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

Washington Monthly, Dec, 1986 by Steven Waldman

In 1981 he became the political editor of "TheLawmakers,' a public TV show on Congress, and in 1983 became the series editor of "Congress: We the People,' a 26-part telecourse that he credits with helping him learn how to deal with the broadcast media. "I did editing, I interviewed, I wrote scripts. I had to try to fit sound bites into the script,' he says. "You'd have some person son who couldn't make eye contact and someone who couldn't answer a question in less than 72 sentences. I spent hours trying to get something I could use.' In much the same way that writing 750 word op-ed pieces made him sensitive to the constraints of print reporters, this experience taught him about the needs of TV and radio journalists.

In 1983, Ornstein, along with several otherpolitical scientists, resigned from the Catholic University faculty in protest over the treatment of a political scientist who they felt was denied tenure for political reasons and because she was a woman. The move to the American Enterprise Institute, whose corporate sponsors value high-impact, public affairs commentators, increased his visibility and allowed him to spend more time making himself known. With each appearance on "MacNeil/Lehrer,' each quotation in a newspaper and each article he published (more than 130 since 1972, including two in The Washington Monthly), his recognition grew.

Is Ornstein a media hound? Really, he's moreof a houndee, but then again he just doesn't know how to say no. "I don't know why I do those,' he says referring to interviews with smaller media outlets. "I just wouldn't feel right about myself if I told ABC, CBS, and NBC to come and told the little stations no.'

Part of it is that there is still the teacher in him.Ornstein delights in showing around reporters, particularly newer ones, giving them his theories, and helping break them in. Finally, part of it-- although he insists it's small part--is that Ornstein simply enjoys being famous. Women come up to him in supermarkets, his kids get to see papa on same station as Mr. Rogers (although he says that since they got a video camera of their own "they've become pretty blase') and he now earns about $80,000 a year, more than a quarter of that from speaking fees. The $3,000 he can command for a speech is a pittance compared to what George Will or Henry Kissinger take in, but quite a bit more than your average teacher of government. He also has control over his own schedule, can say whatever he wants to whomever he wants, and gets immediate responses to what he's written. "There's something very nice about that,' he says.

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Part of what Ornstein does for the press isapply the basics of history and political science to current events. When the Los Angeles Times last year profiled Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, Ornstein explained why such a junior member could have an impact that he couldn't have had in the days of Sam Rayburn. "You now have an open and fluid enough institution, especially given the media coverage, that the individual who sets himself out as a kind of rebel can get a lot of attention.' In a piece for The Washington Times on Reagan, Ornstein gave a short summary of the theory of incrementalism: "We don't measure American politics by huge gains. It changes in the margins. The successful president is one who can make those changes look like significant victories, and shape them a little bit so that they move his way.' And hardly a week goes by without Ornstein defending the slow-moving government by pointing out that "the Founding Fathers designed the political system to prevent dramatic change.'