www.UsHumans.net: Chapter 20
How Washington shares power today
We have seen that kings and queens existed since the time of the first Mesopotamian city-states, and that emperors and dictators appeared in Mesopotamia with the emergence of the first empires around 2300 bc. Through the subsequent four thousand years, some of us humans have been subjected to the occasionally unjust whims of these emperors, dictators, kings and queens. In the Mediterranean region, the Roman Empire was the last and largest in a series of sloshing empires. It dissolved around 450 ad. Through the subsequent 1,000 years, the Byzantine Empire continued in the east while in the west, the village farmers of Europe were first the subjects of local lords and then of regional kings and queens.
We humans learned the hard way about the excesses of power in which our rulers might occasionally indulge themselves. In response, we have since required that our leaders acknowledge the right of humans to be free in their minds and homes; and we limit power by spreading it between many persons and by balancing the power of each element of government with that of another. Our lesson resulted in the new ideas of government that developed during the Renaissance between 1400 to 1700 ad. Through this time, there occurred a re-emergence of democracy but of a more limited form than had existed in Ancient Athens. It is more limited because the citizenry no longer meet to decide every action by a show of hands. In Chapter 19, we saw that democracy differs from an authoritarian state in that the latter outlaws all but one political party, which then has full control over the agenda and legislation.
The federal system of the United States was a new development in government. It combines state and national governments and was created by the Constitution of 1789. Individual states retain their sovereignty and independence along with every power, jurisdiction, and right that is not expressly delegated to the federation. Martha Derthick's article States and the Federal Government within Kurian's book explains that the division of duties between the state and federal governments can be summarized by the fact that the combined total of state revenues is less than half as large as that of the U.S. federal government.
We have seen that the growth in the size of our government has been a response to the social consequences of our switch from farming to factory work. Today, government accounts for one-third of all U.S. spending, while the health industry accounts for another one-quarter. Together government and health account for over half of all of the activities of the entire population of the U.S. The remaining millions of activities account for the other half.
This chapter contains a glimpse of the way in which democracy operates in the United States today. We have seen that democracy operates by spreading and balancing power between many persons. In this way, no single person or group can dictate goals, policy, and actions. Democracy requires a blending of views and priorities. In this way, a small number of our leaders can not force their views and proposed actions on the rest of us for their own benefit. To enact legislation, one politician must first obtain the consensus of a sufficient number of others. We will see that most of Washington’s daily politicking involves the attempt of one person or group to persuade others to agree to their proposed action; daily politicking involves little else. The daily news narrates days or months of persuasion and eventually reports the result. That’s about it. In this chapter, we will also see some of the effects of mass-media on the political process.
Most of this chapter is a summary of Hedrick Smith's The Power Game, How Washington Works. Smith’s book contains his observations of the political process during his career as a Washington Journalist. Smith describes how power is obtained and used. He also explains who has the power to choose the issues, and how a politician seeks the temporary favor of the people to obtain the power to accomplish a goal of his or her own choosing. He explains the role of staff and lobbies in creating the details of legislation, and he describes the roles of television, news, and the “marketing of political-products.” You might like to compare presentation styles and the message content of announcements through a succession of administrations by watching several videos at www.archive.org/details/prelinger.
Branches of government in the U.S.
In the year 1776, the new nation of the United States was able to put the new democratic ideas into practice. The U.S. Constitution spreads power and also balances it between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. The power of each of these three is balanced by the power of the other two. Due to the spread of power, our government is designed to operate through the consensus of many persons. A ten-minute video at www.archive.org/details/Powersof1947 illustrates how the country would operate if Congress were to be suspended.
The executive branch is headed by the president who is to carry out the laws of the Congress, sometimes by adding particular regulations to implement those laws. Recently, the president also has the duty to suggest an annual budget to the Congress. The president can veto any legislation that he or she thinks is not in the interest of the nation. The legislators can in turn override that veto by a two-thirds majority vote.
The judicial branch has the power to cancel any legislation it deems to violate the Constitution, which is the contract between the people of the United States and their government. (View the Constitution of the U.S. at www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/constitution.html.) The judicial branch is headed by nine, life-term members of the Supreme Court (see www.supremecourtus.gov) who are to determine the constitutional validity of any national, state, or local law. The president nominates new members to the Supreme Court but these must be approved by the Senate. The judicial branch includes over one thousand federal judges who preside over trials. A decision of these lower courts can be contested by repeating the trial in a federal circuit court of appeals. In turn their decisions can be contested in the Supreme Court. Due to large number of appeals to the Supreme Court–about 10,000 per year–Congress has recently given the court the power to choose which cases it will consider. It has been considering about one hundred cases per year. The result is that the Supreme Court now concentrates on cases involving fundamental interpretations of the Constitution rather than becoming involved in correcting the errors of the lower courts, effectively making the middle courts the place of last appeal. For information about pending cases or to take a panoramic tour of the Supreme Court building, visit www.oyez.org. Search cases at www.fedworld.gov/supcourt and get historical and other information at www.supremecourthistory.org.
The legislative branch is composed of the Congress (see www.house.gov) and Senate (see www.senate.gov) who are to create laws, raise taxes, and declare war. The citizens of each state elect two persons to represent them in the Senate for a six-year period. The citizens of each equally-populated area of the U.S. elect a person to represent them in Congress for a period of two years. The shorter term of the Congress is meant to make it more representative of the current and changing mood of the people. In this way the legislative process involves equal votes per equal population area in addition to equal votes per state. All legislation has to pass through both the Congress and the Senate. The Congress has the power to request an impeachment trial for any improper federal official. The trial itself is conducted by the Senate.
The typical person who becomes a politician has selected this occupation because of a pet-peeve issue that he or she wants to correct. Most legislators work twelve hours per day. Rudman said he believed one-third of his fellow Senators knew why they were there, what they wanted to do, and how to do it; he said another third knew what they wanted to do but not how, and the remaining third just didn't know.
Smith explains that each legislator–that is, each Senator and Congressperson–is serious about taxes, protectionism, welfare reform, putting the other party on the defensive, grandstanding to milk a hot topic for public relations points and applause, the interests of the home constituents, blaming the other party, and protecting their own legislation or committee. Sometimes these other activities divert them away from the best policy in a continued struggle for points, power, and influence. They continually take sides and form teams for each successive and simultaneous issue. In every situation each politician asks "What can this do for me?"
Political power and legislation through consensus-building, exchanges, and pressure
So that no single person is able to dictate policy, a consensus is needed to create each and every piece of legislation. This also makes democracy resistant to sudden change. Smith describes how political results are obtained through this process of consensus building. The consensus is often built as pairs of legislators exchange votes on each other's pet issues. The consensus involves the combination of interests from many politicians because legislation is constitutionally required to involve both the president and a majority of the members of Congress. Since legislators naturally group into farming, mountain-mining, urban, military, and many other sorts of blocks or caucuses, one can often get all of the members of a caucus to vote for your policy as a group without having to win each individual's separate vote. By the way, all legislation is formed in the haggling of the early committee stage. The televised floor debates are mainly for show because the legislation is then subject to just a final vote; often the hall is empty while politicians give their dramatic, televised speeches.
Political power is the ability either to make or to keep things from happening. Power can be gained in many ways. It can come from timing or by having more knowledge than others at the moment of decision making. It can come by thinking ahead of others or by having the inside information from being included within the small circle of insiders. Self-confidence, personal energy, integrity, visibility and showmanship, and just "being liked" builds the confidence and trust of other politicians and gives one the power of leadership. Power might be ended by being caught in a lie that tilted facts in the favor of your pet policy. Sometimes the continued obstruction and delay of the legislation of others gives one power because everyone has to "buy" his or her vote.
Jesse Helms got his power by saying no: often. By being known to be obstructive others had to give him something to get his vote. He introduced little legislation and knew that everyone would vote it down if he had. Just for show back home, he would introduce bills known to have no chance of becoming law. Due to his showmanship, in 1984 he raised a record $16 million in political action committee campaign funds.
Power in Washington is seen to be temporarily held by one person for a small number of days or weeks and then it moves to another person. For example, first the president, then one member of Congress, then a senator, and then yet another pair of senators has the power to lead the nation's approach on a current issue. There usually is a mixture of few large issues and several smaller issues, all simultaneously developing. Power might move due to any interaction or moment of celebrity or sympathy.
Sometimes we act as if we think that we can elect a president who will take control of our entire government and singlehandedly dictate policy to the Congress. The Congress is not the instrument of the president, as we saw for example when Jimmy Carter could not dictate energy policy to the Congress even though both were controlled by the same political party. The president doesn't control the government but shares it with 100 senators, 435 members of Congress, nine justices of the supreme court, and three million civilian employees and bureaucrats. Hedrick Smith says we should ask every political campaigner "What evidence do you have that you can get the cooperation of other legislators or other nations to deliver on your promise?"
In the last few decades there has been a further spread of power among many additional persons. This has occurred in several ways. The power of the president and of each legislator has recently become spread among a handful of unelected staff members. In the 1970s, the power of the senior members of Congress was decreased by increasing the number of congressional committees. Since the 1970s, the power of the party bosses decreased because they were no longer able to select and promote their own choice of candidate. Instead, party candidates are now chosen by the people in primary elections. This can also mean that individual politicians no longer have to rely on the party for campaign funding if they can obtain their own funding. These have decreased the power that the party itself had previously held over individual politicians. Television has helped to spread power among all politicians, even the newest ones. This independence can also mean less cohesion. Power has also recently become shared by special interest groups. Each of these power sharing elements will be further described below.
