By Edwin Cooney
If you’re a Republican, why is that? If you’re a Democrat, where does that come from? At one time, I firmly believed that the two major parties were more parties of principle than they were of either mere reactionism or opportunism.
Back in 1964, when I was a political babe, my interest in national politics was awakened by conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater’s campaign for the presidency. Senator Goldwater’s presidential quest occurred in the wake of the assassination of President Kennedy the previous November 22nd. Jack Kennedy’s tragedy compelled a large percentage of the people to sustain the martyred president’s personal and political legacy into the future as far as possible. Passage of JFK’s tax cut, as well as his civil rights proposals most believed would be vital to that end. Senator Goldwater as a candidate for the presidency badly needed votes but there were two aspects of these proposals for tax relief and civil rights he couldn’t endorse as a matter of principle.
Tax cuts, as wonderful as they were, Barry Goldwater asserted weren’t applicable in view of the mounting national debt. We ought to pay our bills first, Goldwater was quoted as observing.
As for the civil rights struggle, Senator Goldwater insisted that it would be unconstitutional to force Americans to do what they clearly ought to do. As time proved, Barry Goldwater was no racist, as much as his positions appeared to accommodate Southern racism. As Goldwater saw it, the application one uses in the implementation of a cause ought to match the intention of what your cause must be all about. If the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was about the people’s freedom, forcing people to accommodate the public, whether they wanted to or not, amounted to a limitation of that freedom. This combination of logic and principle impressed me, and I was a Goldwater man for the rest of the campaign. Across the years, I still respect and admire the integrity of Barry Goldwater even though I’ve abandoned the idea that absolute freedom ought to be our first principle. In fact, insofar as I’m concerned, absolutism is absolutely unworkable!
Today, the “burning question” is how much or whether we need government at all. Compelling as this question is, the devil is in the details! The fact of the matter is that the people live in the details rather than in the principle of the question.
I’ll never forget Monday, January 22nd, 1973. Richard Nixon was two days into his second term. Lyndon Johnson, only four years and two days after leaving the presidency, suffered a fatal heart attack while taking his afternoon nap at the LBJ ranch. Then, out of the blue for most of us came the less dramatic, but real news of the day. Specifically, it was the Supreme Court’s affirmative decision in Roe v. Wade. There were much more compelling stories happening at that time. A peace treaty had been negotiated by National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger which Secretary of State William P. Rogers, a personal friend of President Nixon, would sign in Paris the following Saturday, January 27th. There was the anticipation that soon freed American prisoners would be coming home from North Vietnam. Then, just peaking around the corner so that the public could glimpse the tip of its iceberg was the Watergate Scandal. In short, fundamental as it was, Roe v. Wade hardly made a ripple on the political scene.
The slow dawning of the significance of Roe v. Wade didn’t lighten national politics until the presidential year of 1976 when Ellen McCormack, a Massachusetts widow, sought the Democratic, not the Republican presidential nomination. Hers was a campaign of principle, but there was only scant attention to it. The Republicans insisted that it was ultimately a states rather than a federal issue. The Democrats, through their new leader Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia, accepted the legitimacy of the court’s decision, but President Carter would tuck its significance away by the passive position not to make public money spent by the federal government available to pay for abortions. Thus, Roe v. Wade would not find a home in the GOP until 1980 and the dawning of the “Conservative Revolution.” Although there was principle on both sides of the Roe v. Wade decision, what would spark that decision into the headlines was people’s reactions and experiences as a result of that decision. Thus my assertion that people live in the details of issues rather than in their principles.
So the question remains! Are political parties instruments of principle or practicality?
I’m convinced that the major factor in all political decisions is not principle, but money. Money is a practical tool. This, unfortunately, has always been the case. Money is both practicality and freedom. One might say money is practical freedom. Neither projects nor causes can prevail without the “almighty buck.” Not one of us can or is willing to get along without it — not even you, not even me.
If only we could find a project everyone’s anxious to spend money on out of the conviction that it would educate, employ, and add to our national defense, as did the space race with the Soviets beginning in the late 50s extending throughout the 60s! It might be observed that the Russians scared us into our future unity and prosperity on Friday, October 4th, 1957 when the first satellite Americans ever saw was called Sputnik rather than Explorer.
Ideally, it’s the task of the two major political parties to identify causes, projects or programs and unite you and me behind them resulting in unity, peace, and prosperity for the maximum number of people.
Unfortunately, neither party is ready to lead people for whom they have little or no respect. So for the immediate future, all we can hope for is to be sufficiently entertained while the two parties, as they are, seek each other’s obliteration.
I’ve always liked politics and most politicians. As I see it, however, the difference between the “old politics” and the “new politics” is that old politicians spent more time listening to the needs of their constituents than do twenty-first century politicians of both the left and the right. Politicians today are less interested in what constituents say, think, or believe. They see it as their mission to preach and manipulate their constituents according to their needs. At the outset I asked whether either political party was an instrument of principle or practicality. Sadly, I’ve concluded, for the present at least, neither party is driven by either principle or practicality. What they crave most are money and votes.
Our two political parties have one thing in common. In order to breathe they must have money. What John and Susie Q. Citizen’s task is is to get a hold of the bulk of their money and channel it into government that seeks to serve everyone!
Where is old Huey Long now that we need him!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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