People’s Party Sold to High Rollers : Wright Had His Noble Moments, but Gave In to Money Power

Watching Jim Wright’s painfully moving valedictory, my mind went back to the last time I had seen him speak from the well of the House. It was two years ago, on the occasion of the climactic debate in the Congress over aid to the Contras.

Earlier that week, seeking to influence the congressional vote, President Reagan said that he had not been elected “to preside over the communization of Central America.” Dozens of speakers on both sides of the issue trooped to the microphone to make their cases; Wright was the last and the most incisive. Recalling the President’s paraphrase of Winston Churchill (“I was not elected prime minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire”), Wright distilled volumes of analysis about the arrogance of power and Yanqui imperialism into a single devastating sentence. “But Mr. President,” he said, “you were not elected to preside over Central America.”

Contra aid was defeated that night, thanks mightily not just to Jim Wright’s speech but to his earlier courageous willingness to brave the wrath of the Washington Establishment by elbowing his way into the making of U.S. policy in Central America. “More than any other man in this hemisphere,” in the view of his colleague David Bonior (D-Mich.), “Speaker Wright deserves the credit for ending the Contra war.”

Those who are now tempted to call Wright corrupt should reflect on the corruption of spirit of the many congressmen who, between courses in their dinners, voted to bankroll the murder of peasants in the name of the one end that justifies any means, “democracy.” Nothing that Jim or Betty Wright did in their scheming to make a buck was as “bad” as voting for Contra aid, or plain words have no meaning. The two offenses--a vote for murder and rape on the one hand, and a wholesale violation of House ethics rules on the other--belong to different moral universes.

Tony Coelho has none of Wright’s tragic dignity; he is Willy Loman to Wright’s Lear, that “foolish, fond old man.” Coelho is the hustler who made an art of shaking down businessmen to finance the reelection of Democratic congressmen. “The process buys you out,” he told the Atlantic Monthly’s Gregg Easterbrook a few years ago, speaking of the obscene cadging for PAC money that has seen $400 million flow into congressional campaigns over the last six years. One doesn’t know whether to salute the candor of that remark or deplore it as the height of cynicism. Of Coelho’s two discernible talents, raising PAC money and giving sound bites to the media, one should be outlawed and the other, simplifying complex issues to snappy headlines, is a force for intellectual mischief. He won’t be missed.

That both men are Democrats and that both resigned because of their ties to big money men should trouble all Democrats. How could Jim Wright so far forget the example of his fellow Texan Sam Rayburn as to frustrate government efforts to investigate charges of fraud and mismanagement in the savings and loan industry? Speaker Sam fought “the money power” until the end of his days. How could Wright square his populist rhetoric with the “gifts” and privileges he and his wife accepted from wealthy Texas businessmen? Sam Rayburn refused free passes on the railroad; proudly, he paid his own fare on his trips from Texas to Washington. He died with $15,000 in the bank and a name synonymous with integrity. Wright will leave more money, but he has lost what money cannot buy.

As for Tony Coelho, what was he doing making deals with Michael Milken, the junk-bond king who made $500 million in salary in just one year? Milken is the Jay Gould of this new Gilded Age, a symbol of contemporary decadence. Why would a leader of the “people’s party” consort with this swollen nullity? “The process” may well “buy you out,” as Coelho said, but Democrats are not just selling their souls when they cheapen the dignity of their offices to make a quick buck with the high rollers. They are selling out their party.

One Republican Party is enough. One party of business is enough. It’s needed; it’s necessary. But we need even more an authentic party of the common people to do something about the legitimate scandals. To take just one example: Real income has been frozen for most American families since 1973.

Perhaps if the Democrats hadn’t been whoring after PAC money, they would have noticed that scandal. Perhaps if they hadn’t been trying to make killings on Wall Street, they could have protected American workers from losing their jobs as a result of hostile corporate takeovers. Perhaps if the Democrats would reclaim their birthright as a people’s party, we would have a consumption tax on luxury items, stiffer inheritance taxes and a graduated Social Security payroll tax such that a Michael Milken would not stop paying at $47,000, but would keep on paying. Through the nose.

George Bush won the last presidential election by playing up “cultural populism.” Why can’t the Democrats counter with a genuine “economic populism?” It’s not possible so long as they remain the PAC party, the maestros of “the process that buys you out.” Campaign reform--the abolition of PACs and of honorariums, and the public financing of congressional races--is not just an institutional necessity for a Congress that has lost its reputation. It is a political necessity for a Democratic Party that is losing its soul.