If Dole Fans Don’t Like This Column, It’s Their Own Fault

Some day I’m going to write a book, “If People on Opposite Sides of Issues Only Knew How Similar Their Behavior and Attitudes Really Are, They’d Spend a Lot Less Time Knocking Each Other and We Might Actually Make Social Progress.”

The working subtitle is, “We’re All Phonies.”

Chapter subjects are filling up rapidly. The current political season is providing ample material for one entitled “The Blame Game.”

Let’s take your typical conservative Republican who, it’s no secret, tends to believe that his liberal counterpart is too quick to blame external forces for people’s problems or failures. Over the last generation or so, the argument has often focused on poverty and crime.

The Republican position, perhaps boiled down a bit too much here but you get the idea, is: Take more personal responsibility and quit blaming others for your problems. Nothing exasperates the conservatives more than people blaming their problems on anyone but themselves.

In this campaign, Bob Dole occasionally has relied on the old conservative chestnut, saying more than once on the stump: “Society doesn’t cause crime . . . criminals cause crime.”

The purebred conservative sees him or herself as the rugged individualist type and sees the liberal community as whiny seekers of excuses.

Or so they think.

When it gets right down to it, though, they’re just like the people they love to knock.

Case in point is the current state of the Dole campaign, which national polls suggest has basically frozen over the last few months. It looks like people made their presidential decision early this year and haven’t changed their minds.

That, by any definition, is a “problem” for Mr. Dole.

And how has he chosen to address his problem? Has he taken personal responsibility? Has he held himself accountable for the impending failure? Has he vowed to work a little harder and perhaps try something different?

Hardly.

Rather, Dole and his hardiest supporters have reacted in the way they claim to deplore--by blaming someone else. They’ve become whiny excuse-seekers.

Shock of shocks, they’ve chosen to blame the media. As his campaign founders, Dole let the “liberal media” have it in recent days, blaming it for his inability to get untracked and for coddling President Clinton. This is the same media that had Clinton hanging by a thread two years ago and has reported every real and imagined scandal the Republicans have tossed at the president.

Still, Dole saw fit to rake the press over the coals several times in recent days. At one point, he said, “We got to stop the liberal bias in this country!” Another zinger was, “We are not going to let the media steal this election!”

The point here isn’t to argue with the candidate, because the debate would go round and round. For every person convinced the media set out to scuttle the Dole candidacy, someone else will recall how the media coddled President Reagan. For every perceived or real media slight, someone will point out blunders by the Dole campaign and suggest he has no one to blame but himself.

Using the media is merely the tried-and-true fallback position. Doing so exempts Dole and his inner circle from taking personal responsibility and confronting their real problems--exactly the charge they level against those citizens who blame everyone else for their problems.

Now, Dole and his most partisan backers might fervently believe that the press is plotting against them. They believe that as fervently as do some citizens who think that American society is stacked against them and they can’t get a fair shake, not to mention a job.

As Mr. Dole has demonstrated, blaming someone else for your plight is not limited to one’s station in life. I would go so far as to suggest it is a universal trait, practiced this year by no less than the best the Republican Party has to offer. If true conservatives continue to blame the media for Mr. Dole’s problems, I humbly suggest they revisit the question about who or what is to blame for poverty and crime.

You’d almost expect Dole to reach out to the downtrodden and say, “I know exactly how you feel. Just like you, no matter what I try to do, I can’t get fair treatment.”

Somehow, I doubt he will.

It’s not likely that any time soon we’ll hear Dole or one of his confidants refashion that old chestnut and say:

“The media doesn’t kill campaigns; candidates do.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.