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

DATE: SUNDAY, May 7, 1995                   TAG: 9505080048
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

LOUD AND ANGRY VOICES?

"That loudness!'' she exclaims, as if that explains everything that's wrong with politics these days. For her, it does.

It's not just talk radio she's thinking about. It's television, too. She turned on the CBS Morning News last week and saw commentators Fred Barnes and Bob Beckel debating. "They were just calling each other names," she says.

It's local campaigns. She thinks back to the 1993 House of Delegates race between Morgan Griffith and Howard Packett - a pretty tame affair as far as campaigns go these days. Siska was so disgusted by their "name-calling" that she cast a write-in vote instead. "I couldn't bring myself to vote for either one of them."

It's even her old work place. She remembers one co-worker who voiced his political views so loudly and emphatically that "it made you feel you couldn't say anything without getting into an argument."

These aren't just isolated events, in Siska's view. She sees a trend. "The ability to disagree without being disagreeable is becoming a lost art in this country."

She's not alone.

It probably always has been fashionable to complain that politics is mean-spirited. And it probably always has been. "Herbert Hoover was pelted by eggs," said George Washington University political analyst Susan Tolchin, who is writing a book about political anger. "George Washington threatened to call off his campaign for president if the newspapers didn't stop saying scurrilous things about him."

But in the past few years, a debate over whether the tone of political discourse in America is getting worse - seriously worse - has been percolating slowly across the country.

Occasionally, politicians themselves have stirred the discussion. When Sen. James Exon, a conservative Democrat from Nebraska, announced his retirement earlier this year, he expressed dismay over what he called the "ever-increasing vicious polarization of the electorate, the us-against-them mentality" that has "all but swept aside the former preponderance of reasonable discussions."

He specifically blamed the tone of political campaigns for exacerbating the public discontent: "The traditional art of workable compromises for the ultimate good of all, the essence of democracy, has demonstrably eroded. The 'hate level' fed by attack ads has unfortunately become the measurement of a successful campaign."

The subject boiled over into full public view in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, when President Clinton spoke out against "the loud and angry voices" that he said were poisoning the country's political climate.

Clinton's remarks drew their own loud and angry retort from conservative critics, who interpreted his remarks as an attack on them - and promptly accused him of trying to score cheap political points at a time of national mourning.

But set partisan politics aside for a moment. What about the essence of the president's charge? Is public discourse today too loud and too angry?

There are certainly plenty of people who think so - and they're not just Democrats crying foul now that Republicans are in charge on Capitol Hill. Indeed, in Virginia one of the most prominent critics of the tone of modern political life is a Republican - Del. Clinton Miller of Woodstock.

When Miller announced his retirement from the General Assembly this spring, one of the reasons he cited was a "less civil" political climate. "To always refer to your opponent as a 'fat cat' or 'out of touch' or 'a fraud' or 'a liar' - that's the spirit in which campaigns are offered today," he said. "It builds up a whole group of people who lack respect for other people's viewpoints. We have a responsibility to tone it down."

Not everyone wants it toned down. Miller blames political consultants, who he complains advise candidates on ever-increasingly clever ways to divide and conquer the electorate.

He may as well blame citizens, too.

If political life is indeed becoming louder and angrier - admittedly a difficult, if not impossible, point to quantify - many citizens think that's just fine.

They have good reasons to be angry with government, they say. And if their "tone" is considered too loud or too strident, well, tough.

To these citizens, a raucous political environment is a healthy sign, not an unhealthy one.

"I would prefer that sort of political environment to one that tries to maintain a gentleman's club, where no one speaks too loudly or says what they really were thinking and schemes behind the scenes," said Robert Sadler, a research-and-development engineer at the ITT plant in Roanoke County. "There shouldn't be any punches pulled."

John Kemp, who works for a Roanoke County insurance company, agreed. "As G. Gordon Liddy says, rhetoric is designed to persuade. You don't persuade them with dull rhetoric. It's got to be pretty wide open."

Indeed, the more wide open the rhetoric, the more politics is accessible to those who have long felt alienated from the process, some contend. "I think it's increasing the participation; it's just a different kind of participation," said Tolchin, the George Washington University analyst and author. "People who weren't part of the clubhouse can now take part in the debate."

But is the volume and stridency of politics driving others out of the process? There's no statistical evidence, but some public policy analysts think so.

"Those who are truly committed to abrasive rhetoric are actually a very small minority," said David Mermin, a researcher at The Harwood Group, a Maryland consulting firm that advises clients - from civic groups to newspapers - on ways to mediate and resolve public issues. "Those who have adopted that don't see any other way, don't know any other way to be heard. It's what they see in politics: The loudest voices get the most attention."

The problem, he says, is that citizens who wish to participate in politics - even at the level of a community meeting - often feel they have only two choices: Either jump in loudly, "or forget the whole thing."

Mermin fears too many citizens are doing the latter, so the number of people participating in public affairs isn't really changing, even though the types of people involved are.

