MESSAGE, MESSAGE, WHO'S GOT THE MESSAGE? TO PROVE A POINT, GIVE THE DEMOCRATS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 27, 1992                   TAG: 9202270466
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RAY L.  GARLAND become just too "conservative." Exactly how a party
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long
MESSAGE, MESSAGE, WHO'S GOT THE MESSAGE? TO PROVE A POINT, GIVE THE DEMOCRATS
NEW HAMPSHIRE is the armpit of the spoiled-brat nation. Or so it seemed as you listened to the media's incessant person-in-the-street interviews. You might have thought that the state had reached Polish levels of prosperity and revolution was imminent.
My favorite was a lengthy interview on the liberal grapevine, National Public Radio, with a retired IBM executive and his wife. While income levels weren't mentioned, they did say that they had sold their house in California to gain a less stressful and costly site for what looked to be a protracted retirement. While the husband was in his early 60s, the wife was only in her mid-40s. It seems they had bought an old farmhouse of some 1,600 square feet, then added 3,800 square feet because they had been used to lots of space.
Leaving aside the question of whether a retired couple really requires 5,400 square feet of living space, their chief complaint seemed to be that President Bush's conduct of the economy had left them with far more invested in the property than they could hope to realize any time soon.
They were also worried about health insurance and were looking for the government to do more in that department. It seems their IBM retirement benefits cover "only" 80 percent of the cost of whatever medical care they require. After all, they said, 20 percent of a large bill is still a large sum, and I guess they're right.
They had been Republicans but had lost faith in their former politics, so the husband was going to vote for Paul Tsongas and the wife for Pat Buchanan. Because, she said, the Republican Party had But the amazing thing is that when the votes in New Hampshire were counted, the result did not at all conform to the picture the media had painted of a desperate electorate hungry for desperate measures.
Well, maybe Bush did receive a rebuke in defeating Buchanan by only 27,000 votes. But let's look beyond that. There were some 348,000 votes cast in the New Hampshire primary with a small majority in the Republican column. Well, you say, New Hampshire is supposed to be a conservative, Republican state. True, but examine the vote for the two candidates most representative of the government-as-big-brother wing of the Democratic Party.
Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa together received only 10 percent of all votes cast. You can't say that these liberal worthies were without means to get their message out. It was reported that Harkin spent $35 for each of the 16,179 votes he received.
Even if you say that every vote cast on the Democratic side - except those received by the man who won it, Paul "I'm not Santa Claus" Tsongas - represented a cry for government to guarantee greater economic security, you're still left with the fact that, in one of the most depressed states in the nation, almost 70 percent of the total vote went to candidates espousing some brand of conservative or pro-business rhetoric!
While I wouldn't want to say that all of the 64,000 votes received by the hard-right Republican pundit, Patrick J. Buchanan, represented an endorsement of his views, the fact remains that his 20-percent share of the total vote was more than any Democrat got. And Buchanan made it crystal clear that he believed Bush was too liberal.
In the days just before and after the New Hampshire primary, the airwaves were full of media pundits and plain people saying that the vote was intended to send a message. But with almost 70 percent of the people voting for the more conservative candidates, was the message what the media advertised it to be?
In reality, there were more messages that 348,000 people were trying to send than there were candidates or even reporters to receive them. We can deduce a few messages.
Kerrey made national health insurance the centerpiece of his campaign - and that's coming in some form - but he got just over 5 percent of the total vote. Harkin made the most blatant pitch to the desires of unionized labor for more protection. He got 5 percent of the total.
And the man who once represented the great white hope of liberalism, Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, gained only 2 percent of the total vote on the strength of what appeared to be a pretty well-financed and organized write-in campaign.
Despite the various interpretations that can be placed on the message that came out of New Hampshire, I remain convinced that the overall message politicians and pundits alike will receive in 1992 - whoever wins - will be that Americans want to take one more trip to the well with Tip O'Neill, the former House speaker, who must serve as the bloated yet lovable image of the great national itch to get a hand in somebody else's pocket.
For one thing, even if Bush wins, the Democrats are likely to strengthen their present majority of 57 to 43 in the Senate. That's why it might be better for the GOP - and the ultimate cause of conservative government in this country - to let the Democrats have the whole banana and enact their entire program of new entitlements and taxes.
Maybe then it can be revealed, even unto that unhappy woman in New Hampshire, that while there is such a thing as a free lunch, it is perhaps a plenitude of free lunches that has landed us in the soup.
Keywords:
POLITICS

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB