The New Prince

by Dick Morris

  The permanent employees of the bureaucracy generally hold their elected and appointed overseers in a certain kind of contempt. Like the children of a frequent divorcee, they regard the current recipient of the electorate’s favor as a short-lived flame which will be long extinguished by the time they get around to the days of their own retirement and gold watches. Indeed, many bureaucrats feel their mission is to remain impervious to innovation and to preserve the accumulated body of wisdom their bureaucracy represents against the fashion-conscious intervention of ambitious politicians.

  This Edmund Burke-like commitment to stasis impels a bureaucracy to close ranks against the outsider who is nominally their boss. This aversion to catering to the “whims” of each new political leader is especially deep in the military, police, and other uniformed services. With them, resistance to change acquires an almost religious dimension. It takes only one argument to defeat a new idea. A policy proposal must run a gauntlet of criticism, skepticism, and even nihilism to make it out the door. Like a salmon swimming upstream to mate, the odds are decidedly against success.

  The following is a very, very partial list of how the mother of all bureaucracies—the federal executive branch—sought to counter initiatives the president wanted during 1995-1996.

  Presidential Proposal: That only citizens and legal aliens get driver’s licenses, so those who are here illegally can be identified through routine traffic stops.

  Counter: The Immigration Service can’t handle the extra cases. As the referrals pile up, they will prove a political embarrassment.

  Presidential Proposal: That college students get a tax credit to help with tuition costs.

  Counter: States will just raise tuition. Tax credits are a poor way to target the needy. Minorities will rebel if we tie the proposal to standards. Whites will rebel if we don’t.

  Presidential Proposal: To announce the president’s support for a stricter blood-alcohol standard.

  Counter: Democratic governors will be mad that we didn’t consult them.

  Presidential Proposal: Federal aid for school construction or renovation.

  Counter: Money shouldn’t go for brick and mortar. States will just spend less on their own and use federal money instead.

  Presidential Proposal: Prohibit people convicted of domestic violence from buying handguns.

  Counter: We’ll lose police union support because some cops may not be able to get guns.

  Presidential Proposal: That homeowners be allowed to sell homes free from capital-gains taxes.

  Counter: After signing the welfare-reform bill, we shouldn’t give a “goody” to the middle class.

  And the list goes on.

  Out of pure frustration, an action-conscious political leader must banish all his own doubts. If any doubt creeps into his advocacy of any of his ideas, the forces of the status quo will overwhelm the idea and strangle it in the cradle. It was only by a determined effort to beat back the forces of the status quo that the president was able to salvage his agenda of action from the grip of bureaucracy.

  A public official must see the permanent bureaucracy that surrounds him as the enemy of change it is. He must realize that his own appointees are easily captured by the permanent bureaucracy and turned against change. The men and women he puts in public office to facilitate change become subject to “Stockholm syndrome” (that phenomenon observed by psychologists where hostages tend to identify with and defend their captors).

  The real solution to bureaucratic obstinacy is to privatize decision-making. Only outsiders can truly facilitate change. An elected official must have his own lawyers, engineers, civil-service experts, and budget people who can provide an alternate way to empower change. If he reaches outside the public sector, can he acquire the logistical support he needs to overcome inertia?

  Again, don’t let your outside experts get too close to the inside. Aversion to change is contagious. The bureaucratic style of thinking, the endlessly inventive capacity to think up obstacles, can easily overwhelm an expert from the private sector.

  An elected official must hang on to the notion that unless he produces change and fulfills his campaign promises, he will likely be out of a job. The energy it takes to keep change on course and bring it through bureaucratic, legal, procedural, political, and financial shellfire is almost superhuman. Yet it is the central challenge of any elected official.

  Chapter 16

  How to Watch Your Back: Controlling Your Own Party

  IN POLITICS, THE MOST LETHAL WOUNDS are inflicted from the rear. The opposing party rarely causes as much angst as does one’s own. Any candidate or elected official who seeks to reach beyond his party’s base and appeal to the swing voter, upon whom his electoral fortunes depend, invites assault from his own ranks in the rear. In World War II, the Red Army “encouraged” soldiers to charge the enemy and “discouraged” retreat by instructing their rear echelons to shoot anyone of their frontline comrades who turned around to run to the rear. In much the same way, political parties maintain a disciplined adherence to their rigid doctrines by infighting and pressure. When all else fails, they adopt the Red Army approach and shoot those who retreat by challenging them for their own party nomination in primary contests.

  In the past, there were very few independent voters. In an era where Gilbert and Sullivan’s songs rang true, “Every boy and every girl that is born into this world alive, is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.” But the day has passed when elections were duels between rival parties to see who could pull more of their voters to the polls. Elections are decided instead by the 40 percent of the electorate who call themselves “independent,” professing no allegiance to either political party.

  The needs, desires, dreams, and fears of the independent voter have little in common with those of the party dogmatists who line up on either pole of our politics. The key to reaching these independents is not to follow the party line, but to transcend it. Doing so without feeling cold steel in your back or between your ribs isn’t always easy.

