Tilting at Windmills - Column

Washington Monthly, July, 2000 by Charles Peters

You MAY HAVE NOTICED THAT financial institutions often ask for your mother's maiden name to verify that you are in fact you before they hand over your money. Well Wired magazine reports that a firm called Geneology.com is now offering a way for anyone who might want your money to find out your mother's name by searching your family tree on its 470-million-name database. So what's going to happen when you decide you need to move further away from Fort Detrick and go to the bank to withdraw your funds? Will somebody else have gotten there first, recited your mother's maiden name, and cleaned out your account?

THE WIDELY SHARED DISMAY AT Al Gore's inadequacies as a candidate should not obscure the many admirable qualities he would bring to the presidency, qualities that are not nearly so evident in George W. Bush. There is little in W.'s life to compare with Gore's long history of deep interest in public issues and of taking positions on those issues that consistently reflect a conscientious and thoughtful mind. Gore's awkwardness on the stump may keep him from being elected, but, if he is, I'm convinced he would be a good president.

He is not helped by the tendency of reporters to focus on style instead of substance. This of course makes Gore look bad but it also doesn't exactly flatter the reporters themselves. Take the recent column by Maureen Dowd ridiculing Gore's long-winded answers to questions by the editorial board of The New York Times. Gore's answers to the first two questions were definitely not impressive. But neither were the questions:

"Q. Your opponent, not so much on his vulnerability on the issues, but just as a candidate, is he--do you find that he has strengths you didn't anticipate or is he competitive down to the wire?"

"Q. We asked you to categorize your opponent. Just drawing on what you've said so far, I think--how about, are you saying the ant versus the grasshopper here, or are you saying wasteful and profligate versus prudent and cautious? Or what labels--how would you do it?"

There may be the faintest hint of coherence in these questions, but not of substance. The reason Gore's answers may have rattled around could be that he was in a state of shock that America's most distinguished editorial board couldn't do better than this. By the way; once the questions focused on substance Gore's answers were pretty good.

ONE OF THE MANY PROBLEMS with money in politics is that it often comes from out of state. Thus a senator can attract more contributions from people who don't live in his state than from his own constituents. Of course, the out-of-state contributors may merely be citizens who are so public-spirited that they contribute not only to their own representatives but also to worthy senators and congressmen from other states. The suspicion lingers, however, that the contributions may be motivated by a desire to gain influence. And it doesn't seem right for non-constituents to have influence. The problem extends to state legislatures. Sixty-six percent of the $100 or more donations to the Wisconsin state senators re-elected in 1998 came from outside their home districts according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. What's even more suspicious is how the percentage grows in proportion to the power of the recipient. Ninety-six percent of the money contributed to Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen came from out-of-district.