A Happy Warrior, R.I.P.
CANNON, CARL M.
A Happy Warrior, R.I.P. by Carl M. Cannon The day after his State of the Union address, President Clinton rose early to attend a memorial service at St. John's Church across Lafayette Square from...
...Synar not only voted for the 1993 budget bill and the Brady bill, but also the assault-weapons ban, probably the toughest vote of his time in his mostly rural northeast Oklahoma district...
...At least he cared,'' Synar quipped...
...Why not?'' asked the perplexed constituent...
...He lost to an underfunded amateur who had no chance in the fall against the Republican juggernaut...
...Mike would never forgive me," Durbin said in his eulogy, "if I didn't use this opportunity to take one last swing at the tobacco companies.'' In the 1980s, the Democratic party, following Tony Coelho's lead, raised millions in PAC money from corporate interests...
...The next time liberals in their districts accuse them of wanting to wreck Medicare and starve the poor, they can pause and consider what it was like for Mike when he flew home to his district one day to find a billboard that read: "Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Synar''- placed by a disgruntled constituent...
...Fair enough...
...Seems a contributor from back home asked Mike for a favor...
...I covered a 1993 hearing on mining law at which Synar and Sen...
...Synar!'' when he arose to address them...
...Synar turned to Durbin, flashed his Huck Finn grin and said facetiously, "Just like home.'' If Synar learned to laugh at himself, he never learned to temper the fervor of his crusades...
...To be sure, if Synar were alive, he'd be calling them that, too...
...Clinton noted that Synar, resisting tremendous pressure from back home, voted for Clinton's 1993 budget bill, the one with the Oklahoma-hostile gasoline tax increase...
...Because," Synar replied, "you've given me too much money.'' Carl M. Cannon is the White House correspondent for the Baltimore Sun...
...One is to be responsive to the people, certainly...
...Synar's defeat in a Democratic primary two years ago foreshadowed the huge Republican victories across the nation in the midterm election...
...Synar has a liberal voting record, by far the most liberal of any white member from the South, more liberal than most Democrats from the North.'' Nor was this self-proclaimed "Okie from Muskogee'' a flag-waving hawk...
...Clinton gave one of the eulogies to a loyal friend, former House member Mike Synar of Oklahoma...
...John's Church across Lafayette Square from the White House...
...But when he was attacked, he always hung tough and kept his good humor...
...Dick Durbin recalled at the memorial service how on some foreign trip, a local dignitary had somehow induced a crowd of peasants to chant "Synar...
...The House Republicans are being called "extremists'' on a daily basis by no less a light than the president of the United States...
...At the memorial service, Sandra Zeune Harris, a longtime aide, told this amazing story...
...There's no way to know if Republicans are going to keep their power for two years or 40, but there are lessons they can learn from Synar's tenure...
...When he was defeated in 1994, there was probably no person in America more responsible for it than me,'' Clinton told the mourners at St...
...It also happened to be true...
...If I hadn't been elected president, he probably wouldn't have had to worry about whether the Brady bill became law or not,'' Clinton said...
...After hearing the man out, Synar told him he didn't think he agreed with him, but even if he did, he couldn't help him...
...Mike Synar spent the decade battling cigarette makers, mining interests, logging companies, and western ranchers, whom he derided as "whiny, millionaire, welfare cowboys.''He didn't always win, and he wasn't always right...
...It can be argued that Democrats are elitist and arrogant and that they lost in 1994 because they were out of touch with ordinary Americans...
...Pete Domenici hurled statistics, data, and anecdotes at each other-none of which was true...
...Cancer-the same kind that struck his ideological antithesis, Lee Atwater-took him just a year after he left Congress...
...He voted against the flag-burning amendment and against the Persian Gulf War resolution to boot...
...He runs some breathtaking political risks,'' Michael Barone wrote in the 1994 Almanac of American Politics...
...And like Atwater, he died too young, at 45...
...That day, and many others, Synar got on the nerves of his Republican adversaries...
...He wouldn't have had to take that tough vote.'' This was genuine on Clinton's part, not grandstanding, for the event was closed to the press...
...It was refreshing for the president to accept the burden of accountability for Synar's loss, but he may have been too hard on himself: Long before Bill Clinton came to Washington, Mike Synar was casting unpopular votes...
...He wore his maverick tag-and his ability to stir up passions-as an advertisement of his independence...
...But winning elections brings obligations...
...Another is to take the heat sometimes-the very kind being exerted now on House freshmen...
...But even when they thought he was misguided, they didn't question his motives...
...The one that passed by one vote...
Vol. 1 • February 1996 • No. 21
