Los Angeles Times Interview : Lowell Weicker : An Independent Politician at a Highly Partisan Time

Even before he bolted the GOP to be elected governor of Connecticut as a third-party candidate in 1990, Lowell P. Weicker Jr. had a reputation as a maverick politician with a keen intellect, an acerbic tongue and an unusual willingness to take unpopular stands. Indeed, Weicker has always taken pride in being the antithesis of the slick, media-savvy politician.

A giant of a man who stands 6-feet-6 inches tall and lumbers through life like the proverbial bull in the china shop, Weicker is known to his friends and enemies alike as both arrogant and highly principled.

As a member of Congress for 20 years, before being defeated in 1988, he often took stands that set him apart from most of his colleagues in the Republican Party. He spoke out in favor of abortion rights. He was arrested on the front steps of the South African Embassy in Washington for protesting apartheid. And as a member of the Senate Watergate Committee, he was one of the first Republicans to find fault with then-President Richard M. Nixon.

Later, as governor and founder of A Connecticut Party, Weicker succeeded in setting the state’s finances straight by doing what for most politicians would have been an act of political suicide: imposing a state income tax.

Not surprisingly, Weicker’s personality and political record have made him highly controversial. While held in high esteem in some quarters, it is not surprising that Weicker is portrayed as a villain by many of his constituents--particularly conservative Republicans whose views he has consistently challenged. Weicker, in fact, seems to enjoy the vilification. As he sees it, hostility to his brand of politics is evidence that voters do not really appreciate the kind of principled leadership they claim to want.

At age 63, Weicker will be leaving public life in January. Although he entered politics with inherited family wealth, he now says a lifetime of service in low-paying elected offices has depleted his financial resources. As a private citizen, Weicker says he plans to do three things: make money, have fun and spend more time with his wife, five children and two stepchildren.

Nonetheless, Weicker, whose success in getting elected in Connecticut has inspired other independent efforts across the nation, is suspected of nurturing a secret desire to run for President in 1996--as a national third-party candidate.

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Question: As the election approaches, there has been a lot of hand-wringing about the deterioration of political discourse and leadership in this country. How do you view the state of politics?

Answer: I think democracy is working as it should--which is to say that the politicians are reflecting the views of their constituents. I do not belong to the school that there’s Washington out there, and there’s us back here. I think the people of America do not want decisions; they don’t want the tough news or the bad news. They sort of want to coast along, and the net result is that the politicians are coasting along and the parties are coasting along.

I realize this puts a somewhat reverse twist on everybody saying, “Gee, you know, we’re looking for the right people in Washington.” But the fact is that finger-to-the-wind politics, which never solves any problem, is creating finger-to-the-wind government, so that the most difficult problems are never resolved and we get increasingly frustrated.

The fact is, the American people have now accorded their highest honors to those politicians who don’t stand for anything. And the net result, as far as the system is concerned, is we have gone from a politics of accountability to a politics of electability or reelect-ability. And that just does not work, because, very frankly, the realities of both opportunity and the realities of the problems don’t yield to easy political solutions.

Q: Hasn’t finger-to-the-wind politics always been a problem?

A: I think of my first important national election, i.e., when I ran for Congress in 1968, and I ran against an incumbent Democrat, Donald Irwin. Irwin was a Johnson, pro-war, pro-Vietnam War Democrat. That was his position. I took the position we should be out of there.

Both of us knew that we were going to live or die on our position. That was going to decide the election. And it did.

That’s not politics today. The idea today is to fuzz it up as to where you stand on the issue. And that’s where the shift has come. I increasingly saw it when I was in Washington, as both the Republicans and Democrats would get together, sort of, on consensus solutions to deficit reduction that were meaningless. But they felt they didn’t want to rock the boat too much before an election and, therefore, it wouldn’t become an issue. And it didn’t become an issue and, consequently, it didn’t become executive and legislative action after the election was over.

Q: Is there a solution to this problem?

A: I think it’ll come to pass with the emergence of a third party, or maybe more than that. But at least a third to give competition to the other two. It’s amazing that we have deregulated everything in the United States of America that’s economic. The only thing we haven’t deregulated is politics. We left it as a duopoly, or a monopoly, and it suffers all the ills of any monopoly. In the case of the economics, of course, it’s high prices and bad products. In the case of politics, it’s bad ideas and bad candidates. So I think that that’s the way this thing is going to correct itself.

Q: Where do you see a national third party coming from?

A: It is already taking place at the lower levels of government, i.e., in local elections and state elections. I realize that what’s probably running through your mind--and everyone else’s mind--is that we already have it nationally in terms of Ross Perot.

