”
In my beginning is my end. In succession? Houses rise and fall,
crumble, are extended? Are removed, destroyed, restored
”
– T.S. Eliot
From
”
East Coker,
”
1940, No. 2 of
”
Four Quartets
”
Karl Rove is wrong: There are no permanent political
majorities.
There is a rhythm to politics, though time, at times, seems to
stand still.
“In my beginning is my end. In succession? Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended? Are removed, destroyed, restored”
– T.S. Eliot
From “East Coker,” 1940, No. 2 of “Four Quartets”
Karl Rove is wrong: There are no permanent political majorities.
There is a rhythm to politics, though time, at times, seems to stand still.
But all things end, and their endings are often foretold in their beginnings. Take the much-celebrated Republican class of 1994.
The Contract with America has gotten the most credit for the Republican sweep of Congress that year, but that is revisionist history. The Contract came late in the campaign. “Family values” was the real winning sound bite, variations of which have been used in Republican campaigns ever since.
But when you live by moral superiority, you die by it. Exhibit A is disgraced Rep. Mark Foley, first elected that year. But Foley wasn’t the only hypocrite elected in 1994. Take the case of Rod Grams.
I started 1994 as the editor of a community newspaper in Minneapolis. After years of writing about politics, I chose that year to take a sabbatical to explore the inside of the beast, becoming deputy communications director for the U.S. Senate campaign of Ann Wynia, a state legislator, college teacher and liberal Democrat.
Ann’s opponent was Grams, a conservative Republican, former TV news anchor and one-term Minnesota congressman looking to move up.
The entire race Ann bore a terrible cross: Weeks after she decided to run, her husband Gary, a tenured history professor at prestigious Carleton College, was diagnosed with an advanced brain tumor. He insisted she continue, so she soldiered on.
Some suggested that subtlely playing up her courage in the face of their family’s struggle would help the campaign, but Ann would have none of it. It was a private family matter, not a campaign issue.
Grams, meanwhile, reading from Newt Gingrich’s script, tarred Ann and all Democrats with the family values brush, implying Republicans possessed them and Democrats did not.
But Grams had his own secret.
Rumors swirled around his campaign – promoted not so much by Democrats, but by Republican rivals for his party’s nomination – that Grams, married for 30 years and the father of four, was having an affair with his female chief of staff.
Four years earlier, the campaign of Jon Grunseth, a conservative candidate for Minnesota governor, had imploded over allegations Grunseth had frolicked not so long before at a nude pool party attended by underage girls. Minnesota Republicans were afraid of history repeating itself.
In the end, neither Grams’ nor Ann’s private family matters made headlines, and Grams, riding the same wave that elected Mark Foley, won by five points.
The spectacle of Grams, that moral fraud, hyping his so-called family values at Ann’s expense, while her husband hovered near death from the chemo, was almost more than we all could bear.
A year later, Grams filed for divorce, and the alleged affair burst into the open. Five years after that, he lost his reelection bid – to a liberal Democrat.
In his beginning was his end.
But the damage had been done, and Ann was not alone. A lot of good people were maligned as people like Grams and Foley clawed their way to the top.
Let’s be fair. Majorities voted for these impostors. In democracies there is always plenty of blame to go around.
People with eyes to see chose to remain blind, just as it appears House Speaker Dennis Hastert and others chose to look the other way rather than deal with Mark Foley’s predatory behavior.
Suddenly, voters’ eyes have been opened. We should not be surprised.
Some say there is a double standard. Why, some wonder, is Foley being treated differently from Democratic Congressman Gerry Studds? His 1983 fling with a male page only got him censured, and he went on to serve 13 more years in the House.
The answer is because times have changed, and Rod Grams and Mark Foley – the latter chairman of the House Missing and Exploited Children Caucus – played important roles in making them change.
It’s 12 years later now, and both senators and House members, many first elected in 1994, are up for reelection. American voters are patient, even forgiving, but no one should be surprised if they hold that class to account.
In my beginning is my end.
John Yewell is a columnist and night city editor at the Monterey County Herald.
