WASHINGTON REPORT: Politics and Politicians
Sisyphus
WASHINGTON REPORT' POLITICS AND POLRICMMS Politicians are in that category of persons whom we can't live with, but, in a representative democracy, we can't live without. Most of them, when they're...
...Edith Green of Portland, Oregon, who fought for federal aid to education and fought against such abominations as the House Committee on Un-American Activities, al-though she soured in her last few years in the Congress, and Rep...
...The federal government, Governor Dukakis said, should decide what only it can do well, while freeing state and local governments "to do what we do best without a maddening maze of federal forms, requirements and bureaucracy...
...The politicians of both parties could both improve the caliber of their craft-and the welfare of the nation- by applying the words of Senator McGovern, who spoke at the same national conference in Louisville as Dukakis did...
...A continued weak economy, an unprecedented corrupt presidency a few years ago, a ridiculous military misadventure in Indochina that cost 56,000 American dead and an unresolved racial question on the eve of our entrance into our Third Century, all these have been major factors in generating this un-happiness on the part of Americans...
...The country can be falling down around our ears and a sitting President, in his State-of-the-Union Message, will seek to persuade us that everything's in pretty good shape...
...These are the "certain places and times...
...Yet the two governors daily illustrate what Emer-son once ascribed as common American traits-"plain-dealing and common sense...
...Two, who didn't strut, but did well were Rep...
...Who said that...
...Two examples are governors-Brown of California, the most populous state, and Dukakis of Massachusetts...
...but when they're bad, they're horrid...
...The question, then, is not whether we need We do...
...SISYPHUS...
...In a speech entitled "The Issue is Us," McGovern's first words were: "In certain places and times, political leaders must talk with the people of things which they might prefer to whisper only among themselves...
...The latter-even un-der the duress of the 1930s Depression-simply declined for a variety of reasons to establish needed programs: aid-to-the-unemployed, effective health care for all, etc...
...The public, educated and otherwise, seems uncertain these days...
...He answered his own question: "Quite simply, a clear and intelligent division of functions between the federal government on the one hand, and state and local govern-ments on the other...
...Former Geor-gia Governor Carter won the Iowa precinct caucus ejec-tions in late January, with nearly 28 percent of the vote...
...Newspapers and television preferred to publicize those given to strutting within the congressional chambers...
...The economy is in ill-health...
...The largest percentage of support for a Democrat presidential candi-date was 12 percent, while the largest individual percent-age was that of "undecided"-42 percent...
...Concretely, this is reflected in the declining percent-age of registered Americans who are voting-only 40 percent of voting age Americans actually voted in the last congressional election...
...It is also reflected in a recent professional poll taken approximately six weeks before the Massachusetts primary...
...Self-government is not necessarily local government, which is why the federal government is running a lot of programs that even their managers concede would operate better if run by state and/or local governments...
...We do, however, need more politicians practicing politics, in the words of an Englishman, as "an ancient and honorable adventure...
...Richard Boiling of Kansas City, Missouri, who publicly insisted that the congressional structure-e.g., committees and the procedure by which their members were appointed-needed an enema...
...President Ford recently sent the Congress a budget based on curtailing public spending...
...Americans' dissatisfaction about their typical politi-cians is also illustrated by the recent election of a new breed of political cat-only a few, but there may be many more to come...
...Of course, what the federal government can do well is not being done well-foreign policy is both corrupt and unfitting...
...Normally, with approximately 8 percent unemployment nationally, this would be a major assist in defeating bis campaign for nomination and election to the presidency...
...An election year may seem to be the logical time to produce such politicians, but often this is not the case...
...Governor Alf Lan-don of Kansas, the Republican presidential nominee, in 1936, said that during his campaign against the in-cumbent President, Franklin Roosevelt Of course, the weakness in the Dukakis formula is an assumption that local and state governments would as-sume responsibility for carrying out programs allocated them under any "reorganization" of functions between the federal government and themselves...
...In the dismal 1950s and the public-relations 1960s, there were politicians in the Congress (all members of Congress are not politicians) who did their duty without fanfare...
...What is needed, asked Dukakis, at a recent national Democratic party issues convention, in Louisville, Ky...
...They didn't become household words, thereby...
...The press, conventional as it is, has difficulty describing the outlook and words of these governors, because they are considered unconven-tional...
...Governor Dukakis doesn't specifically say so in his speeches, but he suggests, as does Governor Brown in his addresses, that "a man can be a liberal without ' being a spendthrift...
...but 37 percent of the elected delegates said they were uncommitted...
...Most of them, when they're good, they're very, very good...
...He preferred to walk alone in ostracism, sacrificing personal advancement with-in the House of Representatives, rather than to soft-pedal in any way his prescription for reforms-some of which have been adopted...
...But this risk is diminished, temporarily at least, because of Americans' standoffishness toward both major political parties and the uncertainty as to what to do on the part of the Democrats themselves-beyond the criticism that President Ford isn't doing the correct things...
...This is why Americans are unhappy about their politi-cians and politics this year...
...The tax system sug-gests an adherence to-a policy of socialism-for-the-rich and free enterprise-fbr-the-poor...
...Law-enforce-ment agencies have broken the law...
...So the "Feds" did...
Vol. 103 • February 1976 • No. 4
