[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 14, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E792-E793]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT HOW WE PICK OUR PRESIDENT

                                 ______


                        HON. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR.

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 14, 1996

  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, Lamar Alexander has written a very 
insightful article for the Weekly Standard about what he learned during 
his run for the Presidency. Our electoral process would be better if 
every American would read this article. I would like to call this piece 
to the attention of my colleagues and other readers of the Record.

               [From the Weekly Standard, Mar. 25, 1996]

              What I Learned About How We Pick a President

                          (By Lamar Alexander)

       While my wounds are fresh, let me offer several ways to fix 
     how we nominate presidents. First, for those who only see it 
     on Inside Politics, let me describe what running for 
     president really feels like (especially when you have just 
     lost). It is like scaling a cliff for three years in the dark 
     to earn the privilege of shooting one NBA-range three-point 
     shot, i.e., the New Hampshire primary. It is like walking 
     above Niagara Falls on a swaying tightrope as the wind blows 
     and the crowd shouts, ``FALL!'' This by itself is one reason 
     to salute Bob Dole for making his way so well through such an 
     obstacle course.
       Now, to fix the process (although I should proclaim up 
     front and loudly that it is the candidate who must accept 
     responsibility for losing, not the process):
       Report on those who are actually running for president. It 
     sometimes seemed that 90 percent of the political news during 
     1995 was about numerous Americans, estimable as they may have 
     been, who had no intention of running or who couldn't win 
     even if they did.
       Ban the phrase ``the motley crew.'' Referring to those of 
     us actually running, this phrase usually begins to appear 
     after several months of stories about those who aren't 
     running. Isn't it time after 200-plus years of presidential 
     elections to realize that any

[[Page E793]]

     American looks better rocking on the porch than he (or she) 
     does trudging through the mud buck-naked with spotlights 
     turned on (another way to describe participation in the 
     current presidential nominating process)?
       Raise the limits on individual giving to campaigns from 
     $1,000 to $5,000. The well-intentioned $1,000 limit, placed 
     into the federal law after Watergate, was meant to reduce the 
     influence of money in politics. As with many federal laws, it 
     has done just the opposite. For example, to raise $10 million 
     in 1995 for my campaign, I attended 250 fund-raising events. 
     This took about 70 percent of my time. I became unusually 
     well acquainted with a great many good Americans capable of 
     giving $1,000 (who probably represent a cross section of one 
     percent of all the people in the country). Wouldn't I have 
     been a better candidate--and the country better off had I 
     been elected--if I had spent more time traveling around 
     America and visiting our allies abroad? (I actually did this 
     during 1994, when I was not meeting nice people who could 
     give $1,000.)
       Remove the state spending limits. This is step two in the 
     crusade to deal with the phenomenon of the zillionaire in 
     politics. Think of it this way: Say the fifth-grade teacher 
     organizes a contest for class president with water pistols as 
     the weapon of choice; then some kid arrives with a machine 
     gun. Either take away the new kid's machine gun (Bill Bradley 
     suggests a constitutional amendment to limit what individuals 
     can spend on their own campaigns) or give the rest of the 
     fifth graders the freedom to raise and spend enough money to 
     buy their own machine guns. In one week just before the New 
     Hampshire primary, Steve Forbes bought 700 ads on one Boston 
     television station in one week, most of them negative 
     adverting against Dole (plus a few gentler ads against me). 
     Forbes, let us remember, spent almost no time raising his 
     money and had no limits on what he spent per state. The rest 
     of us did. If New Hampshire is most of the ballgame in the 
     presidential primaries, why shouldn't we be permitted to 
     defend ourselves even if we use up all the money the 
     government allows us to spend during the entire campaign?
       Deregulate the election process. The Federal Election 
     Commission is full of competent people trying to do their 
     jobs (several of whom are about to audit my campaign, which, 
     if everything works out perfectly, will only take only about 
     three years. I am not kidding). The campaigns are grossly 
     overregulated. of the $10 million our campaign raised during 
     1995, about $1 million went for accountants and lawyers for 
     compliance with the federal rules. Is it really necessary, 
     for example, for the federal government to decide that a 
     candidate's campaign T-shirts need not bear the ``Paid for by 
     . . .'' disclaimer? Fewer rules and full disclosure should be 
     the bywords here.
       Start the coverage earlier. From the moment the networks 
     began to cover the campaign (this year it was not until late 
     January), you could feel the lift. As a candidate, you can 
     also feel the collapse. I cannot help but think that there 
     are ways--even many months out--to relate the day's news 
     about, say, the failure of the Hartford school system's 
     private-management contract to what the presidential 
     candidates say about how schools should be run.
       Spread it out. At a breakfast in Washington in November, I 
     said this to my friends in the news media: ``If you guys were 
     sportswriters, you would arrive during the last quarter of 
     the Final Four championship game and claim you had covered 
     the entire basketball season.'' You can imagine how many 
     friends I made with this statement, but I was right. By my 
     count, the news media covered the presidential race 
     aggressively for just 21 days, from the Iowa caucus on 
     February 10 until the South Carolina primary on March 2. Most 
     of what went before consisted of asking people like me, ``Why 
     are you behind Bob Dole 72-3 in the polls?'' at a time when 
     everyone knew Dole and no one had ever heard of me. After 
     South Carolina, the most frequently asked question was, 
     ``When are you going to get out?'' So, most of us did. Let us 
     hope the national political writers never decide to become 
     umpires. The World Series wouldn't last more than one inning.
       Now, in defense of the media, it is hard to cover a 21-day 
     wild rollercoaster ride, which is what the nominating process 
     has become: 38 primaries in 25 days. Let's change this: Let 
     Iowa and New Hampshire go it alone in February. Then, require 
     all the other states to hold their primaries on the second 
     Tuesday of March, April, or May. This would give winners a 
     chance to capitalize on successes, voters a chance to digest 
     new faces, and candidates a chance to actually meet voters. 
     What do you think would have happened this year if after the 
     surprising New Hampshire primary (Buchanan winning, Dole 
     stumbling, me surging, Forbes falling) there had been three 
     weeks to campaign before a March 12 primary in a bunch of 
     states? Then another month until another set of primaries? 
     Lots more interesting--and lots more conductive to sound 
     judgment by the voters, too.
       Create a new C-SPAN channel to cover the country outside 
     Washington. Chief executives from outside Washington 
     sometimes make the best chief executives in the country. Why 
     not a cable channel devoted entirely to Michigan governor 
     John Engler's charter schools, San Antonio county executive 
     Cyndi Krier's crime program, Milwaukee's school-choice 
     program? Give these leaders as much C-SPAN face-time as 
     members of Congress. This will give the public more exposure 
     to state and local politicians who might then have a better 
     chance of winning national office.
       Let the candidates speak more often for themselves. Praise 
     the media here. C-SPAN's Road to the White House on Sunday 
     nights set the pace. I was astonished how many told me they 
     saw C-SPAN's 50-minute coverage in July of my walk across New 
     Hampshire. The New York Times printed excerpts from 
     candidates' speeches, even some very long excerpts. The 
     networks all showed unedited stump speeches of the major 
     candidates.
       Find the good and praise it. These were always the words of 
     my friend the late Alex Haley. I can find the good easily 
     about this process, even with its flaws. During the last year 
     I walked across New Hampshire meeting several hundred people 
     a day, spent 80 days in Iowa in maybe 200 meetings that 
     ranged from 20 to 300 people, and had at least 50 meetings in 
     Florida with the delegates to the Presidency III straw poll. 
     During most of these meetings I was little known and 
     unencumbered by news media. At least the news media presence 
     was so small it did not disrupt the flow of the session.
       I remember wishing time after time that anybody who had any 
     sense of cynicism about our presidential selection process 
     could be with me, as a fly on the wall--because they could 
     not be cynical after hearing and seeing and feeling what I 
     saw. The audience always listened carefully. Their questions 
     went straight to the heart of what kind of country we could 
     have, of our jobs, our schools, our neighborhoods, and our 
     families. In meeting after meeting, I came away certain that 
     this is a nation hungry for a vision contest, not one willing 
     to tolerate a trivial presidential election. There is a great 
     market in the American electorate for a full-fledged 
     discussion about what kind of country we can have in the year 
     2000 and beyond.
       The reason to make certain we have a properly functioning 
     presidential nominating process is that the presidency itself 
     is our most important institution as we go into the new 
     century, and the debate about who should be that president is 
     our most useful national discussion.

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