‘Cynical’ Press Just Reflects What It Covers

Treasurer Kathleen Brown, stumping through Northern California aboard her campaign bus, recently complained to a veteran newspaper reporter that the only people she was having trouble reaching were the likes of him.

“I have a hard time with the political press,” she told William Endicott, Capitol bureau chief for the Sacramento Bee. “I can’t get through to you guys. You’re cynical. You’re tired.”

Shortly afterward, columnist George Will on ABC’s Brinkley show responded to such gripes from politicians. Comedian Lily Tomlin, he noted, “plays a bag lady and one of the bag lady’s wise remarks is, ‘No matter how cynical you get, you can’t keep up.’ ”

Brown and other politicians are constantly proving the wisdom of the bag lady. Their cynical machinations this year are racing beyond even normal expectations.

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How can any rational person, for example, read anything but cynicism into Brown’s recent promise, if elected governor, to convene her new Cabinet and hopefully the Legislature in Los Angeles? She wants “to focus the full attention and resources of the state on the Basin’s recovery,” the candidate says.

Taxpayers shell out generously to headquarter elected state officials and their staffs in Sacramento. There’s a computer on virtually every desk capable of spewing data by the barrel. There are scores of meeting rooms, all sizes. Experts and special interests long ago learned how to get here from Los Angeles; it’s an hour flight. Logically, any government solutions can be devised more efficiently at the state Capitol.

What Sacramento doesn’t have that Los Angeles County does, however, is one-third of the state’s voters. Add in Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties--the Los Angeles Basin--and it’s half. Brown is running a regional campaign strategy, and you don’t need to be much of a cynic to see the posturing.

And if she’s elected, what better place to launch an administration than in the state’s TV capital? Brown envisions all those cameras spotlighting her first weeks in office.

Of course, this is merely a next-generation version of Gov. Pete Wilson’s cynical staging of a “crime summit” for Los Angeles TV last February. He actually adopted the idea from Assembly Speaker Willie Brown’s economic summit the previous year.

Wilson, in fact, is no laggard at cynical politics: All those anti-crime “strike” bills and the incessant photo ops signing them, last spring’s ugly TV ads depicting illegal immigrants racing across the border, counting funny money from Washington to balance the state budget. . . .

Then there’s Rep. Mike (formerly Michael) Huffington, who is asking to represent California in the U.S. Senate after having lived in the state only three years. He’s done little as a one-term congressman. But he’s apparently willing to spend unlimited millions of his own fortune to buy a Senate seat.

Political cynicism is not bounded by ideology.

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The truth is there’s a circle of cynicism in our society that includes not just political writers and politicians but the public. Pundits react cynically to the cynical actions of politicians, who desperately hunt for gimmicks to entice an increasingly cynical public. And too often the more cynical the gimmick--such as a cheap-shot ad--the more successful the politician, which intensifies cynicism all around.

Like the bag lady, citizen cynics can’t keep up. But they can turn off, and many do, as shown by low voter turnouts.

Susan Estrich, who managed Michael Dukakis’ 1988 presidential race and now is a USC law professor, says, “The problem is everybody wants to win. It probably would be foolhardy to run a different kind of campaign. Everybody sits around and says, ‘This is all well and good, but we need to run the negative ad.’ ”

“I’m totally cynical,” she adds. “I’m cynical about most of what I hear in conventional political discourse and cynical of the motives. And I’m increasingly distressed by what I consider the failure of democracy on a daily basis.”

Estrich blames talk radio for feeding voter cynicism and laments the breakdown of traditional political institutions--parties and unions. Today, she says, “the voters’ link to politics is liable to be the local radio host.”

Political cynicism isn’t new. Candidates used to wear Indian head bonnets and kiss babies. But public cynicism soared after Vietnam and Watergate.

Kathleen Brown is right. We’re all cynical and tired--tired of the babble and the gimmicks. Candidates could refreshen us with some serious and substantive discourse.