Yesterday, in the ballroom of the National Press Club, Nancy Tate had her first smackdown. She was pleasantly surprised. Tate, who is the executive director of the League of Women Voters and has the unobtrusive demeanor of a court stenographer, shared a stage with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) CEO Linda McMahon, U.S. Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), state Rep. Tony Sertich (D-Minn.), three WWE wrestlers and about 30 exhilarated high-school students. They were all there to unveil the second phase of "Smackdown Your Vote!" a get-out-the-vote program spearheaded by the WWE (formerly the World Wrestling Federation, or WWF, until a lawsuit from the World Wildlife Fund forced the name change).
After the press conference, Tate posed for a photo with Kurt Angle -- the honorary chairman of "Smackdown Your Vote!" and a two-time WWE champion (as well as intercontinental champion, European champion, hardcore champion, 2000 "king of the ring" and the inventor of the "angle slam") -- and his fellow super-pugilist and co-chair Bradshaw, who looks like a polyploidy Steven Seagal with a Nixonish nose. Tate seemed rather charmed, in a bemused sort of way, by the whole thing. She wasn't overly concerned about aligning her organization with one that unabashedly fashions itself as the collective id of the young American male. Instead, she noted, "I think they're serious about it; they have a certain enthusiasm and that's quite important in our media culture." She remarked on how well-informed the WWE contingent had seemed. (McMahon at one point offhandedly mentioned that the 26th Amendment, which gives 18-year-olds the right to vote, had enjoyed "the fastest ratification of any amendment in history.") Of course, Tate went on to admit, "They had to clue me in to what a 'smackdown' was."
Those of us more familiar with the term may still wonder how we can smack down our votes. Well, if we've registered to vote or, better yet, actually voted, we already have. But the majority of the votes in Smackdown's target demographic of 18-30 year olds have yet to be smacked down. The program was started in 2000 when the WWE joined a coalition that included voter outreach groups such as the Youth Vote Coalition and Project Vote Smart, which were seeking to redress one of the most striking imbalances in the American electorate: the fact that a large number of the nation's young, voting-age adults have rejected the political process. In 1996 and 2000, barely a third of 18-24-year-olds voted, about half the rate for those 65 and over. As a result, the young, though the prize quarry of TV advertisers, are pretty much ignored by politicians -- which is why we live increasingly in a stone-cold gerontocracy.
Thus far the WWE's visibility and fondness for exclamation points have made some modest headway against voter apathy. Through public-service announcements, voter-registration drives, WWE high-school and college tours and registration booths at WWE events, "Smackdown Your Vote!" has signed up 400,000 new voters, presumably mostly young ones. Yesterday's press conference, which had an audience of perhaps a dozen journalists and more than 400 teenagers, was held to kick off its second round, dubbed "A Million More in 2004!"
Why is the WWE getting involved in the get-out-the-vote racket? McMahon presents it as a matter of civic responsibility. In the crisply articulate tones of the no-nonsense businesswoman, she speaks from her experience as the head of WWE, which is, in her words, "essentially a marketing company." She wants to create a sense of "brand loyalty" for the concept of democracy. Ford and GM are aiming ads at kids too young to drive, so why not sell voting to those under 18? It's an impressive pitch, though left unsaid is the prospect that perhaps WWE wants to be known for something other than teaching America's youth acrobatic ways of beating the crap out of one another.
Despite all the gruff-voiced exhortations, no one knows if WWE's "come for the buffoonish brutality, stay for the grass-roots democracy" strategy will work. There's little evidence, for example, that MTV's "Rock the Vote" -- the most prominent of recent celebrity voter-outreach programs -- does all that much besides burnish the activism credentials of famous musicians. Perhaps the alienation of young citizens from politics is too deep to be bridged by the haranguing of celebrities, no matter how well-oiled and muscular.
But if the WWE can bring Hulk Hogan out of retirement, as it recently did, perhaps it can do anything. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), himself a former middle-school wrestling coach, saw the power of the franchise when he invited The Rock to the 2000 Republican National Convention. We've always had a special place in our hearts for brawny and rambunctious political figures, from Teddy Roosevelt (aka the "Bull Moose") to James George Janos (aka Jesse "The Body" Ventura). And in four years, we may very well see Arnold Schwarzenegger (aka "The Terminator") in the California gubernatorial race. Like politics, professional wrestling is an unholy mix of melodrama, noise, petty vendettas, manufactured emotion, klieg lights and fog machines. For Ventura, who honed his debating skills co-hosting Prime Time Wrestling with the inimitable Gorilla Monsoon, politics is simply wrestling by other means. For the folks at WWE, it's as simple as that.
Drake Bennett is a Prospect writing fellow.
