Page 2/The Battalion/Monday, May 5, 1986
Opinion
Understanding complex rules of political games
to
As the polls were
closing Saturday for
the state primaries, I
was at the headquar
ters of one of the gu-
Craig Renfro
(.olmimisl
bernatorial candidates. As it was becom
ing increasing!) apparent that this
candidate was not going to win, I asked
I. Canwin, his campaign poster hanger,
what went wrong.
Casting a dejected glance at the final
tally, Canwin replied, "I don’t know
what went wrong. We spent nearly $1
million, made sexeral TV commercials,
shook thousands of hands and had sexe
ral S^OO-a-plate campaign fund lun
cheons. I just can't figure it out.”
Feeling somewhat sorry for him, I
told him that somebody had to lose and
that, after all. it didn’t matter whether
you win or lose, it’s how you play the
game.
"But that’s the problem,” Canwin re
torted. "We did play the political game,
and we played it to perfection. Well, al
most to perfection.
"From the beginning you want to
choose the right person to be a candi
date for goyernor. You ha\ e to choose a
person that the people can trust. You
can’t get just any bum off the street to
come in and be governor. You need
someone who can smile a lot, even when
it’s 90 degrees.”
I agreed with him. People do like to
see smiling politicians. It makes them
feel that everything is going well and
that we aren’t really experiencing oil
revenue shortfalls, high unemployment
and inflation:
“But there must surely be other ways
to measure a candidate’s political wor
thiness besides the fact he smiles a lot,” I
said.
“You must be an eloquent speaker,”
he replied. “If he can talk about budget
cuts, tax hikes and other political rheo-
toric in a way that the people think they
understand, but really don’t, then that is
certainly a bonus.”
I still didn’t quite understand the sys
tem, so I asked him to give me an exam
ple of such skillful speaking.
“Well, of course you understand that
I am not the speech writer, but I’ll give it
my best shot,” Canwin said. “You start
off with something like this. . . .‘And if
elected governor I promise to do every
thing in my power to keep this state
strong and financially prosperous. I
promise not to raise taxes and I promise
to seriously look into the problems and
issues that max adxerselx affect this
great state.’”
“So it seems to me that what a candi
date has to do is make a lot of beefy
promises that he reallx can’t be held re
sponsible for,” I said.
“Well, in a xvax that’s true,” Canwin
said. “You want to make your promises
ambiguous so that if you are elected and
the people do demand responsibility
you can say you were misquoted or
taken out of context.”
“ Fell me what else it takes to make a
successful politician. So far it seems all
you have to do is have a good personal
ity and a silver tongue,” 1 said.
“One of the most important things is
to criticize the incumbent's track record.
The current governor has a list of mis
takes that xvould make any opponent
smile,” Canwin said. "First of all is the
collapse of oil prices. You can reallx lax
the blame on him for not anticipating
that crisis.
“Secondly you can criticize him for
Deaver makes good
ethical punching bag
One o f the
more interesting
places to be these
dax s would be in
side Mike Deaxer's
head. There,
t h o u g h t s a n cl
questions must ri
cochet : What did I
do wrong? Why
me? What is this
all about? Is this a
Richard
Cohen
nightmare and, if so, xvhen do I xvake
up? I he ansxver to the last is clear: Not
yet. Michael, not xet.
I he fact is that Washington is having
a jollx good time punching around Mike
Deaver noxv that it has him out in the
open — axvax from his protector, Nancy
Reagan, and her protector, the presi
dent. Fhe man is being pummeled by
the press, bx his felloxv lobbyists and by
present and former members of the
Reagan administration. Deaver, it
seems, is one of those guys who forgot
to be nice to subordinates. Now the
munchkins are munching on him.
For just a second, put yourself in
Deaxer's place. You tell yourself that
xou’re not the first person to go from
goxermnent to public relations. Fhe
town is full of people like that. And
xou’re not the first to do so from the
Reagan administration, either. Many
former Reaganites are noxv consultants
of one sort or another and some of them
represent foreign goxernmcnts. Deaver
max have South Korea, but Black, Ma-
nafort. Stone and Kelly, another firm
with Reagan connections, had the Phil
ippines government under Ferdinand
Marcos. Need some ladies’ shoes?
Maybe it's the money. Billings of
more than S2 million in the first year of
business is more than enough to attract
enxy, but then Deaver is not the first
person to get rich in Washington. Rob
ert Keith Gray, the chairman of Ronald
Reagan's inaugural committee and for
mer Fisen bower White House aide,
makes xvhat xve used to call a nice lix ing.
