Squaring compassion & self-interest:

...Fred and Elizabeth Skoretsky, who work as occupational therapists for the handicap-" ped, are active in the peace movement and the right-to-life movement...

...The New Senson, George Will, Simon and Schuster, 1987, 224 pp...

...Aged twenty-six in 1984, Gapolinsky is married and the father of two children...

...Explaining her support for Mondale, she describes herself as "a social welfare person" and acknowledges that the Democratic platform may not be in her own economic interest, a perception shared by many of the other middle-class voters Schell interviews...

...But, equally important, the middle class, or at least its younger members, like the Gapolinskys, no longer believes it's getting value for its money...

...Thus, as Bill moves up in the business world, they both find it natural that he set himself apart from what Gina describes, only half in jest, as "the unthinking, down-the-line, union-supporting, uneducated Democratic blue-collar workers...

...In addition to propounding a cyclical theory of history similar to Arthur Schlesinger's- that eras of public-spirited reform inevitably follow periods of privatism- McElvaine seeks to develop a political rhetoric with which progressives can address a generation whose historical memory begins, dimly, with JFK and whose central experiences are Vietnam, Watergate, the malaise of the Carter years, and the good times of the Reagan years...

...Asked why he's leaning to Reagan, Gapolinsky explains that things have been going better, not only in his own life but also throughout the economy, since Reagan replaced Carter...

...Jesse Jackson emphasizes his passionate populist appeal to working people, farmers, and the poor...

...Gina Gapolinsky, for her part, sees the world in much the same way...

...Schell's account of how the 1984 campaign played in Milwaukee (History in Sherman Park, Alfred A. Knopf, $15.95) is adapted from a series of articles that appeared in the New Yorker in 1986...

...But, since the enactment of Medicare almost a quarter century ago, the Democrats, for the most part, have stopped proposing programs designed to benefit a majority of Americans, the middle-class as well as the poor, and have become increasingly identified with programs targeted to one group or another...

...And, at a time when everyone from Jack Kemp to Joe Biden finds something to borrow from the Kennedy legacy, McElvaine points out what liberals can learn from JFK: to rouse a complacent society not with prophecies of doom but with a call to action, not by saying we as a nation are evil but by declaring America is fundamentally good but "We can do better.'' Following the demise of the Biden candidacy and Gary Hart's bizarre withdrawal and return to the race, the Democratic candidates are no longer presenting themselves as figures of generational change...

...For this entire Democratic field - and for the party they seek to represent-the question may well be: Which approach will return the Bill Gapolinskys of this world to the political faith of their fathers...

...Gina, remember, is the Mondale supporter...

...He urges progressives to distinguish between self-reliance, which we all aspire to, and selfishness, which is ultimately sterile and unsatisfying...

...vote "just on the basis of self-interest" -is an unambivalent Mondale supporter or, as Schell puts it, the only "serene liberal" in Sherman Park...

...Among the 1988 campaign books, if Schell provides the journal-ism, Kuttner the programs, and Will the historical perspective, then another entry seeks to provide the theme music...

...When it comes to discussing policies rather than politics, Kuttner is savvy but less specific, suggesting job retraining programs, universal health insurance, progressive tax reform, and restrictions on corporate mergers that swallow up funds that might otherwise have been used for productive investments...

...Bill Gapolinsky was torn between a president whom he saw as offering optimism and economic opportunity, and a challenger whom he saw as offering ineffective decency...

...Like Kuttner and the folks in Sherman Park, Will observes that national Democrats during the 1970s and 1980s appeared to forget the party's traditional constituency among middle-class working people...

...Two, he brought down interest rates from the 20 percent where they were under Carter...

...However, in spite of Sherman Park's continuing Democratic loyalty as reflected even in the 1984 returns, the people Schell interviews are disproportionately Reagan supporters...

...party (which, having lost four of the last five presidential elections, may seem more in need of advice than the Republicans...

...Listing Reagan's accomplishments, Gapolinsky says: "One, he brought down inflation...

...Decency or self-interest may be the political choice confronting the wealthy, but it should not be the question facing middle-class working people on election day...

