Two Jerry Browns
Dionne, E.J.
I Primary victim and victor THE TWO JERRY BROWNS LIMITS OF 'POLITICS OF LIMITS' There are two authentic Jerry Brown's in American politics, neither of whom happens to be the Governor of...
...At the same time, he helped local churches to search out their identity and to organize themselves for greater apostolic efforts by sponsoring two pan-African episcopal conferences, one francophone and the other anglophone...
...To encourage the spread of Catholicism, he supported local seminaries...
...But for all this, the most startling fact is that neither Carey nor Dukakis did very well, Carey got 52 percent of the vote, Dukakis 42 percent...
...He was also quick with a quip, and this seemed to hurt him as well...
...Dukakis, after all, was disliked not only by Proposition 13 and death penalty advocates...
...Carey and Dukakis had to cut their budgets--and they did...
...His" political lineage could be traced to the Progressive Era: he favored "open government," was critical of patronage, and appointed some of the toughest regulatory commissions in the nation...
...And yet neither performed convincingly...
...One, Governor Hugh Carey of New York, won his Democratic primary fight last month...
...This meant that Carey, to make up for his opposition to capital punishment, pushed a series of tough anti-crime measures...
...His main opponent, Lt...
...The third man in the New York race, State Senator Jeremiah B. Bloom of Brooklyn, favored the death penalty, but his candidacy was not taken seriously and in any event, Bloom declined to make the death penalty the center- piece of his campaign...
...In 1962, the Al~ostolic Delegate for Central and West Africa, Bishop Sergio Pignedoli, had organized for the then Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini a long expedition by jeep, canoe and Piper Cub from Nigeria to South Africa...
...Gener- ally, Brown has been associated with the politics of limits, of government cutbacks, of falling expectations...
...Among the Christian churches, his promotion of ecumenical collaboration in place of missionary rivalry, led some English church leaders to speculate that by the year 2000 the number of African Christians might well exceed 350 million...
...In Washington, Carey prided himself on being an insider who knew how to get things done...
...The promise haunted him this year, even though he managed to keep property taxes down in city after city this year by the surplus he had built up through his fiscal program...
...they also shared stands on the "social" issues that make life miserable these days for liberals...
...Carey, on the other hand, has managed to cut state taxes a billion dollars over the last two years, a fact he doesn't let voters forget...
...But Carey and Dukakis were different--largely for reasons not of their own choosing...
...Both Commonweal: 677 governors had to raise taxes upon taking office to make up for budget deficits...
...In short, the side appeal of the politics of limits may also be its undoing as far as Democrats are concerned, because everyone wants someone else to pay for the limits everyone appears to favor...
...One of the fLrSt moves to indigenize the African church came at the new pope's first consistory...
...But the paradoxical fact may be that Democrats who actually do behave as budget cutters will face the greatest problems of all...
...In October, 1964 the pope inscribed on the calendar of saints the names of 22 young Ougandais Christians who were burned alive for their faith in 1886...
...Bankers, utility company executives, auto dealers and repair- men: all loathed the Dukakis administration...
...Carey was also blessed with weak opposition...
...And the third candidate in the Massachusetts race, former Cambridge Mayor Barbara Ackermann, was a liberal whose votes were almost drawn at Dukakis's expense...
...And in the end, one man won and the other lost...
...Holding together a coalition that rests on the poor, the liberals, working-class voters and the unions requires state spending...
...Both men actually were confronted by limits...
...The following August, he conferred episcopal consecration on ten autochthonous prelates...
...But Carey, too, had a public personality that caused him difficulties...
...Brown, on the other hand, made token gestures but was not under any real pressure to do more than that...
...A product of Mas- sachusetts reform politics of the early '60s (before the deeply ideological politics bred by the Vietnam war), Dukakis was deeply concerned with procedural change...
...Most impor- tantly, Carey ran scared and Dukakis did not...
...During the 27 O(tober 1978:678...
...The other, Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis, lost his primary to a militantly conservative Democrat, Edward J. King...
...and who were tough on public employees...
...in short, Democrats who performed roughly the way the conventional wisdomwould have us believe Democrats must now perform in the wake of Proposition 13...
...He did not have what the political consulting trade these days calls "believability...
...To implement his views, Paul gradually moved to install 200 local bishops in positions formerly held by foreign clergy...
...So would President Carter...
...King proclaimed this fact in a series of well-constructed media spots, paid for by Dukakis's business opponents...
...Some voters appar- ently believed that Carey's tendency to crack jokes suggested that he was less than serious about his job...
...I Primary victim and victor THE TWO JERRY BROWNS LIMITS OF 'POLITICS OF LIMITS' There are two authentic Jerry Brown's in American politics, neither of whom happens to be the Governor of California...
...Dukakis, despite energetic campaigning, continued to seem aloof...
...From among this number, he appointed 12 black cardinals to the Sacred College...
...But Dukakis had pledged during the 1974 campaign he would never raise taxes...
...It also meant that Carey traversed the state of New York giving the image of someone who at least knew that voters wanted him to cam- paign...
...Much attention was focused on his nights out at New York bars--as if he were the fast politician to enjoy his evenings...
...Reasonable explanations for their different fates abound...
