As I write this, I am looking at a platform in Washington, DC's Union Station. We are running about 45 minutes late; it is early evening, about seven-thirty, and power just came back on in the train. So, what am I doing here?
I'm on my way to a meeting in Nashville, being called by a group of folks who worked for Ross Perot's presidential campaign, led by Russ Verney. I do not know if Ross Perot himself will put in an appearance; I hope he doesn't, but if this meeting gets the sort of press for which I am hoping, he almost certainly WILL make a grand entrance at some point.
So that's WHAT I'm doing here. Now the question is WHY am I here. (Sheesh, I sound like Jim Stockdale!) That's a very good question. I am a strong supporter of the National Reform Party Steering Committee that came into existence last September in Schaumburg. Russ Verney and his cronies have made it abundantly clear that they refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of that committee, and this meeting of theirs is clearly intended in part as an attempt to bolster that refusal. Since they do not have a group of states which have, by and large, an actual history of running candidates and achieving ballot status, unlike the Schaumburg Committee, it is hard to see why the legitimate national committee of the Reform Party should help create the impression that it views this meeting as in any way a legitimate attempt at leading this burgeoning third party. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the National Steering Committee has decided to take a gamble and attend this meeting, and I am faced now with the fact that, as a loyal supporter of that Committee, it is incumbent on me to help them plant that flag, if I can.
So here I am, after having swallowed hard and accepted the challenge of participating in a platform development workshop that the Committee has scheduled for Friday afternoon. My chosen issue is political reform, and now there is little left for me but to contemplate the three hundred dollar hole in my pocket after all that printing, and to think about the fact that I am sharing a platform with former Governor Lamm and absolutely CAN'T mess up. I feel like the astronauts in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. Please don't let me screw the pooch!
But let me get some perspective on this; let me take a walk down memory lane.
I've certainly had some interesting adventures since I inaugurated this site last New Year's with some thoughts about my political desires for the presidential year of 1996. Then I was a lone voice in the crowd, yet another personal home page on the Web, calling for a credible political leader to run as an independent presidential candidate. Well, a lot has sure happened to me since. This may still be just another personal home page on the Web, but I got involved in the Richard Lamm campaign, managed to get myself and my fellow volunteer campaign coordinator for New York City quoted in the press, my site was linked to the Lamm campaign, then de-linked, as my operation became "controversial," then I was invited to participate in meetings which laid the groundwork for building a National Committee, and now here I am up to my neck in planning for events scheduled by that Committee in conjunction with an event with which I have doubts we should even be involved.
Like I said before, what, for Pete's sake, am I doing here??!!
And then, of course, I watch the news this week, and it all makes sense. And I feel very angry.
Five years ago, I was inspired by Jerry Brown's call for clean politics. He wanted to place strict limits on both PAC and individual contributions. He called for a one hundred dollar limit on the latter. He spoke passionately of the corrosively corrupting effect on an elected public servant from that continuous and obsessive need for campaign funds. I remember Bob Kerrey, an honest and simple person in many ways, protesting that he had not been corrupted. And I remember Brown answering him by pointing out that just by his spending so much time raising money or thinking about raising money, the Senator's ability to serve the public without fear or favor was fatally compromised. It was an insightful and deadly riposte, made all the more effective by Brown's uncharacteristically gentle means of explaining the problem to the anti-war vet from Nebraska.
Yet now, all this time later, the situation has scarce changed. In fact, it may be worse. A Speaker of the House is found guilty by his peers of an ethical infraction serious enough to be fined three hundred thousand dollars. THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS???!!! Where I sit, any offense worthy of such a fine means that the perpetrator has conclusively demonstrated ethical failings of a sort which totally disqualify him from public office. The American people clearly see this, as the most recent polls conclusively demonstrate. Why cannot our elected Representatives see this?
Meanwhile, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, our President's party magnanimously proclaims that it will no longer accept contributions from companies in excess of one hundred thousand dollars, obviously under the supremely insane notion that such a gesture may actually convince some folks that they have discovered the path to their conscience, and have suddenly decided to be ethical. While this charade proceeds, the primary beneficiary of this party's acceptance of legalized bribery, William Jefferson Clinton, is questioned about his habit of giving room and board to financially unchallenged individuals who have tendered tokens of love to the Soldiers of the Donkey. His response is to go into what I can only call a lordly snit:
This is MY house, he proclaims; this is my castle; I'll invite whomever I jolly well please.
Excuse me, Mr. President, this is not YOUR house; this is MY house; I am paying for your room and board, and I hire and fire you. And I do NOT appreciate your treating my house of democracy as a fleabag motel, thank you very much.
There can be just one answer for this moral blindness pervading both ends of the Avenue of governance; it is smugness, overweening, uncontrollable smugness, and a supreme belief at some dark and deep level on the part of those sent here by the electorate that their power renders them subject to ethical standards different from those of us ordinary mortals. It is insulting; it is outrageous; and it shows how little, if anything, has changed since the days in 1992 when Jerry Brown first called for a wholesale revamping of ethical standards in our public life.
So now, I am really angry. Now I'm taking this real personal-like. Now I know why I spend seven hundred dollars, half a paycheck, to ride a train for two days. Now I know why I, a complete political novice, relatively speaking, take an assignment that puts me on the same speakers' platform with a former governor, with the inevitable risks that such a presumptuous step entails. Today's political cesspool fills me with anger born of affront and outrage. This is my democracy being defiled; this is my country being soiled with sleaze born of arrogance, and insulted by a leader's whining self-pity. Now I know I'm committed to this process, that my part in it is now almost out of my control. Now I know that I am riding a wave, and caught inexorably within its swell, no matter whither it leads. Now I know there can be no escape for me, as long as the stench is there.
I realize some of my readers may feel that, despite the ethics problems now plaguing our current leaders, there is still more hope to be felt than outrage to be expressed. The two parties may be about to work together; our fiscal house may finally be put in order. But whether you share my pessimism or see reason for optimism let me hear from you. You are cordially invited to fill out the boxes below and express yourself. Bear in mind that I reserve the right to quote statements sent to me in this manner, in whole or in part, in subsequent Musings. Also, be sure to indicate in the Title of your Message the name of the Musings, "Cesspools and Train Rides" to which you are responding. Thank you.
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