When a presidential candidate continually talks about the handful of reasons she or he is running for office, and then wins election, the members of Congress will often believe that the president was elected for those reasons and will cooperate in passing legislation on those very issues, as occurred with Reagan's first election. This is often described as a "mandate from the people." If a candidate does not give reasons for running then he or she doesn't get cooperation after winning the election because the legislators saw no clear reason for this president to have won the election, as occurred with Reagan's second election.
Politicians are successful at governing only if they have the ability to build a consensus for their proposed actions. The president must work with both the Congress and Senate; in turn, each of them must work with the president. It is wrong for the public to believe the claim by first-time campaigners that they are better-suited for office because they are “Washington outsiders.” It is wrong because nobody, outsiders included, can march in and singlehandedly dictate policy to the rest of the members of government. Each politician has to build cooperating relationships on every simultaneous issue by gathering allies and exchanging favors. They will agree to vote for another politician's proposed legislation–concerning an issue that is of little interest to themselves–in exchange for that person's vote on their own issue. The most savvy politician knows the vote count before introducing legislation. Barney Frank compares Congress to high school in that one get things done by being liked and having the respect of others; no one is able to fire anybody or make them stop attending.
Airplanes now enable legislators to dash home for the weekend. Before that was possible, legislators used to spend time together eating, relaxing, exercising, and forming compromises. Now, many legislators can not even identify the face of half the other legislators. Morris Udall said that just by knowing a member's name–and saying it as they passed in the halls–made that member more likely to vote for his legislation when a toss-up occurred.
The president and the leading members of Congress and the Senate used to meet regularly for dinner and such to exchange views. For example, the leading Democratic legislators, Lyndon B. Johnson and Sam Rayburn, used to meet with Republican President Eisenhower to hear his proposals. They would tell him how much he could expect to get from the Senate and Congress. They would often leave his republican label on the policy but add their own democratic ingredients. Such meetings are now less frequent and this makes it harder to work out compromises because it's harder to know what the members of the other branch of government hopes for, what they will settle for, and what they will take in exchange.
Some politicians hire image advisors who might recommend that they appear committed in their opinions–no matter what. Both George Bush and George W. Bush claimed their campaign opponents had poor character because they had changed their minds on some issue of the past. The politician's television image often promotes the notion that he or she would never compromise; but in reality, such a trait would cause our government to cease functioning. It is undemocratic behavior to take the uncompromising stance that "I'm right, I demand to have my way 100%, and I will not allow you to have a different view." We saw in Chapter 19 that civil war might occur when no compromise is sought and found. George W. Bush went so far as to suggest that anyone opposing his view was unpatriotic. It is scary or is it amusing when politicians within a democracy act in such an undemocratic manner? The next time you question candidates, ask them to define democracy.
We have heard much about governmental gridlock. Through much of the last several administrations, the Democratic and Republican parties each held about half the seats of each House. In contrast, European parliaments are more often totally controlled by a single party and so rarely have one opposing vote on important legislation. We voters help produce governmental gridlock when we elect a president from one political party and a Congress from another. Until fifty years ago, it was much more common for a citizen to vote a “straight ticket” in which he or she voted, for example, for the Democratic party candidate for every office–from mayor to president. Showmanship can also produce gridlock. Senator Howard Baker described his frustration with those who employed the delaying and crippling tactics of the filibuster over debate and action to achieve a consensus. One Senator's pet topic, say the abortion issue, could repeatedly stalemate action.
Politicians disagree and sometimes call each other names while in front of the television camera but might then go golfing together later that same day. Such insults are not taken personally. Each politician understands that the insults given should never be strong enough to hurt themself by making the offended person vote against his or her legislation for the rest of time. Every politician knows they can't make many permanent enemies. Upon winning one legislative victory, you still can't gloat publicly because next week you'll again need the votes of the losing side. Also, policy battles do not fully end when legislation is passed because the winners still must secure their gains with further legislation while the losers can still try to undo that legislation.
Recently, the president, legislators, interest groups, and lobbies all try to influence legislators by generating pressure from voters within each legislator's home district. This is done through computerized targeting techniques that mail "personalized" messages specifically matching the compiled interests of each voter. It is hoped that the voter will be motivated to contact his or her representative, as described in the lobby section below.
Each year about 20,000 legislative proposals are submitted to the committees but only about 2,000 become law. You can find a list of the completed legislative actions along with each member's votes in Congressional Roll Call, as found in the bibliography at the end of this chapter. Our politicians talk about the importance of many things. Those issues deemed important enough to warrant legislation are found in these annual records. You might like to check the amount of legislation involving those issues most important to you. Last year, did your nation’s legislation mostly involve education, retirement, the well-being of children, or war?
The military (see www.dod.gov) bureaucracy is the largest. Our military leaders quickly learned to maximize their support by spreading their projects to involve as many Congressional districts as possible. The B-1 bomber project involved forty-eight states. Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) quickly grew to involve forty-one states and several foreign nations because it was known that each of them would also join in the lobbying efforts. The Pentagon hires people to calculate and then show to each legislator the total dollar benefits to his or her district. Other governmental agencies–including the agriculture, labor, and interior departments–try to emulate the military’s funding strategy. The army flatters friendly or needed legislators with jet rides and military escorts but tells unfriendly legislators that it is too busy to do these things. The legislators who are the most challenging to the military are those from the states having the fewest military facilities.
The pentagon rarely kills a project once its production has started. Our defense contractors know this and so want to begin production while still testing. The pentagon, defense contractors, and legislators within each district will all help each other. Legislators will close bases only in an antagonist's district. In 1983 there were 13,682 defense contractor executives who had retired from service at the pentagon. From 1965 through 1985, the average defense corporation was four-times as profitable as the average corporation.
Bureaucrats are career persons who are experts in their fields. Typically, they are the only persons who know the details of laws and regulations. They try to promote their own policy by choosing details for their boss's policy. They have learned to keep a program alive by keeping the political heads in the dark about it and by playing the funding game.
Bureaucrats will leak news of budget cuts to friendly legislators who then make loud protests demanding those cuts be canceled. When faced with actual funding cuts within their own agency, bureaucrats will put those cuts into practice that cause the most political pain to the program legislator's constituents. The protests of the constituents in turn cause their legislators to demand the budget again be increased. At other times, the president or a legislator might feign budget reductions by announcing cuts in those areas known to be so popular that others will demand the cuts be canceled–thus shifting blame fro the lack of budget cuts. Legislators have found that the only way to cut entitlement spending is to cut all programs equally.
Bureaucrats and other career persons–for example, lifelong diplomats–want to continue policies by altering only details, while politicians want to make generalizations and sudden changes. For example, a career diplomat will want to minimize the impact of a new international crises to the existing years-old and hard-won foreign policy so that relations will remain at ease, but a politician will want to make a loud noise in order to make personal gains. The consensus of many separate and overlapping governmental agencies is obtained only after much conflict has occurred as each tries to promote its own policies and to increase its own importance.
The president sets the tone for the federal bureaucracy by providing an overall political view to its administration. When Reagan was elected his administration went much farther than any other in closely scrutinizing the selections of some 2,500 appointees, at many levels of government, for their agreement with Reagan's political philosophy. The president cannot provide personal oversight for the hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats who run several thousand programs and so must leave the details to them. Kurian quotes Peter the Great's complaint that "Not I, but ten thousand clerks rule Russia."
The president can set the agenda
The president's main role and power come from having the opportunity to set the agenda for the nation. The president can take advantage of having center stage on television to promote this agenda. The Congress and Senate have 535 voices while the president has just one (sometimes talented leadership in the Congress or Senate can temporarily produce a single voice for all as in the recent "Contract with America" of the Republican Congress. The president should focus attention on a few issues of top priority; Carter had so many priorities that he "had none" and was not able to complete as many jobs as he would have liked. Opponents to the president's agenda will bargain toward a middle ground that is acceptable to all. Sometimes members of Congress will pretend to go along, knowing that they can alter the final version of the legislation to make it better fit their own agenda. Legislators will sometimes directly challenge the president's agenda as unsuitable for the nation.
Politicians and the public are best at focusing on one major issue at a time. Each issue is quickly forgotten as the next one arrives. Political events are not controllable due to the unexpected crises that occur at any moment. A crisis might be a stock market drop, a navy boat being fired upon, the emergence of a dynamic new Senator, a personality conflict among politicians or staff, or a legal issue. Often, many events are occurring at the same time. The president has the best opportunity to fix the nation's attention on the issue of most importance.
Congress will temporarily cooperate with a newly-elected president who had given the voters his or her reasons for running for office, as mentioned above. Legislators then believe that the newly elected president has been given a mandate from the people to pursue specific legislation involving the campaign platform. A new president gets the cooperation of the Congress for about one hundred days–and had better take advantage of this short-lived opportunity. Franklin D. Roosevelt began the Welfare State in his first one hundred days. In Lyndon B Johnson's first one hundred days, he extended the Welfare State by taking advantage of the nation's grief over the assassination of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy. Johnson was able to put into law many of Kennedy's unapproved ideas. Johnson's campaign proposed a war on poverty; after winning reelection, he used that mandate to get congressional approval for his programs.
Reagan's first election was about increasing defense spending while somehow simultaneously decreasing overall governmental spending by cutting taxes. He quickly got his way on a budget arranged this way. His administration cut spending everywhere possible but still had a large deficit; in fact, in 1985 government spending was 24% of the nation's gross national product while taxes were just 19% of that amount. At that time, entitlements comprised 41% of government spending, defense was 29%, and interest on the national debt was 15%. The remaining 15% was used for every other function of government, including highways, parks, the FBI, customs, education, housing, border patrol, space, air traffic safety, mass transit, and environmental protection.
