The United States of Ambition, by Alan Ehrenhalt
Hannaford, Peter
theme (Robert Taft, Ronald Reagan). George Bush comes out a hybrid: self-nominating in. 1980, standard-bearing in 1988. Carter was perhaps the first to run "as the reflection of his own ambitions...
...Most elective jobs are fulltime, and people enter politics for "sheer In careful and absorbing detail, the au-enjoyment," a far cry, of course, from thor traces the change over the last three the ideal of public service...
...The choice those who see government as a potential is usually between (1) a person who is solver of all problems and those who articulate, energetic, committed, and are skeptical about its ability—or its fighting for a career in government, and right—to do so...
...Carter was perhaps the first to run "as the reflection of his own ambitions and values, representing no established interest in the society...
...one-man-For the presidency, we vote for values one-vote court decisions...
...sent a set of ideas or a well-defined THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1991 47...
...Ehrenhalt traces the new politics of C o, clearly, Ehrenhalt's "new politics" ambition to the breakdown of hierarchi- 10 will be less useful in explaining cal political structures: machines and presidential races...
...Sioux Falls, South Democrats tend to have these qualities Dakota...
...Ehrenhalt, who thinks higher taxes are the only way to cure deficits, clearly likes ever-expanding government...
...2) a person who lacks these qualities...
...At lower levels— the world...
...These gatekeeping structures I politics in recent years," says screened candidates for dependability Alan Ehrenhalt in The United States of in what were then part-time jobs...
...cases, he betrays a faith in ever-expandBelow the presidential level, Ehren- ing government...
...Greenville, South Carolina...
...They are responding in an ing nothing more than a "backlash...
...The former, usually a Democrat, wins...
...ideology...
...as old leaders died and retired...
...Today, many, perhaps most, where election is a matter of "deliver- candidates are "self-nominating...
...The author admires the drive and commitment of the new-breed pols, but sees a critical flaw in the system that has developed since the breakdown of party hierarchy in the 1960s: "It has allowed power and leadership, at many levels, simply to evaporate...
...Republicans tend to channel Utica, New York...
...it also gives him nothing to fall back on once he is forced to govern...
...Congress and most state legislatures...
...They Ambition, is that Republicans have won were supported by disciplined organizafive of the last six presidential elections, tions that could make policy decisions while Democrats consistently control quickly and quietly...
...Indeed, he considers halt contends, "there is no reason to be- occasional victories by limited-governlieve that voters are trying to tell us much ment candidates as aberrations, reflect-of anything...
...and, not least, we are comfortable with nationally— sixties campus radicals itching to change Republican values...
...The decline of political networks allows more scope to the new-style candidate...
...He divides presiden"downtown" business groups in the case tial candidates into the "self-nominatof cities, parties in the case of state leg- ing" breed (Jimmy Carter, Gary Hart, Richard Gephardt, Michael Dukakis) Peter Hannaford has been active in Re- and the "standard7bearers," who reprepublican politics for many years...
...Ehing services" and "generating programs renhalt writes: that voters, on a day-to-day basis, refuse to give up"—the Democrats excel...
...What has happened, he have taken advantage of the absence of lead-says, is that men and women are no ership to nominate themselves to office and longer elected on the basis of party or begin immediately to govern...
...Alas (for him), ad hoc coalitions have replaced solid constituencies, leaving elective representatives to perform a precarious balancing act...
...There Ehrenhalt half-accepts one familiar are several reasons why, among them a explanation: that voters may have dif- loosened grip on power by the machines ferent expectations of different offices...
...What mat- decades, through the experience of four ters most is ambition"--energy, time, states (Wisconsin, Connecticut, Ala-willingness to work for little money, and bama, and Colorado) and four cities (not least) enthusiasm for government...
...Concord, California...
...They are the values of the particiquenchable desire for two-party govern- epreanditrs—eltdhefaspiedoppple whihoe, having hlelpdeedrshidips-, merit is wrong...
...The resulting paradox is that public opinion polls show large numbers of Americans disgusted with Congress as a body, while voting patterns tend to insure the re-election of incumbents...
...Although he is even-their ambitions into business and other handed in his depiction of individual non-political careers...
...and in spades...
...essentially passive way to the choices He ignores the ongoing conflict between placed in front of them...
...23 Peter Hannaford 6 rr he oddest riddle of American islatures...
...THE UNITED STATES OF AMBITION: POLITICIANS, POWER, AND THE PURSUIT OF OFFICE Alan Ehrenhalt/Times Books-Random House/309 pp...
...He leaves the impression that, for him, an ideal system would combine the efficiency and discipline of the machines with liberal tax-and-spend legislation...
...All that has been swept away...
...If so, his undoing provided voters ample reason to opt for standard-bearers in all three elections since...
...Equality, individualism and openness are the But Ehrenhalt thinks the media wis- crucial values of American politics in the dom that Americans simply have an un- 1990s...
...For those non-careerists who think government's role should be more limited, there is a way out of this paradox: term limitations...
Vol. 24 • November 1991 • No. 11
