Almanac of American Politics, 11th ed

National Review, Dec 2, 1991 by Brad Miner

* One day back in May 1970, two students met in Harvard Yard. Look, Mike, Grant Ujifusa said to Michael Barone, all these people are protesting the invasion of Cambodia. If they're to have any real effect on policy, they'll need a guide to the politicians who make policy. We should do an almanac. Mr. Ujifusa, who went on to work at some of our better book publishers and is now a Reader's Digest senior editor, mentioned his new idea to Mr. Barone, whose future would include stops at the Washington Post and U.S. News & World Report, because when they first met and Mr. Ujifusa mentioned he was from Worland, Wyoming, Mr. Barone, who hails from Michigan, said, "Oh yes, that's at the western terminus of U.S. 16, isn't it?"

Indeed, Mr. Barone, who wrote just about every word in the 1,500-page 1992 edition of the biennial Almanac of American Politics, has always been "a detail guy." He had come across Worland while poring over the atlas in the family encyclopedia. Mr. Barone recently described to me the moment when-at age eight-he first discovered the pleasure of demographics: "I studied the results of the 1950 Census, and found it fascinating to look at the changes in population from city to city-who'd gained, who'd lost." That fascination, unabated, has now taken him into 425 of the United States' 435 congressional districts. The Almanac, now in its 11th edition, is the manifestation of a lifelong obsession that has made Mr. Barone a walking, talking gazetteer. As his introductory essay in the new volume shows, he's a first-rate political thinker as well.

This essay, Americans at Work," must be causing some gnashing of teeth inside the Beltway. For an author-and a book-with leftish roots, the essay's sentiments are decidedly counter-intuitive. Even if the Eighties actually were a Decade of Greed, Mr. Barone argues, the Milkens and the Boeskys worked awfully hard.

The combination of hard work and hustle

has changed the American economy, made

it perform more flexibly and with a suppleness

that, at the beginning of the 1980s,

almost no one forecast. It takes some

imagination to recall that the consensus

outlook of most economists was for continued

stagnation; we were a zero-sum

society," doomed to perpetual stagflation....

Only Ronald Reagan among major figures

promised economic growth, and few sophisticates

took him seriously.

Don't assume, however, that Mr. Barone is any sort of conservative: neo, paleo, or crypto. He's not. He's some sort of centrist out to prove that common sense should play a more active role in political discourse, and I can think of no book that rewards its readers with a surer grasp of political reality than the Almanac.

The lead essay is followed by a recap of recent political history "Politicians at Work") that includes a prospective look at the 92 presidential race. Then come the fifty state listings: analytical mini-bios of governor, senators, and representatives, with profiles of the state and of each congressional district. The New York section is poignant. "The last decade or so should have been wonderful years for New York," he writes. Instead they have only been good years, and the century may end poorly . . ." Mr. Barone describes the ultra-liberal 17th District. "On stylishly affluent Columbus Avenue" (where the Literary Editor resides)

.. or in the glittering Village, it is hard

now to see oneself as part of an oppressed

proletariat. As restaurant-goers become

couch potatoes and liberated young people

start to contemplate the implications of

mortality, it becomes apparent that their

most dangerous enemies are not others

with different lifestyles but, like Pogo's,

themselves.

Obviously, the analytical mind at work here sees more than just raw demographic detail.

The book is fat; its price tall: $44.95 for the paperback! Who pays that much for a book? People who need it. People who want it. Mr. Barone suspects these are groups of about equal size. The needy, in this case, are, first, Washingtonians, congressional staffers and lobbyists; and, second, journalists who cover Capitol politics for tabloids and glossies from newsrooms across the land. Back in 1982, before the book became affiliated with National Journal, the Times-Mirror weekly that covers every aspect of "the world's largest business-the United States Government," the Almanac was just $16.95. Clearly, National Journal Inc. knows something about those twenty thousand or so folks in the "need it" group, which is simply that 45 smackers is nothing to pay for a work whose elegant utility makes it indispensable.

Indeed, the book's a bargain for the rest of us too. With the data come priceless insights. Just a couple of examples: Speaking of the Kulturkampf, Mr. Barone observes that issues such as abortion burn all the more because Americans, so busy at work, pay little attention most of the time to politics .. The corollary to this is that when they do pay attention, their opinions change sharply and quickly, almost without notice." And on the Vice President in 1992: "Those who think George Bush will drop Quayle might also consider whether he will divorce his wife. Both are theoretically possible; neither is likely."