Re-running Democracy

By this time of year, we're usually done mulling over election results. We've resigned ourselves to our new slate of rulers. But this year, after a peculiar episode in New Jersey, we're still talking about what happened in that state's gubernatorial race. What's more, what some politicos are saying is very, very ominous.

At a post-election breakfast, Ed Rollins, campaign manager for Gov.-elect Christine Todd Whitman, declared quite openly that he had used $500,000 to pay off Black ministers in New Jersey so they wouldn't press their congregations to the polls. If Rollins had been enjoying bacon and eggs at home and talking privately to his wife about his shenanigans, some shrewd investigative reporting might have unearthed the story. But Rollins was in Washington D.C., and he was eating with a gaggle of journalists at a public occasion when he casually revealed his plot.

Of course, the media went wild, trying to dig up every detail and gain corroborations from Whitman staffers. Witness the remarkable reactions: Whitman's brother, also an aide, said that much of the campaign's work went toward "getting out the vote on one side, and voter sup...and keeping the vote light in other areas." Does Mr. Webster B. Whitman, in this little snippet, shy away from the term, "voter suppression?" Carl Golden, the governor-elect's chief spokesperson, said, "Sometimes voter suppression is as important in this business as vote-getting."

These comments should shock every citizen of the United States. We should be appalled that politicians, the people to whom we trust the government of this nation, freely admit practices that seek to prohibit the exercise of civil rights. When someone tries to keep you from voting, they become as venal and despicable as the thugs of a totalitarian dictator.

Unfortunately, acts of voter suppression appear far less evil--less evil than losing an election--to campaign staffers and gadflies. Rather than a fundamental infringement on citizens' rights, these cold power-magnates view their actions as mere manifestations of Realpolitik.

William Safire, one such gadfly, all but condoned Rollins' actions in a column that ran in The New York Times a few days after the initial rumblings. He harkened back to his days in the Nixon campaign, fighting against the infectious popularity of John F. Kennedy '40. His job was "to direct payments to black, Jewish, Irish, Polish and other newspapers and radio stations...to encourage the gazettes and stations toward editorial balance." What editorial balance is this? A careful weighing of opinions that ends in ambiguity, or a vile attempt to keep journalists from taking a side, making an endorsement?

To Safire, it was noble enough. Furthermore, he believes that the system he perpetuated has continued until the present, where Rollins' "curiously reformist" remarks are just a public statement of privately acknowledged fact. Instead of investigating, prosecuting and "re-run"-ing affairs in New Jersey, Safire endorses "a few good reporters, preferably Black and street-smart, to lay out this bipartisan system for all to marvel at."

Does the body politic of the United States still lounge in the days of Boss Tweed? How strange that the Republicans in New Jersey have not leveled parallel charges of pay-off practices at the defeated Democrats! Stranger still, that so many other elections went off without a hitch in a time when media bombshells bring in the big bucks. We need not even debate the political correctness of Safire's last few phrases; they testify to his poor understanding of the problem.

In spite of Safire's recommendations, the government is ready to investigate, to prosecute and perhaps to re-run. The suit filed against Rollins, the New Jersey Republican State Committee and the Whitman Campaign alleges that Rollins and his staff acted in defiance of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, federal civil rights statutes, and, on a more interpretational note, the First, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution. The United States Attorney for New Jersey, Michael Chertoff, has even suggested that criminal charges will be brought. The Federal Bureau of Investigation set up a hotline for informers within a day of the first press reports.

Rollins and his staff have been studiously denying all of his initial comments. Denial presents a daunting task, when three top campaign people make the same "mistake." Rollins has explained his comments as lies intended to rile James Carville, the campaign manager of former governor and Whitman opponent Jim Florio. (You might recall Carville as the guy who engineered the defeat of Perot and one notable Republican a year ago.) Is Ed Rollins, pundit par excellence, really stupid and immature enough to say things that could get him arrested just to dig at Jim Carville? Luckily, the Democratic State Committee of New Jersey and the F.B.I. have not called off the dogs.

Whitman's largest problem, which she must face without the help of Rollins or most of her campaign staff, is dealing with the scores of Black ministers who were outraged and demeaned by Rollins' statements. Not only did Rollins implicate himself in criminal wrongdoing, but he called a lot of pastors bribe-takers. The Whitman people have pointed to the ministers as evidence that the pay-offs never happened, but they neglect one crucial point of law--it's just as much a crime to offer a bribe if it isn't taken.

The Feds, hopefully, will get to the bottom of this matter. If Rollins' first blurted words were the truth, then the election should be re-run. It's not enough to say, "We're sorry, we'll do better next time," when the sanctity of voting rights is violated. While Safire and other Nixon alumni groan, the democratic process must take its course.