THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 20, 1996 TAG: 9609200022
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A19 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: KEITH MONROE
LENGTH: 79 lines
Elections bring out the worst in politicians. For 18 months of each election cycle, many are hard-working, responsible, even idealistic public servants. But as soon as an election gets near, the so-called silly season sets in. We've now officially entered the 1996 version.
In six weeks, voters will decide who will occupy the White House, a third of Senate seats and all 435 House seats. As a result, politicians are in full cry - pandering and exaggerating, embracing pork and abandoning principle, grandstanding and mudslinging.
Hot-button issues that most of our elected leaders avoid (except when raising funds) suddenly come to the fore at re-election time. So in recent weeks we've been treated to bold talk, verbal abuse and in some cases actual legislation on guns, abortion, gay marriage and other so-called social issues. Bob Dole has come out against Hollywood. Bill Clinton has reincarnated himself as the family-values candidate.
It is largely sound and fury signifying nothing. You'd think the groups that back candidates on the basis of these issues would eventually notice they provide the money and the votes but rarely see the payoff they anticipate. But hope springs eternal.
The silly season also sees a desperate attempt by candidates to interpret any news as favorable to their side and detrimental to their opponent. Often this requires far-fetched connections or statistical legerdemain. Every president takes credit for the behavior of the world's largest economy on his watch.
Clinton is no exception. He's claiming responsibility for low unemployment, a historic bull market and low inflation even though huge forces beyond a mere president's puny ability to control are actually responsible - things like the business cycle, changes in technology, global trade and Alan Greenspan.
In recent weeks, Bob Dole has been bashing Clinton for a shocking Health and Human Services report showing drug use among teens to have grown more prevalant. Since the bad drug news, like the good economic news, came on Clinton's watch, Dole thinks he should get the blame.
Yet The Wall Street Journal reports that, in fact, the methodology of the study has been changed, making comparisons with earlier studies unreliable. Furthermore, some of the worst-sounding statistics are based on samples too tiny to be meaningful.
For example, it's been claimed teen heroin use has more than doubled. Sounds scary. But the notion that 0.7 percent of teens are now using heroin as opposed to 0.3 percent earlier is based on the actual responses of just 14 heroin users for the earlier study, 32 for the current version. That's far too small a sample on which to base conclusions about anything - drug use, presidential preference or favorite brand of toothpaste.
As far as our wallets are concerned, the campaign behavior to really worry about is election-year giveaways. For example, the House on Sept. 12 passed an energy and water bill that contained dozens of costly add-ons for public works projects, many to be constructed by the Corps of Engineers. This is constituent service of the most tangible sort - bringing home the bacon to one district after another in exchange, the politicians hope, for votes.
It's also the sort of thing the Republican Congress elected in 1994 promised to end. It would be pleasant to report it has refused to go along with this kind of bad, old, Democratic behavior that has helped bloat the federal budget. Alas, the lean and mean Republicans have behaved like a gaggle of Dan Rostenkowskis, helping to pass this bill by a whopping majority of 383-29.
Old habits die hard when an election is on the line. In other examples:
Congress last week passed a $37.9 billion transportation bill providing $950 million more than President Clinton requested for roads, mass transit and other crowd-pleasing spending. Not a deficit hawk in sight.
Congress also voted to give the Pentagon $9.5 billion more than the Clinton budget called for. Some of the money may be for defense essentials, but quite a lot is for pork to the states and districts of powerful Republican legislators like Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Livingston. The spirit of Mendel Rivers lives on.
House GOP members earlier pushed through cuts in education grants, but Democrats have been making campaign hay with the vote. Not to worry. The Republican-controlled Senate has restored $340 million in Goals 2000 grants.
Lucky there's an election only every two years or we couldn't afford all the free gifts. MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editor of the editorial page of The
Virginian-Pilot.Mr. Monroe by CNB