His firm has grown tremendously in the
last sex eral x ears and he, too, represents
foreign goxernments — Turkey and,
tor a while, Angola. No one xvrites much
about him.
Okax , max be it’s the publicity. Deaver
posed for a lime magazine cover in
which he was shown seated in a limou
sine. talking on the phone xvith the Ca
pitol in the background. “Who’s This
Man Calling?" I ime asked on the cover.
l ime prox ided no ansxver, but ex ery-
thing about Deaver suggests that it was
the president. He is one of the few peo
ple xvho can get Reagan on the phone.
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his tax format. In 1982 he promised no
new taxes, and then in 1984 he backed a
$4.6 million sales and gasoline tax hike.
Those are the kinds of things any politi
cal opponent will look for in an attempt
to make the incumbent look bad.”
“But, how can you pick on those sen-
sitixe issues, when that situation could
arise no matter who is in office?” I
asked.
“Who said politics were fair? You do
anything you can to win, and bringing
out policy mistakes is one of the best
xvays.”
“What other ways are there to put the
incumbent in a bad light?” I asked.
“One way is to make up some type of
political scandal,” Canwin said. “It
doesn’t hax e to be much, just something
to the effect that the current administra-
in a shot at an opponent.”
“So if you call someone a nod I
‘scumbair, that’s a xvax of attrattiiijj'I
tes?" 1 asked.
By R
turn is wasting money.’
“You mean something like the fact
that they spent $3 million for a new air
plane, when they should have been cut
ting down administrative expenses?”
“That’s it,” Canwin replied with a
smile. “Now you’re beginning to get the
hang of it. But there’s more to it than
that. Name calling is another way to get
“Well that’s t lose.” Canwin said ; A teleph
some people might think that’s u :ni [ a ll (nv ' n
unfaii tactics. I hex might prefei so; ?'T‘ 1 | SS / S 1
thing more subtle — like ’tax waste; IS
‘budget cutter’.” alliums,’d
ent inf or
“I think Fin finallx beginning h; |lst | m .
derstand this game of politics nov AkM wil
said. “But tell me how xou ;n e goiii.nivc i sities
learn from this sear's defeat?" 'iluamssai
Phone re;
After gix ing the question a few r I'jf ^ ‘ llt ' (
Utes ot tin night. ( .mu m leplied s ‘
think that hn the next elec I ion \u § tU( | ( . I1|s
just have to start smiling more, spr holies to <
ing more monex, and who kn jrltapedi
max be bx 1990 the gox ernoi will I nies
made, so main mistakes that the pe l—
will be reads for a new politiiiai
make some different ones."
■tv
Craig Renfro is a senior joumlisr " m g
major and a columnist for The Bali;
ion. By (
That’s what makes him unique.
And that, in a nutshell, explains the
entire Deaver imbroglio. Sure, there
might be a matter of law' involved —
whether Deaver ignored it and met too
soon with White House aides, whether
he cut a deal with Canada while still in
the White House. But these are misde
meanors: Canada and acid rain is not
exactly Libya and atomic weapons.
These allegations amount to a device to
make the moral and personal case
against Deaver. We all pretend we are
talking about the law. But we are really
talking about the feelings we all have for
someone whose career, we think,
amounts to nothing more than attach
ing hinmself to someone more impor
tant — and then exploiting that
relationship.
When he appeared on the “McNeil-
Lehrer News Hour,” Deaver said he w’as
valuable for his ability to “strategize.”
Maybe. But to the rest of the world,
Deaver’s value is his relationship wath
the Reagans. His is a totally reflected
glory. He commands the same respect
and loathing as a boss’s son who con
ducts himself as if he built the company.
That is where the comparisons to
Clark Clifford are way off the mark.
Clifford may have started as an aide to
President Harry S. Truman, but his va
lue to clients amounted to more than
proximity to a former president. Years
after being"a Truman aide, Clifford be
came Lyndon Johnson’s secretary of de
fense. No one can imagine Deaver
doing the same.
Ironically, Deaver’s problems are
compounded by the president’s age and
popularity. The more popular Reagan
is, the more people will be outraged by
xvhat they see as Deaver’s exploitation of
him. And the older he gets and the
more “detached” Reagan becomes, the
more people will resent someone who
claims the president’s imprimatur —.
who flourishes the president’s daily
schedule. It is name dropping on a
grand scale: Let’s see, if it’s 2:45 then
Ron’s napping. (When it comes to
Deaver, Ron certainly is.)
The law' is important and Deaver’s al
leged violation of it is worth the time
and attention of the news media. And
maybe Deaver personifies something
about Washington that is worth being
concerned about — the role of money.
