political opponents by themselves–they are also attacking the entire extended families of their opponents as well. And depending on the families in question, that could amount to a great deal of lost votes (in a very small community).

Suppose that Juan Gomez Gonzalez is running for governor. Suppose that he has a fairly large local family. Suppose that he is also an extremely corrupt crook who stole thousands of dollars from the taxpayers. Should Antonio T. Camacho, a career politician running against Gonzalez, expose the whole truth about Mr. Gonzalez at the risk of permanently alienating the extended family?

In this case, Mr. Camacho should think very carefully about his political future. He has to remember that even if he loses the election to the corrupt Mr. Gonzalez, who has a huge family of votes, he might still be able to run–and win–in the next general election, especially if he plays his cards right by not permanently alienating major local family voting blocs. Hypothetical candidate Camacho has to remember that families are still going to be sympathetic to their members, even if those members really happen to be lousy crooks.

This is the problem with local CNMI politics. In many instances, a pragmatic political candidate cannot aggressively campaign to expose the truth about his opponents. He has to consider the family and friend angles.

In the United States, by sharp contrast, political candidates are not bound up by such constraints. There are more than 250 million people in the United States. Who cares about the Al Gore family? American candidates are free to run a real campaign without any regard for the voters’ personal relationships with the opposing candidates.

Not so in the CNMI. Here we have to rely on the free press to expose the truth. And yet the local press is also constrained. The local press has to live in this small community, too. They need advertising dollars.

True, the U.S. Justice Department and the F.B.I. do help in some respects. Indeed, they have uncovered a crook or two in recent years. But the long term solution is not a bigger federal presence, which has its own drawbacks.

The long term solution is time. Our political salvation lies in the ultimate natural diversification of the CNMI electorate over time. In 20 0r 30 years, the CNMI voters will not be dominated by local family voting blocs. The local electorate will instead be comprised of a rich mixture of Chinese, Caucasians, Japanese, Filipinos, Chamorros, Carolinians, Micronesians, and perhaps many other racial groups born and raised on CNMI soil. Maybe then every political candidate will feel completely free to expose the truth about their opponents.