All Things Dull and Ugly

John J. Pitney, Jr. from the December 1997 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Unfortunately, Lewis carries this shtick too far, failing to note that Taylor simply did not know what he was talking about. He touted a demagogic protectionism: "Fair trade, not free trade--look out for Americans first!" And his "plan" for balancing the budget consisted of a proposal to fire one-third of federal managers, "starting at the top, but not anyone who is doing the work." In 1996, personnel costs for all civilian employees of the executive branch came to $73 billion, so
he could not have balanced the budget even if he had sacked everyone down to
the lowliest clerk. Taylor made Perot look like the patron saint of exactitude.

In contrast to his gushing treatment of Taylor, Lewis heaps scorn on the other self-financed millionaire candidate, Steve Forbes. Belittling Forbes's support for supply-side economics, Lewis says the Reagan tax cuts "had no measurable impact on the economy's growth rate." Huh? Where was Lewis during the longest peacetime expansion in American history? Even if he had been in a coma throughout the 1980s, he still could have looked at Lawrence Lindsay's 1990 book The Growth Experiment for a thorough account of how the tax cuts stimulated economic expansion. Guess he was too busy reading Morry Taylor's wisdom.

Lewis makes fun of Forbes's nerdy manner without understanding that it was a tremendous political asset. After all, we nerds are the sleeping giant of American politics. Not only do we cast millions of votes, but we rule large sectors of the economy, such as computer software and biotechnology. Every time Forbes flashed his awkward smile on television, we saw our champion. Each one of us could shout, "I am somebody!"

Apart from its economic illiteracy and anti-nerd prejudice, Trail Fever is generally amusing. Alas, it is no more than that, since Lewis aspires only to serve up a plateful of smirks. In Whatever It Takes, Elizabeth Drew takes a different and more satisfying approach. At the outset, she explains her purpose by quoting anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist (See "Happy Warrior," February.): "This is not going to be a Presidential race--it's going to be a race for the House, the Senate, governorships, the state legislatures--and some butthead who wants to be President."

Instead of focusing on the campaign for the White House, Drew examines the struggle for control of Congress. Her main characters are the party leaders and their interest-group allies. The Republicans worked with organizations ranging from Americans for Tax Reform to the Christian Coalition to the National Beer Wholesalers Association. (If you wonder why the beer wholesalers are in the mix, remember that they work in just about every district and suffer badly when federal excise taxes go up.) The Dems had the AFL-CIO, the League of Conservation Voters, and Emily's List, a feminist group that "bundles" campaign contributions.

Drew's key insight is that the interests of the presidential candidate may clash with those of the party. By mid-autumn of 1996, it was clear that Bob Dole was crashing and that he could take congressional Republicans with him. At this point, Drew reports, Republican leaders and their coalition partners explicitly decided to ditch Dole and concentrate their resources on holding Capitol Hill. In the final days, the Republicans produced an ad that took Clinton's re-election for granted, warning voters not to give him a "blank check" by electing a Democratic Congress. Says Drew: "It was as close as the Republicans could come to not garrotting Dole publicly." On the Democratic side, President
Clinton did eventually decide to devote party resources to congressional races--
but only after his own re-election was certain. Congressional Democrats grumbled
that an earlier and deeper commitment could have put them over the top.

Drew is generally fair, but her own political biases peek out at times, especially in her account of Dole's acceptance speech. He issued a rebuke of Boutros Boutros-
Ghali that "was code for racism," and he "inexplicably attacked teachers unions." Drew's criticism rests on the dubious assumption that the world is better off because of the U.N.'s socialist bureaucracy and the NEA's choke hold on American education.

A more fundamental problem with Whatever It Takes is that it overemphasizes Washington. Drew does offer sketches of the national political conventions and the re-election races of a few House members. But most of the book describes who said what to whom at which meeting inside a Washington office building. If Drew had really taken Norquist's comments to heart, she would have gone to places such as Tallahassee and Sacramento, so that she could explain the historic shift of power in America's statehouses. Republicans made massive advances in the 1994 state legislative elections, in some states winning their first majorities since Reconstruction. In 1996, despite setbacks in California and a few other places, they kept most of these gains. And the GOP trend is even more striking at the gubernatorial level. Republicans now hold governorships in 32 states, comprising three-fourths of the nation's population.

The statehouse shift is crucial. With at least some federal power devolving to the states, Republicans are now in a better position to shape domestic public policy. And unless they suffer unexpected reversals, they will have enormous influence over the redrawing of congressional district lines after the next census.

What accounts for the depth and breadth of these changes? None of these four books comes close to answering this question, because they're mainly about personalities instead of ideas. A far-reaching account of recent elections would explain why Americans grew weary of government intervention and how Republicans appealed to that sentiment. It would also take a hard look at how Republicans are using their newfound power in Washington and the states, and ask whether they are botching their chance to bring about real reform.

To paraphrase an apocryphal Yogi Berra quotation, one can hear a lot just by listening. In the 1996 campaign, you didn't need to be an investigative journalist to tell that Bob Dole's brain was an idea-free zone: All you had to do was catch his disjointed speeches and shallow policy proposals. So here's an idea for would-be chroniclers of the next campaign: Forget about tracking the turf wars among staffers or finding clever ways to describe cheesy political rallies. Instead, just heed what the candidates actually say. When they make sense, explain why. When they engage in flim-flams, expose them by checking their facts and analyzing their logic. Even the most insincere speeches are worth noting, because they have a way of haunting candidates after they take office. If you didn't get that, read my lips.

Comments

nfl jerseys|11.15.10 @ 11:57PM|#

xthfgh