TIME TO HALT NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNS WITHOUT SUBSTANCE

Recently the Republican floor leader of the Missouri Senate called Missouri's governor "a liar." The governor's spokesperson called the senator "shrill and immature." And with that we enter another political season of name-calling and bitterness.

Of course, campaigns have been nasty for a long time. Abigail Adams complained that the race for president between her husband, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, hardly two lightweights, could "ruin and corrupt the minds and morals of the best people in the world." In 1864 one prominent publication ran a story devoted to the long list of names assigned to Abraham Lincoln during his re-election campaign. However, there was a difference. In those races calumny and invective were the seasoning. The personal attacks provided a dash of flavor, but the real meat and potatoes of campaigns were always issues. For example, Adlai Stephenson believed campaigns provided "a great opportunity to educate and elevate," and elections also provided mandates on many pressing issues. The election of Andrew Jackson in 1832 doomed a central U.S. bank for two decades. The election of Lincoln indicated a national voice on slavery. The election of FDR changed for over 60 years the role of government in our economy. Unfortunately, since 1964, there has been less and less attention to substance in our campaigns and more and more to mud wrestling.

Why is this I believe it is the combination of a coarser, less mannerly society and the remarkable efficiency of today's news media. Calling an opponent a liar in a debate, face to face, wasn't as gratifying or as effective a means of communication as the immediacy of today's wire services or television. It also took more grit. In addition to the famous duel between Burr and Hamilton, other duelists inspired by political events included, among others, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Hart Benton and Henry Clay. I am not recommending a return to frontier justice, but I do suspect duels served as an incentive to discuss issues and not personalities.

This all changed with a single commercial. When LBJ's consultants developed the commercial showing a little girl victimized by a nuclear blast, and by implication branded Barry Goldwater as an extremist and a warmongers, modern negative campaigning was born. The irony was that in 1964 the sensibilities of the American public, not yet coarsened by today's constant barrage of epithets, were such that the commercial mentioned was deemed too hot for continued air time. In today's radioactive political climate the spot wouldn't be run for different reasons. It would be far too tame.

Before I establish myself as a hypocrite, I confess to having run for office and to having succumbed to the political temptation of name-calling. However, the purpose of this column is not to defend past practices of myself or to condemn the practices of any Missouri politician, Republican or Democrat. Instead, as a repentant sinner I believe that all candidates for office should cease the common practice of negative campaigning and mud-slinging. More importantly, the effectiveness of our democracy demands a sharp change in campaign tactics.

In fact, the issue of campaign tactics is among the most urgent issues with which we as democrats (that is a small "d") should be concerned. In the first place it should concern all of us that most negative commercials could ever be effective in the first place. I have seen commercials that, were they really true and accurate, the attacked candidate would logically be in prison or a mental institution. Furthermore, in a civil society, it shouldn't be effective to launch attacks over the airwaves and expose a candidate's family and children to vicious innuendo and rumor that no rational person would approve of were it done in person, and if it were done in a whisper would be dismissed as gossip and condemned as cowardly.

Unfortunately, mud works, so it neither accurate nor fair to assess all the blame to candidates whose name calling has been reinforced by the public's willingness to reward the best name caller with their votes. Nevertheless, one would think that any man or woman willing to make the sacrifice necessary to run for public office would have enough respect for the system and our country that they would not continue to engage in campaign tactics that destroy our ability to govern.

Sadly, the contrary has been true. Venom has become so important to modern campaigns that the job of name caller/mud slinger has become an official position, with the taxpayers footing the bill. Now spokespersons are hired by public officials with public money to act as official pit bulls so the officeholder/candidate can remain above the fray. This is done because it works, despite the comparison to the days of the range wars when cattle barons would hire gunslingers to shoot down innocent sheep ranchers. I have never heard that practice held out as an example of civic-mindedness or courage.

Finally, no discussion about the sorry plight of modern campaigns would be complete without discussing the large portion of blame the news media has worked hard to earn. Position papers that take weeks or months to research and prepare are often delivered at press conferences that no member of the press bothers to attend. If one hardy soul shows up, their editor buries the story on page 7. But let one candidate make charges involving character, financial dealings or, best of all, the most personal and intimate aspects of his or her opponent's private life and for some reason the article is on page 1, the headlines are large, and the talk shows are energized. Even the crucial debate over welfare reform has been boiled down not only by politicians but also by reporters, editorial boards and columnists into a contest between the mean-spirited and the welfare industry. Given the current preoccupation with scandal I sometimes wonder how a whiskey-drinking, cigar-chomping, hot-tongues Winston Churchill would have fared in a modern campaign against a well-known moralist who not only didn't smoke nor curse but wouldn't even suffer those vices in his presence. His name was Adolph Hitler.

Perhaps it is an oversimplification, but in many races the losing candidate failed either because their 30-second spots weren't as outlandish or imaginative as the opponent's or they hadn't procured enough lobbyist money to run their equally outlandish spots as often. When that happens, the only mandate the winner can claim is that he or she isn't the opponent. Is it any wonder, then, that we elect public officials who were either successful in camouflaging their true positions or didn't have any ideas or positions to begin with? This explains the huge gap between the public's values and ideas and the policies passed by our legislatures far better than the myth popular in Jefferson City or Washington, D.C., that those elected have some superior understanding or insight.

Thankfully, there are signs that the voters are beginning to look for more than scandal, name calling and titillation. In Tennessee, Fred Thompson defeated an incumbent Democrat senator and even when viciously attacked didn't respond in kind. Kansans rewarded a congressman who broke his pledge not to attack his opponent personally by handing him the largest defeat in a gubernatorial election in that state's history. I also believe that the explosion in political talk shows and journals devoted to substantive political debate is a response to the public's hunger for more thoughtful discussions of public policy.

So let us as Missourians and Americans simply call a halt to campaigns without substance. The issues that face Missourians are clear. Will Missouri join the national revolution and reform a welfare system that under any measure, intellectual or emotional, is a dismal failure? Will Missouri take steps to make our families safe, secure and happy in our state? Does Missouri government have the inclination and the will to tighten its belt and streamline its services? These are among the questions that should be debated, in rational voices, and on their merits. However, to make meaningful debate possible, Missouri voters must first resolved not to reward candidates who spend more time slinging mud than talking issues. Candidates should be force to share their plans and ideas honestly and candidly. And our news media, hopefully, will stop its love affair with sensational headlines.

Besides, we don't have much to lose. If we don't change the way we do political business, we will continue to watch the decline of democratically elected government. If we bring manners to campaigns, each election will still have a winner and a loser. But the loser will still have his or her dignity, and the winner may actually be able to get something done.

David L. Steelman is a Rolla lawyer who ran for attorney general in 1992 and is frequently mentioned as a Republican candidate for governor in 1996.