Campaigning Against the Government

The American electorate and its new generation of politicians are in an extraordinary mood in these last two weeks before the mid-term elections.


Take the campaign David Mann is running for re-election as a congressman from Ohio. His TV ads proclaim his record: "Clinton and the congressional leadership's tax increase -- Against. Clinton's government takeover of health care -- Against. Clinton's $18 billion pork-barrel program -- Against."


Wait a minute. David Mann is a Democrat, running hard against his own party. And if that sounds odd, consider the new look of the Bush family, the sons of the former president.


Young Jeb Bush, who is probably the next governor of Florida, campaigns on a simple theme -- "Government is not good. This campaign is about clubbing the government into submission.


"Washington is a cesspool. I don't want to live there," young Jeb continues, of the city where his father and grandfather made their political careers. And he has little time for whatever compromises politics required the elder Bushes to make. "The age of relativism is over. There is absolute truth. You are responsible for your actions."


George Bush the younger, currently running neck and neck in the race to become governor of Texas, also has little time for the American political system his father led. He tells the voters: "Government should not be the moral compass. Government cannot make you love one another. Government telling you how to run your business is a bad thing. But government putting people in jail is a good thing.


"We have got to lock these people up. These children must be punished," young George Bush goes on, campaigning from a juvenile justice center. Brother Jeb takes a similar line in Florida -- "It's time to put these people away. Juvenile criminals must know they will be punished."


A year ago, President Clinton used a pen as a political prop, holding it up before congress and vowing to veto any health bill they sent him which did not give universal coverage to all Americans. Now Jeb Bush has a prop pen too, given to him by a woman in Pinellas County, and he starts every stump speech with the pen, and tells how he got it.


"She said, 'Jeb, use it. Sign the death warrant for the man who killed my daughter.' I'll do that. I'll sign that death warrant. And I'll build a prison system big enough to put people away long enough so our fears can subside."


This goes far beyond the Bush family. Almost every candidate, Democrat or Republican, is running for sheriff. In Philadelphia last week, the debate between the gubernatorial candidates became an occasion for the machismo of the hangman, with vows to "sign every death warrant the courts of Pennsylvania send up to my desk."


This new puritanism can reach weird heights. Young Jeb Bush tells his voters he has not taken alcohol since January. Young George Bush says that's nothing. He has not taken a drink in eight years. Young Jeb confesses that as a young man he did indeed inhale the demon marijuana. But at least he was faithful to his wife. She is, Jeb insists, the only woman he ever slept with.


"Jeb said that?" commented his elder brother. "Oh boy. No comment. Jeb's setting a tough standard for the rest of us in that generation. Boy. I mean, I'm not getting into that one."