European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 03, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Commentary the stars and stripes Page 15 republicans need to stick to principles five months into what republicans Hope will be Bill Clinton s Only term the gop is beginning to shake off its White House defeat. Positive signs Are Republican victories in Georgia and Texas Senate races and in the los Angeles mayor s contest. The gop is heart ened by the growing support of hispanic voters who Are drawn by the party s message of family values including Law and order and opposition to abortion. But republicans have blown it before and they risk blowing it again unless they seize the momentum on social issues the democrats Are ceding to the gop with their High level promotion of Gay rights and aggressive opposition to any restrictions on Abor Tion. Opinion polls show most voters believe too Many abortions Are performed for selfish reasons. In a move that could Benefit Tho party s Effort to regc6up, gop chairman Haley Barbour has announced the formation of the National policy forum to. Oversee Public meetings to Solic. It ideas from what Barbour says will be a wide spec Trum of people sharing Basic Republican  this sounds very democratic but it could be dangerous if the party Abandons principles that have helped it win big in the past former Reagan aide and gop National committee member Morton Blackwell fears that a policy based on pragmatism not principle could Hurt Republican chances to win control of the Senate an make serious inroads in the Democrat dominated House in next year s crucial congressional races. A lengthy memo to Barbour Blackwell urges the gop chairman not to Retreat from the Agenda that worked so Well for the party in 1980, 84 and 88. He thinks it would be disastrous for republicans to adopt a political synthesis taking Only those issues supported by All republicans and ignoring the controversial ones instead of targeting groups who respond to certain hot Button is sues. Blackwell thinks coalitions Are built by stressing the issues of greatest concern to target groups and minimizing those of marginal or no concern. It is not necessary for republicans or those who could be persuaded to vote for gop candidates to agree on every Issue. What is crucial is that the party be perceived As having principles. A Leader cannot Lead if he is constantly checking with his followers about Cal Thomas the Evou monary oddity popped on the scene five months ago and extinction Ever since. We flip natural eng Fesi the truth where they would like to be led. Ronald Reagan was a principled Leader who knew where he wanted to go. When it appeared that presi Dent Bush did hot know where he was going on Domestic policies and would Trade away his Only principle no new taxes he was done in. This warning should Alert the Republican National committee to the obvious when politicians abandon principle people with principle quickly abandon them. On social issues Blackwell s memo warns Barbour to consider How fiscal conservatives Felt betrayed when the tax Issue was compromised. He writes you Don t want to become for our party on social issues what for Mer bomb director Dick Darman was on economic is sues. If your actions put the gop in Retreat on so Cial issues you would reverse the process by which the Reagan majority was created. Millions of Ameri cans became republicans because they believe our party would work to Stop the killing of unborn babies. This Issue is Central to their concept of what is right and what is wrong. They la stay in our party unless they feel  that is a Stern and Wise warning. Most social Issue conservatives i be spoken to around the country see loyalty As a two Way Street. They Are More committed to principle than to a party. If the Republican party stays True to the principles these people hold they an Many others such As Blue Collar democrats who voted for Reagan primarily because of family values issues can be persuaded to vote Republican in 1994 and 96. But if these principles Are compromised they will either not vote at All or vote for Ross Perot As a protest. In either Case republicans lose big. Bill Clinton has resurrected the Republican party. It can make the Case that president Clinton has demonstrated he is not what he claimed to be and that re publicans do stand for something. This could be the republicans finest moment. They had better not blow it. C los Antolos times Syndicate arts foundation deserves government funds in the Long ago summer of 1946, while bumming around the country with two teen age pals in a broken Down 1938 la Salle i blundered onto the gubernatorial primary Campaign in Texas and Learned an indelible lesson. A Man named Beauford Jester was running against the distinguished president of the University of Texas Homer Rainey and looking for a Way to get  nit on a wonderful gimmick. Each evening As he toured the state Jester would hold a meeting for men Only where he would read shocking excerpts from John Dos passes . And other equally vile books which Rainey had allowed to remain on the shelves of the University Library where they might bread by the impressionable youth of Texas who especially the thousands of returning veterans had never before been exposed to such obscene language. It seemed to this naive teen Ager a ludicrous Way to run for office but Jester won. And so i Learned that in politics smut Sells especially for those who find ways both to display it and deplore  memories were stirred by the debate the other Day in the House of representatives when rep. Robert , r-calif., playing the Jester role told. His colleagues and a presumably shocked a Span audience of the wretched show of abject Art that had been staged at the Whitney museum of american Art in new  was speaking in support of above to Cut off funding for the National endowment for the arts and he made the most of his material. Quoting from the show s catalogue he said that abject Art describes a body of work which incorporates or suggests abject materials Suchias dirt hair excrement dead animals menstrual blood and rotting  he read further but then said i can not read the next line that my staffers in eluding female staffers wrote for me. In this exhibit a Young woman is shown going no. 1 in the toilet. I As my col leagues know softened that Little bit. There is also a 3-foot Mound of Doo Doo. I softened thai a Little  is a Dis mantled sculpture of two women having i cannot read that at All. These titillating hints of the depravity on View in the Whitney museum did not have the effect Dornan hoped. Perhaps it was because this is David s. Broder 1993, not 1946, and perhaps because rep. Sidney r. Yates d-iii., the arts endowment s protector in the House was quickly on his feet to Point out that Nea had not financed the exhibit in question. Only 105 representatives were persuaded by Hornun to kill Nea s funding while 322 voted to save it. On a later Roll Call the appropriation was trimmed a modest 5 percent in a gesture toward Fis Cal discipline. And then came none other than George f. Vill Academia s gift to journalism quoting in his nationally syndicated column the same Juicy catalogue passages that Dornan had blushing i highlighted and adding his influential voice to the chorus baying for an end to government subsidies of the arts. In his pseudo populist Guise Princeton . Will managed to suggest that he men scorned such handouts. Vangogh never received a Nickel of support from the dutch government he said and those who do now produce trash. But better than most will knows that fro the beginning of history religious and secular rulers have been the patrons of the arts. In a democracy where the people Rule who better to subsidies the arts than the people and their government America s investment in the arts is modest compared to other  the notion that a $20,000 Fellowship that indirectly seeds a show you find objectionable justifies killing a $165 million appropriation is about As logical As saying you should de fund the Pentagon be cause three of the 23 missiles aimed at Saddam Hussein s intelligence Headquarters went off course. What the Nea mainly does with it Money is connect arts and artists with audiences and communities that would not otherwise see them. Yates began his hearings on Nea earlier this year hear ing music and testimony from the Ying quartet which is spending two years i residence in Jesup Iowa. The Nha Grant has been stretched by the hospitality of the people of that Community of 2,000, who a to opened their Homes and hearts to the Young musicians who in turn have introduced them and their children to the pleasures of chamber music. Amy Herns a Jesup Public school student and Pupil of cellist David Ying also testified. Yates asked her How arc your lessons going a lot better she said. Are the rings Good teachers the Best she declared. Arc you kidding that s the Best answer you can give to the Dornans the wills and the other lat Ter Day jesters who would kill off Nea i their Zeal to eradicate smut. T tha Washington pol