Voters Stymie Reformers

or those of us in Washington who engage in political commentary, this is the cruelest of seasons. Starting in late January and accelerating through early March, voters have begun speaking for themselves in party caucuses and primary elections.

As cheerleaders for civic participation in governmental processes, we should be pleased by the commencement of the balloting. But for various reasons, we pundits are not happy just now even though there will be no let-up in the volume or intensity of our pontificating.

For one thing, voters tend to be a contrary lot who tend not to heed our recommendations. In this campaining year, for example, vast amounts of editorial rhetoric have been expended to warn against the contaminating influence of money on our political system. Yet the issue of campaign finance reform does not appear to excite a majority of the electorate. Indeed it will be deemed a major upset if either of the presidential contenders who have won highest accolades from the press for decrying special-interest contributions-Democrat Bill Bradley and Republican John McCain-wins his party's nomination.

Worse yet, growing percentages of the citizenry aren't bothering to vote at all. It's bad enough to be disagreed with, but it's even more humiliating to be totally ignored. No wonder we're in a funk.

David S. Broder of The Washington Post, for example, recently devoted a Sunday column to the lament that, even in candidate-saturated New Hampshire, some voters remained unconvinced "that it matters who wins the White House."

Broder's concern is mirrored by veteran "inside the Beltway" commentators Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, who write in the Brookings Review that "public cynicism and disengagement" are running rampant. They note that in 1996, "less than half the voting-age population" cast presidential ballots, a drop of almost 14 percentage points since 1960. And lack of interest among the young voters suggests even lower turnout rates in the future, Mann and Ornstein glumly prophesy.

Perhaps the gloomiest assessment of all comes from my National Journal colleague Jonathan Rauch, who postulates that Washington has become so stalemated and debilitated by special interest politics that we now must "adjust to government's end." Good grief! If government is at an end, what does that bode for those of us who make our livings criticizing its performance? Surely, we won't see punditry's end.

At such a moment, the temptation is great to blame those cynical and disengaged voters who pay so little attention to us when we exhort them to eschew self-serving behavior in favor of the larger good. Rauch approvingly cites Jimmy Carter's grumpy admonition that "the national interest is not always the sum of all of our single or special interests." When Carter said that, however, the public already had expressed its lack of interest in awarding him a second Oval Office term.

In his new book, Government's End, Rauch paints the public as a gullible and greedy lot. Special-interest lobbyists, he writes, find it surprisingly easy "to spook the public by screaming bloody murder" when attempts are made to pare back pet programs. And while "the public wants the government to be leaner," he adds, they don't want such economies to be achieved "at the expense of students, farmers, bankers, workers, retirees, homeowners, artists, teachers, train riders, or cats and dogs."

Rauch's observations are evocative of a comment by another colleague who, when reminded of President Clinton's favorable approval ratings amid the revelations of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, blurted in frustration, "Well, we may have to look into what's wrong with the American public."

There are reasons, however, for the public's low expectations with regard to Washington political behavior. Even Rauch concedes that to argue voters are ill-informed and too easily swayed by misleading political rhetoric and slick ad campaigns "fails to give the public quite enough credit." He says "the voters' cynicism, which admittedly is often justified, makes them quick to believe charges that the system will double-cross them."

Rauch describes modern Washington as a "dense jungle" swarming with "little gray groups and politicians and lobbyists and claques that occupy and ossify the government." His assessment has much merit, but those of us who earn our livings as Washington-based commentators should keep in mind that we too are a part of that establishment of "burrowing and crawling and stinging creatures" who inhabit Rauch's swamp. As such, we should resist the urge to scold the public for its indifference.

The government's stalemate may not be quite so perpetual as Rauch suggests. Or perhaps, it is a condition that the public-in prosperous and crisis-free times-doesn't regard as all that intolerable. For Washington pundits-who perpetually agitate for change and reform-maybe the best course is to continue to make our best arguments but await more patiently the public's judgment. As a system, democracy is neither quick nor efficient, but it hasn't stopped working yet.

Dick Kirschten is a contributing editor for National Journal.