Mr. Bradley, a Democrat who last month announced plans not to seek re-election, maintained that he had not made any firm decisions on his future, but feels that both major parties have failed to address everyday concerns of working people. "I will not challenge the President in the Democratic primary, but I have not ruled out an independent route," Mr. Bradley said in a news conference on August 8, 1995.
Need For An Outsider
In the 1994 election, the American people voted resoundingly and decisively against – against higher taxes, against bigger government, against more intrusive rules and regulations, against assaults on family life, against socialized medicine, against the old way of doing things. And they voted against Bill Clinton, against his ideology and soft ambivalence, against his weak and aimless foreign policy.
The Republicans are using the 1994 vote as a blueprint to get back into the White House. However, recent polls indicate their cutback strategy may be their undoing. Several polls taken after the House passed its budget (the one that cut Medicare) indicate that public support for the House leadership is plummeting. Voters are saying they need leadership with vision to enter the next millennium, not the heartless, cutback fixers that control the Congress today, or the insiders of the past who let the government and taxes grow out of control without economic/job growth.
Many political experts feel this is the time for an outsider to take it all. They point to the fact that Ross Perot received 20% of the total vote in his very unfocused and uneven campaign in 1992.
Bradley believes there is a hunger within the citizenry for a serious approach to the tough issues of the day. He has ideas and whether he runs for President or not, will give them an airing. Bradley's views are complex. While he is a strong supporter of free trade and the technological innovations that have made the U.S. economy more productive and more competitive, he feels just as strongly that more needs to be done to help those workers caught in the hideous web of downsizing.
The career politicians in Washington, unaware of the fantastic growth waiting to burst forth in our economy, spend their time dividing up an ever shrinking pie. They take from one group in order to dole out favors to others, undermining out trust in the basic fairness of the American system and causing division, envy and bitterness. In order to get their way, they turn the good American people against each other. And then they wonder why politics has turned into such a nasty business.
Bill Bradley wants to change that scenario. He is a man of integrity and seriousness of purpose. He is looking for a way to re-discover and revitalize the American experiment, the essence of which is giving individuals the opportunity to discover and develop their God-given talents. "In America, extraordinary deeds are done when seemingly ordinary people are allowed and encouraged to take responsibility for themselves, for their families and for their communities," states Senator Bradley. Bradley is looking for a route to the White House. Fine. That may prove to be the easy part. What is really difficult for a thoughtful person in the chaos of today's politics and media coverage is simply funding a way to be heard.
Can anyone deny that sound-bite politics, including the 30-second campaign commercial, are key in deciding most major recent elections? Senator Bill Bradley said his decision not to seek re-election was based on his belief that Washington was becoming a haystack caught in a whirlwind, the inchoate product of party alliances shattering, old orders crumbling, voters looking for something to hang onto in the drift. Are these changes in America's voting behavior good for our democracy or have they become a danger for our country?
The late Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil is famous for saying that all politics are local. He grew up in an era when Irish immigrants used the voting power of political machine to gain acceptance in Boston and other urban areas of this country. He rode the strong party political structure of his day from the streets of Cambridge through six years as Speaker of the U.S. Congress.
There Goes The Neighborhood
The political Party machine that O'Neil was talking about worked in a hierarchical structure that many political scientists say was copied from the inner administrative workings of the Catholic Church. The Church structure was designed to ensure that the Pope was only two contacts away from the average worshippers. American political parties tried to emulate the communication and access the Catholic Church afforded. Up until a couple decades ago, it was very common for county leaders to meet with Presidents from their party. These same county leaders were only two phone calls from the local block captain.
The strong political party worked from the bottom up, encouraged competition, and taught those on the lowest level with ambition how the system worked. Block captains competed with each other in a Darwinian sense inside a political club to see who was going to be district leader. Their competition was rooted in their ability to serve their constituents. For block captains, it meant keeping the streets clean, getting jobs for locals, and making their neighborhoods better places to live. If they did not perform their tasks, they not only wouldn't move up, but some young turk from the neighborhood would defeat them in a primary. The Talk Radio Political era eliminates all of that. Neighborhood residents can not turn to the networking party structure that their fathers and mothers used to demand services and government action. Local residents fighting drug dealers, dirty streets, and unemployment lacked the power to force the political system to help them.
Why Neighborhoods Decline
It became policy to democratize the political party structure since the debacle of the 1968 Democratic Party Convention in Chicago. What has become clear is that this reform of opening up the political parties has toppled a political system that functioned from the bottom up, resulting in less political power for the average citizen. Any system that cuts off power and access to the average citizen sits well with people who already have power and money.
The reformers said the bosses were corrupt. Tammany Hall party leaders throughout the years were thrown in jail for stealing from the public till. However, the Savings and Loan Scandal in Congress shows that those in charge of our weak political parties today know how to steal as much as the Tammany Tigers, but because of their Congressional positions, they know how to escape jail.
The political parties built a mosaic of different racial, ethnic, religious, business, and labor groups working for the common goal of electing citywide, statewide, and nationwide tickets. Although the different groups worked separately and had unequal power, they needed each other for the common goal of electing their team. Today, Talk Radio ideology-driven politics turn groups against each other even though it is against their best interest. Activists become political leaders not by serving a local following but by attacking others in the media. The more outlandish the attack, the more coverage today's tabloid media activist gets. The more coverage, the more political power the activist requires. While the political parties united groups to deliver the vote, Talk Radio Politics creates a public theater of hate and social disorder.
To whom are these new princes of political power accountable? As Rush says in the opening of his show, he is "On Loan From God." Our democracy is in trouble. We cannot remain a nation if our political system is driven by hate for each other. We must escape Talk Radio politics and find a way back to a strong party system.
"There is a feeling today that Washington is out of control: that both Republican and Democratic parties cannot solve the nation's problems; that insider politics as usual has put both major parties out of touch with what the public wants and needs," states the Senator.
Today, a new political force, attached not to the neighborhood but rooted in ideology and creative public relations, is changing the way America votes. Talk Radio, run by a new media elite ruling class of image makers, unelected and unchangeable by the average citizen, has become the new boss of politics.
Gone are the young ambitious turks from the streets who became block captains and rose through the system to become not only district leaders but assemblymen, congressmen and even senators. Jacob Javits, the author of legislation to protect labor and its pension funds, rose in such a system to become New York State's greatest U.S. Senator. Today, money, incumbency, and public relations experts who don't even live in the district have replaced the young turks like Javits from the neighborhood. We lost the street-smart leader who has the desire to take on the system for the common man and woman. With no political system to train challengers, elected officials become detached and remain in office longer, unchallenged.
G.T.