I took a side trip to 1994 the other day to refresh my memory about an important political tactic, Newt Gingrich’s fabled “Contract with America.”
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For the Republicans in the U.S. House, it was a seminal document that served two purposes, the first was to tap the swelling despair over Democratic control of Congress and the second was to motivate voters to back GOP candidates.
At the time, it seemed a little hokey to me, but as it turned out, it was a spectacular move that encouraged something like 9 million more Republicans to go to the polls in a contest in which Democratic participation was down by about a million votes.
The GOP picked up 54 seats, took control of the House for the first time in 40 years and repaid Newt, who had labored long and hard in the vineyards back when few were paying attention to him, by giving him the speaker’s job.
All of that was to blow up a little later, but not before it became apparent that the idea of forging an agreement for reform with the American voter, admittedly an ideologically driven agreement but an agreement just the same, was a smart political move.
I think it’s time to revive that idea as we move into a congressional election year.
But this time, I think the contract should be written by the people, not by politicians.
I invite you to submit your own Contracts with America to me at [email protected]. I would like to select some of the ideas and publish them early in the year, a consumers guide to the congressional contest, if you will. I think we could stick a bundle of them on chicagotribune.com, the Tribune’s Web site, and publish some here as part of the column too.
It strikes me that this would be a good idea because of an article I read in a recent New Yorker that focused on the art of prediction. Most predictions, if I understood the article, are wrong, no matter what the subject matter. Bloviators on weekend TV and talk radio who present themselves as experts are really no more expert than the rest of us.
I don’t count myself among the bloviators because I don’t do much “media” beyond the newspaper and the Web site. I’m just not that impressed with what I have to say at the spur of the moment on anything. I am as glib as all get out, so sometimes it sounds good in a media kind of way.
But behind the voice there is a person who thinks, “This is really just so much gabbing.” In short, I would much rather hear from you. I know how I am and, frankly, it gets tiring for me, sometimes, too.
What was in the original Contract?
I’m going to present some of it just so you know the territory.
First, it had lots of passionate GOP rhetoric about bringing an end to “government that is too big, too intrusive and too easy with the public’s money. It can be the beginning of a Congress that respects the values and shares the faith of the American family.”
The Contract said Congress should obey the same laws as everyone else, that independent auditors should come in to check the books, that committees and staffs should be cut back, that committee chairmanships should be term limited, that proxy votes should be banned, that committee meetings should be open to the public, that tax increases should require a three-fifths majority vote and that zero base-line budgeting should be implemented to guarantee honest accounting of how the public’s money is being spent.
Clearly, this Gingrich-era contract has expired because we’re spending more money than ever, lots of things happen in secret, budgeting about oodles of things like the war and intelligence spending among them remain a mystery, and corruption has blossomed once again like mold on the walls of a damp basement.
What made Gingrich’s contract work at the time was its sophisticated measure of exactly how angry the public was at the Democratic Congress. I think there is a similar despair afoot now, maybe aimed at both parties and at the sense that our problems, at home and around the world, are really not being very well addressed.
That makes it just the right time for the public’s version of a Contract with America.
I could write one myself, but I am no politician, have the diplomatic skills of an angry teenager and honestly feel that it would be much more interesting to read what you think.
But you have to play along for this to work.
It would not be a happy day for me to realize I have invited you to craft a course for America and no one wants to play along.
Keep it brief and to the point. There are few rules. This is not about name-calling, so if that’s your game, don’t bother. Give it all the intelligence and passion you can muster. Write like the wind and send it to [email protected]. I promise to be fair in what I publish.
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It could be just the right time to present a Citizen Agenda for 2006.
At the very least, it will give you a good chance to vent, which we all need from time to time.
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Charles M. Madigan is the editor of Perspective and writes The Rambling Gleaner at chicagotribune.com/gleaner.