But that’s an aberration. It hasn’t come to pass nationally. I think, especially in politics, everything builds from the ground up, and it’s building now and, someday, you’ll end up with a true centrist third party. Don’t forget Perot’s just an individual out there. There’s no party. But I’m talking about in a party sense--that would develop into a centrist third party. We’ve had a lot of other parties running at the national level, but never all-encompassing as far as the issues are concerned--more centrist in addressing these issues. That’s going to happen.

Q: First as a moderate Republican, then as a third-party politician, you’ve had a unusual perspective on partisan politics. How has the dynamic between the two parties changed?

A: I think that you certainly have more attacks on the individual. That’s not to say the parties didn’t used to lock horns on issues and philosophies, but the personal aspects of politics have certainly not changed for the better. It’s the substitution of ignorance and name calling for intelligent debate.

Again, I have to say that I do not exonerate the American people. They all sit there and say, “Oh, that’s just horrible, those negative ads.”

Well, let’s face it, they follow those negative ads and they act on those negatives. The price of this is that good people are not going to go into politics. Who wants to dive into a mud bath? And that’s what you’re asking people to do.

Q: Are the two parties entirely to blame?

A: The media has to take it’s share of responsibility. You have gone--I say that in the editorial sense--from a precise profession to a tabloid profession. And that has changed the tenor of everything.

For example, suppose I say my press secretary kisses cows. The media used to say, “All right, senator, let’s see the proof here. We’re not printing anything like that. Show us.” In other words, show us the pictures, show us the evidence, show us the testimony where he kisses cows. Nowadays, if I say that, it’s up to him to prove that he doesn’t. The media don’t always demand the accountability of the politician as it used to. Indeed, they sort of revel in the more sensational and salacious of the accusations, the more it sort of sloshes around down there with them.

Look, you know why the personal stuff has all of a sudden come to the fore. It’s very, very easy. This monster called television needs material. And if the material is free, that’s great--because they’ve got bottom lines; they’re not philanthropic organizations. They’ve got to show a profit. So the more free material they get, the better.

Q: Do you see the Republican Party continuing to move to the right?

A: You can’t spend, you know, 28 years in the party like I did and still not have an affection for it. And I still hope that the Republicans succeed, but not on the basis of where they stand now. Hopefully, they’ll come back to the center.

I take heart when I see a man like Rudy Giuliani. I wasn’t for Giuliani to become mayor of New York City. He was too conservative. But I think he’s doing an outstanding job. The force of his constituency that he is trying to serve dictates that he can’t take stands way the hell off the road into the bush.

But that’s never been a comfortable factor for the Republican Party. Witness Lowell Weicker, Jack Javits, Cliff Case, Ed Brook. I could go down the whole checklist of men that represented very difficult Democratic constituencies and eventually it was the Republican Party that did us all in.

Q: Rep. Newt Gingrich says people in Washington are abnormal--

A: That certainly applies to Newt Gingrich more than anybody else.

Q: His point is that our leaders in Washington have lost touch.

A: No. No. They’re very reflective of what’s out here.

I think the American people are getting exactly what they want. What they want right now is nothing. They don’t want change. . . . And then when we get into trouble, they blame Washington.

Q: How do you view President Clinton?

A: Whether you agree or disagree with President Clinton on many of his initiatives as to the details, the fact is, for the first time, this Administration is raising great issues to the level of national debate. So I admire the Administration--we’re talking health care, we’re talking welfare reform, we’re talking deficit reduction. I say agree or disagree--but these are major issues that confront the nation, and they should be discussed. They should be voted on. And the minute anybody comes forth with a plan for change, everybody jumps all over it. It’s not an easy task to lead. That is the problem right now. They get leadership; they don’t want leadership.

The American people eventually will understand that all this nonsense doesn’t work and they’ll then demand--No. 1--leadership, and they’ll demand that leadership do the things, as unpleasant as they are, to go ahead and put the nation back on its feet.

Q: This year, a lot of wealthy men, like yourself, are running for office. Will they be any more independent, more willing to lead?

A: I’m not the guy to ask because I’m not independently wealthy. I’m broke. But rumor aside, let me just say one thing right now. Every time you try to effectuate any sort of a pay raise for public officials, God, all the editorial writers and the public have a field day.

I’m running, in the state of Connecticut, a $10-billion business. That’s the budget of the state. I get paid $78,000. I mean, how ridiculous. I’ve not asked for a pay raise. But what about the brilliant young person who, let’s say, has had a tough time coming up? Are you going to get them in public service for those kinds of prices? I don’t think so.

For God’s sake, pay the people who are in public office and it’ll do two things. No. 1, it makes them independent of the special interests. No. 2, it is an attraction in terms of people able to serve and you have a far greater talent pool than just people that, as you say, are independently wealthy.*