OPINION

When Candidates Are Calling

PHIL JACOBS

Managing Editor

of a phone call from a
reader the other day.
It's not every day
that a reader is so angry that
he picks up the phone to call
about anything other than a
missed paper or one that
'came late in the mail.
This gentleman was peev-
ed, and here's why. In the
middle of his workday, in
his office, aphone call came
through from a political
pollster. This pollster repre-
c sented a local Congressional
candidate.
Before the pollster could
get started, the reader inter-
rupted him and told him
that he was in support of the
candidate's opposition.
' There was a brief pause over
the phone, and the reply that
came was, "Do you know
that our candidate is pro-
choice?"
The gentleman, initially
upset that his work had been
disturbed, now was under-
standably angry at the tone
of the pollster and sug-
gestiveness of the questions.
-• He told the pollster goodbye.
End of interview.
The point here is easy to
understand. The candidates
and their pollsters have to be
iriore careful about their
questions and the nature of
1 ---) these questions. To offer a
tidbit that your candidate
takes on a certain point of
view such as being pro-
choice, you better be able to
offer your opponent's posi-
tion as well. In this case, the
opponent is more staunchly
pro-choice and less waffling
on this issue than the can-
didate. So this adds a mea-
sure of chutzpah as well.
Several years ago, while
covering politics in
Baltimore
for the Jewish
.
Times, I experienced a simi-
lar situation. Two can-
didates were running for
=•J Congress in suburban
Baltimore. One, the incum-
c'bent, was Helen Bentley, a
scrappy GOP veteran who
had replaced longtime Rep.
Clarence Long in Congress.
Rep. Long was head of the
House Appropriations
Committee and a major
<L, friend of Israel. Mrs.
Bentley's voting record on
Israel was strong. It was at
the time less dramatic than
Mr. Long's, because she
didn't serve on any com-
mittees directly affecting
Israel. Her interests were
more involved with port-

-

,

related issues and how these
issues brought business to
Maryland.
Her opposition was
Kathleen Kennedy Town-
send, daughter of the late
Robert Kennedy and niece of
Ted Kennedy. Ted cam-
paigned for her in the neigh-
borhoods of Baltimore Coun-
ty. Ms. Townsend was ex-
tremely liberal, pro-choice
and she pretty much fit the
label of politically correct.
She was a yuppie, perhaps in
her early-to-mid 30s, rurm-

When the
opponent's record
is the subject, the
warning bells
should ring.

ing for Congress. She held no
previous major office prior to
this run.
On a sunny Sunday after-
noon, my telephone rang at
home. A voice on the other
end introduced himself as a
pollster for Ms. Townsend.
Yes, I agreed to go through
the poll. The poll's questions
offered no mystery. They
were leading questions
pushing the candidate's
points of view. But then
came a question that seemed
almost unreal, especially
from a person so concerned
with political correctness.
The question went some-
thing like this:
"Do you think that a poli-
tician's age makes him
more effectiver
Follow-up: "Do you know
that Kathleen Kennedy
Townsend is in her 30s and
Helen Bentley is in her
60s?"
Like the caller, I stopped
the interview right there.
This time the issue was age
discrimination. When it was
pointed out to the pollster,
there was an awkward
pause. The script was inter-
rupted. The poll ended right
there for me.
Candidates need to be
painfully more sensitive
about how they handle
themselves or how their
workers handle themselves
in the public eye. When a
candidate needs to discuss
the record of his opponent,
that's when the warning
signals should arise. When
this happens, a candidate is
showing all of us that he
believes less in what he sees
as his own strengths and
more in what he sees as his
opponent's weaknesses.

We all have heard others
talk disparagingly about
politicians and their honesty
and their motives. When a
businessman has his day
interrupted by a pollster
who can do no better than
implicitly put down an op-
ponent, it shows that not
everybody is getting the
message.
It's hard to take any can-
didate seriously this time
around who isn't paying
careful attention to his own
scruples, especially after the
House check-bouncing scan-
dal rocked the nation.
The bottom line here is the
politician. He or she needs to
understand that public trust
is deadly serious. If the poli-
tician even flirts with that
trust in a pre-election poll,
then the candidacy is a ques-
tion mark.
Yes, it's paranoid; yes it's
all of those things. But if
candidates aren't kept in
check and kept clean, what's
to keep someone from going
beyond, "Do you know my

Artwork from the Los Angeles Times by Barbara Cummings. Copynghte 1991. Barbera Cummings. Distnbuted by Los Angeles Times Synekate.

candidate is pro-choice?" to
"Do you know my candidate
is white?" "Do you know my
candidate is a Jew?"
It's important to be
feverishly selective of our
candidates. If a candidate
wants to run for office, ask
him or his workers hard
questions. Pin them to the
wall. Don't back away. Look
what's happened on Capitol

Hill while some of us let our
guard down.
There is no room anymore
for irresponsibility on
Capitol Hill or in Lansing. A
candidate-sponsored poll is a
mighty fine indicator of
what this man or woman is
all about.
Remember that when the
phone rings and it's the
pollster on the other end. ❑

A Reluctant Reservist

NECHEMIA MEYERS

Special to The Jewish News

M

ost Israeli soldiers
hate to serve in the
occupied territories,
and my son-in-law Moshe is
no exception. Indeed, he re-
cently told me that he would
rather spend two months of
patrol duty in the Jordan
Valley (where my son Oren
is now doing his reserve ser-
vice) than the month he will
soon be spending in Gaza.
"I feel that there is no
more reason for my being
there than there was for me
being alongside the Beirut-
Damascus road during the
War in Lebanon. Sooner or
later," he declares, "we'll be
leaving Gaza just as surely
as we left that road; so why
should I be wasting my time
running after rock-throwing
kids in the Strip, or worse
yet, shooting at them."
Moshe is still traumatized
by the experience of having
shot an Arab woman, albeit
with a relatively harmless
rubber bullet, when he was
last on duty in the ter-
ritories. She was part of a
fanatic mob of Palestinians
who were pelting his unit
with rocks and threatening

Nechemia Meyers is a writer in
Rehovot, Israel.

to attack them with blunt
instruments. "It was either
them or us, and my corn-
rades and I only did what we
had to do. But," declares
Moshe, "I hated myself
afterwards."
While Moshe heartily
dislikes service anywhere in
the territories, he differen-
tiates between the Gaza
Strip on the one hand, and
Judea and Samaria (the
West Bank) on the other.
Israel's basic defense needs,
he believes, require that it
retain some measure of
military control over areas
close to its eastern border,
perhaps along the lines of

Soldiers in the unit
try to be as humane
as possible in a
basically inhumane
situation.

the Security Zone in
southern Lebanon. But such
a zone need not contain Jew-
ish settlements any more
than does the one in Leb-
anon.
Despite his views on
"occupation duty," shared
by most members of his re-
serve unit, Moshe and the
others reject the idea of
refusing to serve in the ter-

ritories. They believe that
Israeli policy on territorial
issues must be decided upon
in the political arena and,
therefore, when elections are
held in June, they will be
supporting parties that favor
a compromise with the Pa-
lestinians.
Meanwhile, the soldiers in
that unit try to be as
humane as possible in a bas-
ically inhumane situation.
"When we have to enter a
house," Moshe explains, "we
knock on the door and wait a
while for it to be opened.
Other units, however, are
apt to just smash their way
into the house.
"Also, when we have to
handcuff a suspect with one
o•the stiff plastic bands used
for that purpose, we try to
avoid causing undue pain to
the detainee, or impeding
his blood circulation. And we
certainly never hit someone
just for the hell of it."
The Palestinians in areas
patroled by Moshe and his
buddies are probably better
off than they are when other
groups of soldiers are sent in
to do the same job. But this
doesn't calm the conscience
of my son-in-law, who would
greatly prefer "a fair fight"
against armed Arabs in the
Golan Heights or the Jordan
Valley to police duty in the
territories.

❑

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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