Reagan's Director of the Offices of Management and Budget was David Stockman. This office of six hundred persons took Reagan's vague, campaign notion of governmental spending and the national economy and in just one month created the details for Reagan's economic policy. When Stockman soon confessed that he had based the plan on an impossible 5% economic growth rate, the Reagan team managed to change this public-relations fiasco from "Is Stockman right that you and Stockman are wrong?" into a mere press discussion of Stockman's loyalty. After leaving office, Stockman admitted that he simply picked out the most optimistic predictions of many different economists to obtain what proved to be an impossible, "Rosy" scenario.
Reagan’s financial policy was described as “trickle down economics.” Dan Rostenkowski said that he had voted for Reagan's corporate tax cuts because he expected it to help the economy through reinvestment, but was instead angered by seeing the savings used to finance mergers. He was also mad that every worker saw taxes taken out of each paycheck while the wealthiest of us instead moved our money from one tax shelter to another.
Lyndon B Johnson described the cycles of cooperation obtained from Congress. He said that in your first year of office you are well-treated by the Congress. In your second year, many congressional members are trying to get reelected and no longer treat you as well as they had. After the election, you'll find that you have lost votes because the president's party always loses some seats during midterm elections. This means that you now have to work harder to get consensus on your issues. Some recent presidents have instead turned to foreign policy in the second half of their term in office. The third year is again free of reelections but the fourth begins with many legislators against you because they want to win your office. A president needs to show good performance in the third and fourth years to have some hope to be reelected. But the voter’s memory is very short: George Bush won a war and still was not reelected. Reelection gives you new opportunities in your fifth year but your party again loses seats in your sixth year. Your seventh and eighth are the weakest because everyone knows that your time is running out.
If a presidential candidate does not give a reason for running then, upon winning, he does not get that initial cooperation from the Congress because they think no reason was given for the votes received. This occurred in Reagan's second term, where he campaigned on vague statements like "get government off your back" without stating how he would do this. Carter never mentioned the details of his energy policy while campaigning. After being elected he tried to dictate the nation's energy policy by simply announcing it without obtaining the agreement of the members of the Congress and Senate, who then did not go along at all. Carter's ending successes were the Panama Canal Treaty, the Camp David Accord, and human rights.
Hedrick Smith also describes the numerous government officials that accompany the president on a trip. There are often 300 to 400 persons including 100 secret service personnel and ten to twenty White House press officials who bring xerox machines and 100,000 sheets of paper along with them. A lot of equipment also accompanies the president, including two bullet proof limousines. It takes another two or three C-130 planes to carry the communication equipment. There are typically 250 to 1,000 White House reporters who also go along on the trip. (In 1987 there were 1,700 White House reporters, compared with just twenty-five in 1945.)
From 1789 through the 1920s, the president had little more than an executive assistant. The number of persons in the president's staff began to increase with Roosevelt's administration in the 1930s. Carter wanted no hierarchy and temporarily reduced the size of the president's staff. In 1987, Reagan's staff consisted of 1,600 persons, including 620 in the budget office and another 325 in the White House, and had an annual operating cost of $114 million.
The Cabinet has grown to include fifteen persons. The most efficient presidential cabinet secretaries are those who build working partnerships with related legislative committee members. The appointments of these presidential advisors are subject to the approval of Congress. Recent presidents have been treating these persons as department managers instead of advisors. They leave advising to their more-loyal and directable staff whose appointments are not subject to Congressional approval.
The staff has come to have more influence with the president than do the members of the Cabinet. Since 1794, the official purpose of the Cabinet was to advise the president. But Cabinet members are not appointed until after the election has been completed. In contrast, staff members began working with the president during the campaign and were building trust throughout that time. After the election they continue living with the president in the White House, while the members of the Cabinet spend their time in other buildings where they must manage their assigned portion of the government. The staff's only job is to talk to the president. Recently, staff members have been campaign advisors rather than professional politicians. The Secretary of State is often a career diplomat who will pursue long-term interests and have his or her own view of the importance of a new international event. The staff sees policy from only the president's view and are more concerned about short-term popularity polls.
The power of the staff comes from their constant and trusted advice to the president and by controlling the access of others to the president. Nothing reaches the president without first going through the staff. The staff controls whom the president sees, decides which events are worth the president's time, choose the contents of the president's speech and what the press spokesperson will say, and often choose what the president will say to the legislators. The staff's proposed actions are subject only to the president's veto.
The transfer of power from the cabinet to the staff is a recent event. Staff members are unelected yet they wield the power of the formally placed cabinet members who are publicly assumed to exercise power. For this reason, it is likely that sometime soon Congress will pass a law requiring that each staff member's appointment receive the approval of Congress. Each president spreads the power among different staff members in different ways. Often the Chief of Staff, the National Security Advisor, the Budget Director, and a couple other staff members control the most power.
Abuse of presidential power and legislative reactions
Reagan wanted only to describe broad ideas and then stand aside to let his staff handle all details. This situation allowed the power abuse of the Iran-Contra affair to occur. His staff wanted to enact his policy but sometimes couldn't resist the urge to pursue their own agendas. Congress saw Reagan using his unelected staff in ways which avoided the checks and balances of the Constitution. They also wondered who in the White House was running foreign policy if nobody knew about the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels through arms sales to Iran. Reagan used the unelected members of his National Security Council to get around the official decision-making process of the Cabinet.
It was a demonstration that our democratic controls of power can be bypassed. This is important. Even though our government has been designed to ensure that no single person can dictate policy, the Reagan White House said that no elected official knew of the Iran-Contra actions. The White House showed contempt for any portion of our government that interfered with its own desires. There was a "government within our government" conducting its own freelance CIA operations without having its decisions and actions approved or supervised by Congress. Bill Casey actually wanted to extend this operation into a self-funded entity not subject to the people's Congress.
Reagan may have known about these actions and simply lied. If he really knew nothing then he showed a failure to have presidential alertness and vigilance for his own job and that there then occurred an internal coup within our government. Even after Congress cut the Contra funding, Reagan's partisans still raised millions of dollars in private donations and illegally channeled the money through a tax-exempt foundation. Reagan's secretary of state, George Shultz, said that he had only heard rumors of the arms sales to Iran from a U.S. ambassador who had heard stories from a major British arms dealer.
The documented Iranian arms deal involved an exchange of four plane loads of missiles for four Iranian-held U.S. hostages. The covert U.S. action was milked by the astute Iranian officials for all they could get. On August 8, 1985, the U.S. delivered one hundred American TOW antitank missiles to Tehran but got no hostages in return. They then delivered four hundred more on September 9, 1985 and got one hostage in return. In November, another shipment resulted in no additional hostage release, so it was followed by several more shipments. The U.S. had agreed to deliver four thousand additional TOW missiles–forty times the originally-agreed number–in January 1986 but the Beirut newspaper Al Shirae exposed the operation. By then the U.S. had delivered two thousand TOW missiles, eighteen Hawk missiles, and millions of dollars in spare parts. In return they got three hostages released but three more were taken and one was killed. Iran paid about $48 million for these items; of this total, $3.5 million was diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras. Reagan had to publicly admit to having violated his own ban on arm sales to Iran.
Colonel North showed the unbelievable power that can be held by the members of the unelected White House staff. He pressured the Portuguese government to let Israeli planes land to handle the arms transfer. He shared CIA intelligence with Iran over the objections of high-level CIA officials. He also arranged ships off the Cyprus coast to pick up the hostages and agreed to pay $2.2 million to the hostage guards.
This affair was similar to Kennedy's covert attempt to invade Cuba. If these actions were believed to have been of such importance then these presidents should have also believed they would have received the nation's approval. These presidents should have made their concerns publicly known. These un-Constitutional actions reveal the growing difference between the skills needed for governing and the talents needed for elections driven mostly by television image and sound bytes. Resorting to secret or unilateral tactics to get your own way unravels democracy.
The president has taken the U.S. to full-scale war several times, including the Vietnam War, without obtaining a Congressional Declaration of War as is required by the Constitution. In response, Congress has passed legislation limiting the president to actions of less than 90-day duration without obtaining Congressional approval. It is hoped that this will still allow the president to react more-quickly than the slower-moving, 435-member Congress. In the last fifty years, presidents have ordered military attacks on dozens of foreign nations.
In recent decades, Congress has been more assertive with the president about sharing power due to these excesses. The Watergate (see www.hpol.org/record.php?id=92 for the “smoking gun” tape) and Iran-Contra excesses made Congress wake up and reassert equality in power by legislating that no covert activity take place without Congressional approval. The Constitution already stated that all treaties the president makes with other nations require Congressional approval. In addition, Congressional approval is now needed for any smaller agreement that the president might make with other nations.
The Constitution states that Congress is to levy taxes and allocate spending and that it is the president's job to carry out the laws of the Congress. Nixon refused to spend the money Congress had budgeted because he disagreed with their decision. In response, Congress passed a law requiring the president to spend the money as they have allocated. Congress also created its own budget office so it wouldn't have to accept the economic and cost figures from the president's budget office. For example, if the president's budget says a project will cost $20 billion, the Congressional budget office can now verify the accuracy of this estimate. The Congressional budget office also hopes to keep the president's budget proposal from spending money as if there will be a high annual growth rate when a lower rate may be more likely. The president’s budget proposal sometimes mentions its assumed growth rate. You might like to compare it with the actual growth rate experienced in recent years. For example, the proposal might assume a 6% growth rate while that figure has been 3% in recent years. This might mean that the president is trying to make the deficit appear to be smaller than it will be.
