NONFICTION - March 1, 1992

SPEAKING FRANKLY: What’s Wrong With the Democrats and How to Fix it by Barney Frank (Times Books: $19; 164 pp.) The unspoken question is, Will the Democrats be out of the repair shop by November? Given what Frank has in mind, it may well take longer than that to make the party road-worthy again. Frank, the Congressman who survived a 1990 reprimand (for dealings with a male prostitute) to be elected to a sixth term, is of the opinion that Democrats are unable to to snare the highest office in the land because they are too busy looking left instead of right: A concern with satisfying left-liberal Democrats, one that dates back to the late 1960s, has left the party open to charges that it is soft on crime, gun control, racial policies and abortion. When it comes time to vote for President--an office Frank says is won or lost on values, as opposed to lower-level races, which are issue-oriented--the middle-American Democrat turns from his party and votes Republican, because that party seems to espouse the sort of values this country stands for. Frank’s primary concern is wooing this “swing voter” back into the flock. He anticipates accusations of selling out, in his provocative tract, but gently suggests that policies without the presidency doom the Democrats to generations more in the role of the opposition. If the way a party is judged is by its contribution to society, then developing winning strategies is more important than mouthing pure philosophies.