Why Americans Don't Care

If there's one thing that I noticed about President Clinton's fundraising scandal, it was that nobody in the Democratic Part was talking about it--or at least none of the Democrats with whom I work. I figured this was natural. Scandals within one's own party or about the candidate one supports are often considered off-grounds as topics of conversation; partisans are usually courteous with regard to fellow partisans' problems. Keeping this in mind, I thought it might be interesting to look into what College Democrats and campaign co-workers really feel about the fundraising tactics of our President.

I was rather surprised by what I found. I would raise the fundraising issue casually over dinner or during a conversation, expecting to encounter some discomfort at first and, eventually, a strong opinion on the issue. Strangely, I got neither. The more people I spoke with, the more it became obvious that the Democratic activists weren't silent on the fundraising issue because it made them uncomfortable. They were silent because, in the end, scandals such as these do not have a dramatic effect on one's status as a Democratic activist.

Naturally, the fundraising scandals--the scandals in general--do affect us to a certain extent. Many Democrats I spoke with supported the President and Vice President, citing the historic fundraising advantage held by Republicans. In spite of the Democrats' shady fundraising tactics, Republicans still "out-raised" Democrats by a couple of hundred million dollars. We're proud of the fact that the rich fat cats (of this country) don't give our party as much money, but, as a result, it becomes necessary for Democrats to kick and scrape to approach the amount of cash the Republicans rake in. Fundraising comes easy to Republicans; Democrats have to reach for something more. The defenders of Clinton obviously recognize the ethical issues involved in his fundraising tactics. But as far as they're concerned, if they are going to donate their time to a campaign, their candidate should at least begin on an equal playing field--financially and otherwise--with the opponent.

If some Democrats defend their President, still others feel betrayed by him. And I admit that I feel a bit betrayed as well. It's hard to blame us. We gave up our weekends in January and February of last year to campaign for Clinton and Gore in desolate New Hampshire; we spent our days fleeing from angry dogs and angrier shotgun-toting Republicans, all in search of one or two extra votes; we spent our nights with students from dozens of other schools on the frozen tundra of a YMCA gym mat--at the very least we could have been rewarded with a remotely ethical campaign.

The fundraising scandals also tend to marginalize the importance of supporters' volunteer work. These scandals are a reminder that some politics is global, not local. For the hundreds of hour I volunteered to the campaign, I didn't make nearly as much difference as Al Gore could have in ten seconds of conversation with Chinese donors. As an activist, this is a disconcerting and unsettling thought.

While some Democrats that I spoke with did express such opinions, many more expressed less concern over the issue than I had expected. And while I, too, feel both defensive and ashamed of the President, ultimately the scandal does not affect me very much. Of course, with Clinton's favorability ratings still above fifty percent, the fundraising debacle does not seem to have affected the public's view of the President very much, either.

Why don't the American people care? To start with, they have long since become accustomed to this President's scandals. The public has been presented by the media with a heavy rotation of Bill Clinton scandals since the New Hampshire primary of 1992. That amounts to over five years of non-stop scandal. Since scandals have become a norm, rather than a deviation, I would venture to say that the only thing that would worry the public would be the sudden disappearance of scandals. The average Joe figures that "those bastards in Washington are gonna be up to something rotten," so he may as well know what it is. If all of a sudden he stopped hearing about the corruption, he would be convinced that the government was hiding something, in which case it would be time to sound the alarm. The fact is that in the people's judgment, qualities of leadership have made a clean break from qualities of character.

The public also recognizes that this administration's misconduct, while not an advertisement for the glory of the American democracy, is rather mild compared to that of past White Houses. Historical scandals such as Watergate or the Teapot Dome had ramifications orders of magnitude greater than the present-day fundraising scandals will ever have. So before my fellow Democrats and I go banging down the door of the GOP, it is worthwhile for us to keep in mind that the last two Republican administrations to reach their second terms have produced scandals significantly more pernicious than the one plaguing Clinton.

This is probably the reason why most College Democrats, including myself, are not up in arms about the fundraising issue. Of course, it bothers us. We donated a considerable amount of time to the campaign, and it is disheartening to know that it was not conducted as ethically at the top levels as it was at the grass-roots level. But at the same time, we also know that scandals can happen to anyone, Democrat or Republican. We also know that scandals can happen to anyone, Democrat or Republican. We knew this before we became active in the party. We believed then and continue to belive that politics, despite its shortcomings, was the best way for us to channel our progressive energies and to effectuate widespread, positive change in our communities. And despite the attempts of many of define politics in terms of scandal or corruption, we still believe that politics is ultimately about effecting this type of change.

For now, we will continue to work for the party, doing what we can (although there is not much we can yet do) to see that its campaigns are conducted ethically. And although it may be a pipe dream, we can also hope that those among us who have political careers in their futures will be able to keep the scandals to a minimum.

Eric S. Olney, a junior living in Leverett House, is the president of the College Democrats.