...While Gina Gapolinsky sees Mondale as representing her values, if not her interests, several of her closest friends aren't even sure about that...

...Friends from Milwaukee tell me that Sherman Park was once largely Jewish and still has a substantial Jewish population, as well as blacks and white ethnics, all of whom live in relative harmony...

...Social Security, the minimum wage, unemployment compensation, college education under the GI Bill of Rights, and low-cost mortgage loans supported by the Veterans Administration and the FHA-all were provided by Democratic administrations...

...Comparing the life experiences of the baby-boomers with those of their parents, Kuttner explains why many younger members of the middle class no longer believe the Democrats have anything to offer them...

...Yes, the middle class pays the bills for the welfare state...

...Even Reagan voters return almost obsessively to questions of class, and it remains unclear whether the vocabulary comes from their union-member parents, their college professors, the community organizer next door, Schell's questioning, or their own way of looking at the world...

...He calls for an ethic not so much of compassion as responsibility- responsibility not only for ourselves but for our neighbors...

...At first glance, Schell's book may seem the stalest and least significant of the bunch...

...Significantly, of the entire network of family and friends, only Gina Gapolinsky-who proclaims she would never DAVID KUSNET was a speechwriterfor Walter Mondale during the final two months of the 1984 campaign...

...But Donegan offers only half the answer...

...it is a familiar irony of the politics of the 1980s that it takes a neo-socialist to remind the Democrats to remember the middle class without forgetting the less fortunate, while neo-liberals like Bruce Babbitt promise sacrifice for the middle class and material benefits only for the poor...

...Kuttner's majoritarian political instincts are sound...

...I can't even take the first step...

...Between decency and self-interest, Bill Gapolinsky uneasily chose self-interest, while Gina Gapolinsky proudly opted for decency...

...He was also a speechwri-ter for Jerry Wurf, the late president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and directed publicity in AFSCME's organizing campaigns...

...But I just can' t even begin to think that way...

...And so, while his subjects are not a representative sampling of America, Milwaukee, or even Sherman Park, they do tell an interesting story: how some people raised in the traditions of the Democratic party came to reject the politics of both the 1930s and the 1960s...

...Perhaps because he accepts radical politics as the norm, Scheil doesn't seem surprised by how many of the local politicos are products of the insurgencies of the 1960s and how many of the private citizens describe themselves as former radicals and use a leftish vocabulary of class struggle that seems drawn in equal measure from the union hall and the sociology classroom...

...Moreover, they might be expected to be the new generation of Democrats since they are the product of institutions and experiences that are bone and blood of the Democratic tradition: families where everyone voted for Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy...

...Recently, his career has taken a turn for the better...

...THE DEMOCRATS' DILEMMA Squaring compassion and self-interest DAVID KUSNET "It would just go against my backbone to vote just on the basis of self-interest," a young woman in Milwaukee told the journalist Jonathan Schell several days before the 1984 elections...

...He suggests that Democrats appropriate the Reaganite rhetoric of self-reliance, pointing out that the best social programs-education, job training, and child care-help people become self-sufficient...

...For people who came of age during the Depression and World War II, the Democrats provided nothing less than a new way of life for working people entering the middle class...

...Even more than Kuttner, who is pleased by succesful populist appeals by Democratic candidates in the 1986 elections, Will sees signs that the Democrats have learned their lesson, particularly in a recent party document, "New Choices in a Changing America,'' which concentrates on the economic plight of the new middle-class family, with two wage-earners striving to make ends meet, and calls for new programs in housing, health care, and day care...

...and, as several recall, Catholic educations that stressed the progressiveteachings of the church on social and economic issues...

...Schell's report reappears as part of an ample crop of "1988 election-year books": discussions of the issues and candidates in the 1988 campaign, studies of the attitudes of the electorate, and recommendations for the Democratic History in Sherman Park...

...Searching today's popular culture for themes that express a yearning for community, McElvaine suggests several ways in which progressives can speak to a generation that is skeptical of government, individualistic in its preoccupations, and basically optimistic about its prospects...