But Washington is really out to get Mi
chael K. Deaver for reasons that make it
still a toxvn not that different than most
others in America: It’s simply disgusted.
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MAR60USS
©1906 HCV&TCM VOGT
United Feature Syndicate
U.S. trading in biblical law
for man’s arbitrary rules
“In this situation
of this Assem b 1 x ,
groping, as it were,
in the dark, to find
political truth, and
Mark
Schulz
Guest Columnist
scarce able to distinguish it xvhen pre
sented to us, how has it happened. Sir,
that we have not hitherto once thought
of humbly applying to the Father of
Light to illuminate out understandings .
. . I have lived. Sir, along time, and the
longer I live the more coin incing proofs
I see of this truth, that God governs in
the affairs of men. And if a sparrow
cannot fall to the ground without His
notice, is it probable that an F.mpire can
arise without His aid? We hax e been as
sured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that
‘except the Lord build the house they la
bor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe
this . . .”
When Jefferson wrote the Declara
tion of Independence, he appealed to
the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s
God” and “the Supreme Judge of the
world” to validate the Declaration. He
said men “are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,” and a
government’s job is to secure these
rights. Notice that he did not say, “we
have reasoned that xve should have cer
tain liberties.” Unalienable implies a
welfare system that encourages la/
and family break-up, a medicalcoiiibI
nity xvhich leaves handicapped babifi
die and a society xvhere convicted*
derers xvalk the street after liveve:*
prison.
Of special concern to AB(> is W
creasing loss of religious and otherN I
doms. As you read this column,paiel
are in jail for teaching their children
Y
Democracy alone is not enough to insure liberty, as the majoritu
tyrannize the minority. If the state or the will of the people beam
the giver of liberties, then they may choose to remove these Mm
anytime it is to their benefit. But if a government can be bekh
countable to a higher authority by any citizen, liberty is gunninted
Copyright 1986, the Washington Post Writers
Group
This is what Benjamin Franklin said
to the Second ContinentalCongress and
its president, George Washington, after
several weeks of xvork on the Constitu
tion had produced little fruit. He went
on to motion f or dailx pi ax ers in order
to invoke “the assistanceof Heaxen.” In
describing the role of religion in the
founding of our countrx. historian Dr.
Frank Humphries said, "the founders
of the republic inxoked God in their
cixil assemblies, sought guidance for
their political actions from their reli
gious leaders and recognized the pre
cepts of the Bible as sound political
maxims.” Americans for Biblical Gox-
ernment wishes to see America return
to this spirit of our revolution.
higher authority than man’s opinion.
Non-theists insist that common sense
or man’s reason is all we need to base
our laws and freedoms on — that no
higher standard is needed. Common
sense is invaluable when used to apply
truth in particular situations, but man’s
reason, apart from moral absolutes, has
led to the slaughter of millions in the So-
x'iet Union, China, Cambodia, Nazi Ger
many and in other nations where the
state is elexated above the Bible’s moral
standards.
ABG recognizes from history that
many of the founders of our nation
xvere strong religious men,and their be
lief in absolute truth astound in the Bi
ble profoundly affected the forming of
this nation. VVe knoxv that not all the
founding fathers xvere true biblical
Christians, but even themain two — Jef
ferson and Franklin —were greatlx in
fluenced bx the Christian faith.
Democracy alone is not enough to in
sure liberty, as the majority can tyran
nize the minority. If the state or the will
of the people become the giver of liber
ties, then they may choose to remove
these liberties anytime it is to their bene
fit. But if a government can be held ac
countable to a higher authority by any
citizen, liberty is guaranteed.
home. Churches increasingly are
rassed by the IRS and other govt'
mental agencies. Home bible stuefo
closed down bx the use of /oningofl
nances. More and more people tvisl
see freedom of religion practiced e 1
on Sundays behind four walls.
We believe that religious freedom
this country’s greatest strength, li
lose that f reedom, others WILL foil 1
ABG in no wax stands for a stated
ported religion or denomination,
stand for a nation in which people 1
choose to worship God as they pie*
not worship at all. But we also bell'
that our liberties are best in oteetetlil
acknbwledge xvhere these libertiesii |l l
from, and if xve hold to the standard!
Our country has some serious prob
lems today. ABG feels it is because our
country is trading in biblical-based law
for the arbitrary decisions of man. Some
of the results of this new mentality are a
right and wrong that goes with tin®
George Washington said, “Truere^f
offers' government its surest sup|) |l i
We challenge every citizen to Ifk^
study the Constitution and DeclarJWf^
of Independence in light of the big
and intent of the founding fathers.
Mark Schulz is the system’s analp'i
the Computing Services Center i
member of Americans for a
Government.