STEPPING DOWN

January 16, 1996

Maine Republican Senator, William Cohen, surprised most of the political world by announcing he would not seek a fourth term. He was first elected to the Senate in 1978, after six years in the House. He served on the committee that considered the impeachment of former President Richard Nixon, and his Senate service included work on the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees. The Senator is also a novelist and a poet. He speaks to Jim Lehrer from Capitol Hill.

JIM LEHRER: The word most identified with you is moderate. Is pulling a surprise today like this a moderate thing to do? SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: I'm not sure it's a moderate thing to do. For me, it was the right thing to do. It's a decision I have been considering for the last several weeks. I think a famous poet that you're familiar with once said that life is a series of spontaneous changes. This wasn't quite spontaneous but it was close to being spontaneous. It's been evolving over several weeks, and it became clear to me during this past weekend that this was the right decision for me. JIM LEHRER: You said in your statement today that the budget crisis or the budget impasse really brought it to a head. Explain that. What--how did that happen? SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: Well, we're seeing a breakdown of negotiations during the Christmas break or breakdown. We've seen sides polarize and harden, rigidify, and very little movement toward the center as such. And during the course of that, I became convinced, obviously, that the group of moderates that I had been working with had offered a, a responsible proposal that we felt both the President and our colleagues could accept, and yet nothing seemed to move toward the Senate during that period of time. I became convinced that we have to balance the budget within a seven year time frame using real numbers, Congressional Budget Office numbers, and I'm reasonably satisfied the President is now committed to that. Hopefully, we can get a greater commitment to that. But it became clear to me that on the one hand, we're never going to see a reduction in the friction, or I should say perhaps the fractiousness in our society, and in the Congress, itself, until we start expanding the economic pie. One way of doing that is by balancing our budget, getting our fiscal house in order, and stop bankrupting the future generations. That's one part of it. The other part is expanding our global competitiveness, and that's really what led me into the debate in my own mind about what I should be doing in terms of best utilizing my own talents and my own time. And that is I think we're missing out a great deal in terms of international global competition, particularly in the Pacific Rim region, where I just returned from. So as a combination of looking at the--expanding the pie domestically and also expanding it and participating in the economic prosperity internationally, which galvanized my own decision making. JIM LEHRER: Is the U.S. Senate a nice place to work anymore? SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: It's the best place to work. You can't find a better job in politics than to be a member of the United States Senate. I think what's happened, however, in recent years is there has been a tendency to polarize both on the left and on the right. And what I suspect is taking place is that we're seeing sort of a gravitational pull, the Republicans to the conservative side and the Democrats to the liberal side, and we'll have a liberal and a conservative party, and then eventually that liberal and conservative party will have to gravitate back toward the middle. I also am reasonably convinced that this country has to decide whether or not we want to have one- party government, at least for a period of time. We had President Bush who was in office the last time with a Democratic Congress. We now have President Clinton with a Republican Congress. And as a result, we're seeing stalemate and stagnation, paralysis, and all the other words we can use to describe what's taking place. I think what we have to do is decide as a country whether we want to give the government, the reins of the government to one party to move either to the right on the conservative side, or the left on the liberal side, and see where that takes us economically, but if the country's going to continue to vote for divided government, we're likely to have greater division in the future. JIM LEHRER: On a more personal basis, are you too moderate to be happy with this conservative Republican revolution, as it's called? SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: Well, actually, the conservative members of the Senate have made me very comfortable. They--I have a good relationship with virtually everyone in the party. I've cast some tough votes, obviously. But I've never heard anyone criticize me directly or heard about it indirectly. I enjoy pretty broad support within the party, itself. There's room for moderates. Obviously, I think the party, the center of the party, itself, is moving to the right, but there will always be room for moderates because you have to govern from the center. And eventually we'll come back to governing from the center but I think in the short-term are going to see moves to the right and to the left on the part of both of our parties. JIM LEHRER: And that's what explains, in your opinion, then that there are so many of your number, other moderate Republicans, Nancy Kassebaum, Alan Simpson, Mark Hatfield, John Danforth, four of them have quit, you think that's what's going on? SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: I think that's part of it. I think that the long hours that are put in this job with less progress, more wheel-spinning, more waiting around, less real debate, more diatribes, I think all of those have contributed to a, a lower quality of life, so to speak, in terms of having time for one's family or being able to plan one's time on a daily or a weekly basis. I think that's part of it but not all of it. JIM LEHRER: In other words, it's become a debating society and not a doing society, the United States Senate? SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: I think we're doing more talking and taking less action, so it's more molecular in motion, that it's bouncing around but not really moving forward. And I think that's been frustrating to, to a lot of people both in the Democratic