European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 03, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns David Broder the stars and stripes sunday. September 3,1989 wanted a livelier Democrat for president a year ago. George Bush accepted the Republican nomination at the new Orleans super Doc and launched the Campaign that made him president. His speech that night opened with the declaratory that. I mean to run hard to fight hard to stand on the issues and i mean to it ended with his leading the crowd in the pledge of allegiance. In their newly published Book whose Broad stripes and Bright stars the trivial Pursuit of the presidency 1988," political columnists Jack w. Garmond and Jules Witcover argue that Bush May have fought hard but he won Only by running away from the issues. It was. They assert one More example of the tendency for campaigns to be decided on the basis of tech Nique rather than that is a popular thesis but a puzzling one. The technique they refer to was hardly new. I involved researching the record of the opposition candidate. Massachusetts gov. Michael s. Dukakis testing the reactions of Small groups of voters to some of his vulnerabilities an then publicizing those weaknesses through speeches and ads. In the Spring of 1988. When Bush Campaign manager Lee Atwater told re search director Jim Pinkerton to list Dukakis weak Points on a 3-by-s card begot Back seven topics taxes defense drug penalties the death sentence pollution in Boston Harbor the Massachusetts prison furlough program and thereto of a Bill requiring the pledge of Alle Giance in Public schools. The Potency of those issues was proved by the reaction of democratic leaning voters in a Par Amus n.j., focus group just before me Morial Day. The next week. Bush began slugging Dukakis with those issues As a Means of reducing and ultimately revers ing his Likely opponent s Early Lead. That is essentially the Story that Ger mond and Witcover Tell fleshed out As Al ways with the anecdotes and interviews that have made their books on the last three campaigns the linear descendants of the late Theodore h. White s narratives of the presidential Battles of the 1960s. What is striking is the disillusionment with which these Veteran political report ers View the very contest they describe. It s As if the More they see of competitive James Kilpatrick v i wore the Bush Swie but i think it looks by Tern. Barbara politics these Days the less they like old friends and contemporaries Ger mond and Witcover arc obviously Loo Young to be victims of nostalgia or to romanticize bygone Days. How then to explain their disillusionment my Hunch is that they arc frustrated and rightly so with the kind of candidates the democrats have been serving up for their dramas. In his firs three making of the president books. Teddy while got to write about the campaigns of John f. Kennedy Lyndon and Hubert h. Humphrey. Ger mond and Witcover have had to struggle with the tales of Jimmy Carter. Walter and Michael Dukakis. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment the vulnerabilities pint Carton found in Dukakis record were real and so were the concerns they evoked in Vot ers who knew Little about either Candi Date. Thev need not have been decisive however had Dukakis not been so tardy in defending himself and so reluctant to exploit the openings Bush s own record provided. The evidence for that statement can be found in one of the Best chapters in the Germond Witcover Book the account of the democratic National convention in Atlanta. That gathering they rightly argue was not the Triumph the democrats thought at the time but rather a wasted they quote Bush s advertising Man. Roger Ailes As telling them in a Post election interview that when the Conven Tion began with devastating ridicule of Bush by Keynoter Ann Richards of Texas and sen Edward m. Kennedy a Mas she thought we got trouble listening to Kennedy s where was George routine about the scandals of inc Reagan administration and Richards populist Jab at the political bom with a Silver foot in his Mouth ails said i Hon Estly sat there and thought of Well. That s the theme of one and there s the theme of another. I thought they must have had ads. I would have. To get peo ple laugh ing Al but the democrats did t have such ads then or later because unlike the republicans they did not have the discipline or the organization to see what must be done to win the general their candidate unlike Kennedy Johnson or Humphrey lacked the improvisational Genius or wit to create such a Campaign As he careened around the and Witcover deserve just once to have that kind of Democrat to liven up the plot of their Book. But they Are Young Guys so there s no cafes froth a coverage act should be repealed conservatives May be forgiven if they look a from the very beginning. The time is at hand to repeal this misadventure and Start Over. Outright repeal probably is too much to ask of a Congress that dearly loves to sire new Benefit programs and deeply Hales to abort them. There is face to be saved. But the uproar which subsided during the a gust recess will revive with new ferocity this month. Members of the House and Senate went Home for peace and quiet. They got an angry earful instead. Oldsters arc burned up with Good reason. The Catas trophic coverage act compels Many of them to pay Large sums for insurance they Don t want Don t need and positively resent. The program is lamentably com plex it cannot be summarized in a sentence or two but polls have demonstrated that the More the old folks learn about it the angrier they get. Why arc they so wrought up the heritage foundation published a paper on the subject. Because the program has yet to go fully into effect no one can accurately project the costs but everyone agrees they will be mountainous. A year ago the congressional budget office co hazarded a guess that outlays would amount to $5.7 billion in the first four years for prescription drugs alone. Now co says maybe $11.8 billion. The new income tax surtax on the elderly would produce be tween $26 billion and $28 billion Between 1989 and 1993. By that time nearly half of All medicare beneficiaries would be paying the tax. The surtax would work next year in this Fash Ion for every $ i so he pays in Federal income tax a person on medicare would pay an additional $37.50 in surtax. A tax liability of $ 1,500 would trigger a surtax of $375 a tax liability of $3,000 would mean a surtax of $750, and so on up to a ceiling of $850. The ceiling would expand to $1,050 in 1993. If husband and wife arc both on medicare the surtax would apply As they say per each. This is not All. Premiums for what is known As part b of medicare insurance the part that pays some of a doctor s Bill also would increase. Participation in part b is voluntary but 95 percent of those on part a Hospital care also take pan b. The part b premiums that now amount to $382.80 a year would go to $523.20 four years hence. For Middle income taxpayers we now arc talking relatively big Money. These added financial burdens have provoked the greatest outrage but objections go not Only to the Money but also to the principle of the thing. The benefits under this act Are fixed. Before the catastrophic coverage act came along millions of the elderly were buying Midi Gap policies from private insurance carriers. These poli cies could be tailored to individual needs but the new program is based on of one size fits All. As the heritage p apr Points out the health Cost that most worries an elderly person is the astronomical Cost of Long term nursing care yet the act does virtually nothing to meet this concern. The Only Way a retire can escape the new drug benefits is to drop his part b entirely and few Are willing to do that. The surtax cannot be escaped at All. As a consequence those who have their own Medigap insurance and those still benefiting from employer financed programs will wind up paying twice for Many of the same to do the catastrophic coverage act now appears to be economically intolerable and politically insufferable. At least 115 members of the House and23 senators who voted for the act last year Are now running for cover. Creation of a study commission to recommend revisions would serve Only to further antagonize the oldsters who Are furious now. Any attempt to shift the Cost from retired persons to the work Force would set off rebellion among the Young. Tax increases on tobacco alcohol and gasoline would run into a Stone Wall at the White House the heritage paper suggests that the surtax be re pealed outright. The elderly poor must be protected. Middle an upper income retirees should be left free to buy whatever Long term insurance they want in. The private marketplace. This approach is and financially sound. Further reforms in medicare Are needed but these Steps would do for a Start pro Syndicate
