The King of Quotes; why the press is addicted to Norman Ornstein

Washington Monthly, Dec, 1986 by Steven Waldman

Ornstein's quotes are punchy. On the drearysubject of budget policy, Ornstein told the American Banker, "The president's 1984 budget was deemed dead on arrival. The 1985 budget was dead before arrival. And the 1986 budget is dead before drafting.' He told Financial Times that "Congress and the President have handcuffed themselves to one another and jumped off the cliff without knowing whether they will land on a plump mattress or a bed of nails.' In a Wall Street Journal article on congressional oversight hearings, Ornstein said, "The watchdog phenomenon can have its political payoffs, especially if you can combine oversight with something sexy like $600 toilet seats or drug-using terrorists who abuse children.' And on April 7, 1986, Ornstein's remark on efforts to trace Ferdinand Marcos's fortune--"This is going to be one of the biggest boons to American law firms we've seen in a long time'--was USA Today's "Quote of the Day.'

Just as important, the quotes are there whenyou need them. He is known as one of the fastest phone call-returners in town and has a knack for sensing what the reporter is looking for and getting right to it. "He is an astute observer of Congress and has an uncanny ability to take a very complicated subject and make it interesting and understandable,' explains Peggy Robinson, senior political producer at "MacNeil/Lehrer.' "He is,' she concludes, "the master of the pithy quote.'

That's part of it. But one cannot rise tobecome, in Garrison Nelson's phrase, "The King of Quotes' simply by being glib. Ornstein's rise has come about mostly because of fundamental changes in political science, politics, and reporting.

In 1972, when Norman Ornstein came to townas an assistant professor at Catholic University, political scientists in Washington were not plugged into the day-to-day events in politics. They either did laborious studies of the government or abstract theoretical research that could have been done in Washington state as easily as in Washington D.C. But the opportunity existed to try a different kind of political science. Congress was becoming a more open institution, more accommodating to study by outsiders.

Meanwhile, in part because of an increasingrecognition that the public was getting its day-to-day news from television, print reporters began practicing more interpretive journalism. Editors started to ask for a what-does-it-all-mean paragraph along with who, what, where, and when. These forces combined to create a tremendous need for someone who could act as a bridge between political journalists and political science--someone who could provide an element of depth, or at least create the illusion of depth, in journalism. Enter Norman Ornstein. "Norm carved out a whole new role,' says Alan Ehrenhalt, political editor of Congressional Quarterly. "Before him there was a void . . .. He's been a very good entrepreneur.'

Fingering power

Ornstein was born in Grand Rapids, Minnesotain 1948, but spent most of his childhood in Canada. His father was a traveling salesman specializing in women's clothing, his mother was a housewife, and he was a child prodigy. He graduated from high school at age 14, from college at 18. By 19 he had a master's degree; by 24 his doctorate. His high-school yearbook said, "Our avid debater seems to think Canada should be the 51st state,' and added, "Ambition: to prove his point.'