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1992-93 1993-94 Institute of Politics John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University PROCEEDINGS Institute of Politics 1992-93 1993-94 John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University FOREWORD The Institute of Politics participates in the democratic process through the many and varied programs it sponsors: a program for fellows, a program for undergraduate and graduate students, training programs for elected officials, conferences and seminars and a public events series of speakers and panel discussions in the Foriun of Public Affairs of the John F. Kermedy School of Government. The program for fellows brings individuals from the world of politics and the media to the Institute for a semester of reassessment and personal enrichment. The program for students encourages them to become involved in the practical aspects of politics and affords them an opportunity to participate in both planning and implementing Institute programs. This edition oi Proceedings, the fourteenth, covers academic years 1992-93 and 1993- 94. The Readings section provides a glimpse at some of the actors involved and some of the political issues—domestic and international—discussed at the Institute during these twenty-four months. The Programs section presents a roster of Institute activities and includes details of many aspects of the student program: study groups and twice- weekly suppers, Heffernan visiting fellows, summer internships and research grants, the quarterly magazine Harvard Political Review, awards for undergraduate political writing, political debates, brown bag lunches, and numerous special projects. Also provided is information on the program for fellows, conferences and seminars, and a list of events held in the Foriun. Speakers addressing domestic poUtical issues included Vice President Albert Gore, Jr.; U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, Secretary of Education Richard Riley, and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros; U.S. Senators Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, Sam Nunn of Georgia, and Warren B. Rudman of New Hampshire; Governors Ann Richards of Texas and William Weld of Massachusetts; presidential biographers Doris Keams Goodwin and David McCullough; and John Kenneth Galbraith as he celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday. Political figures addressing international issues included Presidents Turgut Ozal of Turkey and Mary Robinson of Ireland; Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney of Canada and Yasuhiro Nakasone of Japan; U.S. Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich from Israel; United Nations Ambassadors Madeleine K. Albright of the United States, Louise Frechette of Canada and Muhamed Sacirbey of Bosnia; Governor Rafael Hernandez Colon of Puerto Rico; 1992 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu; Minister Song Jian of the People's Republic of China; Baroness Caroline Cox of Queensbury of the British House of Lords; Education Minister Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes. Anne Doyle Kenney Editor DIRECTOR' G at- aren I bu yatth \' rk,butfarl Politics at the university are so vicious, goes the old saying, because the issues are so small. Our national poHtics too are increasingly trivialized, petty and narrow, more about tactics than substance. Two Institute events in the busy election year 1992 left a distinctly troubling aftertaste. The Campaign Decision Maker's Conference has since 1972 brought to the Institute the principal players and decision makers of the presidential campaign for a post-mortem presided over by veteran reporters who covered the campaign. It is the ultimate in insider politics, its proceedings edited only slightly for a fascinating book. This is not meant to be a conference about issues. It is openly, honestly and joyfully about political strategy and tactics. Republicans, Democrats and Perotistas in the same room, clearly enjoying the recollections of political combat, quick to compliment the other's rapid response or to laugh knowingly with yesterday's opponent about an old debate trick. For students in the room the message was about collegiality, the joy of competition among people in a high-stakes noble pursuit who are very good at what they do. But it was a mixed message, complicated by the high profile presence of James Carville and Mary Matalin, campaign combatants whose romance, marriage, and subsequent campaign book raised questions of collegiality gone too far. It was clear in that two and one half days around the lOP conference table that the very influential political operatives and their watchdogs from the press are close, indeed, attending the same parties, appearing on the same television programs, and sending their kids to the same schools in a company town called Washington, D.C. Politics today increasingly separates the candidate from people, communicates by thirty-second spot, relies on polling and focus groups to find out what people want, and then leaves it to the strategist to set the tone and the analyst to write the story. In that scenario one can see only more distance between people and insider politics and more cynicism about the system. What is missing here is the candidate. The elected official. In addition to a president, the people in 1992 also elected a modern-day record 110 brand new members of the U.S. House of Representatives. As with the campaign decision makers conference, the Institute since 1972 has also hosted the new members for a week-long issues conference as part of their orientation. Co-sponsored by the Committee on House Administration, the program is an opportimity for new members to discuss with a broadly-based and bi-partisan faculty the issues they will need to deal with in their first year. It is, perhaps more importantly, an opportunity for the new members to get to know each other outside the pressures of Washington and around spirited discussion of substantive isssues. An opportunity, in short, to begin to develop the collegiality that for so long in the House has served a purpose in the writing of legislation. But in 1992, as if to offer more evidence on the deterioration of our political life, collegiality and the new members ran afoul of a virulent strain of partisanship before they ever got here. Even before the elections, a conservative Washington "think tank" annoimced it would have an alternative conference in Annapolis for new members— the same dates as the lOP's conference—where the subject would be "family values," not the "tax and spend curriculum at Harvard." Shortly after the elections, for the first hme in anyone's memory. House Democrat leadership peeled off the newly elected Democrats for regional partisan meetings. One piece of advice the new people got was to not attend the Annapolis sessions. Meanwhile, Republican leadership in the House advised the newly elected Repub licans to stay away from the Harvard conference. Most did. Only a handful of the 46 Republicans attended even a portion of the conference, and only a few went to Annapolis. For students in the room the lesson was about partisanship and gridlock. And for the new members conference, unfortunately, it is the same script for 1994. Former United States Senator Tim Wirth quit the Senate in 1992 in part due to what he described as "a lack of collegiality." The inability to cross the aisle and work on substantive issues with serious people. Maybe what is going on here can partly be explained by a recent Wall Street Journal column by former Council of Economic Advisers' chairman, Herbert Stein, now with the American Enterprise Institute. Noting that lots of Americans are better off today than in decades past, but still tell the pollsters they are unhappy. Stein suggests that "Whether or not there is poverty in our private lives, there is poverty in our public life. The reason ... is that we have no grand national purpose." "Politics has always been about politics," writes Stein, "but now it seems to be about nothing but politics. If you ask anyone about the occupation of Haiti or about the poverty statistics or about anything else, the ar\swer will be not what it means for the world or the country or poor people but what it means for Mr. Clinton's chances of being re-elected." So, for the students in the room, and for this Institute of Politics, what is the lesson? Clearly, it is that politics is in trouble and we had better do something about it. 1 thir\k, in part, that means programming this place so as to help our students understand politics as more than strategy and tactics; as campaigns advised by limits of ethics and honesty as much as by polling and focus groups; as political commuruca- tion rooted in civility and substance and driven by ideas larger than wiiming by discrediting the other person; as the noblest of pursuits when promoting large ideas and goals, but always vulnerable to cynical manipulation. And when politics is dogged by the mean and the petty, as it seems now to be, the people charged with the responsibility of carrying out the Institute's mission need to be the very last people joining ttie ranks of the cynical. Charles Royer Director October 1994 I. Readings Readings CONTENTS CAMPAIGN '92 13 Six Days and Counting by Bob Beckel and Ed Rollins 17 The Debate Strategy: Chicken Wars from Campaign for President: The Managers Look at '92 25 America Wants Change by Warren B. Rudman 27 A Touch of Harry in the Night by David McCullough INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES 33 We the Peoples of the United Nations by Mary Robinson 37 In Our National Interest by Brian Mulroney 40 Russia At a Crossroads: Will the People Take the Free Market Plimge? by Mark P. Connolly 43 The New World Disorder by Robert Gates EXAMINING THE ISSUES 49 Your Money or Your Life: The Health Care Reform Debate by Marc Roberts and Nancy Johnson 57 The Responsibility of Black Intellectuals by Anthony Appiah, Margaret Bumham, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.