THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410070025
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By THOMAS R. McNUTT
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
On Sept. 27, Rep. Newt Gingrich and 300 GOP House candidates made my day. With great fanfare, they signed on to a ``Contract with America,'' promising a return to the policies of Ronald Reagan.
On a scale of 1-to-10 in campaign goofs, this has to be at least a 9. For the GOP it has to rank right up there with asking Pat Buchanan to set the tone for their 1992 convention.
I'll confess, until Gingrich's ``September surprise,'' I've been envious of the way Republicans have controlled the national debate. They have raised do-nothingism and obstructionism to an art form. Whatever the Clinton proposal, whether it was to fight crime, assist education or reform campaign financing, the GOP response had the intellectual weight of a bumper sticker: ``Just Say No!'' Republicans have been critical of administration policies in Haiti and Bosnia, but offered no solutions of their own. They billed health reform and said the American people would thank them for it in November. All the while they obscured President Clinton's achievements by getting the media to focus endlessly on Whitewater and Paula Jones.
The GOP was marching confidently into the midterm elections with rosy forecasts of gaining enough seats to take control of both the House and the Senate.
Their PR was so good that some Democratic candidates were running away from the Clinton budget that raised taxes on the richest people in America. Somehow, these Democrats forgot that's what a Democratic president is supposed to do - tax the rich.
Then, along came Newt and his ``contract with America'' that promises tax cuts for the wealthy and a reminder that trickle-down economics and trillion-dollar deficits may be just around the corner. Suddenly, it's a whole new ballgame. The media are forced to reassess the playing field. With Newt's promise of a return to Reaganomics, the length and breadth of Clinton's jogging shorts no longer seem important. They begin reporting on the Clinton record. In contrast to Reaganomics that tripled the deficit, they tell us that under Clinton the deficit will go down three years in a row for the first time since Eisenhower. Newsweek tells us that in less than two years Clinton has achieved more domestically than John Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George Bush combined. Congressional Quarterly reveals Clinton has had the most legislative success of any president since Lyndon Johnson. Just the prospect of a return to the 1980s has plaudits for Clinton dancing off the page.
Better still, the free ride is over for Republican candidates. Gingrich saw to that when he got them to sign that four-page manifesto. Now they have to defend it. And that won't be easy. They will flunk their midterms if they can't answer embarrassing questions that spring from every page.
Most of all, I want to thank Newt for shaking up working people all across the country. Until he promised a return to the Reagan '80s, many didn't feel these midterm elections were that important. Not anymore.
Now they've seen the Gingrich manifesto. It tells workers how we did it to you in the '80s with a promise how we'll do it to you again if you give us control of the House in '94. The 300 signees have put out a contract on working people.
Workers won't forget how the supply-siders not only tripled the deficit but destroyed jobs and lowered living standards. During the Reagan years, the numer of full-time jobs that pay less than the poverty level increased by an astonishing 50 percent.
Most experts concede that the major cause of low wages is the diminished bargaining power of U.S. workers, aided and abetted by the union-bashing policies of the Reagan White House. Working people don't want any more of that.
Thanks, Newt, for the incentive to work and vote for Democratic candidates in November and for giving the media a better story to report. MEMO: Mr. McNutt is president of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400
that has 35,000 members in Maryland, Virginia and the District of
Columbia. by CNB