The Campaign Gets Dirty (and Fun)

In the early 1960s, Al was a fireballing right-hander who won 17 games for the Indians' Triple-A team. Unfortunately, that left him merely the fifth-best starter in the Tribe's farm system (at a time when they brought up only starters), which also included Tommy John, Luis Tiant, Sonny Siebert and that most terrifying power pitcher of the 20th century, "Sudden" Sam McDowell. Under Carter, Al was a top aide to Walter Mondale, and founded and edits The Hill, that most resourceful and fearless of congressional newspapers. Last time I saw him was over a drink in the Four Seasons at the Republican convention in Philadelphia. Al strikes me as knowing more about life than most Washington types, so it was immensely gratifying to hear that we were of one mind on something. "Bush and Gore are close on the issues," he said, "and the race will tighten." We agreed that this could make it a very dirty, personal campaign.

We both paused for a second, before saying, almost simultaneously, "...which ought to make it a lot of fun to cover."

Last week it got fun to cover. There was an absolute bonanza of unscrupulous political ads and press conferences. In Skaneateles, where the Clintons are spending their summer vacation, local officials ordered Rick Lazio supporters to remove signs from their front lawns. Hillary claimed on tv that Lazio "helped write" one of Newt Gingrich's budgets (every majority-party congressman "helps write" the budget). Nevada Republican senatorial candidate John Ensign wrote a letter trying to scare his Democratic opponent Ed Bernstein away from a perfectly legitimate mention of Ensign's voting record on Medicare and Social Security. Ensign warned tv stations running Bernstein's ads that "civil penalties may apply." Paul Begala was on MSNBC attacking school vouchers, saying, "Do you have any idea what the private academy that George W. Bush went to costs?... I do. Let me tell you. It's $24,500 a year. So you're going to give me fifteen hundred bucks to send my kid to a school where Junior went to school at $24,500? That's bait and switch, isn't it?"

Uh, no, Paul, that's demagoguery on your part.

But it was demagoguery the Republicans richly deserved. Granted, vouchers are a good thing. As a study showed last week, they improve inner-city educational performance. But Republicans' voucher rhetoric (back when they were a long way from power) was always demagogic rather than programmatic: "If Bill Clinton can send Chelsea to Sidwell Friends," they used to say, "why shouldn't a crack dealer from Southeast Washington be able to send his daughter to Sidwell Friends, too?" This puts one on the expressway to Hoisted-By-One's-Own-Petard City: "Well, okay, if George W. Bush owns the Texas Rangers, why shouldn't Jose Garage-Mechanic from the south side of Dallas be able to own the Texas Rangers, too?"... "If Charlton Heston has a house in Beverly Hills, why shouldn't Mary-Lou Performance-Artist have a house in Beverly Hills, too?"

Dirty as the campaign was getting, what was most disgusting was to see the namby-pamby way that those who were attacked responded. It was invective masquerading as well-meaning disappointment. After an insurance lobby supporting Sen. Slade Gorton of Washington ran a perfectly legitimate ad accusing his potential Democratic opponent Maria Cantwell of trying to raise Social Security and energy taxes, Cantwell responded: "They and Slade Gorton must be frightened by my agenda and the progress we have made." Wow! I knew girls like that in high school, the kind who say: When you say I'm disgusting, that actually means you're in love with me. No such girls of my acquaintance are currently married. No such politicians of my acquaintance are currently elected.

Then Al Gore made the perfectly legitimate point that there was nothing specific about George W. Bush's Social Security or medical reforms. Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett replied that Gore's saying "put up or shut up" was "an attempt to deflect criticism of his administration's ability to get things done." Bush's communications director Ari Fleischer says, "When a candidate, and a man who would be our president, starts engaging in playground challenges, he lowers all of us." That's a bit better. Of course, it's still totally untrue?it's galloping malarkey, in fact?but at least it's not an insult to everything we know about human psychology. If Dubya gets elected, he'll be the first to ride into office on the strength of oh-you-meany tactics.

You can say that this politics is either good politics or it's bad politics. But it's definitely not constructive. Both candidates claim to be anguished by the "decline of civility" in politics. But if this therapeutic mock-pity is what we get in the place of incivility, then let's have incivility. Really?imagine if families worked like this:

Husband: You whore! Why did you sleep with my best friend? Why were you on crack during Stephanie's ballet recital? Why did you spend the money we were planning to live off of for the next 20 years on a spring wardrobe you never wore?

