10-02-1999

POLITICS: How Different?

Patrick J. Buchanan grew up as a Republican, campaigned for Republican
candidates in college, worked in the White House for two Republican
Presidents, and twice ran for President himself--as a Republican. So
reliable was Buchanan in his support of the Grand Old Party and its
causes--at least those of its conservative wing--that he continued to
defend red-baiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy long after the Wisconsin
Republican's fall from grace. Today, the man whom movement conservatives
just


call "Pat" is disillusioned with his marriage to the GOP, which
he recently characterized as "a Xerox copy" of the Democratic
Party, and he is considering taking up with a mistress, Ross Perot's
Reform Party. "We've got a one-party system in Washington,"
Buchanan complained, "masquerading as a two-party
system."


Although Warren Beatty has been a lesser player in Washington politics, he
is a lifelong, high-profile Democrat whose liberal sympathies and New Deal
ideology shine through in his public comments and in the movies he writes,
directs, and stars in. In the past 35 years, Beatty has tramped precincts
for Democratic candidates from California to New Hampshire, helped write
campaign speeches for one Democratic presidential candidate, and written
checks for dozens of progressive causes and candidates, all of whom were
associated with the Democratic Party.


But Beatty, like Buchanan, is not happy with his party. The handsome movie
star has flirted openly with the notion of a Reform Party bid. He has also
kept alive talk that he may do something nearly as mutinous, namely,
challenging the party establishment's hand-picked choice, Vice President
Al Gore, for the presidential nomination. Beatty dismisses Gore and former
Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey as "cautious centrists,"
suggesting they are just as beholden to " money" contributions
as their Republican counterparts.


The political implications of these two possible challenges, particularly
a Buchanan de- fection from the GOP, could have a significant impact on
the 2000 presidential race--or they could prove inconsequential. But there
is a more philosophical point at stake here--that the nation's two
political parties have become so much alike that they don't really stand
for much anymore. Are these just the rationalizations of ambitious men
with big egos, who crave even more of the spotlight than they've had so
far? Or is something more significant at work here--something that will,
in the end, ensure the survival of a vibrant third party in American
politics? These questions are more nuanced than they might appear at first
glance, and perhaps it will take the 2000 campaign to help answer
them.


Campaign in the Middle


Three decades ago, Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace rode racial politics and
his own crude brand of Southern populism into a presidential election that
shook both parties to their foundations. When addressing the blue-collar
Democrats who formed his base of support, Wallace would ease their sense
of guilt by assuring them that there wasn't "a dime's worth of
difference between the two parties." Wallace was speaking initially
about civil rights, but in time he settled on some of the
bogeymen--communism, Wall Street, multinational corporations--that
galvanize Pat Buchanan today.


The politics of the late 1990s, however, is in some ways more unsettling
to the kind of disaffected voters attracted to a Wallace or a Buchanan--or
even to a liberal challenger from the left wing of the Democratic Party.
The stylized soundbites and poll-tested phraseology of modern candidates
give today's campaigns a cookie-cutter quality that transcends--or,
actually, seeks to downplay--party affiliation altogether. Which major
presidential candidate, for instance, made this statement on the stump in
late May?


"Faith-based organizations can provide jobs and job training,
counseling and mentoring, food and base medical care. They can do so with
public funds--and without having to alter the religious character that is
so often the key to their effectiveness."


And who said this in July?


"In every instance where my Administration sees a responsibility to
help people, we will look first to faith-based organizations, charities,
and community groups that have shown their ability to save and change
lives."


For the record, the first candidate was Democrat Al Gore; the second was
Republican George W. Bush, the Texas Governor. There is, of course, a
logic to this phenomenon: a plurality of voters now consider themselves
independent, and whether one calls them Wallace voters, Reagan Democrats,
soccer moms or swing voters, a candidate can't make it to the White House
without appealing successfully to these ticket-splitting uncommitteds.
Just ask Bill Clinton.


"If both candidates are smart, they campaign in the middle--that's
where national elections are won," says lobbyist Les Francis, a
former Carter Administration official. "That's where the country
wants to be governed, too--between the 40-yard lines--and successful
Presidents know this. But if you look at Congress, you see the profound
differences in the parties. They've never been more
polarized."


This is the other side of the point. If one looks strictly at policy,
Buchanan's argument is more of a stretch now than it was in George
Wallace's day. At the dawn of the 21st century, the two parties expound
vastly different solutions on the great domestic, social, and fiscal
issues of the day, and it has become starkly obvious that immediate shifts
in national direction occur based on who lives in the White House.


On Jan. 22, 1993, just two days after becoming the nation's 42nd
President, Bill Clinton signed five executive orders loosening
restrictions on abortion. Gone in an instant was the "gag rule"
preventing abortion counseling at federally funded health clinics, the ban
on fetal tissue research, the prohibition on abortions at overseas
military hospitals, and the rule banning the use of U.S. dollars for U.N.
population programs that offered abortions or even information on
abortions. In addition, the President ordered a review on the rules
against importing RU-486, a French-developed abortion pill.


