POLITICAL DISCOURSE

October 4, 1998
	Republican Congressman John Kasich of Ohio, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, join Elizabeth Farnsworth in a discussion with voters in Denver.

Oct. 4, 1998: Election '98: The National Report Oct. 4, 1998: How impeachment is impacting two races. Oct. 4, 1998: A full report and debate on the politics of impeachment. Oct. 4, 1998: How will the budget and other issues impact Election '98. Oct. 4, 1998: A look at two open seat contests.	ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Thomas Potter, we just saw the tape report about candidates' attempts to get to the issues. Is the overlay, as we just talked about, of the Lewinsky matter preventing the issues you're concerned about from coming to the fore? THOMAS POTTER, Law Student: Absolutely. I think - my view is that America is at a time of crisis. We have the Asian crisis, which could spill over into the United States. We've got a number of things going on in the country that are very concerning. The prison population soaring I think is a significant issue. Saving Social Security is important. I think that character is very important. Credibility is important. But I'm not clear that this is adding a lot to the debate. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Sulton, are the issues coming to the floor you want to hear?
	JAMES SULTON, Higher Education Administrator: Oh, yes. I don't agree that this is an overlay or any sort of referendum on what's happening in the so-called Washington scandal. As far as I'm concerned the Lewinsky matter is like a tired old sitcom. And since we haven't had a new edition in a couple of days I guess it's on the people's consciousness. You can put it on the front page, if you want, but that doesn't mean people care. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. What about the problem of apathy, is there a lot of apathy right now, partly because of the Lewinsky problem, or whatever, Eric Duran?
	Voter apathy.
	ERIC DURAN, Financial Analyst: I think there was a lot of apathy. There always has been a lot of apathy. And I think that this is probably just going to increase sort of this whole perception of corruption and immorality in Washington. People are fed up with the way the Congress has handled this in a very political manner. They think it's a witch hunt. You know, people want this whole thing to end as quickly as possible. But I think it's going to be, you know, -- out for a considerable amount of time, and that's going to make people even more dissatisfied-- SUSANA CORDOVA, Elementary School Principal: You know, I look at myself, and I think that if you look at the continuum of people in America, not even just voters, just people, that I would fall on the more -- the more politicized end of the spectrum, and I find myself not even reading about things that are going on. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why? SUSANA CORDOVA: And part of it is I'm really tired of hearing about what's coming out of Washington. I'm really tired of listening to it in the news. When the videotaped testimony came out, something happened that day, and I didn't care that I didn't see it. I wasn't concerned. I didn't read any transcripts from it. I didn't feel like I missed out at all. And I feel like I'm a political person. So if I I'm feeling like that, I'm sure people who either are marginal or maybe haven't been involved in politics before are totally turned off. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Let's bring in Sen. Leahy and Congressman Kasich now. Sen. Leahy, this has been something of a theme here, that there's a kind of disconnect between what people are hearing from Washington and what they would like to be hearing about issues and other things. What do you have to say to everybody here about that and to our listening public? SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, (D-VT): Well, I think they're right about that. I'm back home in Vermont every week. And I'm in a grocery store putting gas in my car or something, people come up and talk to me, and the things they talk about are a lot different than what we hear in Washington. One of your focus groups said - I wrote it down - that the Lewinsky matter is "like a tired old sitcom." And it's true. People talk to me about the problem of medical privacy, or of HMO's, that insurance companies are making the decisions, not the parents or spouses, or members of the family and their doctors making decisions. I look at an issue where we seem to be so politicized in the whole question of what the conduct might have been of the president and we overlooked some of the things that are very necessary in our country. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Congressman Kasich are you having the same problem? I mean, you're campaigning too. You're head of the Budget Committee. Does anybody want to hear about that? REP. JOHN KASICH, (R-OH): I think that people are very much hungering for a chance to solve things in their own communities and in their own families. And I don't think that this problem the president has -- it may bring this whole issue to the fore, but I think for a heck of a long time people in the country don't think that politicians get it. They all don't think that politicians in Washington get it. They really want to have power in their own hands, and their fight is against a lot of big institutions that they feel out of touch with. Now, I mean, I got to tell you if you think that we can pass three laws here in Washington and everything will be fixed with your managed care company, I mean, come on, we know that isn't going to work that way. And we got to change things in our own communities and change people's attitudes and reform ourselves from the inside out, not the outside in. SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, (D-VT): It'd be nice if it was that simple, but it's not, and you have a Congress that has spent an enormous amount of time investigating the president and his conduct, and also a Congress that seems to want more and more to impose itself on individuals. It's nice to say we want to look at what happened from the local community on, we have a Congress that wants to tell you exactly how you're going to educate your children, exactly what you're going to read, what you're going to see, what you're going to have on your Internet, and that does breed cynicism. I don't think that there is enough trust in Washington. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Senator and Congressman, let me bring in the group here. REP. JOHN KASICH, (R-OH): Wait a minute, Elizabeth. I can't let that go unanswered because Senator Leahy and I obviously see the world differently. You see what we want to do is we want people in Denver to decide where their kids ought to go to school. We don't want to make that decision as Republicans. We want you to be in charge of your retirement, more than just sending your money to Washington and letting us make all the investments for your retirement years. We'd like to let you have more control. And in terms of this whole matter of the president, the Congress has not spent a whole inordinate amount of time in this. We've all been waiting for the Starr Report. We didn't have any hearings until the Starr Report came out - only on the president's campaign finance. And in regard to the president, let me just suggest to everybody in this country, you know, this is an opportunity to decide what kind of leaders we want, what kind of country we want. Is it important that if you go into a court of law you tell the truth? I mean, those are fundamental things that we have to go through. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let me interrupt you one minute. Okay. Folks, you're hearing the issues debated. React. Brent Neiser.
