European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 14, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Saturday november 14, 1992 i commentary the stars and stripes Page 13outgoing tenant finds Little Joy in Oval office the pangs of defeat Are still apparent at the White House. Although he was warned and Well aware that the numbers were against him and the polls were not moving president Bush harboured the Hope that the voters would opt for the known Quantity in the Oval office. But they chose change and the Promise of jobs health care abortion rights More Over mental concern in the social Fields. P View that the future would Laid 8 pocketbook issues and the Helen Thomas residents e care of itself in the Quot something will turn up Quot fashion did not Wash former president Reagan ran on the premise that he was going to get government off the people s backs and it would be Quot morning in  in the years that followed the people found that they wanted a caring government when the going got rough. These Are sad Days for the president and painful Days for the aides around him As they seek to sort out what went wrong and what the future holds for them. Bush will suffer for a time the morning after blues and lame Duck ism has already set in As the spotlight moved to Little Rock ark., where president elect Clinton was conducting press conferences. To the Victor belong the spoils. But the president who has watched a few predecessors come and go in his 30 years in Washington knows that the Only Way to leave is Quot in style Quot As he poignantly put it to his tearful official family on the South Lawn when he returned from Houston his adopted Home after he suffered a wipe out in the hard fought presidential race. But As others indulged in monday morning quarterbacking and Reagan ites who Long ago had jumped ship did their Finger pointing the president looked to history and told his supporters a i think we contributed something to the  a close aide likened him to a Boxer who went Down with the count and was suffering from the remorse of losing. Many reasons were offered by his strategists particularly the Flat Economy accompanied by thousands continuing to lose jobs the pandering to the conservative right prompted by columnist Patrick Buchanan s searing Challenge in the primaries the entry of Texas billionaire Ross Perot complicating the race and the revolt of women affected by Bush a stands against abortion and his veto of family leave legislation. Also in the mix was the generational p for the 68-Ycar-old president. Time and passed him by As a Veteran of world War ii. The Young voters who turned out in record numbers helped Clinton 46, who shrugged off his attempts to avoid the Vietnam draft his Experiment with marijuana and allegations of womanizing. So the negatives that annihilated other candidates in the past were put on the Back Burner causing some concern among the populace but not enough to Stop the Clinton Campaign onslaught that kept the focus on pocketbook issues. It will be a Long 2>/z months for Bush As he finds his Power already drained and he looks for ways to be effective in the transition period. His interest has been foreign affairs and for that he May have been rewarded for having the fall of the soviet superpower Ana communism in Europe on his watch. Clinton has told the world that Bush is still president and not to try to make any other assumptions until he takes office on Jan. 20. In the meantime its decompression time for Bush. C in Ltd pros International foes of term limits using questionable logic now comes the condescension of the political class to the voters who last week imposed term limits on Many of the  the political class says the voters a silly children a were just having a Tantrum they could not have understood what they were doing because they also re elected 93 percent of House incumbents. Actually voters expressed a temperate reasonable judgment the problem is systemic not personal. No particular representative is the problem. Term limits Are a measured madisonian Reform that removes one motive a careerism a for entering legislative life. Limits will increase the frequency that legislators will think of the next generation rather than merely the next election. Term limits won in All 14 states that voted on them. In 13 of the 14, limits got More votes than Clinton got. Limits won More votes in 14 states than Perot won in 50 states in january 148 representatives and 30 senators Colorado passed limits in 1990 will be under limits. Those limited include speaker Tom Foley of Washington majority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri and majority whip Dave Bonior of Michigan three states that acted last week. Opponents of limits have said newcomers will be incompetent amateurs. But 72 percent of the freshmen coming to Congress in january have previously held elective offices. Opponents of limits have charged that limits Are a partisan ploy to dislodge democrats. However supporters of limits say democrats have advantages that will favor them in Competition with republicans for open seats the largest advantage being that democrats i amp a government and therefore attract better candidates. For four decades democrats have been doing better than republicans in open seat contests and last week they won 58 of 91. Supporters of limits have argued that by unclogging the political system limits would hasten the ascent of women to Power. This year 21 of the 24 new women who won were elected to open House seats. Last week the House incumbents had Only a 7 percent failure rate. That is about Normal the re election rate has been above 95 percent since 1984and for the Normal reason Money. The Center for responsive politics reports that in the 175 House races where the Winner outspent the challenger at least 10 to 1, 154 involved an incumbent common cause reports that in 83 percent of the 349 House races involving incumbents an usually Low number because of scandals and redistricting incumbents were i George f. Will ther unopposed or Quot financially unopposed challengers spent _ a derisory sum a less than $25,000 or challengers were Quot financially non competitive tailed to raise even half As much As the incumbent sin the 48 House races where incumbents won with less than 55 percent margins the incumbents had a 3-to-j Overall Money advantage and a 6-to-l Cash advantage in the last two weeks. The new York times reported that As of sept. 30 the median contributions from political action committees to Republican incumbents was $141,385 and the median for democratic incumbents was $187,850 the democrats sum was higher partly because All committee and subcommittee chairmen Are democrats. The average challenger of either party had raised from All sources ust $42,807 and had received from pics a paltry $1,100. Many opponents of term limits acknowledge that the current system is heavily skewed to the advantage of incumbents but propose achieving equity through Public financing and restrictions on Campaign i veg and spending. However there arc constitutional and moral problems with government stipulating by limits on political giving and spending the permissible amount of political communication. Such rules arc inevitably Rococo and porous. Furthermore proponents of Campaign finance reforms fault the current rules which were written by incumbent legislative careerists. What reason is there to think today a careerists will write rules less beneficial to themselves in fact term limitation is a Campaign finance Reform. Today incumbents get the Lions share of Pac Money. Imagine the nervous breakdowns that pics will suffer when regularly confronted with numerous competitive races for open seats under term limits they cannot be sure As they now can be that their contributions Are currying favor with secure incumbents. The political class so loves democracy it refuses to allow a vote in Congress on a constitutional amendment to limit terms. Such a vote says the political class would be  to believe that you must believe that any restriction the nation freely chooses to put on majority Choice in this Case the Choice to elect people to an unlimited number of terms is  but to believe that you must believe the Constitution is a tissue of Quot anti democratic Quot provisions including the first amendment. To enhance the openness of society and the competitiveness of politics the first amendment says that no majority May through representatives in Congress abridge Freedom of speech or press. Term limitation another openness enhancement is no More Quot anti democratic than the Bill of rights. C tha Washington Post