"The group being driven out is the group we need as the glue. The ones who will say 'yes, but,' instead of just 'yes' or 'no.' As these people feel shut out, those left are the ones with the loudest voices. They dominate the scene and you get a vicious circle" - a circle that ends in polarization.

Larry Sabato, University of Virginia political analyst, frets about much the same thing. "The harsher the rhetoric of politics, the harder it is that average people will become engaged in politics. It's off-putting. It confirms their suspicions that politics is mean."

Siska, the Salem homemaker, might be his Exhibit A. "With all that loudness and all that anger and name-calling, I think it discourages people from running for office," she said. "I certainly would never consider running. I just can't imagine what a tough-skinned person you'd have to be to run. I could never imagine setting myself up for that kind of heat."

She did screw up her courage enough to apply for an appointed seat on the Salem School Board, but admitted, "I was really uncomfortable doing even that."

If the tone of public life is so harsh that it's discouraging people from participating, what do her loud and angry fellow citizens think about the effect they're having?

They're not always sympathetic. Myrtle Gray, a part-time secretary from Chamblissburg, agreed that sometimes "it would be good if politicians restrained themselves."

But she also sees a rough-and-tumble political environment as a weeding-out process of sorts. "If you're in politics, you've got to be thick-skinned, and some people are probably not cut out for it. They wouldn't be strong enough to buck up against everything."

Richard Harwood, who runs the Maryland consulting firm, hears that kind of response a lot in his work - and worries that citizens are becoming "conditioned" to think that public life is only for the loud and angry.

"Many things we do to promote public discussion actually promote acrimony, from the way we conduct public meetings that are taken over by the loudest voices, to the way newspapers conduct polls that needlessly divide people about issues before they've had a chance to think about them. We tend to conduct political debates in a way that polarize people."

In his consulting work, Harwood advises the news media to junk polls and de-emphasize stories about conflict. And he urges civic groups and government bodies to change the way public meetings are conducted.

"Most politicians walk into a public hearing and say, 'What do you think I should do on this issue?' That automatically set up an 'I vs. them' situation so that citizens have no responsibility for the problem. Instead, politicians should ask, 'What do you think we should do about this?' That automatically changes the dynamics."

The problem, he said, is not that there are too many "loud and angry" voices, but too many voices that don't think they have a stake in resolving public issues.

"We have created a society where it's OK to act as a claimant on government and hold no responsibility for the content of what you say or the effect of your speech on other people. That's not a healthy democracy."

HEN it comes to politics, Sherry Siska, a Salem homemaker and mother of three, says she'd like to reach for the volume knob - and turn down the sound a little.

"That loudness!" she exclaims, as if that explains everything that's wrong with politics these days. For her, it does.

It's not just talk radio she's thinking about. It's television, too. She turned on the CBS Morning News last week and saw commentators Fred Barnes and Bob Beckel debating. "They were just calling each other names," she says.

It's local campaigns. She thinks back to the 1993 House of Delegates race between Morgan Griffith and Howard Packett - a pretty tame affair as far as campaigns go these days. Siska was so disgusted by their "name-calling" that she cast a write-in vote instead. "I couldn't bring myself to vote for either one of them."

It's even her old workplace. She remembers one co-worker who voiced his political views so loudly and emphatically that "it made you feel you couldn't say anything without getting into an argument."

These aren't just isolated events, in Siska's view. She sees a trend. "The ability to disagree without being disagreeable is becoming a lost art in this country."

She's not alone.

It's probably has always been fashionable to complain that politics is mean-spirited. And they probably always have been. "Herbert Hoover was pelted by eggs," says George Washington University political analyst Susan Tolchin, who's writing a book about political anger. "George Washington threatened to call off his campaign for president if the newspapers didn't stop saying scurrilous things about him."

But in the past few years, a debate over whether the tone of political discourse in America is getting worse - seriously worse - has been slowly percolating across the country, warmed mostly by academics fretting about an ill-defined loss of "civility" in public life.

Occasionally, politicians themselves have stirred the discussion. When Sen. James Exon, a conservative Democrat from Nebraska, announced his retirement earlier this year, he expressed dismay over what he called the "ever increasing vicious polarization of the electorate, the us-against-them mentality" that has "all but swept aside the former preponderance of reasonable

discussions."

He specifically blamed the tone of political campaigns for exacerbating the public discontent: "The traditional art of workable compromises for the ultimate good of all, the essence of democracy, has demonstrably eroded. The 'hate level' fed by attack ads has unfortunately become the measurement of a successful campaign."

The subject boiled over into full public view in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, when President Clinton used his bully pulpit to speak out against "the loud and angry voices" that he said were poisoning the country's political climate.

Clinton's remarks drew their own loud and angry retort from conservative critics, who interpreted his remarks as an attack on them - and promptly accused him of trying to score cheap political points at a time of national mourning.

But set partisan politics aside for a moment. What about the essence of the president's charge? Is public discourse today too loud and too angry?

