European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 13, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse Thursday february 13, 1992 the stars and stripes Page 13 commentary James Resto candidates certainly Aren t Best brightest in the preliminaries to the presidential election All the candidates have been asking the voters to Send a message to Washington but nobody has been sending a message to them. Herewith a few suggestions. To the democrats Why do you go into the playoffs with your second team you have tried that and lost five of the last six presidential elections. Its True that the country is in a recession but it s no depression and George Bush whatever else he is is no Herbert Hoover. At least he looks and sounds like a president and As Ronald Reagan proved the appearance of things catches More votes than the substance. Forget about 1932. You have no Franklin d. Roosevelt. And forget about 1948. You done to even have a Harry s. Truman in the race. The president has told you he will do anything to be re elected and he probably will even if he has to keep or forget his promises. Meanwhile keep your second team off television. Why advertise your weakness they Don t even make it Clear to people that democrats got us out of the depression and gave old folks social Security and the unemployed some insurance. They done to concentrate on the Gross National stupidity of the 1980s but fuss with one another about the mysteries of economics a a sure Way to turn off voters. To the republicans is it Wise to keep talking about cutting the capital gains tax even if the revenues trickled Down to help the poor nobody understands such cuts but the Rich. It All sounds like a scheme to Comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted. Meanwhile say a few Nice things about gov. Mario Cuomo and other democratic dropouts that May keep them satisfied and on the sidelines. And done to be beastly to the democratic candidates these Guys Are your allies not your enemies. Also in the name of Republican decency forget about Willie Horton. Chuck the sly racial appeals and Tricky code words that Divide people. One other thing can to you do something about Dan Quayle its bad politics and bad manners for the president to insist on keeping him on the ticket. This is a decision to be made by the party in convention not by a president who insults voters by claiming that Quayle is the most qualified substitute president. To George Bush please or. President Stop starting your sentences with a they a and waving to people who Aren t there. Why have an education president who cusses like David s. Broder a a a a Sis Finksr we cur i Ftp m 160ptnl a Ken no do preacher Why the Tough Guy mucker pose the people done to like it and you re not Good at it. We liked the old Bush who used to speak As his father spoke against Joe Mccarthy who denounced Quot voodoo economics and hated debt who talked about getting the people together and stayed Home once in a while. Why demand a new order in the world and give us the same old political disorder and muddle at Home its no answer to say you re doing the Best you can. That a what worries us. To the voters and non voters Don t give up. If you done to like the candidates you can write in somebody else a name. Or the parties if they did what they re supposed to do could insist on nominating their Best people at conventions. None of the above is i Kiev to decide the election. But it might make the candidates come a Little closer to the truth. Political lying used to be no worse than a bad personal habit but now it s a science and even an Industry. This Calls for the revival of mocking laughter or even some justified heckling and maybe a few More bumper stickers no More lies. Why not the Best or even. Whither Art thou Mario otherwise everybody Quot out there and even Quot in Here a in the Beltway is Likely to feel even worse next november than they do now. James Reston is former chief Washington correspondent and executive Odi Tor of the now York times c Tho now York times new Breed of politicians bringing fresh ideas Twenty years ago when he was a member of the House of representatives Paul Tsongas helped spark the revival of his Home City of Lowell mass., by persuading local Banks and businesses and the City state and National governments to invest in what was then a unique private Public partnership to replace lost jobs. In the late 1980s, gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas picked up an idea from Israel and launched the Home instruction program for preschool youngsters hippy which trained 2,400 welfare mothers to teach their children Basic skills a and not so incidentally motivated the mothers to resume their own educations. Today Tsongas and Clinton Are at the top of the Field of democratic presidential contenders As exemplars of what May fairly be called a new generation of politicians. There Are at least As Many or maybe More republicans of similar mind sets a William Hudnut Iii the recently retired mayor of Indianapolis education Secretary Lamar Alexander housing and Urban development Secretary Jack Kemp Massachusetts gov. William Weld White House aide Jim Pinkerton for example. But they Are not running for president this year. They and their dozens of counterparts in local state and National government Are the heroes and heroines of a newly published Book with the breathless title reinventing government How the entrepreneurial spirit is transforming the Public sector from schoolhouse to statehouse City Hall to the Pentagon. The authors Are David Osborne a journalist who introduced readers to these experiments in his earlier Book laboratories of democracy and Ted Gaebler a former City manager turned consultant. Notwithstanding their tendency to reduce Complex problems to 10 simple commandments and their fondness for glib formulas governments should Quot steer not Rowit is my Strong Hunch that reinventing government is going to be a landmark in the debate on the future of Public policy. For almost a generation recognition has been spreading slowly among both democrats and republicans that the old top Down bureaucratic Way of attempting to deliver government services is creaking to a halt. The diversity of the nation the tenacity of its social and economic problems and the Scarcity of tax dollars make it harder and harder to follow rigid inflexible policies and programs. The new Deal worked. But sen. Tom harking a argument that we need a a new new deals ignores the enormous changes that have occurred in our econ omy and society since for brought the welfare state to Washington. A series of presidents has grappled with the needed transition but tailed. Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford offered Revenue sharing As a Way to shift resources without strings to state and local governments but it soon ran out of Cash. Jimmy Carter had a blueprint for reorganizing the Federal government an approach eerily echoed now by sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska in his presidential bid but ran out of political capital Long before he was Able to persuade Congress to try it. Ronald Reagan and George Bush have crusade against Quot excess regulation Quot but the regulations continue to grow. While some White House and congressional staffers and think tank intellectuals both democratic and Republican toy with ideas for a doing government differently a it is primarily at the stale and local Levels that the experiments Are being conducted. Osborne and Gaebler explore this largely territory and a bravely a try to draw a map of what a working out there. What a valuable about their Book is that they not Only provide examples of this new approach to government but a vocabulary for discussing it a something journalists among others badly need. Candidates such As Clinton and Tsongas can to be accurately described in the old Liberal conservative spectrum. They Are working with new ideas. Osborne and Gambier introduce a whole set of those concepts but let me quote them simply on the first and most Basic a the idea of a entrepreneurial we think of entrepreneurs As risk Tak ers and taking risks with Public funds let alone lives is not what most of us want our Public officials to do. But As French economist . Say first defined him the entrepreneur is the Man who Quot shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater the practitioners of entrepreneurial government Are those who use that Market concept to guide their Public policy choices a seeking ways of doing More with less Revenue and staff resources. That makes them enemies of bureaucratic systems a with All their rigidity detailed regulation insistence on uniformity and deference to authority. It makes them critics of the status quo. It also makes them what we badly need in government at the moment. And that a what makes this Book important. C tha Washington Host