...Beyond all the rest of the public persona Brown has carefully nurtured, the politics of limits has clearly played a central role in creating the trans-ideological appeal that has served Brown well in con- founding traditional politicians on the left and right...
...E. J. DIONNE, JR...
...Similarly, Carey has failed to arouse much en- thusiasm among most public employee unions, blacks or liberals--though he will probably get enough help in these quarters to win in November...
...even during his lifetime, Paul was lovingly referred to as the Pope of the Third World...
...For Brown's supporters on the left, the politics of limits has meant E. F. Schumacher, opposition to nuclear power, slow growth, environmental sanity...
...Carey, on the other hand, was far more a traditional politi- cian...
...I I The feeling abroad THE AFRICAN POPE PAUL VI & THE THIRD WORLD Paul VI's death forced many of his critics to reassess his pontificate, placing the controversial statements on sexual morality within the larger context of the church's mission to promote all peoples...
...On that day as he looked forward to the future of the Catholic Church, Paul described Africa as "the new homeland of Christ...
...Governor Mary Anne Krupsak, was badly funded and agreed with Carey on both the death penalty and Medicaid abortions...
...A black bishop, the Voltaique Paul Zoungrana received the red hat, followed by two more in April, 1969...
...Then, to give public witness to his commitment to African peoples, in 1969 he traveled to Kampala for the ceremony honoring these first witnesses to Catholicism on the black continent...
...What--as opposed to who--is a real Jerry Brown...
...In addressing the African bishops at the Cathedral of Kampala, Paul said, "You Afri- cans, you are already your own missionaries...
...J. Dionne, Jr., is a member of the staff of the New York Times...
...For those on the right, it has meant less government, fewer programs, lower taxes...
...He clearly yearned to be in Jimmy Carter's place to push the bill through...
...King also made an issue of Proposition 13, an issue largely avoided in the New York campaign...
...Both opposed capital punishment, and both favored Medicaid funding for abortions...
...New York has already had its propostion 13," he says, which is not exactly true, but which serves the Governor's political purposes at the moment...
...Dukakis's main opponent, on the other hand, was resolutely for the death penalty and against abortion...
...who through tough cuts--including cuts ' in welfare budgets--managed to achieve balanced budgets...
...Respect for Paul spread among African peoples even before his papal consecration in 1963...
...Barbara Ackerrnann drew only seven percent of the vote, but her candidacy symbolized a liberal-left disaffection that also rob- bed Dukakis of the enthusiastic support of liberal campaign workers...
...The need to replace foreign missionaries with an indigenous hierarchy was one of the themes running through the October 20, 1967 message, Africae Terrarum, for "the promotion of the religious, civil, and social well being of their continent...
...On airplane rides during his primary campaign, he could outline a tax cut and reform bill that he knew could get through Congress...
...At the same time, he was also seen as being too human...
...Dukakis's defeat by an advocate of Proposition 13 is being heralded as a sign that Democrats nationally must move to the right...
...Dukakis prided himself on being a manager--cold, crisp, as specific as Brown is vague, as managerial as Brown is mystical...
...Exactly where Brown himself sto6d remained something of a mystery...
...Unlike Brown, whose state budget was running a huge surplus (thanks to Ronald Reagan), Carey and Dukakis took office in states that were deeply in the red...
...Beyond personality, however, Carey and Dukakis not only had records that embodied the politics of limits...
...In a state whose politics were made famous by James Michael Curley, Dukakis gave the appearance of a cold man whose rectitude was such that one could not imagine his giving a patronage job even to his brother...
...But neither vote can be called a mandate for the politics of limits, of which both men were adept practitioners...
...If he wins in November, Jerry Brown would do well to study the campaigns in New York and Massachusetts...
...The two real Jerry Browns could hardly be different from the politician whose name is associated with the politics they practiced--or from each other...
...Such are the wonders of the political language bequeathed us by the '60s...
...Moreover, whereas California's economy was relatively sound,~ New York and Massachusetts were experiencing a serious flight of capital and jobs...
...These experiences .with African villagers-many of them literally "lost" in the forests--convinced Paul of the urgent need to return, not only the land, but its churches also, to the peoples of Africa...
...He was also opposed by state policemen who wanted pay raises and liberals who opposed his spending cuts for welfare programs...
...Finally, in a year when taxes were near the heart of the public's attention, CDey was far better placed than Dukakis...
...His opposition to, and then forced embrace of, Proposition 13, together suggest that the politics of limits may be little more than the politics of telling voters what they want to hear, and having more of them believe it than usual...
...Here were two Democrats who inherited huge deficits from Republican administrations...
...And with Dukakis's earnest politics came an earnest style...
...But for Democrats, who rose to national dominance on a sea of public funds, limits on gov- ernment spending may mean limits on popular appeal...
...Moreover, unlike Dukakis, Carey won the trust of large seg- ments of the business community--and had bulging campaign coffers to prove it...
...For many of the word's poorer nations, re-assessment was unnecessary...
...The difference between their votes is, of course, the difference between winning and losing...
...For Republicans, who have fewer qualms over attacking unions, and fewer still over cutting back on welfare programs for the poor, this may not prove to be an insurmountable problem...
Vol. 105 • October 1978 • No. 21