There are certainly plenty of people who think so - and they're not just Democrats crying foul now that Republicans are in charge on Capitol Hill. Indeed, in Virginia one of the most prominent critics of the tone of modern political life is a Republican - Del. Clinton Miller of Shenandoah County.

When Miller announced his retirement from the General Assembly this spring, one of the reasons he cited was a "less civil" political climate. "To always refer to your opponent as a 'fat cat' or 'out of touch' or 'a fraud' or 'a liar' - that's the spirit in which campaigns are offered today," he says. "It builds up a whole group fo people who lack respect for other people's viewpoints. We have a responsibility to tone it down."

Not everyone wants it toned down. Miller blames political consultants, who he complains advise candidates on ever-increasingly clever ways to divide and conquer the electorate.

He may as well blame citizens, too.

If political life is indeed becoming louder and angrier - admittedly a difficult, if not impossible, point to quantify - many citizens think that's just fine.

They have good reasons to be angry with government, they say. And if their "tone" is considered too loud or too strident, well, tough.

To these citizens, a raucous political environment is a healthy sign, not an unhealthy one.

"I would prefer that sort of political environment to one that tries to maintain a gentleman's club, where no one speaks too loudly or says what they really were thinking and schemes behind the scenes," says Robert Sadler, a research-and-development engineer at the ITT plant in Roanoke County. "There shouldn't be any punches pulled."

John Kemp, who works for a Roanoke County insurance company, agrees. "As G. Gordon Liddy says, rhetoric is designed to persuade. You don't persuade them with dull rhetoric. It's got to be pretty wide open."

Indeed, the more wide open the rhetoric, the more politics is accessible to those who have long felt alienated from the process, some contend. "I think it's increasing the participation, it's just a different kind of participation," says Tolchin, the George Washington University analyst and author. "People who weren't part of the clubhouse can how take part in the debate."

But is the volume and stridency of politics today driving others out of the process? There's no statistical evidence, but some public policy analysts think so.

"Those who are truly committed to abrasive rhetoric are actually a very small minority," says David Mermin, a researcher at The Harwood Group, a Maryland consulting firm that advises clients - from civic groups to newspapers - on how to mediate and resolve public issues. "Those who have adopted that don't see any other way, don't know any other way to be heard. It's what they see in politics - the loudest voices get the most attention."

The problem, he says, is that citizens who wish to participate in politics - even at the level of a community meeting - often feel they have only two choices: Either jump in loudly "or forget the whole thing."

He fears too many citizens are doing the latter, so that the number of people participating in public affairs isn't really changing - even though the types of people involved are. "The group being driven out is the group we need as the glue. The ones who will say 'yes, but,' instead of just 'yes' or 'no.' As these people feel shut out, those left are the ones with the loudest voices. They dominate the scene and you get a vicious circle" - a circle that ends in polarization.

Larry Sabato, the well-known University of Virginia political analyst, frets about much the same thing. "The harsher the rhetoric of politics, the harder it is that average people will become engaged in politics. It's off-putting. It confirms their suspicions that politics is mean."

Siska, the Salem homemaker, might be his Exhibit A. "With all that loudness and all that anger and name-calling, I think it discourages people from running for office," she says. "I certainly would never consider running. I just can't imagine what a tough-skinned person you'd must have to run. I could never imagine setting myself up for that kind of heat."

She did screw up her courage enough to apply for an appointed seat on the Salem School Board, but admits "I was really uncomfortable doing even that."

If the tone of public life is so harsh that it's discouraging people from participating, what do her loud and angry fellow citizens think about the effect they're having?

They're not always sympathetic. Myrtle Gray, a part-time secretary from Chamblissburg, agrees that sometimes "it would be good of politicians restrained themselves."

But she also sees a rough-and-tumble political environment as a weeding-out process of sorts. "If you're in politics, you've got to be thick-skinned and some people are probably not cut out for it. They wouldn't be strong enough to buck up against everything."

Harwood, who runs the Maryland consulting firm, hears those kinds of response a lot in his work - and worries that citizens are becoming "conditioned" to think that public life is only for the loud and angry.

"Many things we do to promote public discussion actually promotes acrimony, from the way we conduct public meetings, that are taken over by the loudest voices, to the way newspapers conduct polls that needlessly divide people about issues before they've had a chance to think about them. We tend to conduct political debates in a way that polarize people."

Instead, in his consulting work, Harwood advises the news media to junk polls and de-emphasize stories about conflict. And he urges civic groups and government bodies to change the way public meetings are conducted.

"Most politicians walk into a public hearing and say 'what do you think I should do on this issue?' That automatically set up an 'I vs. them' situation so that citizens have no responsbility for the problem. Instead, politicans should ask 'what do you think we should do about this? That automatically changes the dynamics."

The problem, he says, is not that there are too many "loud and angry" voices, but too many voices that don't feel like they have a stake in resolving public issues.

"We have created a society where it's OK to act as a claimant on government and hold no responsbility for the content of what you say or the effect of your speech on other people. That's not a healthy democracy."