Note to President Buchanan: Read 'em and Weep

Back in November 1994, the Republican takeover of Congress was heralded as the start of a new era. After half a century of Democratic domination of the House, the Republicans had managed to become a truly national party; they seemed to have a lock on the American electorate.

It is strange, then, to look at the press coverage of the New Hampshire primary, which has been almost unrelievedly pessimistic about the Republicans' chances in November 1996. None of the frontrunners is considered able to beat President Clinton, who has been decidedly less than popular throughout his term. Bob Dole is too old, Pat Buchanan is too mean, Lamar Alexander is too slick--somehow, the world-shaking gains of 18 months ago seem to have been dissipated.

This quick reversal is less shocking if one looks back to November 1992, two years before the Republican victory--when Clinton ended 12 years of Republican presidential rule, winning back large areas of the South and the precious "Reagan Democrats." Or one could go back another 2 years, to the aftermath of the Gulf War, when hen-President George Bush had approval ratings in the 90 percent range, and not a single prominent Democrat would run against him.

In other words, American politics for the last 5 years, at least, has been in a state of perpetual upheaval. That is why E.J. Dionne, Washington Post columnist and pundit, has the audacity to predict a Progressive revival in his new book, They Only Look Dead. "They" are progressives, liberals and Democrats, whose defeat in 1994 Dionne sees as the darkest hour before the dawn.

Dionne's analysis of American politics is simple and original: America at the end of the 20th century resembles the America of the late 19th century, when the Progressive movement emerged as a great national force. As it was 100 years ago, America is on the cusp of a massive economic transformation: then it was the rise of industrialism and cities, today it is the "Third Wave" of information technology and global markets. And, as at the end of the last century, Americans are profoundly unnerved by this change.

Clinton's 1992 victory, in Dionne's eyes, was a result of his Progressive approach to the crisis. Clinton wanted to use government creatively to solve the nation's problems, through innovations like public service, welfare reform, and universal health care. But the Democrats' failure to make these changes in Clinton's first two years infuriated the "Anxious Middle;" as Dionne calls the economically and philosophically insecure middle class; once again, government seemed impotent to address the problems they cared about. So, in 1994, the same people who turned against Bush now turned against Clinton and the Democrats, in favor of Newt Gingrich's Republicans.

For Dionne, Gingrich's radical anti-government posture is an attack on the legacy of Progressivism, as established by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. The great Progressive belief was that government should be used "to expand individual choice and protect communities, [in] an effort to improve living standards across the society...." Gingrich sees every act of government as an assault on freedom; but the lesson of the 20th century, for Dionne, is that government is crucial for preserving individual rights in ways that the market can't do on its own.

They Only Look Dead ends with a call for active government efforts for educational reform, universal health care and economic renewal; it's hard to disagree with any of these. But there is a great gaping hole at the heart of the Progressive program: the budget deficit. As Dionne writes, "The federal government now has less and less room in its budget for innovation and useful investment."

But Dionne doesn't propose any way to shrink the deficit; like the politicians he criticizes, he is unwilling to admit that a more Progressive society will not be achieved without some sacrifices. Indeed, Dionne barely even mentions the need for cuts in defense spending or tax increases on the wealthy; that would sound too much like the old, liberal solutions Dionne wants to avoid. They Only Look Dead makes one feel good about the idea of government; but it is paying for government that drives people into the arms of the Republican Party. A fairer society can't be fudged into existence with warm, fuzzy phrases about "Progressivism" until the nation makes a genuine commitment to paying for it.

After reading They Only Look Dead, one might wind up with a dangerous feeling of optimism about American politics. The remedy is The Buying of the President, a run-down of all the major presidential candidates' tangled relationships with their campaign contributors.

The Buying of the President is not entertaining reading; indeed, it's rarely even well-written, as one might expect from a book authored by a committee, the "Center for Public Integrity." Instead, it offers a straightforward list of dirty deals, some of them so brazen that it makes U.S. politics seem little better than Italy's or Mexico's.

President Clinton, with the whole federal bureaucracy at his disposal, has the most opportunities to trade favors for cash. You might remember how, just after the 1992 campaign, Al Gore was enthusiastically promoting an "information superhighway," to be built by the government like the interstate highway system in the 1950s. But on December 21, 1993, Gore gave a speech announcing that "unlike the interstates, the information highways wil be built, paid for, and funded by the private sector...." Coincidentally, on December 21, 1993, the Democratic National Committee received a $50,000 check from MCI, $15,000 from NYNEX, $15,000 from Sprint and $10,000 from U.S. West. Perhaps the Clinton Adminstration's telecommunications policy wasn't written in a conscious attempt to raise funds, but that was undoubtedly its effect.

Most of the time, contributions don't go directly to a candidate--that would be bribery--but to a candidate's many puppet organizations. Thus Archer Daniels Midland, one of Dole's largest lifetime donors, gave $900,000 to the Republican National Committee between 1991 and 1994, plus $200,000 to Dole's PAC, Campaign America, and his think tank, the Better America Foundation.

When you add the $275,000 ADM gave to the Dole Foundation, the senator's charity, and the $500,000 it gave to the Red Cross when Elizabeth Dole became its president, you're talking about some serious money. Shell games like these allow politicians to raise huge sums without appearing corrupt--over the course of his long career, Dole has received over $47 million in donations.

What The Buying of the President cannot do is prove that policy is actually made in order to win contributions, or in response to contributors' wishes; as might be expected, rich business executives donate to Republicans and labor unions give to Democrats, but these groups have a common ideology as well as a common financial interest. At the very least, however, the money in the political system limits politicians' freedom of action, disillusions the public about democracy and distracts lawmakers by forcing them to hold constant fundraisers.

More than any of E.J. Dionne's arguments, The Buying of the President shows that there will be no major changes in government policy until there is serious campaign reform.