Talk (33 page)

“So you established a beachhead in talk radio. And when, in the midst of the first Gulf War, a guy in Sacramento named Rush Limbaugh offered what you were looking for, you ate it up and you wanted more. And radio stations across the nation took note and they wanted Rush and a stable of his imitators. And it worked. And do you know why it worked? Not because Rush was a political expert. Hell, he didn't even vote. And not because he was an election soothsayer. It worked because the man is a gifted entertainer. His worst political critics have never given him the credit he deserves for his ability to keep an audience entertained for three hours a day working with no more than a daily newspaper!

“Then Fox did the same thing on TV.

“And together with the Internet, conservatives now had places to call home.

“Then the predictable happened. Liberals took note and decided they should do the same thing. They tried and failed on radio with Air America. There was never the need for a liberal clubhouse in radio because their audience always had NPR! On cable TV, they succeeded with MSNBC. It took them a while before they got it right, but Keith Olbermann was the first to emulate from the left what Limbaugh and Fox did from the right. Again, it was all about entertainment. Suddenly, CNN, lacking personality or perspective, faded into third place in prime time.

“Sure, people still tune into CNN for breaking news, but once they understand what's happened, they want someone with whom they are politically comfortable to explain the significance and tell them how they should feel. And that explanation, in order to be self-sustaining, is dependent on disagreement.

“Civility has gone out the window. Conflict is the order of the day.

“And look where it has gotten us.

“Nothing is easily solved in Washington. Our politicians on both sides of the aisle create more obstacles than they remove.

“Every issue becomes an ordeal.

“Compromise is the new C-word.

“And we are left with ongoing polarization. Meanwhile, we act surprised about the inability of elected officials to get anything done. And we wonder aloud, ‘Where does this polarization come from?'

“Certainly not from the vast majority of voters.

“Survey after survey has shown that Americans would rather have a politician who seeks compromise than someone who sticks to their own principles. But you'd never know that
listening to our conversations on radio and TV, or watching Republican and Democratic politicians.

“Perhaps that's why more and more Americans refuse to identify themselves with either of the major parties. They'd rather regard themselves as Independents than Republicans or Democrats.

“But as Americans become
less
ideological, our politicians have become
more
partisan.

“You want to know why things are so screwed up?

“You want to know where this polarization comes from?

“I can explain it to you in four steps.

“First, you have hyper-partisan districts. Nate Silver at the
New York Times
spelled it out years ago. He pointed out that in the early '90s, there were about 100 members of the House of Representatives elected out of swing districts (which he defined as districts in which the presidential vote was within five percentage points of the national tally). Today? We have just 35.

“That means that out of 435 races, 400 are virtually predetermined by party affiliation. At the same time that competitive districts have diminished, landslide districts—those in which the presidential margin diverged from the national outcome by 20 or more points—have roughly doubled.

“So, more and more members of Congress are now being elected from hyper-partisan districts, and therefore, face no backlash from their own constituents when they are unwilling to compromise.

“Second, there is the effect of closed primaries. When those hyper-partisan districts are located in states with closed primaries—that is, nominating contests open only to party members—the voters who reliably turn out in these relatively low-turnout elections are those who are ideologically driven. Who do they vote for? The most conservative or most liberal candidates, who then end up getting their party's nomination. The more centrist,
middle-of-the-road candidates never stand a chance. You combine hyper-partisan districts with closed primaries and you have the backdrop for an enormous ideological divide.

“Think about this: For the last four decades, the
National Journal
has sought to categorize the ideological leanings of every member of the House and Senate. When the
Journal
recently analyzed the voting records of members of Congress, it found that we have the highest level of polarization in the 40 or so years they have been doing this research. Every Senate Democrat had a voting record more liberal than every Senate Republican. And every Republican was more conservative than every Democrat. And the House was similarly divided.

“Maybe you think that's to be expected, but it hasn't always been like this. In the early 1980s, on Ronald Reagan's watch, the
National Journal
calculated that roughly 60 percent of the Senate was comprised of moderates who regularly voted across party lines. Back then, there was a group of moderate Republicans who met on a regular basis. They called themselves the ‘Wednesday Lunch Club.' They had nearly two dozen members. Names like Packwood, Heinz, Specter and Hatfield. Weicker, Kassebaum, Danforth, Percy and Chaffee. Stafford, Simpson, Warner, Gorton, Dole and Stevens. Today, there would be no one at the meeting!

“Third, we can't overlook the effect of money. Fundraising is the next big contributor to the polarization we face. In the past, candidates elected to Congress actually moved to Washington and lived there. But today, a typical member residence is a flophouse on Capitol Hill that they share with an ideological twin and sleep in only two or three nights a week. Nobody truly lives in Washington, moves his or her family there, enrolls children in a D.C. school, or—most importantly—socializes with colleagues. Elected officials today can't afford the luxury of spending
time together and building working relationships with each other, because they've got to get back home and raise money for upcoming elections in which their success is virtually assured. It becomes far easier to demonize a political opponent when your only frame of reference is that person's ideological makeup, and you don't know the members of their family, or their true character, or the localized priorities of their constituents. What we need to do is figure out how to get the money out of politics, tell elected officials if they want the job they need to stay in Washington and actually do it, and encourage them to have a cocktail with someone from across the aisle while they are there!

