Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 6, 1995 TAG: 9509060101
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In Republican politics, the situation is reversed. Having won the congressional ``playoffs'' last November, unleashing a euphoria even greater than during the Reagan years, many conservative ``fans'' are giving up before next year's ``super bowl.'' They believe, after only eight months of GOP control of the House and Senate for the first time in four decades, that because things are not moving along as quickly as they would like, it is time to trash the two-party system and throw the long ball in the direction of an independent or unknown.
This would be a disaster most liberal politicians and their soul mates in the big media would love to see happen. It is why they are fueling the discontent and covering the airwaves and the front pages with stories about retiring New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley and the political stealth noncandidate, retired Gen. Colin Powell.
The New York Times' Michael Wines warns ominously that Bradley's decision not to run has nothing to do with the fact that he barely squeaked through in 1990 with 50 percent of the vote against Christine Todd Whitman (who won 47 percent and three years later became New Jersey's governor), and that he probably wouldn't win if he ran again. No, Wines warns, Bradley's retirement is an indication that the Democratic Party is ``sick'' and that Republicans have been infected by the Democrats' virus.
The only way to disprove that point is to elect a Republican president next year while the GOP maintains control of Congress. Then, if things don't improve, one might reasonably consider alternatives to the two-party system.
The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne says that Sen. Bob Dole should ignore his tie with Sen. Phil Gramm in last month's Iowa ``straw poll'' and ``listen to Bill Bradley.'' Dionne claims that the ``core worries of the electorate in 1995 are essentially the same as they were in 1992, and they are not rooted in ideology.'' What are they rooted in then?
Ideology - visionary theorizing, a systematic body of concepts about human life or culture - is behind all ideas, and ideas fuel government policies. To say that ideology doesn't matter is to say elections don't matter and, in fact, that nothing matters. This is nihilism taken to the extreme.
It is also the force behind the media-driven boomlet for Powell. The press and inside-the-Beltway crowd are fascinated by Powell, precisely because they don't know what he believes. They are thrilled not only with the unknown noncandidate, but the possibility of a candidate who is ideologically vacuous. Powell is admired because of his image, the perfect partner to Bill Clinton, who also appears to believe in nothing. But politics should be about substance. It is the lack of substance that produces cynicism.
The polltakers love to play this game when Washington politicians are on vacation. They create hypothetical tickets - Powell and Bradley, Powell and others - but they don't tell us how such a ticket could win 270 electoral votes.
Is this is an ingenious plot to derail the Republican revolution at a time when the conservative team has the ball on the one-foot line with the chance to score the winning touchdown? The opponents - aided by consultants, poll takers and media wizards - want the Republicans to forfeit the game, which they believe should belong to Democrats and liberals.
It took four decades to bloat our wonderful system of government. It will take more than one or two years to streamline it into one more responsive to the people. Republicans need to forget the noise from the sidelines, seize the ideological ball and run it up the middle for the decisive score. If they don't, their chances of getting back in the game any time soon will be virtually eliminated, and liberals will have won another one - without scoring a point.
- Los Angeles Times Syndicate
by CNB