Wife (to Stephanie): You know, this desperate, pathetic, unfatherly diatribe merely reflects the failure of his paternal agenda... (to husband) On that subject, why did you gamble away both our cars in Las Vegas? Why did you smash all the china in the house, shouting, "I've had enough!"? Why did you quit your job and go on welfare?

Husband (to Stephanie): It's kind of sad, really, and lowers the tone of debate, to see your mother resorting to personal attacks this way.

Stephanie'd be a lot less emotionally scarred if her parents just slugged it out. We'd be a lot better off if our politicians just slugged it out.

McCollum As I See Him But that's not what politicians do. When people ask me why I don't particularly like Washington, I often think of Florida's Republican congressman and senatorial candidate Bill McCollum, who represents (no kidding) Disney World. McCollum has earned his reputation as a solid right-winger by always focusing on the really tough, conscience-exercising ethical issues of our time, and taking a brave stand. The great legislative monument of his congressional career was a bold bill to increase the jail terms for pedophile stalkers, which Congress passed?surely after much searing moral anguish?by 416-0 in June 1998. Almost a decade ago, McCollum was a regular attendee of the Wednesday lunch meetings Paul Weyrich held at the conservative Free Congress Foundation. The smartest right-wing friend I had back then, who used to attend these meetings, said that watching McCollum was making him doubt the whole conservative project. In the eyes of idealistic Reaganites, McCollum was a run-of-the-mill Washingtonian: a dork and a B-plus intellect, whose only distinction was his megalomaniacal ambition. He remains a guy who will do anything to get elected. His race for Connie Mack's formerly safe Senate seat, against Democratic state insurance commissioner Ben Nelson, is turning into a nightmare. Voters outside of Orlando have greeted him coolly, and, having taken a lead role in the Clinton impeachment, McCollum now feels a desperate need to establish some left-wing bona fides. So, just as he did on that highly controversial issue of how to deal with men who rape little boys, McCollum has wrestled with his conscience, and has decided to back a hate-crimes law, that last refuge of scoundrels. "When someone is brutalized or killed?," he explained to a group of Jewish leaders a week ago, "it is fundamentally wrong." Not that one should raise one's voice in disagreement, or that there isn't a case, however flimsy, to be made for hate-crimes laws?only that anyone who says something like this as if he's imparting moral wisdom is off his head.

The entire political class seems off its head this election cycle. The long-admirable David McIntosh was Dan Quayle's most libertarian adviser during the Bush years, but now that he's running against Frank O'Bannon for the Indiana governorship, he's showing signs of right-wing weirdo-hood. Last week, according to the Associated Press, he urged "mandatory sentences for third-time violators of 'quality of life' offenses." These include "public indecency"?presumably, offenses like saying, "That's fucking crazy!" too loudly in a bar, or carrying around a beer without a paper bag covering it.

Then, in Washington state, gubernatorial candidate John Carlson attacked the incumbent Democrat Gary Locke for turning a blind eye to secret meth labs. In this he was following the Iron Law of the Drug War: the fewer drugs in a constituency, the more paranoid the populace is about drugs. This Iron Law is most visible every four years when a drug scare about the Iowa "crystal meth outbreak" or "crack craze" heats up during the state's caucuses.

The excesses of McIntosh and Carlson make it easier to understand the excesses of Rudy Giuliani, who?after undeniable success in driving serious crime down?has over the past few years focused on things like jaywalking and traffic violations. James Q. Wilson noted in Slate last week that this is the first election since 1964 in which crime is not a major issue. That's because this is the first election since 1964 in which we have a long record of crime dropping dramatically. Democrats won't mention violent crime, because they want it to be a nonissue, to claim credit for its shrinkage. Rudy won't mention it himself, for similar reasons. Less successful Republicans can't mention violent crime either, because to do so would be to draw attention to the spectacular record of the United States in fighting crime under Clinton.

What's curious is that, even in an era of plummeting crime statistics, the enforce-enforce-enforce mentality is proving impossible to unlearn. Wilson's wrong to say that crime is not an issue. Real crime is not an issue, but it's being replaced with petty crimes, such as "quality-of-life" offenses. Politicians are zeroing in on midtown jaywalking, children's car seat violations and?oh, yes?that Washington state crystal meth outbreak, swearing up and down that if you'd ever walked down those mean streets of Everett, Redmond, Tacoma and Walla Walla, you'd know that Washington state makes Washington Heights look like a polo club.