“But the fourth factor is the one that I know the most about. Yessir. It's the polarized media, itself a creation of the last four decades. This is where you—the ideologically driven voters who dictate the nomination process in closed primary states—go for your news and opinion, and where elected politicians do their best to stay in good stead. Gone are the days when a successful career in Washington was dependent upon longevity in office, and the corresponding seniority that brought prestigious assignments. Today, the quickest path to success is to say something incendiary, get picked up in the cable TV news or talk radio world, and then become a fundraising magnet. Because you know who loves that sort of entertainment? The ideologically driven voters who vote in primaries in hyper-partisan districts within closed-primary states!

“Notice that in the precise period when polarization progressed in Washington—that is, the last 40 years—there has been a corresponding polarization in the media. Coincidence? No way.

“I believe there is a causal connection.

“The behavior of the media and elected officials today is reminiscent of old-time wrestling. The squabbling is all for show. Bad behavior reigns.

“But there is good news.

“While the media and members of Congress flex their polarized muscles, fueled by talk radio and cable TV news, America is headed in a different direction. Polling shows that Americans largely consider their approach to the issues as ‘moderate,' not tied to one end of the spectrum or the other.

“But around here? Moderate is a dirty word. The only thing worse than moderation is to be linked to compromise. But like I said, in the real world, while the number of voters who identify themselves as Republican or Democrat dips, the number who register to vote as Independents is on the rise. In other words, as the media has become polarized and taken Washington with it, they have left a significant part of the public behind. That part wants less polarization and more cooperation.

“I believe that we have to change this. It's not going to be easy.

“The first step is for you to realize that your selections have consequences. You know, nobody ever got hurt in the pro wrestling I'd watch on Saturday mornings. It was fake. Everybody knew it. But today, the nation is suffering when we allow our debate to be dictated by men in tights!

“When I'm pumping my gas in Sand Key, or when I'm shopping for groceries in Publix, or maybe having a few toots with my buddies at a local dive on Tuesday nights, I don't meet people who see things all one way. I meet people for whom the issues are a mixed bag. They're liberal on some, usually social issues, and conservative on many, usually the economic ones. And a whole bunch, they just don't have a clue. But politicians don't take their cues from regular people. No, politicians listen to guys like me. And that's not good. We're no smarter than you are just because we give good ear, or look great on camera, and have a microphone in front of us.

“I believe that it's time for the entertainers like me who enjoy the public trust—a trust automatically conferred on those with access to the airways—to win your support through intellectual fairness and integrity, not through scare tactics and demonization. Speaking of which, there is something else I need to say.

“I want to apologize to Governor Wynne James. What a now-deceased spouse said about you in the midst of a contentious divorce is not relevant to your fitness to hold high office. I am sorry I facilitated that charge being tossed into a presidential race, where it had no place. It's about as insignificant to me as whether another candidate prays, and if so, in what church. I similarly regret ever having questioned Bob Tobias' fitness for office in a country governed by a Constitution which expressly states that no religious test shall ever be required.

“I'm sure both of those statements come as a shock to many of you. And so will this.

“You wanna know my real platform? Well, here it is.

“I think profiling was necessary in the days after 9/11.

“I think that if you have a terrorist who has information that he won't surrender after you give him a piece of quiche and a warm blanket, you should do whatever is necessary to save American lives.

“I think that if you kill a cop, you should pay with your own life.

“I think that our borders are porous and need to be controlled before we give a path to citizenship to those who are here illegally, or their cousins will just take their place.

“And I believe in the right to bear arms.

“But hold on. Before you give me a ‘hell yes' and call me a ‘great American' or refer to me as your ‘blood brother,' there is more I want to say.

“I also believe that we should never have gone into Iraq.

“And that we stayed too long in Afghanistan.

“I believe that government spending is too damn high, but part of that spending is the money wasted by the defense department opening a new base every time somebody thinks they see a face that looks like al Qaeda.

“I believe that while the Second Amendment may protect your right to bear arms, it does not entitle you to own a weapon designed for a battlefield.

“I could not care less about same-sex couples. What they do is their business and what I do is mine.

“Mine is a live and let live mentality.

“And speaking of which, I think we need to legalize both pot and prostitution.

“My name is Stanislaw Pawlowsky. And I approve this message!”

•  •  •

My timing was impeccable. If there was one thing I had learned in the last 20 years it was how to manage a clock. I always did have what we call in the business, good “formatics.” Alex brought up the music bed. I turned off my mic. I removed my headphones. She came into the studio and gave me a hug. She may or may not have had a tear in her eye. I grabbed my legal pad with all my notes, and I walked out the door. Past Rod Chinkles who was beet red. Past Steve Bernson who was ashen. And beyond Don Fortini who seemed to be smiling. The receptionist tried to hand me a stack of telephone messages but I waved her off as I boarded the elevator. I got behind the wheel of my Lexus, figuring it would soon be handed back to the dealer who owned it, and put the roof down. Pulling out of the lot I saw him, my fisherman friend, standing in MacDill Park beneath the metal sculpture that I'd always found
perplexing. Today I saw it differently, realizing that the collision of intersecting steel that the locals called “Big Red” wasn't a three-story replica of a children's game, nor the symbolism of the inertia that comes from competing forces, but rather, the oneness that can result when non-aligned interests give each other support. I looked at my buddy. So many days we'd given one another a subtle wave as I headed for home, without knowing one another's names or situations, or so I thought. Today there was no nod, nor did he wave. Instead he took one hand and touched one of his ear buds. With the other, he gave me a thumbs up. For the first time in years, I felt the weight of the world lift from my shoulders.

As I headed up Ashley in the direction of 275 South, my iPhone rang. Instinctively I knew who it was without looking down. On the third ring I picked up and heard Phil's voice.