Party System

Dear H. Ross Perot: You stand on the brink of history, and are about to fall in. The peril lies not with your aims or character but with your innocence of the costs and benefits of your opportunity. I am glad you are considering becoming an independent presidential candidate. But winning the election would be a great misfortune. You would have to govern as you were elected - alone. Without a political party, you would have to govern on the basis of plebiscites - constant appeals to the masses.

"This affair seems like another chapter in the history of the Republican Party's machine dominance in Delaware County politics," said Priscilla Greeley Hopkirk, chairwoman of the Villanova University political science department. Hopkirk, a Nether Providence resident who recently studied the transcripts, said, "This is another illustration of the way the machine operates. " The plan by Republican leaders Nicholas F. Catania and Charles P. Sexton to get a straw candidate to run for controller in the 1981 Democratic primary was a "dirty trick," she said.

WHERE ARE the Philly Republicans? Crime, corruption, taxes, school violence. Pick your issue. They should be holding protests around the city. Are there any city Republicans willing to stand up and fight and talk about these issues? You're going to be outspent, so you better start early. It might even be fun. It is embarrassing to watch the press talk about the next mayor and not even mention the Republicans, who controlled the city for 67 years before being swept out in a clean-up-the-government campaign called Sweep Them Out. To have a government reform campaign, you first have to speak up!

The latest scandals surrounding the Philadelphia Housing Authority dramatize the fact that in Philadelphia we have, not one, but two governmental structures. One structure is the outward, ostensible structure that is supposedly involved in governance of the city. The other is the less visible, political party structure, which is set up - well, let's just say for other purposes. At certain times in the past these parallel structures have both had a perceived interest in providing effective government.

Lt. Gov. Mark Singel said yesterday that he still wanted to run for the U.S. Senate, but not this year if Gov. Casey didn't want him to. He thinks he's the best candidate, he said, but Casey may not pick him to run, but, then again, Casey just might. Singel's multi-directional and somewhat confusing comments came during a hurriedly called news conference in his office. Exactly what they meant was a bit nebulous, but the reason Singel was commenting was clear. He wanted to "elucidate" on statements he made Tuesday in which he was quoted by the Associated Press as saying he might seek the Democratic nomination for a special U.S. Senate election in November even if he did not get Casey's backing.

Perhaps they had thought it before. Perhaps they had even said it, to friends, on walks through Gorky Park or along the Moscow River. But certainly they never had said it to an American journalist. "The Communist Party is too powerful," Galina Zakharova, an engineer on her lunch break, said yesterday. "I agree with the idea that power should be taken away from the party. " "Yes, the soviets must be given more power," said Rinat Animayev, 34, a painter doing sidewalk portraits on the Arbat pedestrian mall.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a president who was a leader and not a politician? A person who was affiliated with neither party and was above politics? A person who could bring Americans together and resolve the problems that are tearing the country apart? Such yearnings led almost one-third of Americans to support the Ross Perot candidacy in 1992 (in opinion polls) and have seen almost as many dream of an independent race by Colin Powell in 1996. But the reality is, no, it wouldn't be nice to have such a candidate, much less such a president.

Remove partisanship from school board races While I wholeheartedly agree with the premise of Bob Martin's March 21 commentary ("School board members should be paid for their hard work"), I think he missed the bigger issue, which is the partisan nature of school board elections in Pennsylvania. Until the politics are removed from this very important role in our community and future, things will not improve, as the party system is a monstrous impediment to recruiting the best people for the job. Ten years ago, when I lived in another school district, a group of us were dissatisfied with our school board and mounted an independent campaign.

Susan Bass Levin is a politician who seems to have it all. She is popular - reelected as mayor of Cherry Hill last fall by a landslide. She is the successor to Cherry Hill's first female mayor, the late Maria Barnaby Greenwald, who also became a powerhouse in Camden County politics. Levin, a kinetic woman of 42 who hovers over her domain like a mother eagle, is one of a growing number of female mayors in the tri-county area. The others are Pamela J. Hammer in Voorhees; Sue Ann Metzner in Winslow; Sandy Love in Gloucester Township; BettyAnn Cowling-Carson in Magnolia; Thalia C. Kay in Pemberton Township and Linda Graham in Elk Township.

The Supreme Court yesterday dealt a crippling blow to political patronage by ruling that government officials may not base their hiring, promotion and transfer decisions on a worker's party membership and contributions. Justice William J. Brennan Jr., who wrote the majority opinion in the 5-4 ruling, said government applicants or employees should not be forced to support the political parties of their superiors to get jobs, hold on to them or "progress up the career ladder. " "The First Amendment prevents the government, except in the most compelling circumstances, from wielding its power to interfere with its employees' freedom to believe and associate, or to not believe and not associate," Brennan wrote.