Party and Republican Party alike. JIM LEHRER: Explain this to me then, Senator. All the polls show, at least the ones that I have looked at, show that the majority of the American electorate is in the center, is in the mainstream. So why is it that the majority of the United States Senate or the Congress of the United States is not also in the center? Why is this polarization happening if the people aren't doing the same? SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: Well, I think what's taking place at the organizational level, obviously in both the Democratic Party and Republican Party, those people who feel most passionately who are most ideologically committed tend to be on the right in the Republican Party and the left in the Democratic Party. And so you have the organizational activities really starting to dominate the electoral process. Most people are in the center. And that's where I believe you have to govern from. But right now, what we're seeing is greater power and potential put in the organizational levels of the political system. As a result, you're getting people who are more ideologically committed to either the right or the left. JIM LEHRER: But if all of you moderates in the middle run for cover, aren't you essentially turning it over to the extremes, as-- SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: No. JIM LEHRER: --Sen. Lieberman said today? Sen. Lieberman, who's a Democrat-- SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: Right. JIM LEHRER: --considered a moderate Democrat from Connecticut, said today that your, your announcement just feeds the idea that we're going to have a United States Senate of extremes. SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: Well, I don't agree with that. Sen. Lieberman is a good friend and someone I admire a great deal, but the fact of the matter is that I've dedicated almost 24 years of my life to public service, and I think that I look through the prism of life perhaps a bit differently than some of the newer members, and I would include Sen. Lieberman as part of the newer members coming in. I also have to look at where I feel I can make the greatest commitment and use my talents and time to the best advantage for the people of Maine and hopefully for the country in the future. And so it's a question of timing. There's a natural rhythm and time for things, and I came to the conclusion that after 24 years of being in Congress, it was also time for me to step back for a period of time. I don't rule out a re-entry into the political system at some future time, but I think for me personally and I think even for the political system it's healthy for people to step out of the, the middle of the process, to gain a different perspective, and then come back in with renewed energy and perhaps a different perception. JIM LEHRER: Do you have something specific in mind you want to do with your life now? SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: I really don't have anything specific in mind. I know that I want to continue the kind of activities I've focused on during my years in Congress. That would be on security issues, on defense issues, also on the Intelligence Committee, and obviously in my spare time, I'd like to emulate you, yourself, and continue to write in the margins of my life. JIM LEHRER: Well, you did a lot of that while you were a United States Senator. SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: And I'd like to continue to do it afterwards. JIM LEHRER: Yeah. The, the relationship between and among Senators, we had Sen. Simpson on here talking about this when he announced his, his decision to step aside, and he said that the only time you ever see each other or enjoy each other anymore is when there is a roll call vote and everybody has to go to the floor, and the old days of friendship among Senators is out the window. Do you agree with that? SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: I do to a certain degree. I think what's happened is Alvin Toffler's Future Shock has arrived in the United States Congress. I think time is speeded up by events. We're seeing things move faster and faster and faster. Schedules are more compact. There are more meetings. There are more votes. There is less time for communication. And everything is pretty much on a pace which is almost unmanageable, and very little time is leftover for either long talks or short talks, but certainly very little time to communicate with each other on a personal basis, usually during lunchtime on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, and that's about it. That's a marked change from when I first came to the Senate, where it was a much more relaxed atmosphere. I think something that television probably has contributed to this acceleration of time and perhaps contributed to the separation, as such, of the friendships, you just don't have enough time to really spend with each other, or spend evenings together at each other's homes, or even at a restaurant. There's simply not time left. JIM LEHRER: What will you miss the most about the United States Senate? SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: I think what I'll miss the most is the friendships that I have made, the sense of companionship that one does have, even though you don't have enough time to really, to sit down and talk with members, such as Alan Simpson or Warren Rudman, who left earlier. The friendships are important. Also-- JIM LEHRER: He was a good friend. Warren Rudman, he was--he went even before Danforth. He was a-- SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: Right. JIM LEHRER: He was a friend of yours, was he not? SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: Indeed. He remains a very close friend. I think what is most exciting about politics is that you feel as if you're plugged into an outlet, you are electrified on a daily basis, you have such a packed schedule with such a variety of issues that you must become expert in that you really are energized throughout the day and into the evening, and you can do that for so many years, I think, before it starts to fray at the edges a bit, but that's what I'll miss most, and I still have a year to go of public service, so it's not as if I'm leaving tomorrow. But that sense of, of excitement, of being bombarded by a variety of issues on a daily basis I think that's what I'll miss the most. JIM LEHRER: All right. Senator, thank you very much. SEN. WILLIAM COHEN: Thank you very much.