  The key to controlling your own political party, so that it does not eat you alive, is to realize that while Democratic and Republican leaders differ sharply, their voters do not. The politicians of the two parties are at loggerheads, and their respective special-interest groups are mortal foes of one another, but ordinary Democratic voters and ordinary Republican voters do not differ much.

  Except where race is a factor, the difference between Democrats and Republicans on any given issue will rarely exceed twenty-five points. For example, while about 85 percent of Republicans back capital punishment, so do about 70 percent of Democrats. Seventy-five percent of Democracts want to see the minimum wage increased, but so do 55 percent of the Republicans. Even on highly divisive issues like gun control, abortion, gay rights, and affirmative action, the difference between Democrats and Republicans in national surveys is relatively minor.

  Even in primary contests, where only the most motivated of a party’s voters turn out, there is more consensus among both parties’ voters than among their politicians. The plain fact is that Democratic primary voters are far less liberal than Democratic politicians and Republican primary voters are far less conservative than Republican politicians.

  However, the sharpest partisan disagreements do not come between politicians of each party, but between the special-interest groups that affiliate with them. If Democratic and Republican voters have more in common than do their respective party politicians, so are these elected officials more in agreement with one another than are the special-interest groups of each political party. Democratic interest groups (feminists, environmentalists, labor unions, trial lawyers, and civil-rights groups) constantly feud with their Republican counterparts (the religious right, the NRA, small-business groups, and rightwing organizations).

  To win and to govern successfully, a candidate of either party must take care not to be captured, branded, and held hostage by the extremists and ideologues in his own party.
He must transcend party and appeal to the middle. How does he win his party’s nomination without catering to the extremes? By realizing that he can go over the heads of the special interests and the politicians and win primaries in his own party by appealing to the more moderate rank-and-file voters. As Bill Clinton proved, leftists don’t always win Democratic primaries. And Bob Dole proved rightists don’t always win Republican primaries.

  The key is to realize the threat one’s own party poses to one’s career. Their embrace and support may remind one more of a jailer than of a lover.

  Bill Clinton began his presidency in 1993, determined to avoid the ineffectuality that had eviscerated Jimmy Carter; he had seen Carter’s presidency destroyed by the Democratic barons who controlled Congress. Clinton was determined to cooperate and coordinate with his party’s leadership in the House and Senate.

  Democratic congressional leaders sent Clinton a simple message: “Abandon your independent ways and we will follow you. Clear everything with our caucus and we will protect you.” Clinton had been like a scrambling quarterback during his years as governor and as a presidential candidate. He was used to throwing touchdown passes from anywhere on the field, left or right. He had headed the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), a group determined to counter the orthodox ways of those who were now asking for Clinton’s loyalty. Frightened of ignoring his party and suffering as Carter had for his independence, he set aside his old ways and hunkered down in the quarterback pocket, protected by his party’s offensive linemen.

  Throughout 1993 and 1994, Republicans got the message that Clinton didn’t seem to need or even want their votes. He governed through his party’s caucus alone, ignoring GOP senators and congressmen, supposing that their opposition was endemic and inevitable. In fact, it was neither. Republicans rejected Clinton with partisan fury when they saw that he was rejecting them. Faced with de facto exclusion from governing, the Republicans embraced the only course open to them: savage partisanship.

  Thus, Clinton was faced with the need to round up every last Democrat, every last liberal, every last stalwart, to pass his programs. The left escalated its demands. When Clinton wanted an essentially conservative anti-crime bill featuring the death penalty and one-hundred thousand extra police for America’s streets, Republicans refused to vote for it even though it echoed their own program. Instead, Clinton was forced to seek a virtually unanimous vote of his own party to pass the legislation. To attract the votes of recalcitrant urban congressmen, he had to tack onto the bill all kinds of liberal appropriations for midnight basketball courts and teen recreation centers. Similarly, when Clinton tried to close the deficit through spending cuts, he had to push an economic stimulus package laden with pork to win over blue-collar Democratic votes in the House and Senate. Even though the public liked the central thrust of these Clinton bills, they were turned off by the pork he had to include to get the extra Democratic support.

  Soon, Clinton ceased to be the candidate of the Democratic Party and instead became their captive, their hostage. Deprived of support on the right, he was taken over by the left. When the moderate voters throughout the nation saw the “new” Democrat they had elected morphing into a knee-jerk liberal, they deserted him in droves. A vicious cycle ensued where, as more of the moderates left Clinton, he was forced to become more liberal to attract support.

  It was only when the Republicans captured Congress that Clinton was freed from his captivity. No longer did his success depend on appeasing Democrats, but on placating Republicans and stealing moderates. So he appealed to the center, amassing sufficient support to abandon the left.

  As he began to take this moderate tack, he was shelled from behind by his party faithful. His first balanced budget proposal was voted down in the United States Senate by the embarrassing margin of 0-99. Not a single Democratic senator embraced his spending cuts, tax cuts, or balanced budget. But in time, the popularity of his centrist position grew and made itself felt among the moderate rank and file of the Democratic Party. Soon, Democratic senators were flocking to the president’s budget for political cover and jostling with one another for inclusion in photos with the chief executive. Clinton had gone from their captive to their master by moving to the center.

  It is from the center that leaders must lead. Each party has its own center, more moderate than its leaders or its campaign donors. By reaching to that center, an elected leader can escape the prison of his own party stalwarts and speak to the bulk of America.

  Chapter 17

  How to Court the Other Party

  AN ELECTED OFFICIAL must strengthen his ties with the opposition party to avoid capture by his own. The ability to cross the aisle for votes makes the extremists in one’s own party impotent. Since you no longer need their votes to get your program passed, you can ignore their extreme demands and replace those who defect with votes from the other party. A leader who appeals to only one party governs on one leg—an inherently unstable arrangement. You need two legs in order to walk or to govern.

  So how does a leader reach across the lines to cultivate the legislators of the opposing party?

  The old way was through pork and patronage. While these techniques still work, they have lost much of their utility. Senators and congressmen have been in office for so long that they have come to expect privilege. The opposition is more likely to be outraged if you deny them their regular share of pork than they are to be flattered upon receiving it.

  Appealing over the heads of the other party to the voters at home is difficult. Each congressman and senator knows his district or state much better than any president does. To try to take away their base at home is, as Winston Churchill once said of a land war in Asia against Japan, “like going into the water to fight the shark.”

  The first step is to separate out the two kinds of congressmen and senators: ideologues and men of affairs. The ideological stalwarts march to the beat of their own drummers and value consistency above compromise, purity above pragmatism. They only get in the way.

  There is simply no point in trying to court an opposing ideologue. In 1995, ideologues ran the Republican congressional majority. Led by a strong group of right-wing freshmen, the House leadership was hostage to an almost religious demand for fidelity to conservative principles. Because they were not going to compromise, the only way to handle them was to let them walk off a cliff, as they did when they twice shut the government down rather than compromise with Clinton on the federal budget. Only after these ingenues came into contact with the consequences of their own obstinacy and went through the education of running for reelection could one deal with them.

  Fortunately, most of the time, a majority of the House of Representatives and the vast majority of the Senate are men of affairs. While ideology is always an element in how they behave, most are more interested in achieving something, getting reelected, and moving ahead. They are professional players. In handling them, one must almost become their political consultant. A leader needs to put himself in the other politician’s place and see the world from his vantage point. From this perspective, he should offer political advice calculated to help his partisan adversary see how crossing the partisan aisle can work to his own advantage.

  When a Democrat tells a Republican that voting a certain way will get the elderly advocacy groups or the environmental activists off his back, he makes a most potent argument. Republican programs become very attractive to Democrats if they help mollify the animosity of the Christian Coalition or the small-business community.

  Fundamentally, Washington is partisan, but America’s voters are not. This dichotomy is the single most important difference between the nation and its capital city. In Washington, one is either a Democrat or a Republican. But most voters have grown to dislike both parties more or less equally. These independent voters are the constituency to which a political leader can appeal to bring opposition party legislators into his fold on specific issues and votes.

  The problem is that most politici
ans do not know how to court independents. The vast majority of a candidate’s time is spent fighting members of his own party for the nomination. In fighting is far more familiar to the average American politician than is partisan confrontation. For month after month, year after year, he must duel with his colleagues and partisan compatriots for position, privilege, and power. By the time the nomination is his and the general election against the other party is upon him, he usually faces only an eight- or ten-week window where his partisan opposite is his opponent.

  Reared in their own party, most politicians don’t know enough about independents or the voters of the other party. Most politicians are like Daddy Warbucks. When the Republican tycoon in the musical Annie invited FDR to dinner, he asked his secretary to “call Al Smith and find out what Democrats eat.” Republicans don’t know how to court labor or the other interest groups of the left. Democrats are at sea when it comes to appealing to the right-wing voter or even the right-leaning moderate.

  A leader must act as a political consultant or advisor to the legislators on the other side of the partisan divide. He needs to educate them on the likely gains they will score if they cross party lines on a particular vote. A leader needs to explain to a congressman of the opposite party why his views make sense in the electoral arithmetic of his district. Democratic and Republican political professionals both speak this common language better than any other tongue—the language of votes.

  But beyond political opportunism and self-interest lies an even more potent appeal: power-sharing. Being a senator or congressman is most often boring. Perpetually forced to vote on other people’s initiatives, few of the issues on which they must trudge to the floors of their respective chambers eight, nine, ten, twelve times a day excite much interest in the average legislator. Even the act of voting itself is often illusory. At least nine of every ten votes a member of Congress casts are predetermined by the leadership. Compared to the daily thrill of executive power, the passivity of the average legislative job is maddeningly dull.