Razzle Dazzle
A Show Worth Emulating

By RICHARD STEIER

The two-man show staged by Mario Cuomo and Newt Gingrich at Cooper Union Feb. 28 was intended as both an homage to Abraham Lincoln's speech at the same site that launched his run for the Presidency in 1860 and as a prod to the current crop of candidates to engage in a serious dialogue rather than a series of sound-bites.

As the former House Speaker explained at the start of his 30-minute presentation, "Cattle calls of people offering 30-second solutions to Iraq demeans the whole process."

What they offered as an alternative was half-hour presentations by each (with Mr. Cuomo not surprisingly exceeding his allotted time), and then 30 minutes of questions from the moderator, Tim Russert, who served as Counselor to Mr. Cuomo during his first term as Governor before becoming a Washington fixture as the host of "Meet the Press."

Reminder of Their Appeal

As theater, it was engaging and stimulating, with their opinions and the wit and passion with which they were delivered reminding the packed auditorium why Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Gingrich were two of the most formidable political intellects of the past quarter-century. If the crowd leaned toward Mr. Cuomo from a combination of hometown fondness and ideological preference, it nonetheless was appreciative of Mr. Gingrich as well, with no discernible heckling of either man.

Photo by Leo Sorel BRINGING THOUGHT BACK TO POLITICS: Former Gov. Mario Cuomo tells audience at Cooper Union that Americans have lost their sense of what the nation should stand for, while ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (seated at right) called for weekly debates between the presidential nominees beginning after Labor Day next year that would demand ideas rather than sound-bites. Also looking on is moderator Tim Russert.

But while they were each thought-provoking and often candid, neither departed drastically from the mainstream of their respective political parties, though Mr. Gingrich offered a ringing plug for Chuck Schumer's book about the 2006 elections, concluding, "It made me think a lot more about how to beat Chuck in the future, because he's a really dangerous guy."

When Mr. Russert asked which candidate from each party would provide "the most interesting campaign and debate," Mr. Cuomo ducked on the Democratic side, then indicated he believed Mr. Gingrich was better than every Republican running except for maybe Rudy Giuliani.

Mr. Gingrich, who has said he might consider getting into the race, sidestepped by pointing to the current polls to frame the contest, remarking, "In all honesty, [the nominees are] going to be two New Yorkers, one of whom acts like a real New Yorker."

It was with those responses that they reminded us that they are two of the shrewder political animals of their generation, known for speaking their minds but capable of evasiveness and disingenuousness when it suited their purposes.

Mr. Gingrich's downfall, of course, began with his push to impeach President Clinton, a continuation of an effort to fire up the Republican base on moral issues that never squared with his having left his first wife for another woman while she was being treated for cancer. (Six months after he stepped down as Speaker after the November 1998 elections, he decided to divorce his second wife at a time when he was having an affair with a younger Congressional aide, offering a clearer reason why he wasn't the ideal guy to pursue Mr. Clinton for his dalliance with a White House intern.)

Mr. Cuomo was never known for the kind of moral hypocrisy that could fire up a million gossip columns, but reporters who covered him in Albany sometimes found him maddening even if they weren't among the recipients of angry 5:30 a.m. phone calls about articles that displeased him in that morning's papers.

Mephistopheles Does Mario

His knack for denying that he had changed positions on an issue, aided by his claims that what he had previously said had been misunderstood by reporters, prompted a devilish take on the legend of Faust in a satirical show put on by the Legislative Correspondents' Association in the early 1990s. The LCA skit featured one of its members as Mephistopheles promising to make all those who had grown to dislike Mr. Cuomo - legislators, union leaders, lobbyists - love him so much that they would send him to Washington.

Near the end of the show, the reporter playing Mr. Cuomo chastised the Devil for not fulfilling his end of the bargain. The Devil, taking a page from the Governor's book, responded that he had never promised to make him President, although "I might have mentioned a White House" and spoken of allowing him to become someone there who could lead the public. He then handed him a flashlight and pronounced him a new White House tour guide, with the skit fading out to the tune of "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden."

As Joel Benenson, the then-Albany bureau chief for the Daily News who played the Devil, pointed out the morning after the Cooper Union event, the loss of substance on the road to the White House - looking not at Lincoln's campaign but comparing the Kennedy/Nixon debates during the 1960 election to what passes for political dialogue today - is as much the fault of the people covering the candidates as those who are running. Never-ending news cycles, a "gotcha" mentality pervading the media and the ability of the Internet to turn a single remark into a fatal misstep for a candidate have made them all more inclined to be cautious to the point of blandness or outright evasion, and to use staffers to pounce on any slip of the tongue by their rivals.

'Public Demands Less'

Mr. Benenson, now a political consultant who does polling for Barack Obama and said that for several months he has regarded Mr. Gingrich as "my long-shot pick for the Republican nomination," is joined in lamenting the role that the media and the public have played in reducing politics to the lowest common denominator by Harold Holzer, a Lincoln scholar who collaborated with Mr. Cuomo on a book about the 16th President and put together last week's event.

Mr. Holzer remarked, "We as audiences demand less" than those of Lincoln's era who came to the various eastern venues where he repeated his Cooper Union speech. Some even, he noted, took the trouble to obtain copies of it when their letters requesting the future President's positions on particular issues were told in reply that any shorthand version of what he had said risked being taken out of context.

"Our attention span has faded," he told the crowd in Cooper Union's Great Hall.

And then Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Cuomo stepped to the microphone to try to disprove that notion, speaking on several national issues without always overlapping.

'A Bizarre Process'

"I believe this country today faces more parallel challenges simultaneously than at any point since the 1950s," the former Georgia Congressman remarked. At the same time, he continued, the process for choosing a national leader "is decaying to a level that is bizarre. How can people take you seriously if your consultants tell you what to do?"

Recent presidential debates have pivoted on briefing books that allow candidates to dispense with issues in short, facile responses that ignore the complexities that prevent easy solutions to problems. The trouble with that, Mr. Gingrich, said, is that "you don't elect a President to memorize. You elect a President to have wisdom, to reflect."

Mr. Cuomo repeatedly took aim at the Bush Administration as emblematic both of what is wrong with the system and the desire to reduce problems to simplistic remedies. Referring to the problems encountered by several components of the Federal Government that were slammed together under the Department of Homeland Security, he said it was folly to believe that "uniting 12 chaotic conditions will produce one smoothly operating one." Instead, new problems were created, he said, noting the demise of the Federal Emergency Management Agency from a well-regarded organization under President Clinton to its utter failure in response to Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Gingrich spoke of "a stunning rate of new evolution" that included advances in research on cures for Alzheimer's and cancer; Mr. Cuomo during his stint lambasted Mr. Bush for refusing to approve stem-cell research in the cause of finding such cures.

'Stay Out of Religion'

"The First Amendment makes clear that the government should stay out of the religion business," he said. But if Mr. Bush is basing his opposition to stem-cell research on religious beliefs pertaining to when life begins, Mr. Cuomo continued, "then what you're saying to me is that if your religion prohibits it, then I am denied it. That is a violation of the First Amendment."

Mr. Gingrich lauded "the productivity of the private sector," saying that where the Federal Government "can't find any" of the estimated 11 million to 18 million illegal immigrants, the express-delivery companies have devised systems so precise in tracking their shipments that they could root out the illegals by mailing them a package.

"We've been caught in a false contest between those who say 'I'm against government and so I don't have to think about it even when I'm in charge,' and those who say 'I'm for government and so I don't have to think about it even when I'm in charge,''' Mr. Gingrich argued. "Bureaucracies in Washington would rather have failure than change, because change is painful, and failure is business as usual."

For examples of how government can work, he cited New York City, and how it has been transformed by two Republican Mayors over the past 13 years. "Between Mayor Giuliani and Mayor Bloomberg, this is a different city," Mr. Gingrich said.

Flaws to His Analysis

The examples he chose, however, involving the Police Department and the school system, were the products of just the sort of shallow analysis that Mr. Gingrich bemoaned along the presidential trail.

He cited former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton's notation in his book that the computer analysis of crime patterns created such accountability for NYPD commanders that three out of every four precinct Captains were replaced during the first year of CompStat "because they couldn't adapt to a new style." But crime in the city had begun declining two years before Mr. Giuliani took office, and it fell sharply nationwide during the early years of his administration. Even the fact that the drop was greater here than elsewhere owed at least as much to a build-up of the force that began under Mayor David Dinkins, and left the NYPD with about 25 percent more cops at the end of Mr. Giuliani's tenure than he began with.

Mr. Gingrich said Mr. Bloomberg's plan to transform education was "having some success despite enormous resistance," in what seemed like a veiled shot at the school unions. Once again he was engaging in over-simplification that missed a key point: what success the current administration has had has coincided with a significant increase in Teacher salaries that has eliminated a persistent problem of having close to 20 percent of city instructors lacking the necessary state certification. Mr. Gingrich also did not venture to wonder how Mr. Giuliani could have had such success with the NYPD and yet failed to make any headway in the school system if transforming an agency was solely about making its managers accountable.

Cuomo Spins Gingrich

Mr. Cuomo put a different spin on the situation, saying, "I agree totally with the Speaker that while government can be positive, the current [national] government has been a disaster."

Mr. Gingrich railed against the inefficiencies of the health-care system, including providers who refuse to be flexible even when it could save both them and the public significant money. Mr. Cuomo concurred on that point, but added, "Health problems - the biggest one is 48 million people without any insurance."

And that, he argued, was where the fundamental divide lay between Republicans and Democrats - about what is most beneficial to the nation as a whole and how to reach those goals.

"I believe what America needs most of all today is a better idea of what we want to be as a nation," he said. "The greatest empires were brought down not militarily but by a failure of their economy."

Under the Bush Administration, he said, the commitment to the general good and a consensus about what that was had withered because of the growing schism between those prospering from the economy and those either treading water or dropping beneath the surface.

Poor Beneath the Radar

"We have five million more Americans suffering from poverty than six years ago," the former Governor said. "Many of these poor children will grow up hearing the sound of gunfire before they hear an orchestra play."

Yet there has been a growing indifference to the poor that has been reflected in the lack of attention paid to them during the presidential debates the past two elections because there is a perception that they don't vote enough to be a constituency worth championing, Mr. Cuomo said.

To help them, he said, it would be necessary to cut spending and run government more efficiently. That could be done by making cuts in entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare without hurting the middle class and the poor if allowances were reduced for the wealthiest Americans, Mr. Cuomo said. Another $150 billion could be generated if the IRS hired more auditors, he said, citing Mr. Schumer as his source for that claim, and far more would return to the treasury if Mr. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans were discontinued.

"Forty percent of about a trillion dollars goes to people who don't need the money," he said. The argument that the tax cuts spurred more investment and therefore more revenue was fallacious: "We have so much money in investment, we don't have the deals to put it in."

Reverse Reaganomics

He argued that while Republicans have contended that tax cuts beginning with those implemented by President Reagan have been a boon to the economy, Mr. Reagan miscalculated the effect of his economic program by $2 trillion and eventually had to raise taxes on six different occasions. George Bush the Elder was elected in no small measure because, in contrast to his Democratic opponent, he promised not to raise taxes, and was denied a second term in large part because he broke that pledge, and Mr. Clinton was also forced to raise them.

"And what happened?" Mr. Cuomo said. "Eight years of unprecedented growth; the best four years of the stock market in our history." Paraphrasing a Republican catch-phrase, he added, "Let's call it the magic of tax increases."

Where the problems Iraq poses for Republicans led Mr. Gingrich to tiptoe around the subject during his presentation, Mr. Cuomo used it to wrap up his speech.

He said of Mr. Bush regarding Iraq, "He's been wrong about almost everything, and especially so on escalation." In response to the President's warning about what would happen if American troops left, Mr. Cuomo scoffed, saying, "It's already a place of violence and chaos."

Citing the resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban after the President diverted American troops that were pursuing the terrorist network behind 9/11, Mr. Cuomo said, "We shouldn't have left Afghanistan in the first place to go to Iraq. We'd best get back there as quick as we can."

Veterans' 'Betrayal'

He noted a story in that morning's Times about the 1,600 Iraq combat veterans who have sent an Appeal for Redress to their representatives in Congress asking for the withdrawal of the troops. He cited one member of the 101st Airborne Division who was preparing for a third tour of duty in Iraq who had told the Times, "There is a sense of betrayal. These soldiers stand up to fight, to protect their country, but we are now on the fifth reason as to why it is we are in Iraq. How many reasons are we going to come up with for keeping us over there?"

He said Mr. Bush had committed "a tragic, calamitous blunder that he refuses to acknowledge or to end." On the other hand, Mr. Cuomo said, while it may be good politics for Democrats in Congress "to rub the President's nose in it" by pressing on for a debate on the war, it won't accomplish anything toward extricating the troops from an untenable situation.

Mr. Russert began the question-and-answer period by citing Mr. Gingrich's mantra of "real change" and asking him what that would mean for Iraq.

Questions Iran Talks

Mr. Gingrich said he had recently testified before Congress that he believed Mr. Bush's surge had only a 20 percent chance of succeeding. But he also questioned how the U.S. could negotiate with Iran over the Iraq situation given its major role in funding terrorism there and its position that the only appropriate role for Americans in that country is to leave.

He accused Democrats of intellectual dishonesty by pushing resolutions disapproving of the troop build-up rather than voting to cut off funding. Mr. Cuomo responded that beyond concerns about the political fallout if Democrats were perceived as de-funding the troops, congressional leaders realized that it would have no practical impact.

"The President wouldn't stop sending soldiers," he argued. "He'd keep running a deficit."

As to Mr. Gingrich's claim that a troop pull-out would send a bad signal to nations like Iran and Korea about our willingness to use military force if they provoked us, Mr. Cuomo said that should be a nonissue.

"We've gone to war when we didn't have to, so yeah, we'll go to war" if the need arises, he said.

When Mr. Russert asked whether the U.S. should tell Iran that it cannot be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon, Mr. Cuomo acknowledged the contradiction inherent in that stance, since we had invented the first one and permitted our allies to develop their own.

'We're Not Kim Jong-il'

Mr. Gingrich contended that more than 60 years of using our nuclear might responsibly while protecting western Europe and other parts of the world had established that "we are not the moral equivalent of Kim Jong-il. So I don't have a problem saying to [the North Korean dictator], 'We have 'em, you don't; we're keeping them, and you're not getting them.''' That statement produced the most enthusiastic response of the night for Mr. Gingrich from the crowd.

Mr. Russert asked Mr. Cuomo about the need to fix the Social Security system, pointing out that when FDR set the eligibility age at 62, the average lifespan for an American was 65; today it is 79 or 80.

Mr. Cuomo sidestepped, saying that there was "not an immediate problem" before 2042.

Mr. Gingrich, whose partiality to individual retirement accounts of the sort Mr. Bush sought to no avail two years ago was ridiculed by Mr. Cuomo as something that would merely deplete the treasury further without fixing the long-term problem with Social Security, said the issue was too politically charged to expect change before it was absolutely necessary.

'Work More, Get Less'

"People in Congress don't get up every morning and say, 'God, what daring, dangerous, career-ending thing can I do today?''' Mr. Gingrich said, drawing laughter from the audience. But noting the trend in recent years toward raising the retirement age and the income level at which Social Security taxes are applied, and the prospect of eventually having to reduce benefits, he said, "Only government could have a system like that: you have to work longer, pay more in taxes and get fewer benefits."

This, too, drew a laugh. Ironically, though, that formula sounds very much like the one championed by Republicans in both the private and public sectors when it comes to pension "reform," most notably during the run-up to the 2005 transit strike.

The discussion was riveting not only because of the personalities of those involved and their standing as two of the most eloquent thinkers in their respective parties, but because we are so rarely exposed to that kind of political dialogue. On the other hand, neither man has ever run for President, and perhaps one reason is that their ideas might get chewed up in what passes for national conversation about the issues, with most candidates opting for watered-down versions of their true beliefs. (As Mr. Cuomo noted, though, if you don't spell out what you truly believe during the campaign, it makes it particularly difficult to convince the public to go along once you're in office.)

Bipartisan Debates?

Mr. Gingrich, who helped put some of the toxicity into the political dialogue a dozen years ago, argued that you could remove much of that atmosphere by requiring that Republicans and Democrats appear in bipartisan forums during the primary season. He explained that "you cannot biologically be as vicious and nasty as the current system if you're face to face. And if you can be, then you're pathological and you're disqualified."

He also called for the holding of nine 90-minute weekly dialogues between the parties' nominees beginning after Labor Day next year and continuing until just before the election.

If they were of the caliber and civility of his encounter with Mr. Cuomo, it would transform the political landscape and make the process interesting in a meaningful rather than a tacky way, as is currently the case.

The strongest argument against the idea is that our political system doesn't work that way. The strongest argument in favor is that a system that gave George Bush a second term doesn't work, period.