Congress and its recent further spreading of power, and the power of congressional staff
John J Kornacki's article House of Representatives in Kurian's book describes Congressional procedures. At the beginning of each two-year session, Congress re-chooses its "operating procedures," including committee arrangements, officer selection and duties, and rules for processing legislation. There are usually about three hundred rules, many of which are repeated during each new session; thirty-five of which can be traced all the way back to the first Congress. When a new piece of legislation is proposed, it sometimes includes special rules for use in its own processing. There had usually been about twenty standing committees that controlled the legislative process of the Congress. The most-senior members have usually held the chair of these committees and so have also held most of the power of Congress itself.
In 1974, it occurred that many senior members left office at the same time, allowing an unusually large number of new members to take office all at once. This group of new members voted to spread the power of Congress among a larger number of it members by creating a much larger number of committees and subcommittees. At that time they chose to have about two hundred committees, but today this number has decreased to about one hundred. One legislator has commented that every member is now a chair of some sort of committee. The result has been a decrease in the power of the senior members by spreading the control of the Congress over a larger number of members. (Today's lobbyists see this as easier access to more-equally powered legislators.)
Before the spread of power among a larger number of legislators, only the most senior members of Congress had large staffs. Each legislator used to know even the family of each staffer. Now most every legislator requires a large staff. In 1985 there were 25,000 staffers for the 435 members of Congress. Each staff member holds a portion of the legislator's power because of their opportunity to set legislative details. This has meant a further spreading of power among a yet larger number of persons. The legislator's staff has grown because the issues have become more complex, detailed, and numerous.
Many legislators will hire staff members who are experts in a particular field, such as banking, taxation, budgeting, international trade, defense, arms control, the health industry, clean air standards, motor vehicle safety, or communications technology. These experts tell the legislator about the issue and are often the persons who set the details of the legislation of our government. Sometimes the legislator initiates an issue, but other times it is a staff member who develops policy and enactments. Our legislators are often figureheads whose main function is to make final decisions to accept or reject the package of details of a policy created by their staff of experts.
Carter said that he was mad when other politicians attended a meeting without knowing the details of the meeting's issue. He said some were there to gain votes by swapping stories not by swapping logical arguments. Carter did not like to call a legislator and ask "What can I do for you about something important to you in order to get your vote on this issue that is important to me."
The Joint Committee on Taxation has a nonpartisan career staff of a few hundred persons who know the tax laws and use computer models to predict future economic activity. The computer models are used to predict how much tax will be collected next year so that the government knows how much can be spent. The computer models involve the Gross National Product, inflation and interest rates, figures for new housing starts, and numerous other factors.
Smith describes how Senator Packwood realized just in time that the tax law proposals his committee was about to present would have shown that they had sold out to the lobbies in allowing numerous tax breaks for these special-interest groups. Packwood then chose to allow the Joint Tax Committee staff to develop a more-fair revision of the tax code. The head of the tax staff, Brockway, was given the opportunity to write the details of this improved tax code. His tax code would be designed simply to collect taxes rather than attempt social and economic engineering or favor interest groups and policy goals. He found a way to reduce income tax percentages and saved Packwood's committee from disaster.
When politicians make campaign speeches about their "tax cut and budget plans" they are thinking of a broad overview of what might come to be. The staff in the Joint Tax Committee office are usually the ones who take the politician's skeletal proposal and turn it into legislation. As campaigners debate plans and attack each other's ideas they are attacking vague scenarios that do not yet contain any details. The candidates can't answer detailed questions about their plan because no details yet exist. Campaigners instead display clever evasions of details rather than admitting that "the tax experts haven't yet used their computer systems to develop the details that, it is hoped, will put my overall plan into action." After laws have been enacted, politicians sometimes pretend they had created all aspects of the entire idea.
For some reason, our legislators and presidents do not want us to know that they do anything other than act alone in their efforts at governing. There's no reason for the function of the staff to be so hidden. Would they attract more votes by running as a team rather than as an individual? Perhaps some citizens would be happy to find out that expert staffers are playing a role in creating legislation because this means that the lobbies are not running the entire show. You might like to find out which legislators, staffers, and lobbyist played roles in creating a recent piece of legislation.
Staff members choose to work for a legislator because they want certain governmental changes within their own field of expertise. They are there to change the part of the world in which their expertise lies and are happy to let their boss serving in the legislature claim the credit. The unelected staff shares the power of the legislator by telling them about the issues and determining the details of legislation. They know they can shape policy by being the experts that handle the details of legislation. Staffers also know that their ideas have a better chance to become reality if their boss’s power is increased by their efforts. Staffers are always seen at the legislator's side, giving advice, whispering questions into their ear at a hearing, preparing them for interviews and press conferences, handling constituents and lobbyists, setting the agenda for committee meetings, haggling over legislative details with other legislator's staffers, formulating proposals, managing hearings, cross-examining generals, probing the CIA during a hearing, and negotiating with the president's staff. News reporters often prefer to ask a staffer about a project because they know that the staffer will summarize their work without the political slant that the legislator would use. Lobbyists understand that by just seeing a staffer they can get their message to that staffers boss, and boss's boss, who will in turn tell the legislator.
The more staff a legislator has to hire to handle the work load, the more power that legislator has to relinquish to those staffers. To gain the recognition needed to win reelection, legislators sometimes hire staffers who will help them get their face into the news and headlines. But the staffers also generate increased work to throw back at the legislator. Some legislators complain that they have to spend time putting out fires caused by overly-aggressive staffers. Sometimes they have to deal with fights between their own staff and the staff of another legislator. On the other hand, a legislator can have a staffer leak a proposed idea to the press and still be able to disavow that idea if it gets a negative reaction. When facing eminent failure, the legislator will have a staffer do the public presentation.
Legislators continually and simultaneously do many things, including floor debates, fund raising, spend weekends in the home district, attend committee meetings and floor votes, and meet with caucus groups, other legislators, lobbyists, the president, and constituents. On a single tax bill, there might be two hundred lobbyists trying to meet with the legislator–and again every time an amendment is introduced. Airplanes now bring an endless stream of constituents looking for favors. Legislators could not handle this volume without the help of their staff. The legislator's administrative assistants manage chaos all day.
A normal day has two or three conflicting, simultaneous engagements. A member of the legislator’s staff will attend an entire meeting, while the legislator might only make an appearance. The legislator darts from one engagement to the next, getting a quick fill-in from a staffer as they arrive at each meeting. Legislators might time their ten-minute appearance to occur during their scheduled speaking turn. At which time they might verbally deliver the few sentences suggested by the staffer. Legislators have been known to incorrectly say these sentences. In such a case, the staffer might lean in to retell them their sentences. The legislator will then re-say the sentences to correct his or her earlier attempt. Sometimes a legislator will begin saying “I believe” but then pause to again read the staffer’s note telling them what it is that they believe. After this momentary appearance in the meeting, the legislator rushes off to another engagement, leaving the staffer there to later fill them in on what occurred in the remainder of the meeting. One legislator once proposed that no staffers be allowed in meetings, hoping that legislators would then be more engaged in the proceedings. Often, it is only the staffer who has any continuity with developments.
Role of television and marketing in politics
In Chapter 15 we saw that at the time of the formation of the nation, political leaders were also our cultural, intellectual, and military leaders. Today, a politician is often more of a spokesperson than a hands-on expert at anything and can even become elected without having much of any governing abilities by simply being likable. In the U.S. today, many of us are voting for the most-likable person rather than the most knowledgeable and capable politician. Since 1960, telegenic personalities readily gain influence and power and win elections. The inexperienced senator John F. Kennedy was a deficient legislator who couldn't build a consensus but was the first telegenic president. He was considered a good president by the public though he still couldn't build a consensus to get his legislation passed. Simply having a telegenic personality can enable you to win your first election and allow you to bypass the educational process of rising through the political ranks. Some politicians gain influence and power by building a consensus while others gain these things from television publicity and sloganeering.
Legislators now have live cameras televising their daily proceedings. Some legislators have hired image trainers who advise them not to rush in at the last minute from a busy schedule looking unprepared, hasty, or bored. They are to look comfortable and prepared, be interesting, and most of all be committed because that makes them likable. Unfortunately, being likable does not mean you will be able to govern–unless you are the single-most liked politician in the nation who can then get whatever he or she likes. But being committed means not compromising and will at least result in a state of gridlock where nothing gets done; it may result in a loss of the mixing of views that is necessary in a democracy. Whenever you hear someone suggest to a politician that they be uncompromising, it means that that person does not know the requirements of democratic government. The politician acting in an uncompromising way does not know what democracy is about. Only an authoritarian state can act in an uncompromising manner. We saw in Chapter 19 that democracy means a blending of views that partially satisfies everyone and that civil war might occur if a compromise can not be found.
The television emphasizes personality and vague ideas rather than facts, logic, reason, or detailed plans. Political news can be a soap-opera-like series of personality conflicts rather than a running debate on abstract policy choices. TV news also emphasizes the more-simple, singly-occupied office of the president over the complicated 535-member Congress and Senate. The president has the leading role in the news soap-opera.
News becomes daily ups and downs in personality conflicts rather than investigations into whether or not a problem is being solved. For example, the news discusses whether Reagan's budget passed instead of investigating what its possible effects might be on the elderly. The news will report if the summit was a success for the president instead of describing if we are closer to obtaining real results. For network news, the size of the audience matters more than the number of political facts. For this reason, it sometimes prefers to present live coverage of end-results instead of the on-going debate over details.
Starting with Nixon, every "spontaneous" comment was preplanned for the television and every press statement was designed with the ways of the newspaper in mind. The leading paragraph in a newspaper story often contains about one hundred words so Nixon would say one hundred words in a press statement and then leave. If he said more than one hundred words then the news would select part of the entire statement and decide for itself what the point had been. Nixon was attempting to write his own news quotation. Nixon's press people always tried to predict the likely wording of the lead paragraph in the paper's coverage of their event. They hoped to promote their own telling of that event instead of sitting back and letting the news tell their own version. In the attempt to bypass the Washington, D.C. news bureau chief's telling of events and issues today, the White House sends its own video feeds to nine hundred local TV news stations and to ten thousand local newspapers. To present their own version of events, some of Reagan's staff wanted to create a White House news agency similar to the Russian TASS agency, but Gergen convinced Reagan not to allow it. By the way, the White House knows to release bad news late Friday afternoon. Watch for that.
Every day the White House will try to select the day's news by announcing the day's events to "give the news cameras a chance to be there." (Each federal agency also wants to release its own news to promote its own priorities.) As we saw above, the president wants to set the agenda for Congress and for the nation and doesn't want to let the press instead choose issues that he or she will have to follow. The press influences priorities by choosing and magnifying issues that it has selected. With the recent corporate consolidation of the news business, the press is more often choosing issues that “sell,” which are those most able to press our emotional buttons. Can you give some recent examples of “spontaneous comments” by politicians or of issues brought to prominence by either the president or the press?
Carter found out that the Middle-East peace process moved too slowly to maintain good TV coverage. His successor, Ronald Reagan, chose to avoid personal involvement in this issue for that reason. What could be more spectacular than ending the injustice of war? Rather than choosing issues based on their importance to humanity, some of our politicians instead choose issues that most help their own reelection efforts. Presidents, governors, and other politicians are most able to do what’s best for the world when they are not going to run for reelection. You might like to list some recent issues the president seems to be avoiding or promoting.
Carter preferred to spend his time on the details of a decision rather than on selling the decision to the public. During Reagan's administration, Haig complained that the public relations people were running policy and confessed that in every one-hour meeting the group always asked "How will this play in the media?" Reagan's staff-member, Dick Wirthlin, was a pollster-strategist who was paid one million dollars per year by the Republican party. He was not elected or even an actual government official but played a large role in White House decisions. Many of Clinton's staff similarly complained that he too often relied on a high-salary pollster.
The presidential rating in the public polls is real power in the Congress and Senate. Legislators will go along with the president if they think that citizens approve of the president's actions. This means that TV personality can replace face-to-face deal-making between politicians. While Carter disliked White House pomp and even stopped having bands play the presidential song "Hail to the Chief," Reagan put it all back trying to get power over the Congress. Reagan's popularity was so high that during his second-year congressional elections he got many democratic opponents to vote for his policies in exchange for him not campaigning against them in the next election. Reagan's team constantly tried to sell the president's personality and image to the public because they knew that his shear popularity, if obtained, would in turn sell his policy to the legislators. If Reagan's popularity with the voters was high enough, more legislators would go along with his policy. With this aim, Reagan’s team went so far as to choose the background scenery's content, color, and shape during each of his appearances. You might like to make a note of the background scenery in some upcoming speeches. Look for a relation between the background scenery and the contents of the speech.
When Reagan cut spending on education, the White House's own group of 250 pollsters found that the people disagreed with this move. The White House "marketing" team countered this negative reaction by deciding to show Reagan many times during the next month in educational backgrounds–giving a speech at a school or attending a campus event. The team attempted to promote a "pro-education" appearance simply by having him be seen in school settings. The team said that if the public saw him appearing frequently at schools then they would believe he must be a supporter of education. (Believing that we citizens can be tricked this way is pretty insulting.) Reagan's polls found that he should publicly state that he agreed with the conclusions of the recent book A Nation At Risk whether or not he did in fact agree with those conclusions. He was advised to promote his tough image by stating that the need for tougher teaching and accountability standards went along with increased school discipline. He didn't mention in his “pro-education” speeches that he had cut educational spending.
The reporter Leslie Stahl aired a news broadcast that attempted to expose the image-promoting ways of Reagan's team. Stahl re-airing the statements filmed at school locations and compared Reagan’s comments to his actual actions. In response, Reagan's team called and thanked Stahl for helping their cause by showing more minutes of Reagan at school scenes. Reagan's team said that all that mattered was the number of minutes displayed because nobody ever bothered listening to the news people's lengthy and uninteresting narrative. Stahl was shocked by the grateful response of the White House.
Press leaks are a standard tool used by politicians, staffers, bureaucrats, and military personnel trying to have their own way. Reagan's staff hated press leaks so furiously that they tried to impose lie-detector tests on their own group. Bush, Shultz, and Baker made Reagan understand they would not stand for that. They also pointed out how the public would laugh at his testing of his own top aids. What technique does the current administration use to plug press leaks? You might like to observe the flow of press leaks and the reactions they generate.
Some presidents attend to details but other president’s prefer only to make final decisions. Reagan was so happy to let his staff handle details that he didn't even bother to know the details of his own policies. His staff began to keep him away from news interviews because they found that he'd say things that contradicted the details of his own policy. He once said something that implied that the PLO was a recognized government by the U.S., and once when he thought the microphone was turned off he joked about having just bombed Russia. Carter and Nixon knew more details than the press could ever ask. Eventually, Reagan's press team began to forbid questions during photo opportunities to limit intellectual engagement. They wanted the camera but not the reporter. Is the current president kept away from the questioning press?
Those politicians making war try to have their own way by controlling the war reporting done by the press. The press had always accompanied the U.S. military during its actions. That's how we came to have a picture of marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. Reagan banned reporters from the Grenada invasion in an effort to be able to present his own version of the events. The U.S. military actually threatened to fire on a commercial boat that was carrying reporters to Grenada after the U.S. had announced its action. The U.S. also detained four reporters on a navy ship. The British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher similarly blocked daily news of the Falklands War to avoid the loss of popular support. During the first Gulf War, the U.S. military set up a system of reporting pools. In the second Gulf War they used embedded reporters. Do you know how to put an end to war that is being waged by a democratic government? Fill the television with footage of screaming, maimed, bleeding persons. Do you know how to maintain support for a war that only the president has decided to conduct? Fill the television with patriotic footage; avoid showing pain or death–especially those involving civilians. (You can tell that it was only the president’s idea if war was not declared by Congress.)
Some decades ago, politicians appearing on news shows had to debate with people having opposing views. This forced them to defend their views through public debate. Reagan’s team members would agree to appear on a Sunday TV news show only if they were guaranteed to get the majority of the speaking time and that there would be no hostile guests. This meant that they would not have to argue with critics. They feared that answering critical questions would make it harder to get their way. Do you see your principal leaders today being interviewed alone or are they accompanied by debating critics? Debate is a crucial element of democracy. President George W. Bush has sometimes resorted to allowing only pre-approved supporters to attend his “public” meetings. (Around the year 1600, England’s Queen Elizabeth I, see www.elizabethi.org, was keeping records of the political views and actions of hundreds of important people.)
Carter was concerned for every detail of a complex issue and his inner concern showed in his face on TV. Reagan's TV image showed inner harmony untroubled by insecurities or by the burden of office–or of policy details. Carter seemed uncertain while Reagan seemed sincerely to believe his contradictory statements about needing a balanced budget and needing a $150 billion deficit. Carter worked night and day. Reagan took naps. Some voters preferred Reagan's emotional appeal; others preferred Carter's intellectualism. (Does the current president argue by evoking emotions or by presenting facts?)
Likability on camera is crucial to today's politician. It made Reagan a successful politician by helping him gain the agreement of other politicians who went along simply because of Reagan's approval ratings. But ratings in place of reasoned policy might make for an imaginary president and an imaginary government. This is dangerous if a critical event comes along that requires governing talents rather than image-making talents. Sustained success at governing occurs through consensus building.
It is a myth that the camera reveals character. While the public thought they knew Reagan personally, his closest allies said he wouldn't let anybody become close to him. Reagan would let a longtime friend part ways without showing any emotion but would choke up while retelling old war stories about total strangers. Certain reporters said that the only time they saw him appear to be truly passionate was while he described his hopes for his Star Wars Defense Initiative (SDI).
Reagan hoped to protect the country against missile attacks instead of merely being able to revenge them through mutually assured destruction. But every nuclear arms control treaty had been based on the principle of mutually assured destruction. This keeps one nation from attacking another because it knows it will suffer just as heavily from the other's retaliation. Senator Gore quickly understood this from a fast study of the treaties. Everyone was especially shocked when Reagan announced this plan without any study having been conducted. Reagan's entire idea seems to have come from a conversation (while he was governor of California) with the nuclear weapons physicist Edward Teller about the possibility of space-based, x-ray lasers. Reagan's ignorance also shocked the leaders of the world when he impulsively told Gorbachev that they should try to remove all offensive ballistic missiles from the Earth because it showed that he did not understand how the world's mutual aid-in-war treaties–and the East-West balance itself–were based on the principle of mutually assured destruction.
In the first 160 years of U.S. government, the president was a member of the same party as that which controlled a majority of the seats of Congress. (Every twenty-eight to thirty-six years, a new party would emerge with a differing view of government.) We citizens usually voted a straight party ticket in which we voted for our party's candidate for every local, state, and national office. Typically, only five or ten congressional districts would split their vote by choosing a presidential candidate from one party and a congressional member from another party. It is now typical that 45% of districts vote a split ticket. This often occurs because many of us now base our vote on TV personality instead of backing a preferred party. Ticket splitting suggests that voters are independent of political parties. In 1952, 25% of voters called themselves independent but by 1986 35% did so, surpassing the number of declared Republicans.
During the last century the party system grew into a hierarchical system of patronages and favors. Party barons would back the candidates who would most follow the rules of the senior members. Politicians had to work their way up through the political system and through the party. Candidates and junior politicians had to become known and liked by the party's leaders who consisted of mayors, governors, members of Congress and the Senate, and business and union leaders. Candidates had to find practical compromises through bargaining with each of the party's leaders to gain their support. This allowed the old-timers to test the candidates knowledge of the major issues and generated increased cooperation after the election. The regional party leaders could be called on to deliver the votes of their region's lower-level politicians. These more-experienced politicians could judge whether the candidates had the necessary talents to do the job. The talent needed to obtain the support of the old-timers is similar to the talent that would next be needed to build a consensus among other politicians. This bargaining demonstrated a candidate's ability to build a consensus. The candidates had to win popular approval and the confidence of political peers whose own party survival was affected by the actions of the elected persons. The legislators most respected by their peers are also receive the most support in running for president. During the 1980s, the most respected politicians were George Bush, Dole, Kemp, Gephardt, Gore, Simon, Bradley, Cumo, and Nunn. Each of these persons did run for president and two of them were elected to the White House.
Since the early days of the nation, party nominations were brokered during party conventions. Party bosses played the largest roles in the selection process. However, party endorsement became somewhat obsolete when primary elections were implemented in 1972. A primary election is used to select a single "primary" candidate from the field of candidates within a party; The selected person then goes on to challenge the primary candidates from the other parties in a final election. In this way, citizens–rather than party bosses–choose their party's primary candidate. Citizens now play a more direct role in the process through the primary elections that most states now hold. Those states that hold their primaries at the earliest date have been playing the largest role in the process so many states are moving their own primaries to earlier dates.
In still other ways, the party has recently been playing less of a role in directing its members. Political consultants and pollsters have replaced the party boss as the interpreters of public mood and as the directors of political views. Computerized techniques of mailing literature to targeted groups of voters have also decreased the candidates dependence on parties as they can now create their own campaign. If you don't need the party's funds to get elected then you can be more independent of the party. In addition, the TV campaign, which began in the 1960s, allows newcomers to run for office without having worked their way up through the party apparatus. John F Kennedy was the first to campaign on personal popular appeal rather than on party organization. He was able to say that he would "get the country moving again" without having to say how he would do it.
Campaign marketing, and the talents needed to campaign compared with those needed to govern
To govern requires decision-making, persuasion, judgement, management, and negotiation. The televised public relation ploys and theatrical one-liners of the campaign make quick impressions on the voters, but television personality and image-making are unrelated to coalition building–unless the popularity of your image dominates that of all others, as it did for Reagan during his first term. Today, it can sometimes be that experience and intellect are less important than is a nice smile. Today's campaign debates can reveal knowledge, but they do not indicate a candidate's abilities to form a consensus out of diverse views, to order priorities, or to make difficult decisions. During debate and interviews, campaigners display clever evasion of details rather than an admission that no details yet exist–because the staff specialist has yet to make them. Campaigners make sweeping promises but cannot say how they will accomplish these tasks or with whom. Hedrick Smith calls this stagecraft versus statecraft. Visit www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm for presidential debate videos.
To get elected today, we may need talent only in choosing pollsters, media advisors, mailers, and makeup artists. But to govern we need talent in choosing policy advisors and in forming a consensus. Labor intensive campaign volunteers have been replaced with capital intensive computer mailings. The news media reports too much of the personality race by daily polls showing who is ahead or behind and too little about what the candidates say and believe.
A 1983 poll showed that New Hampshire voters cared most that the president was capable of taking charge and getting results. (We have seen that getting results requires consensus building and that taking charge is constitutionally limited.) These voters also wanted the candidate to show compassion and concern for the people, and to have a plan to create jobs and spur economic growth. Political newness counted more than past political competence. Though this is often stated by us voters, 90% of the time we reelect the incumbent. (Governors Carter and Clinton each ran as a Washington outsider.) Toughness and stand-up leadership also counted more than competence. Competence and experience in governing rated tenth out of the eighteen characteristics. A 1976 poll also found that personality traits mattered more than a candidate's stand on the issues.
While watching a debate in 1985, a group of eighty-five democratic voters were electronically monitored for signs of emotional reaction to each presented sentence; the results were used to coach the candidates on their image, and to find the phrases that best-sell the candidate. Once the most emotion-producing phrases are identified, they are then used on the entire population. These approaches were borrowed from the food and gadget marketers to instead market political candidates. Some politicians might get elected simply by finding catchy phrases, while other politicians win election by knowing what should be the nation's priorities and expressing those to the voters. Could an election be won by a politician who simply asks many voters about their concerns, and then takes action on those issues?
There is a growing difference between the talents needed to run increasingly lengthy campaigns and those needed to build a consensus among other politicians in order to govern. It is often the case that the main criterion for us voter's in selecting a candidate is our gut feeling about that person's human characteristics obtained from a series of thirty-second television appearances. Many of us voters are not interested in the intricacies of issues and do not care to focus on lengthy explanation; after a few seconds we tune out the voice of the orator and instead look for clues about their character. Goldwater, McGovern, and Mondale each announced specific plans and lost the election to their more-vague competitors. Does this mean that after a few thousand years of curbing the excesses of autocratic power, we now have our government sufficiently designed that it will care for our concerns while we cease to play any further role in its operations and priorities other than by simply voting for the person having the nicest smile? Again, this puts us in a dangerous position if an event occurs that requires governing talents rather than election or image talents.
An easy way to win election today is to simply have a nice smile. When there is no real reason to vote for one candidate over the other, Democrat or Republican, the result of the election is a near fifty-fifty split between those two candidates. Often, a fifty-fifty split is proof that there was no real reason to choose one candidate over the other. It might indicate that half the voters preferred one candidate’s smile while the other half preferred that of the other candidate. (Notice that if voters simply tossed a coin to choose candidates, then very nearly half would vote for each candidate. Statistics dictates that if one hundred million people toss a coin, the difference between total head and tail counts will be less than 10,000.) When a fifty-fifty split is expected in an upcoming election, each candidate then has only to give few percent of voters a real reason to vote for him or her. Each candidate hopes to sway a fraction of a percent more voters than does the opponent. For example, in a particularly meaningless election between two candidates, if 90% of voters have no reason to choose one over the other, then each politician receives 45% of the votes. The election is then decided by the remaining 10% of voters who had a real reason to choose one of the two candidates. These remaining votes might be split 4.8 to 5.2%, giving the victor a mere 0.4% margin.
Lobbies, political action committees, and issue marketing
Secret campaign contributions were made illegal in the 1970s when a law was passed requiring politicians to publicly disclose the name of each donor and the amount given. (You might like to search the web for the campaign contribution disclosures of your representatives.) This law also limits the size of a contribution, dictating that an individual can donate no more than $5,000 to a candidate. The law put an end to giving money “under the table.” But as it brought money out into the open, it unfortunately created the lobby and the political action committee (PAC) who consider it to be a system of legalized bribery. Their public contributions are meant to buy the influence of the receiving politician. PACS and lobbies pool donations from many individuals, each remaining below their $5,000 limit, to produce greater effects in the interest of the PAC or lobby. Politicians used to avoid associating with business persons but now they feel it is ok to do so. Wealth came to Washington and this big money has changed the face and lifestyle of government.
Some citizens despise the PACS and lobbies of the last thirty years; they consider the system to be the “public auctioning of elections” and feel that it is unhealthy for democracy. In response, some states are looking for ways to publicly finance less-expensive campaigns; Maine and Arizona have already adopted systems in which candidates receive money directly from the state (see the Maine Clean Election Act). Publicly funded campaigns make candidates responsible to the public only. Opponents to the Maine and Arizona systems worry that the government is getting involved in the selection of candidates.
Political action committees are public corporations created solely to raise money and contribute to the election campaigns of those legislators who vote friendly to the cause of the PAC. It is routine for a corporation, union, trade association, or interest group to have a PAC to raise funds from its members to push the political agenda of the parent organization. Around 1984 there were 1,682 PACS contributing $130 million to various campaigns. The number of PACS peaked around 4,000 before the Campaign Reform Act of 2002 was passed. The PAC is concerned only about its own aspect of the nation's legislation. Various PACS exist to promote the interests for certain industries. For example, agricultural PACS concentrate on the legislators who serve on agricultural committees while military PACS concentrate on military committee members. There are PACS for the real estate, banking, health, labor, TV cable and broadcasting industries, and many others. Several PACS within one industry will meet and choose candidates by looking closely at incumbent voting records and at statements made by challenging candidates. Whenever two opposing PACS or lobbies meet, the one with the most money wins.
PACS have a pro-incumbent bias because they prefer to contribute to the incumbents with known voting records. Their next priority is to fund campaigns for vacant seats; last of all are the challengers. This means that PAC money is interfering with the free democratic election process and with representational democracy, itself. Incumbents get 45% of their campaign funds from PACS and 55% from the contributions of individuals. A legislator can often get ten times more national PAC money than from individual contributions within the home state; this is stepping away from.
In late 1970s big business began its lobbying efforts, hoping to lead the actions of legislators toward their wishes. At first they were surprised at the results they could achieve–for example, in lowering the capital-gains tax and in defeating consumer protection legislation. The initial successes brought many more companies to join in the games. There are typically 20,000 registered lobbyists, or about forty per legislator, spending one or two billion dollars per year trying to have their own way. For one example of a lobby, the Israeli lobby combined money from 55,000 U.S. households in 1987, and gave $4 million in campaign contributions. This lobby convinced Reagan to back down on jet sales to Jordan. Reagan actually had to ask the lobby–not the Congress–how many planes would be allowed to be sold to Saudi Arabia.
Lobbies track each legislator's voting record and give funds to those who are seen to be friendly to their cause. Lobbies don't waste money trying to sway enemies. Lobbies begin funding the opponents of a legislator who votes against them in about two out of ten legislative proposals effecting their interests. Some legislators have admitted that when they go to vote they know they'll be watched. They know they could once again use that lobby's $100,000 contribution during their next reelection campaign and know that how they vote determines whether or not they will receive that money in the future. The lobbyist will call the legislator on voting day to say "this is important to us" but will not say "vote for this or get no money." Lobbyists never give money at same time they list their desires. Legislators take the lobbyist's phone calls because of their contributions: that is how lobbyist buy access. Smith explains that PACS and lobbies make an unhealthy relationship between those who seek office and those who seek influence and that these techniques are just one step away from bribery. Some politicians argue that they need the money to be able to buy enough TV time to get reelected.
PACS and lobbies try to influence voting on laws that would affect their industry–for example, on legislation proposing a tax break to their industry. Lobbies can't write the legislation on highly visible issues but can write the details of uninteresting issues like communications deregulation. (Legislators sometimes ask lobbyists for expert details to include in a speech.) Contributions don't buy legislation as much as they simply buy access through the return phone call, an office visit, or having diner alone with the legislator to give them a chance to make their case. The efforts of a lobby work best when its opponents do not have such access; there is no such thing as equal access. The recent spread of power in the Congress, mentioned above, through the increase in the number of committees also means that lobbyists have to persuade many legislators, not just the senior chairs.
Federal politicians often remain in Washington after their term ends. Some get hooked on the life while others want to exchange their lower-paying legislator's salary for the much higher, lobbyist's income. For example, in June, 2004 the organization Public Citizen reported that of the 952 lobbyists hired by the HMO and pharmaceutical industries in the year 2003, thirty were former U.S. senators or congresspersons. Nearly half were former federal employees. Some legislators resign from office before their term is up so they can become lobbyists. Many States require that a “cooling-off” period elapse before former legislators can become lobbyists.
Lobbies use many techniques to generate funds and voter support for their cause. A lobby might choose to send mailings to homes identified as likely to be sympathetic to their cause. Sometimes the mailed packet includes a ready-made postcard that voters can send to their legislators. This post card will already contain a statement of "your concerns" against a specific proposal. For example, when proposed legislation would have required banks to send 10% of their customer's interest earnings to the Internal Revenue Service, the banking industry fought this proposal by enclosing completed post cards with the monthly statements mailed to their customers. The post card could then be sent on to the legislators.
Lobbies try to generate emotional responses in voters that will incite them to action. To find things evoking such an emotional response, a lobby will hire researchers to get a test group of citizens together to discuss the issue. During the discussion, the researchers note which things evoke emotional reactions from the group. This tactic was originally developed to market products and movie endings and such but it now also markets issues. Once the emotional buttons are found then they can then be pressed in voters all across the nation. A lobby might then use TV ads that attempt to push those previously identified emotional buttons. They try to plant, nurture, and direct a coalition in the public as if it had been the public's idea. For example, a coalition of truckers who were against proposed industry deregulations in 1980 tried to brew up sentiment in New Hampshire hoping that their topic would make it into the early debates of presidential candidates who were campaigning there. A lobby might generate concern for an issue originally of interest to only those few citizens more-directly affected. Lobbies get nowhere in Washington unless they can find an emotional button that provokes a great enough response from citizens to impel them to call or to send mail to their Congressional representatives. The lobby wants to motivate citizens to "call their representative to help our mutual cause." The lobbyist's job is to get citizens to call their congressional representatives to voice the concerns of the group who is paying the lobbyist. The most influential voice with the legislator should be that of the citizens back home. Lobbies have to show legislators that their home district constituents agree with the concerns of the lobby.
To classify voters, lobby support-companies divide the population of the U.S. into such finely distinguished categories that each contains just 340 households (a single zipcode contains more households than this). Households are categorized by home and neighborhood type, and from the records of your purchases of cars, magazines, clothes, records, and other gadgets. There are forty types of neighborhoods that are approached as a single group of voters. About 87% of the population falls into one of these forty neighborhood-types that include ritzy, artsy, fashionable, urban ghetto, county-club suburb, blue collar, and small town area.
Those who study these groups search for what it is that motivates their members. They have found that corporate executives are motivated by arguments involving status and prestige while those who run corporations or are small business owners are motivated by rational arguments. Liberal professionals are motivated by social causes. The farmers and small town Rotary Club people fight for free enterprise. The middle-class who struggles to make the mortgage payment are perennially mad, have volatile moods, and are easy to incite to action because they are also mad at the federal government. Middle-class voters who drive station wagons and sports utility vehicles are often younger technicians with bright futures and are motivated by different things than are seasonal farm-workers, the garage mechanics of the crossroads towns, or the older workers in middle-sized cities who are already set in life. Issue lobbies go after those groups of persons who already agree with them and just need to be incited to action. They leave everyone else alone.
By 1985 lobbies were generating 225 million pieces of mail per year. This is almost one-half million pieces per legislator. Most of this mail was mass-generated by computer. For heightened effects, a lobby will deliver an entire truckload of mail for one legislator the day before a vote. In 1985 the record for the number of pieces of mail delivered to a single member of Congress was fifteen million pieces in a day. It was produced by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), which is one of the largest lobbies. The National Rifle Association (NRA) once generated three million telegrams in seventy-two hours and so many simultaneous phone calls that the Congressional members could not get an open line to call out of their own offices.
While campaigning for office or promoting their own agenda, politicians also use the marketing techniques of categorizing people and neighborhoods along with the practice of using a set of guinea pig voters to search for emotional buttons (sometimes by electrically monitoring those persons). These techniques that are useful in promoting one politician or group's agenda are not widely known by the public. This is a bit dangerous because we usually associate secret tactics with underhanded goals. Today, these polls do not have to be secretly conducted because the internet provides a public means of asking the citizens about their preferences and priorities–on every issue if we like.
Legislators keep complete records of the contents of the mail that you have sent to them, and they try to send mail to you whenever he or she does something that matches your interests. If you tell your legislators that you want them to vote for gun control then they'll send you a flyer when they vote your way on a gun control issue; when voting oppositely, no flyer will be sent to you. If your letter or office visit mentions the health of your aunt Edna then this is recorded in the computer. When next sending "personalized" mail to you–which is generated by a computer–the legislator will inquire about your aunt Edna's health. This helps the legislator win reelection. Legislators like to mail questionnaires to their constituents–using names, ages, and addresses compiled from driver license records–to find out about their individual interests so that they can send the right mailers to each of them. Jim Wirth has 150,000 names in 1,500 categories. The categories include those with concern for the environment, women's issues, nuclear energy, the deficit, communications issues, and business persons. Other clues about your likely interests can be deduced from address records. For example, those persons whose address often changes do not care about property tax issues. Your religious and ethnic interests are guessed by comparing your name with lists of names known to be Jewish or Korean and such.
The president and many legislators each finance polls to learn about voter moods. Bill Bradley would sometimes stand at a busy bus station during commuter hours, when thousands would see him, and ask people about their concerns. Rather than polling a “representative” sample of citizens, the internet could now be used to poll every citizen every day. In fact, citizens could then suggest and vote on priorities and goals–even revenue sources and expenditures–for the city, county, state, nation, and planet. This would make our democracy more closely resemble that of Ancient Athens. Is such a system in our future?
Legislators increase their reelection chances by doing as many little favors as possible for their constituents: by helping along an application for a small business loan, seeing to a lost social-security check, or by inquiring about an overseas child who is in the military. Some say this accounts for 5% of the vote and can make voters forgive you when you don't vote their way or are even committed against their way. A typical legislator has fourteen out of eighteen staffers handling these little favors, along with travel and administrative tasks, while just four out of eighteen staff members are handling legislative details and background.
To get reelected, legislators need hours of TV exposure back in their home district. Politicians search for a chance to be on TV. They might appear at any sort of open-house event, as long as its televised. Paul Tsongas confessed that we voters back home would tell him that we saw him on TV last week and that we liked his tie but he looked tired; only one in five of us could tell him what we had heard him say during that TV appearance. He learned that it did not matter what he said on television; he just had to be repeatedly seen. He says that after enough TV exposure, the voters come to think of a politician as a person. And if they like you then they'll vote for you, even if they disagree on a few of the bigger issues. To be reelected, only the number of hours of TV exposure matters, not the content of your sentences while on TV. Elections are often based on the voter's image of you, not on your ideas, pet issues, or stand on issues.
Legislators also learn that they have to be seen back in the home district as often as possible. They explain that we voters insist they do this even though it keeps them from doing what we have hired them to do. If they don't then we will tell them that they don't care about us and have lost touch with us. Voters sometimes demand public relations instead of public service. Politicians try to attend the events that will have the largest audiences, opening ceremonies for example–especially if TV news will also be there. The Senate now works four days per week so three are open to be back in the home district making appearances for voters and campaign contributors. Politicians like to mix personalized mailings, which tell voters what they want to hear, with the wide audience of television.
Senators and Congressional members can never stop raising campaign funds. In contested districts they often spend one-fourth of their time doing this. Television ads comprise the largest portion of the costs of a campaign and amounted to $450 million by 1986. Legislators will hit up each of the big businesses in their home district including every defense contractor, labor union, and major manufacturer. In this respect, being on a Congressional spending committee helps in fund raising while being on an intelligence committee does not.
Politicians find that Political Action Committee money is the easiest to raise. During 1985 and 1986, the two parties supplied 10-15% of candidate funds while the political action committees supplied 28%. During that time, PACS raised $350 million dollars while the Democratic and Republican parties raised just $260 million. Those candidates that could obtain enough PAC money didn't have to sell themselves to the party but instead sold themselves to the interests of those PACs. Which source do you think is better for democracy?
Some 75-98% of incumbents get reelected. One advantage they have over their campaign opponent is that they are allowed to use taxpayer money to mail information that "informs their constituents" of their efforts. In 1984 the members of Congress spent $111 million on such mailings, much of which really amounted to reelection assistance. Incumbents also get most of the PAC money. The incumbent advantage amounts to about $500,000 in campaign funds. In 1984, Congressional incumbents spent $300,000 while campaigning for reelection; incumbent Senators spent $3 million. Being known to have millions in funds months before the reelection begins helps to scare away the competition. In 1986 the average Congressional incumbent raised three-times as much campaign money as did their competitors and during the last three weeks of campaigning they had twenty-times the remaining funds as did their competitors.
Congress has its own TV studio that is located right in the congressional building. This is used to send video feeds to the TV news stations back in each member's home area. Since this is done to "inform constituents," it is paid for by the taxpayers. The Senate passed a rule forbidding taxpayer funds to be used for this purpose, so it instead had to obtain TV studio funding from the Democratic and Republican political parties. The result of party funding was that the Senate has separate Democratic and Republican TV studios. The national networks tend to cover just the more-important legislators; the remaining legislators use the House and Senate studios to leapfrog over that national news bias and send feeds straight to the local news stations. These studios allow the option for a legislator to be interviewed live by the home area's TV station reporter, but interviews are more often conducted “in mass.”
After a presidential speech, as many as 150 legislators will line up at the television studio within the halls of Congress for an interview which lasts a few seconds. They each take their turn having a microphone put into their face while a voice from an unseen person asks "What did you think of the president's speech?" The legislator might answer "The president has lost touch with reality." This short statement is then fed by satellite back to the TV station newsrooms in the home area of that legislator. These local stations often air the segment while making it look as if they were there at the Congressional building asking that question. Even when you can't get two politicians to meet and talk, 134 will show up for one minute of TV time. Some legislators have said that "You just have to forget how hokey it is and not be embarrassed while waiting in that line; you just have to do it because TV time means reelection."
By the way, the Democratic and Republican parties have found the best way to insure that their Congressional incumbents win reelection, is through legislated redistricting, which occurs every ten years. Redistricting, or gerrymandering, uses street-by-street demographic data to design districts composed mostly of residents from only one political party. A boundary of a gerrymandered district will have a convoluted shape. Sometimes this is done to concentrate voters of the opposition party into fewer districts, resulting in fewer House seats for that party. Other times, gerrymandering is used to spread a minority vote into several districts, leaving them unable to elect a minority representative. For example, one neighborhood, having a concentration of persons from a particular minority, might have sufficient population to comprise a congressional district. Through gerrymandering, pieces of that single neighborhood might be placed into several other districts, thus diluting the concentration and robbing it of electing its own representative.
Smith describes several proposals designed to reduce the "auctioning of elections" to the highest bidder. There have been many proposed schemes that would finance campaigns from a government fund, and many others that alter the campaign cash requirements of TV advertising. We might eliminate the campaign costs of television ads by having them paid for by the public or reduce these costs by placing spending limits on advertising. To decrease the number of negative ads, candidates are now required to personally make the attacking remark within the ad.
Several proposals are designed to reduce gridlock, but they do this mostly by increasing the power of the parties. Their power was purposefully decreased just a few decades ago. Some suggest that all campaign funds, or at least all TV advertising funds, be funneled through the parties. This might reduce the incumbent's funding advantage. Some propose that we might require straight-ticket voting for president, Congresspersons, and Senators. This would put the party back into a larger director's role, but many want to avoid the tyranny of the party system and of the majority party. This would also require major changes to the Constitution. Thomas Cronin of Colorado College suggests that the parties first meet to choose two or three candidates for the primary elections so that the abilities of the candidates to form a consensus might be a larger requirement for their candidacy. Theodore Sorensen proposed that the president should come form one party, the vice president from another, and that cabinet personnel include persons from a mixture of parties. This might cause both parties to share the blame for gridlock and increase the number of bipartisan coalitions. The Congress and Senate might need to adapt their rules so that obstructors have fewer ways to block progress. For example, by reducing filibustering or by allowing the majority leader to be able to introduce a bill for debate without having to face a filibuster before debate even begins.
In 1987 a prestigious group of legislators, scholars, citizens, and former cabinet members from four different administrations met to discuss these problems. They recommended that we eliminate the division caused by the congressional elections that occur during the second year of the president's term–the so-called mid-term elections. This would be done using four-year congressional terms that coincide with that of the president. (Recall that two-year congressional terms were originally designed to keep the Congress more in touch with the mood of the people.) It is hoped that this would build closer partisan relations between the president and the Congress and might also decrease the time wasted on the continual campaign. But we already see that voting on bills often follows party lines.
Legislation is needed to check the excesses of the president and of the president's unelected staff. Some suggest that Senate confirmation be required for these persons and that the president's national security council be barred from playing any role in covert operations. The president has been taking the nation to war though the Constitution gives this power to the Congress. This issue has not yet been settled. Some say that if the president were allowed three terms then he or she would commit fewer excesses during their second term. But will the excesses then grow in size during the third term? The president sometimes substitutes executive order for democratic legislation. Notice that our largest national problems require long-term solutions from a series of administrations, but newly elected presidents often reverse the policies of their predecessors, especially if they are members of the opposing party.
Some suggest that a question and answer period be borrowed from the British Parliament so that the President cannot be as oblivious as had Reagan had been to his own policy and to his own administration's actions. The questions of the president's political opponents will be more directly related to the political process than are those of the news media. This might either increase the dialogue between the President and the legislators or increase the gap between them. But it would also remind them–and us voters, too–that they share power. It would also make the opposition more organized.
Smith says that all of this is mere tinkering. The most crucial correction is to remove big-money from the political process to ensure that government remains in the hands of the people. We should not blame our government and political processes for giving us what we want. Politicians will start being more substantive when they see that it pays with the voters. We should also realize that we vote for an entire government and not just for a president. Our government is designed to spread power and requires a consensus to function. When we voters do not have a real and collective view of the approach to government, and are not in consensus about the purpose and priorities of government, we show this by electing one party to the presidency and another to Congress. Our split-ticket vote then produces an indecisive government that lacks a consensus and suffers from gridlock. We voters should also start questioning the outsider's claim of being able to correct singlehandedly the ills of government without having to build a consensus with the very same, ridiculed politicians that must agree to the proposed new ways. Smith says it is time to stop knocking competence in consensus building and that we should stop ridiculing experience in balancing issues and in choosing priorities.
At this moment, the art and science of campaigning, lobbying, and governing involves the marketer's measurements of voter reactions to designed presentations. (You might like to see the PBS Frontline documentary The Persuadors, see www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/view, which describes the latest techniques used to market politicians and political ideas.) We voters should be skeptical of glamour and of vague promises for a bright future. Personality helps but other traits are more important in making government function. We citizens tell our politicians to do impossible tasks such as decreasing the deficit without either decreasing spending or raising taxes; this simply increases the blame-game. In our recently acquired system of individual voters directly participating in party primaries, we must be better informed and more realistic about our own role in our own government. We need to have a toleration for the untidiness and slowness of democratic government. A dictator might produce faster results than a Congress, but this would be less desirable.
In Chapter 19 we saw that democracy is more than elections and voting and more than free speech and other civil and personal liberties: it is a blending of views and priorities and a firm belief in the toleration of different views and in the right of dissent of others who offer opposing views and priorities. Democracy requires consensus building not a view that "only my way is right and I won't compromise." Again, the opposite of forming a consensus is conducting civil war. The authoritarian, single-party state can spell out an exact course of action because only a single course-view is allowed by law. A democracy is stable if its citizens believe that the government is responsive to their requests and stated needs, but citizens must first participate in the debate before they can measure the responsiveness of that system. Democracy needs moderation, cooperation, bargaining, and accommodation. Flexibility allows goals to be negotiable and to change through time. It requires a belief that no group or person has a monopoly on truth, and that there is no absolute truth. Neither is there a single, correct answer to public policy issues. Ideology is restrained by the need to be practical. This also restrains the polarization that can lead to conflict. Compromise makes all parties winners, rather than having a clear winner and a clear looser.
We have seen that a nation's form of government is largely determined by its history and by the culture of its people. Rough generalizations have been formulated by political scientists who have a couple hundred national governments to study. They have found, for example, that harsh economic conditions often invite harsh dictators, and that sometimes the factions within a nation cannot find a mutual compromise so that a civil war erupts. And after a few years of civil war, these factions often decide that their differences are no longer worth the continued destruction of the nation and instead find a working compromise. How many world wars will we have before deciding that the answer to our global differences is not the destruction of the world? Nuclear war did not erupt between the Soviet Union and the U.S. because both sides believed their differences were not great enough to warrant the destruction of both nations.
In response to the occasional abuses by some of our leaders during the previous centuries, we have learned the hard way to design a balance of power among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government and to spread power among several hundred persons within government. What does this "balance and spread of power" mean? It means that no single person can dictate policy or actions for all of us because nothing can happen without a consensus. A politician must convince many others of the value of his or her proposal before it can be put into action. Much of daily politicking concerns the attempt to gain one's own way on favored issues by convincing others to adopt the same view. Every politician and special interest group has to work hard to convince others of their views and priorities. We constantly see groups trying to do this through publications, rallies, and television ads. Instead of kings and queens dictating policy, we now have public debate over issues, priorities, plans, and actions. Democracy requires compromise and consensus building. The political power that generates consensus is visible at work in those who are leading the consensus building. This temporary power quickly shifts from one personality to another.
Today we often vote for a president as if we were electing a dictator who could impose his or her own will on the Congress and Senate. Smith suggests we ask all candidates to explain how they plan to get the cooperation of the legislators in enacting their plans. If a campaigning presidential candidate pr