...An example of how a book may suffer from events that took place between its completion and its publication, McElvaine's offering has received much less attention than Schell's, Will's, or Kuttner's, and may have been unfairly dismissed as yesterday's conventional wisdom...

...There's no way we could have bought this house with interest rates at 20 percent...

...In fact, if anything skews Schell's findings, it is that, consciously or not, he found himself interviewing maverick members of what is still an unusually liberal community...

...Jonathan Schell, Knopf, 1987, 133 pp...

...The author of two histories of the Depression era, McElvaine is not just one more metaphysician of the baby boom but a serious scholar and thinker as familiar with the politics and policies of the New Deal as with the lyrics of rock musicians from Elvis to Bruce...

...Most other middle-class Milwaukeeans whom Schell interviews-from right-to-lifers who worry about abortion and the bomb, to a former radical turned businessman, and a union member who credits Reagan with restoring "pride in the country"- admit that they find their interests, their values, and their longstanding political loyalties pulling them in differing directions...

...Whatever the explanation, Schell seems to have heard more talk about class struggle in the living rooms of Sherman Park than I ever heard at organizing committee meetings during seven years on the road for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, including a two-month stint in Milwaukee...

...It is a tribute to Kuttner's shrewdness that his prescription for the Democrats is echoed partially by the conservative columnist George Will in The New Season: A Spectator's Guide to the 1988 Election (Simon and Schuster, $17.95...

...That is why, whether they vote for Reagan or Mondale, the young people Schell interviews tend to identify the Republicans with self-interest and the Democrats with altruism - a far cry from their parents who, more likely, identified the Democrats with both their own standards of social decency and their own self-interest and identified the Republicans almost exclusively with cold-hearted greed...

...Like Kuttner, Will comments on the phenomenon Schell observed first-hand: that the Democratic party helped to create a middle class which now feels the welfare state has nothing to offer it but higher taxes...

...As long as the Democratic party offers its own core constituency little more than the satisfactions of self-sacrifice,' there will be more studies of Republican victories and more recipes for Democratic revival.ican victories and more recipes for Democratic revival...

...An unintrusive narrator who lets his subjects speak for themselves, Schell devotes surprisingly little attention to the paradox that the Democratic party, which attained majority status by appealing to the economic interests of families like the Gapolinskys, is now viewed as hostile to their interests, even by some who remain committed to "social welfare" programs and feel pangs of guilt and social vertigo when they accept corporate promotions...

...Part of a congressional district that Mondale carried with more than 60 percent of the vote, Sherman Park is a rarity in Milwaukee or most major cities: a genuinely integrated neighborhood...

...Bill and Gina identify the Republican party with the pursuit of individual success in the corporate world, and the Democratic party with positions of lower status in the business world or with groups removed entirely from the market economy - the blue-collar world, the civil service, social service careers, and ivory-tower intellectualism...

...How this came about is explored by Robert Kuttner in Life of the Party (Viking, $18.95), which laments the loss of the "Democratic party's great unifying strength: the use of government to advance the economic condition of broad numbers of ordinary Americans...

...Life of the Party, Robert Kuttner, Viking, 1987, 265 pp...

...and obtaining a mortgage at 12.5 percent interest, with monthly payments of $656...

...and Paul Simon, who, ironically, may be the most successful generational and stylistic candidate of all - but appealing to the baby boomers' parents - casts himself as the heir to the New Deal tradition...

...older brothers and sisters who participated in the movements of the 1960s...

...This good fortune in itself might explain why Gapolinsky would vote to re-elect a popular president during a period of peace and prosperity, just as his father (loyal Democrat and union member that he was) might still have voted to re-elect Eisenhower in 1956...

...Sherman Park is also home for a number of progressive activists-community organizers, trade unionists, and liberal Democrats-who have influenced the politics of the neighborhood...

...Richard Gephardt stresses his record in Congress in behalf of industrial workers and farmers...

...The remaining candidates are searching for ways to meld a calling to a renewed spirit of community with an appeal to the bread-and-butter interests of middle and low-income people...

