Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 8, 1994 TAG: 9411080085
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JILL LAWRENCE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
But as candidates try to break through with charm, promises and earnest accountings of their time in office, if any, a few elected officials are daring to suggest that maybe voters are part of the problem.
President Clinton is the most prominent. He reached the breaking point last week when an interviewer said blacks jokingly call him ``the best Republican president in the last 20 years.''
``They're wrong,'' the Democratic president said twice before exploding into an indignant recitation of what he believes makes him different: record numbers of black appointees and judges and enactment of the family-leave law vetoed by President Bush, among other things.
``The people are the bosses in this country and it's time they stopped blaming everybody else for what they don't know, and going out there and finding out what are the facts, what are the differences, and voting on it,'' Clinton said.
And that was before a new CBS-New York Times poll found more people believe, wrongly, that his economic program has made the federal deficit go up rather than down.
The poll also suggests that huge majorities of the people Clinton says are in charge in fact believe they have ``not much say'' in what the government does.
Yet House Republicans have produced a ``Contract With America'' that is supremely responsive. Each of its 10 pledges - including term limits, welfare reform, tax cuts, defense-spending increases and a balanced budget - is supported by at least 60 percent of the public. Details on financing and tough choices to come later.
``Arrogant Capital,'' a new book by Kevin Phillips, contends a Washington elite has become a permanent government that ignores and effectively disenfranchises voters. But Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., in an Oct. 2 review, retorted that Congress has heeded all too well the public's incompatible demands for more services and low taxes.
``Voters are no bargain either. Their own contradictions are very much part of our difficulty,'' the congressman wrote in The Washington Post.
Rep. Fred Grandy, R-Iowa, who is leaving Congress after losing a gubernatorial primary, was even more pointed about voter failings in a TV interview last week.
``They're torn between their addiction to bacon and their aversion to pork. I mean, they keep asking us to expand their entitlements, cut their taxes and behave in a noble manner that will encourage them to go to the polls,'' Grandy said in an ABC-TV interview.
The latest polls to some extent perpetuate the notion that voters are blindly, vaguely angry, and can't be troubled to learn details - such as the name of their congressman or whether the deficit is heading up or down - that might temper their mood.
Politicians who blame voters for misinformation or gridlock are taking a huge risk, said Andrew Kohut, director of the Times-Mirror polling organization.
``It's a dangerous game to tell the people that you're trying to appeal to, to smarten up.''
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB