16
PARTISAN REVIEW
Let's accept for a moment the premise that, to some extent, people
are
disaffected. To what do we attribute this? Perot's entrance into the
race was a response, in part, to dissatisfaction with the two-party system,
with the national candidates who seemed to be emerging, and with the
status quo. People have become persuaded more than ever before that,
beyond the economic uncertainties of the moment, it is not within the
ordinary individual's power to effect change. Politics is constantly said to
be a playground for the well-connected, for so-called special interests, for
the wealthy. People talk about lobbyists, about soft and hard money,
about big contributors. There's more attention being paid than there has
been in a long time to how campaigns are financed, all of which gives
people the sense that they have a rather minimal role to play, by com–
parison to a handful of elite actors who enjoy genuine access and influ–
ence. Ross Perot speaks about lobbyists in alligator shoes. I'm not sure
that people necessarily know exactly what he's talking about, or to
whom he's alluding, but they know he's not talking about them. And
they know he's suggesting to them that they are, in a sense, locked out
of the system with respect to effecting change. Needless to say, you
don't have to have a conspiratorial sensibility to be persuaded, in a cir–
cumstance like this, that our own potential influence will never be more
than marginal. All of this, I think, helps explain Perot.
A second factor in disaffection is people's belief that there are gen–
uine and valid issues that are taboo on the national level and in local
elections. When this perception takes hold, it creates a sense that the dis–
cussion itself isn't all that meaningful. It is extraordinary that we are
having a national election in 1992 without an open discussion of race as
an issue. There are lots of indications that race is a central issue in
American life. In the year of the riots in Los Angeles, in a year of debate
over affirmative action and a so-called Civil Rights Bill, for this issue
scarcely to have been touched on - in the course of the entire presiden–
tial campaign - seems to me quite striking. People aren't fools. They
know when something is missing, and they know that if something is
missing, there's a reason - no one wants to touch it. This, too, creates a
measure of disaffection.
Certainly, the inequities of entitlement programs are an issue that
Ross Perot raised frankly because there was a sense that the major party
candidates couldn't or wouldn't touch it. Candidates who tried to do
so in the Democratic primaries met with very little success . I think also
that people hear a lot of discussion about things that they're not at all
convinced matter much. Admiral Stockdale, who emerged - rather sadly
to my mind, because I think he's an heroic figure - as a comic presence
on the stage of the vice presidential debate the other night, made a wel-
