THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 25, 1996 TAG: 9610250025
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: Keith Monroe
LENGTH: 79 lines
For editorial page folks, watching politicians is part of the job. And in election years, we feel the way birders must when they camp along a crowded flyway during migration time. All sorts of rare birds and queer ducks flap by. Each has his own distinctive call and markings. Here are a few random notes from this season's watching.
Bob Dole began the presidential race warbling a slightly off-key song. At the Republican convention he tried to persuade voters that the past was preferable to the present and that he could lead the nation back in time to the good old days. That pitch worked for Reagan when times were bad, but many Americans are content with their economic situation for the moment.
But Dole has had an even more fundamental problem with a backward-looking campaign, and it involves demographics. His attempt to sell nostalgia has foundered on the reality that most voters are too young to have any recollection of what he's talking about. Like Bush before him, Dole is on the wrong side of the demographic divide.
Harking back to the America of Eisenhower or maybe Coolidge is meaningless to voters under 50. A 35-year-old isn't nostalgic for Andy Hardy but for Andy Kaufman or Andy Gibb. Dole's much touted credentials from World War II might as well come from the Punic Wars for all they know. The first president such a voter recalls didn't say ``The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'' He said, ``I am not a crook.''
President Clinton has been trashed as the epitome of the feckless and self-indulgent boomer, but he's a lot more adept at speaking the language and addressing the concerns of working women in their 30s, downsized men in their 40s and college-age voters facing unaffordable tuition and bleak employment prospects.
When political parties had more power, they decided who would run for office, groomed candidates and made sure they served an apprenticeship. It was customary to progress from volunteer to local officeholder to state office and maybe to Congress. Now people with no previous experience haul off and run for mayor, congressman, senator or even president if they've got a spare billion.
An unspoken assumption of these attempts to start a political career at the top is that anyone can run the country without special training or preparation. The citizen-legislator is a charming conceit, but we wouldn't let a man off the street manage the Ford plant, practice orthodontics or landscape our home.
In fact, a state senator or a member of the U.S. Congress is dealing with billions of dollars and must practice the complex and arcane art of writing and passing legislation. All sorts of specialized knowledge and skills are required. Bumpkins who manage to get elected are unprepared to do the work of a legislator and often ill-serve their constituents. They may be able to mouth slogans (Cut Taxes, Reduce the Deficit), but those have about as much intellectual content as beer commercials (Less Filling, Tastes Great).
Poet, critic, professor Randall Jarrell once remarked that he thought he knew a lot about football until he attended a game with a pro scout. Suddenly he discovered there was a lot more to the sport than had met his untrained eye.
A chat with a skilled pol is similarly eye-opening. Instead of campaign boilerplate one is likely to hear about the GAO report on the raiding of the DBOF - that's the Defense Business Operating Fund - to make up budget shortfalls. Or the 3 plus 3 plan for missile defense. Or the availability of intermodal transportation money as part of the Landside Access to Ports program. Voters may choose to elect amateurs to high office, but must expect them to fare about as well as the Angolan basketball squad when put up against the Dream Team. There's a lot to be said for pros.
And speaking of birdbrained enthusiasm for amateurs, North Carolina Republicans have nominated stock-car legend Richard Petty for secretary of state. No doubt the GOP thought the King, who is to North Carolina what Elvis is to other places, would cruise to victory. But he's running behind. In this race, voters seem to be concluding that Elaine Maxwell has the racer's edge. Qualifications for the job: She's an attorney and former state senator.
Petty, 59, may be a nice man. He sure could drive fast. He wears interesting hats. But the secretary of state runs an office responsible for registering corporations, regulating securities and trademarks, registering lobbyists and notaries and keeping election records. It's not a ceremonial post. And knowing how to mash an accelerator and sign autographs is probably not enough to earn Petty the checkered flag this time around. MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editor of the editorial page of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB