Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 25, 1993 TAG: 9312270289
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK E. RUSH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Regardless of one's beliefs about the wisdom or costs and benefits of NAFTA, the experience that the country has endured during its odyssey through the House of Representatives is certainly symptomatic of problems that will endure despite the trade agreement's fate or impact.
For the past several weeks, our attention had shifted from the details of the treaty to whether the president would be able even to get the agreement through a Congress in which he has commanding majorities in both chambers. It seems a bitter irony that barely a year after his election was hailed as an end to gridlock, President Clinton found himself in the same obsequious position in which Republican presidents have found themselves during the past 40 years.
We can lay no small part of the blame for this on the unintended consequences of key political reforms, which were animated by the same populist spirit that engendered this newspaper's call for senatorial primaries in 1994 and whose bitter harvest we're now reaping.
Now, certainly, no one wishes candidates to be ordained by a pack of party ``bosses'' in some smoke-filled room. On the other hand, we should be careful to ensure that the reforms or changes for which we call are indeed directed toward the ends we seek. The extant reason for this newspaper's call for primaries next year is its dissatisfaction with the current front-runners: Oliver North for the Republicans and either Chuck Robb or Doug Wilder for the Democrats.
A key problem with some of the great political reforms is that they - like the newspaper's editorial (Nov. 18, ``A primary for both parties'') - were inspired not by institutional flaws but, instead, by an intense dislike for certain personalities who unscrupulously used the political process to their own ends. As a result, today many commentators complain because our institutions seem to be malfunctioning, and yet the personalities who inhabit them have not improved - despite reformist impulses.
For example, today's Congress - full of unbeatable incumbents - is the product of the reforms of the early '70s that were designed to break the power of the conservative Southern Democrats who, by virtue of their seniority, dominated the committees and held up key civil-rights legislation. To ensure that a bloc of leaders like the old Southerners could never take over the committee chairs again, the Democrats wrote new rules that required votes by the party caucus for all committee chairmen. The result has been a Congress that is certainly more internally democratic. However, as shown by the difficulties experienced by the president and the speaker of the House, congressional and party leadership has been correspondingly weakened. As a result, the president's own party nearly stopped his NAFTA initiative.
It's now clear that President Clinton's power over the Democratic Congress is comparable to a captain's power over a mutinous crew on a runaway ocean liner: Form clearly outweighs substance. Why would a congressman or senator who has been in office for more than a generation be impressed by an upstart president - regardless of their sharing party affiliation? What coercive forces can a president whose winning percentage was barely 40 percent bring to bear on a Congress whose re-election rate in both houses is well over 90 percent?
Another example of well-intentioned, but misguided, reform is the wide-open, expensive, sound-bite infested, primary-driven presidential nomination process that we employ - and endure - to choose our leaders. It's the product of reforms that began as a reaction to Hubert Humphrey's nomination by the Democrats in 1968. While Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy had conducted primary campaigns, Humphrey worked within the party to secure the support of the state party organizations. The response was outrage, walkouts by McCarthy's delegates, riots in the streets outside the convention center, and a call to reform the nomination process. The results were disastrous losses for the Democrats in 1972, 1980, 1984 and 1988, and a lengthy and expensive primary process in which the private lives of individuals are given as much attention as their positions on key political issues.
No one doubts the sincerity of any reform effort that is inspired by a spirit of democratic accountability. However, simply to call for a primary to remedy a mediocre choice of nominees will not ensure that the voters will have a better choice of Senate candidates next November. Besides, if the voters are so concerned with the quality of the people who are seeking the two parties' nominations, they may certainly join one of the two parties and cast a vote in the nominating conventions.
Granted, this requires a little more effort and a small cash investment to register for the convention. On the other hand, democracy is undoubtedly an interactive form of government. As we are finding with the current choice of potential Senate candidates, its proper function may require more participation by the citizenry than simply casting two votes - one in a primary and one in the general election.
So, I applaud this newspaper's expression of concern about Virginia's representation in the United States Senate. However, calling for a primary instead of a convention (or vice versa) will not necessarily improve the quality of the candidates. Conventions and primaries are mere mechanisms that can produce, and have produced, great and poor candidates. Responsible popular participation in the selection process makes the real difference in outcome.
Mark E. Rush is assistant professor of politics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington.
by CNB