Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 16, 1994 TAG: 9410180030
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The GOP stands a good chance not only of retaking the U.S. Senate, but also of winning, for the first time in more than 40 years, an outright majority in the House of Representatives. Among endangered Democrats are House Speaker Thomas Foley, untouched by scandal if not by arrogance, and heretofore a fixture in his Spokane, Wash.-based district; New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, whose re-election difficulties may be the result less of governing too unwisely than of governing too long; and even Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, the national icon of liberalism. Electorates that for years have supported, wisely or no, those men may now be ready to oust them.
Competitive elections help boost voter turnout. Swings of power are a normal and necessary feature of democracy. Americans are right to question the big-government solutions these incumbents stand for. They're also right to question political careerism; term limits are more quickly and cleanly imposed at the ballot box than by constitutional amendment.
Even so, peril lurks in what is apparently the main reason behind the election outlook: a bitterness toward government so deep as to defy reason.
Anger occasionally motivates sound decision-making. But often it comes unaccompanied by self-examination. Often it distorts perception, and prompts reactions disproportionate to the purported grievances.
Yes, President Clinton and his fellow Democrats have made their share of mistakes: big ones. But the 21-month-old administration has also registered significant successes. It has cut the deficit every year. It has helped the economy grow at a robust 3 percent. It has begun trimming the federal bureaucracy. It has enacted important legislation, such as family leave and an earned-income tax credit for the working poor. It has secured (with more Republican than Democratic help) a North American free-trade pact.
And yes, Congress is unwieldy and (as always) in need of procedural reform. But much of the gridlock this fall was from Republicans cynically using filibusters to tie up even legislation with which they agreed, just to make Clinton look bad.
Still, the GOP, though naturally trying to capitalize on the public mood swing, has been less its fomenter than its pleasantly surprised beneficiary.
The ultimate source of the anger lies elsewhere, but exactly where is not clear. Daniel Schorr, in a speech Tuesday night at Roanoke College, blamed television's artifices for contributing to a divorce of Americans from the real world, and also blamed the venom of radio gab artists like Rush Limbaugh. Other usual suspects include stresses amid rapid social change and unrelieved economic uncertainty.
Whatever the cause, let the current grow powerful enough, and political flotsam gets swept in with the tide. Hence, here in Virginia, Oliver North may win a Senate seat despite his manifest unfitness; so, in California, may a one-term congressman possessing more millions than credentials.
Such sorts the republic can survive. More threatening, if they turn out to be an enduring addiction, are impossible expectations.
An electorate that wants the federal budget balanced also wants taxes cut, big entitlement programs preserved and defense spending maintained or raised. An electorate that wants to end welfare also wants to avoid supporting universal health insurance, adequate child care and other measures that make the end of welfare possible. An electorate that wants a strong economy also wants the rest of the world, on which the economy must depend, to go away and leave us alone.
By pandering instead of leading; by promising everything, instead of clarifying choices, politicians deserve their low repute. But no government, no administration, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, can meet mutually exclusive goals. If voters continue to demand the impossible, they will only get more disaffected.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB