Gore Right Not To Run

I don't blame Al Gore one bit for deciding not to run for president in two years. A presidential campaign is a grueling, time-consuming, life-dominating ordeal, and the man has been through four of them — two on his own, and two as Bill Clinton's vice president. He probably figures enough's enough. There's more to life than politics.

What his true reasons were I don't know, and it doesn't matter. I'm sure it was not because he didn't think he could beat George Bush. Gore's been around politics long enough to know that a politician's fortunes can change as quickly as a gambler's. The fact that Bush has a high approval rating today doesn't mean he won't have low approval ratings two years from now.

Nevertheless, we ought to change the way we elect our politicians. Whoever wants to make a run for president will have to raise nearly $1 million a day, starting next spring. That's a lot of phone calls. That guarantees whoever is elected is going to be more beholden to the wealthy than to the country as a whole.

Ironically, this bad situation is a direct result of political "reforms." Nominees used to be chosen by state and national conventions, those famous "smoke-filled" back rooms. Around the turn of the century, people thought primary elections would be a better way. It would be one way to get around the various political bosses. As it turned out, it was a mistake.

No less an authority on political bosses and corruption than Lincoln Steffens, the great journalist who helped end the careers of several bosses, later concluded that in retrospect the political bosses were better at governing than the reformers who replaced them. They might have taken their "cut," but they knew how to run a city or even a state. They were neither stupid nor naive.

It's generally conceded that in recent times a politician named John Lindsay practically wrecked New York City. Lindsay was a silk-stocking liberal and reformer, but when he was elected mayor, he found himself having to deal with some very tough people, and he simply couldn't do it.

Furthermore, it is the primary system that requires politicians to raise so much money. You can talk to political bosses and ward heelers in person. To reach the anonymous masses, the overwhelming majority of whom are indifferent to politics, you have to rely on paid advertising. All the yakking in the mass media about election reforms is as phony as a $6 bill. The media, especially television, make a killing on political advertising. They no more want to eliminate expensive campaigns than bankers want to eliminate the public debt. Both are too profitable.

There's nothing wrong with a system that lets the most knowledgeable and the most interested people pick the nominees. The great mass of people simply don't care. They are so apathetic that political professionals recognize that only demagoguery has a chance of rousing them out of their stupor long enough to go to the polls. It's no surprise that political debate today is on the level of third-grade comprehension.

Another mistake we've made is the universal franchise. Voting ought to be a privilege, not a right, and to exercise that privilege, people should be required to demonstrate some form of intellectual life other than just breathing. I've often advocated that getting a voter registration card ought to require passing the same test that is given to immigrants before they can become citizens. If a poor man from Somalia can pass the test, then certainly no native-born American should think it too difficult. It's ironic that we talk so much about education while at the same time encourage the least-educated and least-intelligent people to choose our national leaders.