European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 07, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday. November 7.1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 13 in s no George f. Will late tonight the candidates will subside col lapsing like boned fish and tuesday morning voters can relish their right to make half the candidates miser Able. By Early tuesday evening voters will Cluster around televisions to learn the names of the new incumbents they shall Start detecting. But even before the first votes Are male violently cast two conclusions Are Clear. Conservatism now frames the nation s political conversation. And although the Campaign season s tone was Gra tingly negative it would have been worse if re publicans had not made the tactical mistake of being More positive than was prudent. Even so by the final weekend democrats were reduced to taking their pleasure from the probability that Mario Cuomo and Ted Kennedy probably would survive. Those two Are hardly faces of the future for an ascending party any late shift toward the democrats is explained by the fact that Many democratic candidates have shifted to the  was in january their party Smon Omania health care was in november the absence that defined the autumn As democrats campaigned in Stead for bigger prisons an smaller welfare Rolls. There is no Liberal Agenda that liberals talk about during a political season. Their real Agenda is increased regulation of society especially the imposition of racial quotas. A coming flurry of court cases about race conscious policies May make the Balkans nation of Ameri Ca by the Clinton administration s advocacy of racial quotas a larger Issue in 1996 than crime was in 1994. The republicans tactical mistake was their con tract pledging Early congressional votes on and by implication for a conservative Agenda of a balanced Bud get constitutional amendment term limits tax cuts and welfare Reform. Because this gave democrats some thing other than themselves to talk about republicans might have done better by running a Content free Campaign. ,. A. The contract s balanced budget provision gave democrats a. Narrow but sufficient opening to Campaign not honestly but vigorously on the theme that republicans must either slash social Security or close Yellowstone National Park. The president actually said that How Ever republicans were strategically Wise to err on the Side of specificity because they Are now firmly identified with the dominant political theme of the Century s10th decade re limiting government. Tuesday s earliest returns May come from Maine and As Maine goes so goes. Not much which is probably Good Given that two years ago Maine was Likely for democrats at polls Ross Perot s Best state. He finished second there edging Bush by 316 votes however Republican rep. Olympia Snowe will win the Senate seat being vacated by Senate majority Leader George Mitchell. And if Snow seems Likely republicans also win in Minnesota and Oklahoma they probably will capture All nine open Senate seats while losing no incumbents. When evaluating tuesday s returns from House races consider the computations by Charles Cook a noted analyst. In the last Congress when re publicans were United democrats heeded 85 percent Solidarity to reach a Bare 218-vote majority. If democrats lose 20 seats they will need 92 percent Solidarity to reach 218 in the new Congress. If they lose 30 seats they will need 96 percent. Elections take the nation s temperature. So do the following three thought experiments. Suppose As Pete Dupont playfully suggests the tax filing Day were changed from april 15 to the first tues Day after the first monday in november. How conservative might the election results then be professor Steven Landsburg of the University of Rochester suggests also playfully that Federal income tax rates be determined separately for each congressional District and that rates Rise proportionately when each District s representative votes for a spending Bill. He also imagines giving every voter two votes in each congressional election and two in each Senate election one for his of her District and state and two More to be cast for or More Likely against a representative and senator elsewhere. I imagine empowering people in 49 states to vote against West Virginia s Robert Byrd who As chairman of the Senate appropriations committee has been so Larcelous at their expense. Finally on tuesday night watch Mississippi s 1st District. It has been represented by democrats since reconstruction and by Jamie Whitten who is retiring since he was elected in 1941. This is private John Al Len s District so named for the Man who held the seat from 1885 to 1901. A former Confederate private Allen won it running against a former Confederate general. Allen said he wanted All the former generals to vote for his opponent and All the former privates.,to vote for him. Come tuesday night Well see which Isth party that Mississippi s 1st District now considers the privates party. C Washington Post Oregon me in a year when All politics is person Al when it s hard to find a single surviving Issue left standing in the combat zone Between candidate attack ads it s almost a Relief to come upon the ballot questions. The mixed assortment of initiatives propositions questions and referendums that Dot the ballots offers far too Mam hot levers to pull on crime taxes Immi Gration and term limits. But at least they Are about something. So it is in Oregon where measure 16 has gone straight to the biggest question of All death. It s brought death with dig nity or Aid in dying for terminally ill patients before West coast voters for the third time in four  in two previous times at Bat and at bal lot voters in Washington and California started out supporting physician assisted suicide in the polls and ended up defeat ing it in the polling Booths. They began by searching for mercy in dying and ended up worried about Doc tors delivering death. This time the supporters have Learned some lessons. Measure 16 is both More nuanced and More conservative than its predecessors. For people who worry that Well be heading Down a Slippery slope from assisted suicide to euthanasia it has put up enough safeguards to make the tooting More secure. Measure 16 would allow doctors to write a prescription for an aware adult terminally ill patient who asks both orally and in writing. It requires a 15-Day waiting period from the first Oral request two witnesses for the written request and the agreement of a second doctor. The doctors themselves Are required to confirm the Dis ease. They must inform the patients about options including pain control. A and make sure the request is really voluntary. At the end of this elaborate process Only the patients can de cide whether and when to take the fatal drugs. They have to do it them selves. This proposal won t help those who Are demented or unconscious or those who can t Swallow. But it does seem to resolve Many of the fears of abuse. In real life measure 16 mirrors the ethical balancing act that Many Doc tors and patients already perform Cov  suicide is considered second Ellen Goodman degree manslaughter in Oregon. It s punishable by a maximum of 10 years in  or. Timpthy Quill one of the few doctors who has written publicly about assisting suicide says it happens in secret. Whether you get help depends on your doctor s values and willingness Totake  Eli Stutsman a civil rights lawyer says that in the nine months he has de voted to organizing this Campaign i be Learned that it goes on much More than i knew. We Haven t tried to change the Waye eople die or the Way people ask Forell. We have attempted to bring some thing out of the dark and into the Light and at the same time provide  Over the past decade Public opinion on this intensely personal and troubling Issue has moved a great Dis Tance. There is now widespread agreement that we should have the right to refuse artificial life support treatment. Living wills have become commonplace. So have do it yourself suicide  has the belief that it s moral to pro vide High doses of painkillers even if the hasten dearth what then about writing a prescription for the terminally ill patient who can Only kill the pain through death what if this patient wants to decide the Day of death or the method we have remained properly wary of helping people to die when they May be depressed or vulnerable to Subtle pres sures to remove their family s Burden. We Are wary of asking doctors to be Dou ble agents of life and death. But there is a difference Between Cau Tion and the cruelty that Abandons peo ple to their pain. Measure 16 is by no Means headed for a sure Victory. Just a month ago support hovered around 60 percent in the polls. But in a replay of the Washington and California experience the supporters Are being outspent 10 to one. The most organized opponent the Catholic Church has raised Money against the measure from the pulpit and raised doubts about it in television ads. If this most cautious proposal fails it s unlikely that the question of assisted suicide will go on another ballot soon. Three strikes and you switch tactics. Many who want to overturn the Laws against Aid in dying have already turned to the courts. But for the moment Oregon has a Chance to write a careful Model of legis lation for the rest of the country. In this misbegotten year of gridlock and non sense campaigns it s still possible that voters can move carefully and humanely across some new and Complex moral Ter rain. C Boston Globe