Former Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. told a University of Delaware audience on Wednesday, Nov. 2, that he has never witnessed a more turbulent election season or unhappier voters than in this year’s presidential race.

And Ehrlich is no stranger to political turmoil.

He served in Congress from 1995-2003, during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and the GOP’s legislative Contract with America, and in 2003 he became his state’s first Republican governor in 36 years.

“The country’s in a bad place,” he said at the start of his talk, part of the National Agenda speaker series, “Road to the Presidency,” hosted by UD’s Center for Political Communication. Citing polls showing that most citizens think America is on the wrong path, Ehrlich described voters as “angst-ridden” about the election.

“I’ve never seen an environment like this,” he said. “I’ve never seen an American public so dissatisfied with their choices.”

When people are that anxious about the future, “Unpredictable things happen in political campaigns,” and the old rules no longer seem to apply, he said.

Ehrlich discussed four areas he sees for concern — people’s views of the wealthy, the top 1 percent of Americans by income; dysfunction in Congress; the role of social media in politics; and the trend on some college campuses and elsewhere to limit dissent and argument.

“The 1 percent” are a significant issue for both Republicans and Democrats, Ehrlich said, but the two groups see them in very different ways. While progressive Democrats view the wealthiest Americans as greedy and failing to pay their fair share to society, conservative Republicans tend to be most troubled by the idea that their children and grandchildren will be denied the opportunity to become wealthy themselves, he said.

In discussing congressional dysfunction, Ehrlich pointed to the redistricting that was done after the 2000 census, creating politically safe districts in which a member of the House of Representatives is almost guaranteed re-election for as long as he or she wants to serve. With very few seats in play, he said, the result has been the disappearance of legislators willing to compromise — almost no moderate Southern Democrats or Eastern liberal Republicans still exist.

He also criticized the reliance on social media for contributing to both partisanship and superficial discussion of issues.

And he urged the audience, particularly students, to follow the American tradition of respectful argument, dissent and debate, which he said is “what this country’s about.”

Ehrlich, who left the governor’s office in 2007, now is senior counsel in the government advocacy and public policy practice group at the law firm King and Spalding, where he advises clients on a broad array of policy matters and their interactions with the federal government.

He is the author of three books, most recently Turning Point: Picking Up the Pieces after Eight Years of Failed Progressive Politics.

He is married to UD alumna Kendel Sibiski Ehrlich, a 1983 graduate and a former trial lawyer.

Nov. 8: Election Central at Trabant

On Election Night, students can follow the unfolding results at Election Central in the Trabant University Center, a celebration of their participation in the electoral process.

The event, from 8-11 p.m. in the center’s Multipurpose Room, will feature games, trivia, food and more, including a special Election Night ice cream flavor from the UDairy Creamery.

Students and members of the campus community can visit different media and activity stations and watch returns on a number of screens.

Faculty members at the event will discuss topics pertaining to elections, and UD’s Student Television Network (STN) will be live on the scene broadcasting updates and interviewing Election Central speakers and attendees.

Nov. 16: Election aftermath

The final event of this semester’s National Agenda will feature a panel discussion among nationally recognized campaign experts beginning at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 16, in Mitchell Hall on UD’s Newark campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Participants will be:

• UD alumnus David Plouffe, of the Class of 2010, who ran Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns and is now senior vice president of policy and strategy at Uber;

• Kim Alfano, president and CEO of Alfano Communications and a partner in Red America Blue America Research, who is one of the country’s leading Republican media strategists;

• Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for Hillary for America and former communications director for the Obama administration, who helped craft Obama’s political strategy after the 2014 midterm elections; and

• Political strategist Mike DuHaime, who served as the senior adviser to the Republican Governors Association in 2014 and was lead strategist for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s gubernatorial campaigns.

About the series

The 2016 National Agenda series, “Road to the Presidency,” has featured a wide variety of speakers discussing issues surrounding the presidential election.

The director of the series is Lindsay Hoffman, associate professor of communication and associate director of the Center for Political Communication (CPC).

National Agenda was established by Ralph J. Begleiter, former CNN world affairs correspondent and professor in the Department of Communication, who created and was the first director of the CPC. Through the years, the series has looked at a range of key American political issues, from corporate influence to the growing importance of digital campaigns.

National Agenda 2016 is supported by the William P. Frank Foundation of Delaware and UD’s College of Arts and Sciences and Office of the Provost.