In so doing, Clinton reversed 12 years of precedent developed under his
Republican predecessors, Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Certainly leaders
of the anti-abortion movement considered Clinton's actions significant--a
direct result of the outcome of the 1992 presidential election. "We
made a major, major blunder," said Patrick J. Mahoney, the leader of
the Christian Defense Coalition, a militant anti-abortion group. "We
grew lazy and complacent, because we knew George Bush was there to use his
veto." But now, it was Clinton using his veto--twice blocking bills
that would have outlawed the late-term procedure known as partial-birth
abortion.


Thus, if Buchanan, as a third-party candidate, siphons off votes that
would normally go to a Republican nominee, Buchanan will be forced to
explain how a man who presents himself as one of the most ardent foes of
abortion in American public life could risk swinging that election to the
Democrat. Would not Al Gore also veto "partial-birth" abortion
legislation? Or Bill Bradley? The answer is clear, for both Democrats have
already been jockeying for the mantle of the most "pro-choice"
candidate in the field. And what of the federal judges a Democrat would
appoint, when compared with, say, George W. Bush. Clinton boasted of a
litmus test--all of his nominees to the federal bench must support Roe vs.
Wade--a stance that Bradley and Gore will reiterate in the months to
come.


It is this issue more than any other that calls into question Buchanan's
motivations. Most prominent Republicans believe, as do many Democrats,
that it was Perot's third-party challenge that ensured President Bush's
defeat--and Clinton's victory--in 1992. If a similar thing happened in
2000, a third consecutive Democratic Administration could easily result in
a liberal lock on the Supreme Court, and on the rest of the federal
judiciary, that could last for decades. The conservative press has not
been shy in pointing this out, even if Buchanan's fellow Republican
presidential contenders--Sen. John McCain of Arizona is the notable
exception--have refrained from denouncing him.


The quick answer from Buchanan's supporters to the charge that he's
betraying conservatism and deserting his post in his party's hour of need
consists of two words: David Souter. "Another Justice Souter
appointment doesn't really help the pro-life cause," said Greg
Mueller, a movement conservative who worked for Buchanan in 1992 and 1996.
Mueller, who is with Steve Forbes this time around, says that Buchanan
considers George W. Bush a "pacifist" on abortion. The more
complete answer to Buchanan's apparent lack of regard for the havoc he may
cause is that Buchanan, at heart, is a radical who is willing to blow up
the Republican village to save it.


"Of course, Buchanan's goal is to make the GOP lose in 2000 and
thereby teach the party a lesson about deviating, even in the slightest,
from pro-life orthodoxy," says James Pinkerton, a former Bush
Administration policy aide. This seems like a dark view, but Buchanan said
as much himself in a recent interview with conservative Fox News host Sean
Hannity. Buchanan argued that conservatives were "better off"
because Gerald R. Ford had lost the 1976 presidential election. "We
got Carter," he said. But "four years later, we got Ronald
Reagan."


Differences in Outlook


The view that a presidential election can be squandered to make an
ideological point seems to carry with it a blissful ignorance of all the
practical things a President--and those who come to power with him--can do
to advance the causes and ideology of their party.


Just last week, Clinton vetoed a $792 billion tax cut sent to him by
Congress. Does anyone seriously believe that George W. Bush, or Elizabeth
Dole, or Steve Forbes would have vetoed that bill? To the Republicans,
this was a no-brainer: After years of deficit spending, the economy is
doing so well that the federal government is collecting more in taxes than
it needs--hence, the projected $117 billion surplus. It is an article of
GOP faith that Washington has no right to this money, and that it should
be returned to those who rightfully earned it.


"Republicans believe strongly that refunding excess tax dollars to
families and workers is a matter of principle," explains House Ways
and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer, a Texas Republican. "Taxes
are too high, government doesn't need the money, so taxpayers should get a
refund." Archer and other leading Republicans warn that what Clinton
really wants to do is spend this money. "Since President Clinton
killed this reasonable tax relief plan, he has given himself a license to
spend," Archer said. "And spend he will."


Archer's warning did not embarrass the Democratic Party, in the personages
of its two leaders, Clinton and Gore. True, they employed poll-tested
buzzwords to pillory the Republicans' bill--Gore kept calling it a
"risky tax scheme"--but neither the President nor the Vice
President makes any bones about his desire to use the surplus, as any
traditional Democrat would, for programs to make Americans' lives better
and to help the poor.