J.C.A. Stagg is professor of history and editor-in-chief of The Papers of James Madison at the University of Virginia, and author of the forthcoming The War of 1812: Conflict for a Continent from Cambridge University Press On Nov. 22, 1787, James Madison published, in the New York Daily Advertiser, what would become arguably his best-known work - the much celebrated 10th Federalist essay. Among the advantages promised by "a well constructed union," Madison wrote, "none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.

WHERE ARE the Philly Republicans? Crime, corruption, taxes, school violence. Pick your issue. They should be holding protests around the city. Are there any city Republicans willing to stand up and fight and talk about these issues? You're going to be outspent, so you better start early. It might even be fun. It is embarrassing to watch the press talk about the next mayor and not even mention the Republicans, who controlled the city for 67 years before being swept out in a clean-up-the-government campaign called Sweep Them Out. To have a government reform campaign, you first have to speak up!

Remove partisanship from school board races While I wholeheartedly agree with the premise of Bob Martin's March 21 commentary ("School board members should be paid for their hard work"), I think he missed the bigger issue, which is the partisan nature of school board elections in Pennsylvania. Until the politics are removed from this very important role in our community and future, things will not improve, as the party system is a monstrous impediment to recruiting the best people for the job. Ten years ago, when I lived in another school district, a group of us were dissatisfied with our school board and mounted an independent campaign.

The dominant mass-media institutions that cover New Jersey politics, with very few exceptions, are very practiced in the task of choking off any popular interest in or respect for alternative-party candidacies. Day after day, as election campaigns move toward culmination, the news media repeat the constant siren song that democracy equals two parties only, that anything else is "fringy," "unrealistic," a silly diversion from the main match. This two-sided coverage, especially in reporting on political campaigns in New Jersey this year, sharply limited the value of information that citizens and voters of the state had at their disposal before choosing a candidate in the voting booth.

The cry for change, which is still barely beyond a yelp, has not been this loud in a long time, but it remains to be seen whether it will be enough to loosen the all-Republican lock on Burlington County government. Next week, three candidates from different parties will take on Republican incumbent Vince Farias of Edgewater Park for a seat on the Board of Chosen Freeholders. With the exception of a Reform Party challenge four years ago, Burlington County freeholder races have been between only Republicans and Democrats - and since 1984, Republicans have won every time.

At a certain angle, Maurice Baskins could see the Capitol dome reflecting in the windshield of the white Ford Tempo as he tucked a $7 parking ticket under the wiper blade. That's how close Baskins was Thursday afternoon to the center of Pennsylvania government and politics, when he was asked about this week's statewide primary election. Baskins, a 33-year-old city parking enforcement officer and registered Democrat, said he always votes. So, who would he vote for on Tuesday to be Gov. Ridge's Democratic challenger?

With onetime Clinton guru James Carville now campaigning to tar Whitewater sleuth Kenneth Starr as an evil partisan, and Carville's wife, Bush aide-turned-talk-show-host Mary Matalin, denouncing her husband at every turn, it's time to settle things once and for all: How can these people be married to each other? The conventional wisdom, shared by political junkies and psychiatrists alike, is that you can take Carville and Matalin's politics or their marriage seriously, but not both.

It seemed like a good time to visit the Supreme Court. Congress and the President are just gearing up for January action, but the third branch of government - the judiciary - has been giving us forceful reminders of its presence and power. A court in California invalidated a voter-approved initiative to end affirmative action programs. A court in Hawaii told authorities there they could no longer ban gay marriages. And the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the Brady law, requiring a waiting period for gun purchases, and statutes in several states requiring that all official transactions be conducted in English.

The Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, is mounting a $2.8 million campaign it calls "Media Reality Check '96" to combat what its director, Brent Bozell 3d, describes as the media's "nonstop onslaught against the conservative movement. " Mr. Bozell also accuses the three major TV networks of being soft on President Clinton: They have given, by his tally, only 13 substantial stories over three months to the Whitewater scandal. Media spokesmen tend to treat Mr. Bozell as a crank.

He made the automobile industry turn its attention from tail fins to seat belts. He railed against the drug companies and the food giants. In an era of corporate profit-taking, he calls for product and worker safety. And he's running for president. Ralph Nader - candidate on the Green Party ticket, revolutionary in a gray pin-striped suit - figures he'll wind up on ballots in 20 states in November. He came to Haverford College Sunday evening and told a receptive audience of 150 that "flesh and blood people" are losing control of the political process.