...Much of the talking is done by Bill Gapolinsky, the grandson of Polish immigrants and the son of a man who worked thirty years as a shipping clerk on the night shift at a brewery...

...Born after World War II, the children of blue-collar parents, but, for the most part, college-educated and working in white-collar jobs, the people Schell interview's are the new generation of Middle Americans...

...It's true that sometimes I think a vote for Reagan would be in my interest,'' she explained...

...This is not a series of experiences that produces faithful believers in the capacity of government to improve people's lives, and it is foolish for Democrats to continue using a rhetoric forged in the era of the New Deal...

...He has been promoted from salesman to district manager at the company where he works, an advance to management status that requires him to resign from his union and wear a jacket and tie to work...

...Part of the answer is offered by Thomas Donegan, a liberal alderman (and former SDS member) who represents Sherman Park: "You hit forty and have a couple of kids and a mortgage, and you know once and for all that you're in the class that's writing the checks for what the government does...

...The End of the Conservative Era, Robert McElvaine, Arbor House, 1987, 336 pp...

...Nonetheless, virtually every commentator who anticipates the 1988 campaign, from the liberal Robert Kuttner to the conservative George Will, keeps returning to the question that Schell implicitly poses: How can the Democratic party regain the loyalty of people similar to those he visited and interviewed...

...Thus, Bill Gapolinsky admires Reagan's skills as a fellow salesman and credits him with moving America back into the winner's circle, both in domestic and foreign policy...

...McElvaine's book is filled with reverent quotes from Gary Hart and Joe Biden, as well as other prominent Democrats and pop music figures, but its underlying premise is the same as those two ill-fated campaigns, that, after eight years of conservatism and complacency, Americans-especially those born after World War II-are ready for inspiring leadership modeled after John F. Kennedy and recalling the shattered dreams of the 1960s...

...On the eve of the 1988 pam-paign and after the stock market crash, the Iran-contra scandal, and other episodes in the lame-ducking of Ronald Reagan, it seems like ancient history to recall how fifteen people in Milwaukee felt about Reagan at the height of his popularity...

...By 1984, the Democratic ticket was perceived as offering middle-class voters little more than appeals to ancient loyalties, prophecies of bad times to come, calls for compassion for the least fortunate, and one easily understandable promise, a tax increase...

...Because of their opposition to abortion, they end up voting for Reagan...

...parents who worked at blue-collar jobs and belonged to unions...

...As the Gapolinskys viewed the politics of 1'984, the distinction was clear: Republicans represent the winners in the world, while the Democrats are the losers...

...The contrarian in the race is Albert Gore, claiming a constituency of Southern moderates by stressing positions on defense and foreign policy that are slightly more hawkish than the rest of the field...

...Schell fills in the details: The Gapolinskys bought their house in January, 1984, for $49,000, paying only $200 down...

...Even after Irangate, even after the stock market crash, many opinion surveys still show the voters rating the Republicans higher on competence, just as the Democrats continue to score better on compassion...

...This woman, whom Schell calls "Gina Gapolinsky,'' was among a group of fifteen Milwaukeeans whom he interviewed at great length during the two months before the Reagan-Mondale election...

...Nonetheless, the Gapolinskys offer additional reasons for Bill's defection from the Democrats...

...In Robert McElvaine's The End of the Conservative Era: Liberalism after Reagan (Arbor House, $18.95), the theme music is Bruce Springsteen...

...As for Mondale, Bill Gapolinsky agrees with him that the rich should pay a larger share of taxes, but wonders whether Mondale (or anyone) can change the rules of a world where "you can't beat big business...

...Michael Dukakis emphasizes his record at providing job opportunities in Massachusetts...

...In an effort to "find out everything I could about a handful of votes . . . instead of finding out a little about a lot of votes," Schell spent two months in the Sherman Park neighborhood of Milwaukee with one young couple, Gina and Bill Gapolinsky (Schell changes the names of most people in the book), and their relatives, friends, and neighbors-a sampling which splits eight-to-seven for Reagan...

...No wonder the young middle-class voters of Milwaukee deserted the party of their parents...