Only Bums Will Run, Only Bums Will Rule : The politicos: By poisoning the climate for politicians, we’re driving out the good people that term-limit proponents hoped to attract.

This has been a banner year for anti-politicians. Ralph Nader has raised huge sums of money with direct-mail appeals bashing Washington; Jim Wheaton, head of the California chapter of Common Cause, spearheaded the state’s term-limitation drive; businessman Jack Gargan began a national movement and organization to throw all incumbents out.

Some of the anti-politician talk has been cynical manipulation of the polls and public sentiment for partisan and individual advantage. But a great deal of it has been motivated by real concerns that our system is not working, that we need different and better people running for office and in office. Those with pure motives will sadly find their efforts not just futile but counterproductive.

America’s distaste for politicians has a rich historical tradition. But in years and decades past, we still reserved some considerable respect for those willing to devote a portion of their lives to public service. Reasonable people, accomplished people, good people, could still find many good reasons to run for elective office and to devote some time, energy and attention to public service.

These days, however, the distaste for politicians has deepened, whipped up with intensity by anti-politicians like Nader, Wheaton and Gargan. The result is a soured climate in which all politicians and the field of public service generally have been tainted with a broad brush of venality, corruption, selfishness, cowardice and immorality. Add to this the web of conflict-of-interest regulations, the zeal of press and pundits for poking into private lives and the financial and family sacrifices required for many to move to Washington or state capitals for service in elective office. Does anybody really expect that the result will be a large, fresh group of our best and brightest jumping up to run for office in the future?

Not many rational people of accomplishment and means are going to make substantial sacrifices to compete for a job in which they will immediately be labeled criminals or worse--including those noble citizens who term-limitation proponents hope to make “citizen legislators.” By poisoning the climate for politicians generally, anti-politicians are busily ensuring that our future candidates for office are more likely to be deadbeats or demagogues who will exploit the anti-political climate for their own ambitions, with little concern for the consequences of what they do in their limited terms of office; taking short-term advantage of policies that may have great long-term costs will be more, not less, tempting for them.

The anti-politicians’ burn-and-slash approach punishes politicians by limiting terms, capping pay, cutting pensions and destroying perks, but does nothing to enhance real competition in elections or to encourage top-flight political challengers. Their major contribution is to take away whatever limited incentives now exist and poison the climate even more.

As “throw the bums out” moves from selectively separating the bums from the good guys and toward identifying all politicians as bums, we will come ever closer to a self-fulfilling prophecy--only the bums will run, and rule.