	Political gamesmanship.
	BRENT NEISER, Foundation Executive: I think we're getting really tired of this cloud of political gamesmanship. We've seen this lobbing of mortars back and forth between the Congress and the White House, but it extends to other issues. The budget is not balanced. The deficit keeps growing. And I think we were lied to on that. And I know that John has probably worked, you know, a lot on that. But it's the posturing, it's the gamesmanship. It's these half truths that don't occur just under oath but in regular talk about public policy. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Congressman Kasich -- REP. JOHN KASICH, (R-OH): We have good news here, Elizabeth and everybody. Look, this is a day when both the president and the Congress can announce that we've had the first balanced budget since man walked on the Moon and the first surplus. Now we're arguing about who's responsible for it, and we're all trying to take credit for good news. But the fact is we've actually been able to achieve something down here by being able to do something we haven't done in 30 years, and part of what we have to do as Americans to celebrate some of the good things that happened and stop trying to steal joy or explain away some good acts that people engage in -- SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, (D-VT): I think to do that you have to understand there has to be some showing to the American public that it's not business as usual. We saw attempts to write legislation that might have some effect on teen-age smoking, that might actually punish the tobacco companies for lying to us for decades. That got shot down so much by the special interests in Washington, it died. You saw an attempt to do something about campaign finance reform. That got shot down. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Bob Jornayvaz. BOB JORNAYVAZ, Oil and Gas Executive: You know, you never hear a Democratic Senator say two or three good or great things that the Republican Congress has done. You never hear the Republican Congressmen say a couple of things that our Democratic president has done well. You know, as you said, you don't pass these things in one fell swoop. It's somewhere in the middle where you make these deals. It's very frustrating to see the extreme rhetoric on both sides. Neither side ever gives the other any credit for a job well done on an issue. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And you think that's turning people off? Do other people agree? And then I want to ask the Congressman and the Senator. JAMES SULTON: I agree with Bob, but I have a different issue, because I think the Senator and the Congressman both misconstrue things when they take the temperature in a place like Denver and then extrapolate as widely as I hear them extrapolating from it. The fact is not that we think Washington is irrelevant because we think local politics are important. At least in my case, I think the Lewinsky scandal is relatively irrelevant. What the point of concern I have is relevant to Washington. We care about foreign trade. We care about international relations. We care about the Africa trade bill. We care about those powers which are given. And we salute the Congress and the president - congressmen for the budget surplus. We think you deserve praise. Do more of that. We don't feel that the business DC is supposed to be taking care of and there is business to be taking care, and it's being taken care of by both parties. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. We're running out of time. Let's let the Congressman and the Senator react, please. Congressman.
	Taking care of business?
	SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, (D-VT): Well, I think one of the things that could probably do the most to get credibility back is to pass real campaign finance reform. Cut down the amount of money. Cut down the amount of time of the campaigns. You'll see more people going back to the polls. Increase the money, increase the time of the campaigns, you'll see less people at the polls. And it's as simple as that. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Congressman. REP. JOHN KASICH, (R-OH): Let me answer the question about why Republicans and Democrats agree. Now, Sen. Leahy and I - I have no doubt - agree on a number of issues. But we have a basic philosophical difference. Now, my mother always told me that compromise was fine, "but Johnny, don't ever compromise your principles." And the fact is whether you're going to argue about whether welfare ought to be run out of Washington or whether it ought to be run out of our communities or whether we ought to have - whether we ought to give parents more choice in terms of where their kids go to school, or whether we ought to have a tax cut - those are legitimate issues - and Sen. Leahy can take a position that is out of that I am going to respect it -- I may not agree with it. I don't think we ought to get turned on to the fact that people have disagreements on issues. But my judgment is that what we need to do is to stop complaining so much about what somebody else is doing and start trying to figure out how we can do a better job where we are, and where we live.
	TOM LAURIDSON, Farmer: The thing I find is that voter apathy starts with the voters. It doesn't start with Washington. If we have a bad government in Washington, it's our fault. I to go the precinct meetings, three people come, four people come. They're good people. I like all of them. But there's just four of them. Where are the other 20, the other 30? And it's that way everywhere. And if we have a problem here, it's because we have an obligation, a responsibility, as voters, to be proactive, to understand the issues. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We're out of time. Thank you both in Washington and thanks to all of you too.

REGIONS TOPICS RECENT PROGRAMS ABOUT US FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS / FEEDS:

Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station.
PBS Online Privacy Policy Copyright ©1996- MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved.