As I contemplate a political situation where I am actually rooting for a victory for a right-wing demagogue, I think about the disappointment and frustration that has brought me to this point. As recently as eight short years ago, I was a good liberal Democrat, and supported and worked for Mike Dukakis. Now confronted by a political oligarchy where six-figure contributions from PACs, and multinational corporate sellouts to third-world countries, are the norm, I find myself feeling more and more in sync with my despised brethren on the right. I have had occasion before to compare today's leader of that unhappy band to "a tribune of the plebeians," and it is striking that days after I used that analogy Pat Buchanan made a speech where he compared his campaign to peasants coming over the hill and threatening the barons and nobles. The fact is that in this country, our political class, along with our corporate bullies, have become the aristocracy in an increasingly undemocratic society, where the gap between rich and poor has grown wider, and where voters increasingly feel disenfranchised.
One of the greatest forces of disenfranchisement is our screwed-up electoral system. Currently, not only are our political candidates placed in a process where there are systemic forces working to corrupt them, but the voters are confronted with major hurdles, both in terms of registration, and in terms of voting itself, that actively work to discourage participation and turnout. And in such an atmosphere, where politicians spend most of their year collecting legal bribes from PACs, and where voters don't even get a day off to vote, but instead usually have to squeeze the activity into a lunch hour, people not only lose interest in the process; they also lose faith in the good intentions and good faith of the people who strive to lead them.
One of the major reasons why, in recent years, I have given up on the Republicrats, why I have changed my registration from Democratic to Independent, why I am so interested in the various possible independent presidential candidates, such as Lowell Weicker and Bill Bradley, is my belief in the need for fundamental political reform to reawaken faith on the part of the electorate in the integrity of our elected politicians and the probity of this country's democratic processes. There are plenty of good people around, of all political persuasions, who have no lack of good or at least well-intentioned ideas about how to approach some of today's challenges. My readers have already seen me reel off the names of public servants who I believe are highly motivated and sincerely desire nothing but the best for this country; that list of mine would include, among others, Jesse Jackson, Jerry Brown, Bill Clinton, Arlen Specter, Pete Domenici, and Jack Kemp. The problem is that, as professional politicians, they walk into the arena with two strikes against them in the eyes of the public, and in such a kangaroo court, their attempt to positively contribute to the public debate is seriously hamstrung. Until our electorate's faith in politicians and politics is rekindled, little of worth can be accomplished through our democratic institutions.
The Republicrats, our two major political parties, have not even tried to deal with this crisis of democratic faith. Either because they genuinely believe it to be an unimportant matter, and of low priority, or because they are afraid that to deal with it forthrightly and comprehensively means jeopardizing their power, or perhaps because they are simply too damn smug and complacent about their power to realize that the folks out here are getting really ticked off at the way big money has frozen out their access to this democracy, the bottom line is that week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out, PACs contribute outrageous sums of money to political candidates, guaranteeing almost unlimited access to the halls of power should those candidates win; the cost of campaigning gives a very unfair edge to those candidates with unusual wealth or unusual access to wealth; cavalier and draconian voter registration and voting schedules guarantee that many potential voters will be discouraged from even participating in elections. Is it any wonder then that the average voter will usually say "This is all nonsense; this is all rigged; my vote won't make any difference; they'll do whatever they want anyway." Is it any wonder then that we have seen a precipitate decline in voter participation in recent decades? Is it any wonder then that our democracy ranks close to the bottom of industrial democracies in its percent of voter participation on election day?
The good news is that there have been no dearth of ideas and suggestions about how to deal with this crisis of democratic confidence. The bad news is that those ideas have issued forth almost exclusively from independent leaders, non-partisan leaders, and mavericks from within the Republicrat oligarchy. It is therefore refreshing to see President Clinton put himself firmly on the record in support of S.1219, the campaign finance reform bill currently being advanced by Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Russell Feingold.
The bill iself, while sound, workable, and worth supporting, breaks no new ground in terms of the discussion of the issue initiated in recent years by Jerry Brown, Ross Perot, Paul Tsongas, Pat Buchanan, and Tim Penney. It would place voluntary limits on campaign expenditures, limits on contributions to one's own campaign, and, most important, guarantee free TV to all qualified, legitimate candidates. Yes, how one determines a qualified, legitimate candidate might take some doing, but the principle itself is worth pursuing, however complicated its execution might be.
Anyone who is a regular reader of these Random Thoughts knows that the passage of such a bill would be greeted with hip, hip, hoorays on my part. Nothing would thrill me more than to see Ross Perot, Jerry Brown, and Pat Buchanan, gratefully celebrate Bill Clinton's late membership in the cause of political reform, and celebrate it they would if he were to succeed in pushing through the McCain-Feingold legislation. With considerable effort on the President's part, many telephone calls, personal sessions, arm-twisting, and use of the bully pulpit (notoriously poor in Clinton's presidency), there is no doubt in my mind that Clinton could pull enough strings, and bring enough public pressure to bear, to embarass the Congress sufficiently to pass the bill. But Clinton promised similar legislation during his presidential campaign. He promised to push the concept of free TV in his 1995 State of the Union speech also, a remark which was hastily forgotten by everyone in the White House and in the press. So I feel I can be forgiven if one radio address, followed by one follow-up speech in New Hampshire, does not have me celebrating the end of the need for an independent presidential candidate, and my return to the Democratic party.
Instead, I find myself wondering what exactly is in William Jefferson Clinton's head. From a purely political standpoint, he is best off either letting former Perotistas like me spin slowly, slowly in the wind, hoping that we'll give up and vote for a conservative political reformer like Perot, destroying the GOP's chances in the fall, or, alternately, gathering us to his bosom aggressively by pushing through a balanced budget (Clinton now has a REAL one on the table, certified by the CBO, something the Shiite House Reps refuse to acknowledge) with the help of moderate Senate Republicans and Blue Dog House Democrats, and pushing through good reform legislation like McCain-Feingold, thus bringing us back to the Democratic banner and to the cause of Clinton's re- election.
Instead, he seems to be pursuing a halfway house strategy that is neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. He refuses to abandon our agenda entirely and thus guarantee himself divided opposition in the fall; yet he also refuses to commit himself wholeheartedly and unequivocally to our political reform agenda. I am at a loss as to what he thinks he is accomplishing by these half-hearted stabs at our concerns.
Because of this, I am not grasping at the straw that Clinton may turn into the fiscal doctor and reform fighter for which I yearn. Instead, I am grasping at the straw that current developments in the Republican party may lead our country toward such a solution. As a good social liberal, I am appalled at the shocking success of Pat Buchanan in his presidential campaign so far. Yet at the same time, as someone who has long since become disillusioned with the performance of the GOP, I am delighted to see them apparently committing suicide. This is not only because I believe that Clinton's re-election would be better for the country than a President Dole or a President Buchanan, but because I also believe that if the Republicans nominate a presidential candidate who takes them off the ideological cliff, the vacuum in the middle will be so great, and so irresistible, that Lowell Weicker or Bill Bradley or someone of that ilk will be inexorably forced to join the fray.
And if that were to happen, we would no longer be talking about an isolated independent movement getting behind a maverick former independent Governor; we would no longer be talking about a ragged band, including several sports fans, getting behind an enigmatic Princeton graduate, whose passion was race relations, and whose philosophy extolled the importance of the "civil society." No, we would now be talking about a middle swollen by the ranks of moderate and progressive Republicans outraged and emotionally exiled by the paranoid shouts of an eloquent and dangerous mountebank, peddling a siege mentality and a sweet-smelling elixir of nationalism and populism; we would now be talking about a middle swollen by the ranks of moderate and progressive Republicans, like Colin Powell and Arlen Specter, who would refuse to accept the ugly transmogrification of their beloved GOP, and who would strike out on their own, breaking a path toward centrist reform government. There are no lack of such leaders: Jim Leach, John Chafee, Bill Cohen, -- the party is blessed with many such leaders, even if in today's nihilist political environment they are allowed to perform little or no productive function. And if a Buchanan nomination had the effect of forcing them to stand up and be counted, then we as a people might yet reap a handsome reward from a frightening and troubling turn in American politics.
Is there a straw here able to be grasped? Is this a pipedream that seems plausible? Let me know your thoughts on this. Write me at