Sunday, June 11, 2000

Roger K. Lowe
Dispatch Staff Reporter

If we're told time and again in television attack ads or mailers that each candidate is a liar, cheat and crook, why would we respect or trust the winner as an elected officeholder?

Despite widespread dissatisfaction with the increasingly negative tone of campaigns, you can expect another five months of muck and mud before the 2000 elections. Many political consultants are convinced that negative campaigns work, and so the airwaves will be filled with attack ads from the presidential race down to state legislative contests.

However, there are growing concerns about these slashing tactics.

This system is diminishing the public's view of the candidates and hurts the ability of the winner to govern once in office, said Republican consultant John Deardorff.

Deardorff, an Ohio native, is a longtime GOP consultant with ties to many Ohio political campaigns, including those of former Gov. James A. Rhodes.

But he is unhappy with the way campaigns are run today.

"Whoever is elected is less able to govern,'' Deardorff said. "We've created a system that has made our elected leaders impotent.''

Deardorff's firm and a Democratic polling company have worked together on several polls for the Institute for Global Ethics, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group that is pushing cleaner campaigns.

The most recent joint poll of 600 political contributors showed that 68 percent of donors believe that negative, attack-oriented campaigns undermine and damage democracy. A similar poll last fall found an even greater percentage of the general public -- 82 percent -- had the same view.

Former U.S. Rep. Matthew F. McHugh, who represented a New York district from 1975 through 1992, said campaigns characterized by harsh personal attacks, trivialized issues and distorted records lead to greater cynicism toward elections and government.

"Public confidence and participation are critical to a smooth-running democracy,'' said McHugh, president of an association of former members of Congress. "Unfortunately, they have declined in recent years, in part because of increasingly negative campaigns that have contributed to public cynicism about the political process.''

McHugh and Deardorff said that comparisons between the views of competing candidates are acceptable. However, too often, candidates try to make a point by picking a vote on an obscure amendment or motion and then distorting it.

That's already happened in the Senate race between Democrat Ted Celeste and Republican Sen. Mike DeWine. Celeste held a news conference at a Columbus highway-project site to blast DeWine over proposals to repeal part of the federal gasoline tax at a time when gasoline prices were rising rapidly. State leaders and transportation groups have said cutting the federal gasoline tax could jeopardize funding for Ohio road projects.

"DeWine's vote to repeal the gas tax could hurt Ohio,'' the Celeste press release charged. "Mike DeWine voted to repeal the gas tax on April 11, 2000.''

But DeWine didn't do that.

DeWine's vote that day was only to cut off a filibuster and to permit debate on a proposal to cut federal gasoline taxes. In fact, DeWine was already on record with an earlier vote to oppose such a cut.

But before DeWine complains too loudly about these charges, it's worth remembering that his past campaigns also played fast and loose with the facts.

DeWine's 1992 campaign ran an ad that accused Democratic Sen. John Glenn of personally having a $3 million debt to small-business owners from the 1984 failed presidential campaign.

"John Glenn still owes 700 ordinary citizens an amazing $3 million,'' the ad charged.

The debt was, in fact, owed by the presidential campaign, and Glenn at the time was blocked from using his own money to pay off campaign creditors. (The Federal Election Commission later changed its rules, and Glenn has paid off the small vendors.)

In addition, $2 million of that debt was not owed to small vendors but to four big Ohio banks. But the image of a poor little copy-shop owner being stiffed by a powerful senator is a much more powerful image -- even if it wasn't true.

DeWine was personally aggressive in his comments, as well.

"In the 19th century, we used to put debtors in prison,'' DeWine said at one debate in 1992. "Today, we apparently keep them in the U.S. Senate.''

Deardorff acknowledged that trying to persuade consultants and candidates to change their time-tested negative tactics is like pushing water up a steep hill.

On the other hand, the cynicism about campaigns and elected officials show that the win-at-any-cost approach does carry a penalty later when a tarnished candidate takes office.

Roger K. Lowe is chief of The Dispatch Washington bureau.