THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601210060
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: AUSTIN, TEXAS LENGTH: Long : 149 lines
Presidential candidate Sen. Richard Lugar said he was looking forward to being questioned Saturday night on television by 476 citizens at the National Issues Convention.
But he found himself pressed harder by Doug Zokatis, a retiree from Vacaville, Calif., than he would have been by many reporters.
``We've discussed before that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer,'' Zokatis said. ``Can we narrow that gap and keep a free market economy?''
``I'm not sure the government can narrow that gap,'' Lugar said. ``The key issue is to have wage increases for all Americans.''
Lugar said the best way is through ``dramatic increases in the economy,'' local education, and a sense of community and compassion. Finally, PBS moderator Jim Lehrer asked Zokatis if his question had been answered.
``No,'' said Zokatis. ``It doesn't answer the question. But I don't think it will be answered.''
Lugar tried again, but Zokatis never did sound satisfied with the answers.
Just as a Richmond debate in front of citizens in 1992 helped set the tone for the way an election could be centered on core issues, the hope here was that Saturday night's questioning of GOP candidates could do the same this year.
In a televised forum, four GOP hopefuls were peppered with questions about jobs and the standard of living, on the family and on America's role in world affairs by people who had come to Austin from all over the country.
These Americans, picked by a random sample to represent a broad cross-section of the country, had been wrestling over just the right questions to ask Lugar, Sen. Phil Gramm, Steve Forbes and Lamar Alexander, and now they had the chance. Lugar showed up in person, the other candidates by satellite.
The $3.9 million ``deliberative poll,'' according to the organizers, was to create a different approach to politics: where people - not political handlers - call the shots for the presidential campaign.
This cramped arena at the University of Texas-Austin was where the whole concept came together: citizens asking politicians directly about the issues.
The impact of the National Issues Convention on the campaigns remains to be seen.
Still, ``in many ways I think it's a success right now,'' said the event's creator, government professor Jim Fishkin, earlier in the day, ``in the sense that the people came here in microcosm and discussed the issues . . . I don't know yet if anyone's mind was changed by the dialogue. But the issues stopped being abstract and became human.''
Nothing fired up the delegates as much as talking about the American family, and their worries about it. Even while discussing other issues, America's global role and pressures on their pocketbooks, they often brought up the things that hit home.
For them, those concerns start with the feeling that too many stresses are pulling families apart. Sixty percent of mothers with children under 6 have to work, primarily because of the failure of wages to keep up with inflation.
The rate of children in poverty has risen by 45 percent since 1970.
Saturday night, Gianna Jones of Waco, Texas, asked former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander how he would lessen the stigma for poor, black children in crime-ridden neighborhoods.
Alexander paraphrased Martin Luther King Jr., calling on people to look at character over color, and said federal programs that tend to ``humiliate and stigmatize'' should be cut and given over to localities.
Delegates were also concerned that too many children spend their time at the mall, or watching television loaded with violent images. Schools take on more responsibility for children. Values aren't always passed along to the next generation.
Denesha Anderson, of Tempe, Ariz., asked Lugar how the government can help people supporting extended families, and preserve their finances.
``I'm not certain you can,'' Lugar said. ``Sacrifice may be too great a word. But it may extend your resources.''
The delegates' worries about the economy are closely intertwined with those about the family.
The U.S. Census shows that the income gap between the wealthiest 20 percent of the nation and the poorest 20 percent is the largest it's been since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Also, economic growth has slowed significantly since the 1960s.
Many delegates here said they feel top corporate executives and politicians make too much money, divorcing them from the reality of average Americans.
Asked by Linda Rosborough about modifying the tax structure to help families, Sen. Gramm immediately gave an answer nearly identical to Lugar's about creating more jobs and making the economy grow to solve problems.
``I think both corporate and individual tax rates are too high,'' Gramm said. ``I'm not interested, however, in redistributing income. I'm interested in creating it.''
When delegates asked Forbes about the economy - or anything else, in fact - he answered by saying the tax code should be reformed in favor of his flat tax proposal.
``Junk the tax code, because it is anti-family,'' Forbes said. He said it stifles job growth and encourages irresponsible behavior among taxpayers.
``We need to create more jobs and better-paying jobs,'' Forbes said.
Participants appeared to find it easiest to discuss America's foreign policy. They quickly agreed, for instance, that homegrown concerns should come first. But some were surprised to find that foreign aid actually is only about 1 percent of the national budget.
The nation has cut the military budget by one-fourth in the last five years, since the end of the Cold War, to about $252 billion.
Capt. Dennis Conn of Minot Air Force Base, Minot, N.D., wanted to know whether that was enough.
Lugar said he would keep military spending mostly stable, but said we're spending too much on certain armaments, including the the Seawolf submarine. Instead, Lugar said, he would shift funds to research and development of new weaponry.
Alan Block, a Sherman Oaks, Calif., financial officer, engaged Gramm in a thoughtful exchange about the U.S. role in Bosnia.
Block asked Gramm when the U.S. should intervene, and Gramm was clear: ``I don't think we can erect a wall around America and hide. I don't think we can be the world's policeman either. We can only send in troops when there is a vital national interest.''
Bosnia, he said, did not require a U.S. presence by his standards. But Block was troubled by that. His group, he said, considered ethnic cleansing ``a basic blight upon humanity.''
Block said, ``Our concern is that ignoring that act leaves us not in a world leadership position.''
Understood, Gramm said, but, ``We can't fix every problem. We can't right every wrong. We, through our intervention, cannot change things there. We made a mistake sending troops to Bosnia.''
Forbes made the same statement even more forcefully. ILLUSTRATION: Graphics
The National Issues Convention in Austin, Texas, is an experiment
that has brought together roughly 500 Americans to discuss three
topics: U.S. foreign policy, the economy and the family - and
interact with presidential candidates.
SAMPLE QUESTIONS
On America's role in global affairs:
A number of countries in the world need the United States'
attention or intervention. How do we prioritize and decide which to
help?
How do you justify sending foreign aid to other countries despite
all the needs we have at home?
On economic pressures:
Can we narrow the gap between rich and poor while keeping a
free-market economy?
If the economy is so healthy, why are people so anxious about
their lives?
On the family:
How can we alleviate the stigma on minority children born into
poverty and drug-ridden neighborhoods?
What can be done to help poor kids recognize the potential that
life can offer?
by CNB