Specifically, they want to spend federal dollars on education, for
everything from rebuilding dilapidated school buildings to hiring more
elementary school teachers. They want to finance a prescription drug
benefit for Medicare. They want to underwrite a child care tax credit for
working-class families, spend more money on basic scientific research, and
bolster the pot of money available for enforcement of environmental
protection. And they want to keep intact the Clinton-era increases in the
Earned Income Tax Credit, a boon to the working poor that gives some 15
million Americans more money back in April than they paid in federal
income taxes the previous year.


Such differences in outlook and in policy prescriptions are legion, even
if their outcomes do not always make front-page news. For a dozen years
before the 1992 election, National Park Service brass had wanted to
reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone National Park. It was an issue of great
aesthetic and symbolic importance to environmentalists; more important,
study after study showed that it made ecological, scientific, and
historical sense. The wolves were there originally; it was the Park
Service that had removed them from the park in the first place. There was
persuasive evidence that the presence of wolves, even at the dawn of the
21st century, would be beneficial to current wildlife management efforts
in Yellowstone.


In fact, independent studies predicted that the reintroduction of wolves
would even be beneficial to the economies of the surrounding areas of
Wyoming and Montana, for the simple reason that wolves would attract more
tourist dollars than they would cost in livestock depredation. The
powerful ranching groups of the West never accepted this formulation--and
haven't to this day. Those groups, Republican by orientation, held
sufficient sway in the Interior departments of Presidents Reagan and Bush
to prevent the plan from getting off the ground. All of that changed when
Bill Clinton was elected in 1992. He selected as Interior Secretary Bruce
E. Babbitt, who had been serving as president of the League of
Conservation Voters. From that instant, Defenders of Wildlife and other
environmental groups began lobbying him on the issue. They didn't have to
work very hard to persuade Babbitt. By June 1994, Babbitt approved the
reintroduction of 30 wolves into Yellowstone. In March 1995, Babbitt
trudged through the snows of Yellowstone, helping to man the pens that
released the captured wolves.


This simply would not have happened under President Bush. "In terms
of the environment, it makes a world of difference who is in the White
House," says Defenders of Wildlife spokeswoman Joan Moody.
"President Bush certainly would never have appointed a
conservationist like Bruce Babbitt to be Secretary of Interior. And were
it not for the Clinton-Gore Administration, the Grand Staircase Escalante
wilderness in Utah, Headwaters Forest in California, and many other areas
would still be unprotected... And the Republican Congress would have
undermined many of our environmental protection laws through the
appropriations riders that President Clinton has vetoed."


In every government agency, decisions like this were made, many of them
with far less fanfare, during the past seven years--just as they were made
in the other direction in the 12 previous years, during the Reagan and
Bush presidencies. And they were made by the thousands of ideologues and
party stalwarts tapped as political appointees by the winning candidates
and their political parties.


"All my environmentalist friends are now working in the
government," Moody points out. "It just drives me up a wall when
otherwise-intelligent people say, `It doesn't make a difference who is
President.' They are not in policy, or they would never say
that."


The feeling is the same in the education establishment, particularly on
the other side, where conservative policy wonks have been seeing their
dream of school vouchers thwarted not just by the public school
establishment, but also by the Clinton Administration's faithful adherence
to the wishes of the teachers' unions. Public opinion may be split on this
issue, but, in the world of politics, there is a fault line running pretty
consistently along partisan lines.


"There are a lot of issues like that," says Rep. W.J.
"Billy" Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican who bolted the Democratic
Party during Clinton's first term. "One party believes in
redistribution of income; the other believes in the production of income.
One party believes that government is a prime distributor of essential
services, such as health care and education; the other believes in the
marketplace. One party believes in government making decisions about
personal behavior; the other believes in freedom and individualism. It's
the reason I'm a Republican."


Charles T. Manatt, a former head of the Democratic National Committee,
says that because candidates of both parties use the same data from the
same polls and the same focus groups, the campaign rhetoric often sounds
the same, but he believes this creates an impression that can be
misleading. The Democratic Party, he asserts, cares more about those below
the poverty line and those below the political radar than the Republicans
do. "In the states, particularly, the Governors--whether they are
Democrats or Republicans--are always stressing a lot of the same themes:
economic development, more money for cops and education," Manatt
says. "On the other hand, in Congress, the other side wants to cut
the E.I.T.C. in half--to screw working people getting a $420 rebate on
their taxes. I'd say that about sums up the difference between the D's and
the R's."


David R. Gergen is one of those names invoked by Buchananites who want to
say that the Washington establishment is one big, happy family. Gergen
served in three Republican Administrations and was a member in semigood
standing of the Washington press corps before going to work as a
presidential adviser in the first Clinton Administration. But Gergen
himself is an instructive case, for he was never accepted by the
Clintonistas, and after he argued internally against Hillary Rodham
Clinton's health care initiative, he was never a serious player inside the
White House again.


"I ran into a wall when I told 'em it was bad politics and bad
policy," recalls Gergen, who says that his tenure in a Democratic
Administration showed him the differences, rather than the similarities,
between the two parties. "I think there is more agreement than there
used to be on what the issues are, but very little agreement on how you
get there," he says. "And that's what accounts for the gridlock
in Washington."


Enter the Reformers


This is where the Reform Party comes in, at least the version of that
party launched by Ross Perot. In 1992, when the Texas billionaire all but
hijacked the presidential season, he built his appeal--and his fledgling
party--not on anything resembling a political philosophy, but instead on a
common-sense approach to problem-solving. His plain talk was a tonic to
those Americans weary of recession and of the Washington stalemate caused
by a professional political class seemingly more interested in partisan
sniping and in keeping power for its own sake, rather than in fixing what
was broken. For Perot, the best symbols of what was broken were the $300
billion annual budget deficits, which had pushed the national debt to $4
trillion, and America's trade imbalance, which he attributed to "all
these ex-government officials that cash in and become lobbyists for
$300,000 a year." In this world, Democrats were no better than
Republicans; the whole Washington establishment was in it together, and
government was part of the problem, not part of the solution--if not the
problem itself. Though Perot's appeal was essentially centrist in nature,
he tended to attract conservative and disaffected voters, a good many of
them, it seemed, as idiosyncratic as Perot himself.


The Reform Party of Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura is a different animal.
The U.S. economy is robust now, and has been for years. The budget deficit
that fueled Perot's rise is gone, replaced by a large surplus. The trade
pacts that so troubled Perot--and which stir the passions of Buchanan,
Beatty, and traditional union leaders--are now generally understood, even
by some in organized labor, to be a boon to America's remarkable economy.
Ventura's primary appeal, however, is as a centrist who represents the
majority of Americans who are unrepresented by the too-liberal Democrats
and the too-conservative Republicans, both of whom are overly beholden to
their respective special-interest groups. Thus, the looming Buchanan fight
for the nomination of the nominally pro-choice Reform Party is more than a
battle for the heart of that party--it may also be a fight over whether
America has a center-based third party at all.


But there is an issue that unites Perot, Buchanan, Ventura, Beatty, and
other mavericks as well, including Republican presidential candidate John
McCain. That issue is political money. One friend of Buchanan's said that
what really got Buchanan thinking of leaving the party was when Bush
raised a record $36 million in contributions in one three-month period.
"Pat simply saw that he wasn't going to be able to compete...and he
has some things he wants to say," said this friend.


In a teasing op-ed piece in The New York Times, Beatty stressed this theme
above all others. "To achieve universal health care...to lift 35
million of our people out of poverty...to protect our environment and
improve our schools, to arouse the nonvoting half of our population to
participate in public life, WE MUST HAVE COMPLETE PUBLIC FINANCING OF ALL
FEDERAL CAMPAIGNS," Beatty wrote, capitalizing for effect. This week,
McCain emphasized the same thing. "Our government has been taken from
us by the special interests, the big-money donors," McCain told a New
Hampshire audience while officially launching his presidential campaign.
"Our politics are corrupted by money and lies."


"You can't use my name on this," one House member said when
asked about McCain's point, "but he's right. So is Warren Beatty. And
Ventura. Money just rules so much around here. Last week, for instance, we
had a vote on a dairy bill. I didn't even read the thing. Most of us
didn't, just as most of us don't have any dairies in our district. Those
who do voted the merits of it, I guess. The rest of us voted where the
money was."


Testimonials such as this one suggest that there is something to the
Buchanan/Beatty grievance, especially if one tweaks the premise a bit.
Instead of asking whether there is any difference between the two
parties--because clearly there is--the question might become: Have the two
parties become so dependent on Big Money that they have veered from their
ideological moorings and in the process ensured that meaningful change--or
even healthy debate--is no longer possible inside of them?


"There's just this deep sense out there that politics is controlled
by a few special interests, both parties are beholden to campaign
contributions, and no one can effect change," says Rep. Bob Filner,
D-Calif.


Filner is a liberal by ideology and a maverick by temperament, and he has
the luxury of representing a district so Democratic that he was one of
five House members to vote against proceeding with the impeachment inquiry
last winter. But he believes that Buchanan and Ventura--and not just
Beatty--are onto something. "We like to think that our ideology
differentiates us, but the public sees the system overflooded with money
and that it's all rhetoric, that it's all about the money and
partisanship," he says. "Take Kosovo as an example. All the
peaceniks were hawks, all the hawks were peaceniks. Why? Because the party
of the President changed. `We screw them, they screw us, and we call it
public service.' The public thinks we follow the money. And we do. In that
way, the parties are alike. I think the public will reward the first party
that unchains itself."


Mark Murray contributed to this report.


Carl M. Cannon

National Journal