Give Peace a Chance

Give Peace a Chance
Gore is eager to "fight." But do we need a bellicose president?
BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Wednesday, October 18, 2000 3:57 a.m. EDT

"If you want someone who will fight for you," says Al Gore, "then I'm your man."

"We've had enough fighting," says George W. Bush. "It's time to unite."

Fightin' Gore vs. Unitin' Bush. The two lines pretty much sum up both the third and final presidential debate, and the choice we face in voting next month. It's a difference that cuts far deeper than rhetoric or debating style. Though, in these debates, over the past three weeks, even the mannerisms--attackin' Al vs. goodly George--have been telling. And whatever doubts hung over the campaigns going in, it is clear by now that the candidates offer seriously different visions of where they would like to take America.

First, the fighting Mr. Gore. During last night's debate, Mr. Gore promised to fight and fight and . . . fight. In the course of a 90-minute broadcast, in which he had to be prodded here and there to allow equal time to Mr. Bush, Mr. Gore promised 10 times that he would "fight"--on issues ranging from prescription drugs to failing schools to middle-class tax cuts to simple generic fighting for, well, whatever--"you have to be willing to stand up and fight," says Mr. Gore. In his closing statement, he noted that he has been fighting for the past quarter century, and you know what? I believe him.

But who's he fighting with?

Since he's not talking about waging war in foreign climes on behalf of U.S. domestic policy, one can only assume he is talking about fighting with some Americans on behalf of others. That may well be the way of local officials clamoring for part of the federal pot. But as the basic fabric of a presidential policy, it is a dangerous and divisive game.

The hallmark and beauty of a democratic free-market system is that if you let it work, it minimizes the fighting. Free to run their own lives, people draw on their own highly specialized knowledge of what they want, and what they have to offer to look for deals that benefit all parties. It becomes more interesting to do business than to claw your neighbor for a piece of the pie. More individual freedom creates more scope for individual abilities, and greater satisfaction and wealth all around. That's how America got to be the great nation it has become. The same basic arrangement is needed if we are going to continue that way.

Yet Mr. Gore seems to see America as a place fragmented into special interests, a place where the first priority of government is not to protect individual liberties but to divide the plunder among favored factions. By his lights, the job of the federal government is to barge into virtually every aspect of life to decide who deserves how much. Mr. Gore, or his deputies, will decide who deserves tax breaks, and which schools need reforming, and how retirement money gets handled. He will dispense tax credits to college students, and he will hit up those same college students a few years down the line for money to support their grandparents. The common factor in all this to-and-fro of funds is that government will make the calls and man the switch.

Listening to Mr. Gore last night, I began to wonder if he imagines he is running for the office of chief gladiator. If you please him, he will fight for you; if you displease him, he will fight against you. At best, all this fighting is a prescription for political gridlock. At worst, it is a ruinous plan for handing over to government a degree of discretion that endangers not only the economy but liberty itself. By the time Mr. Gore got around to describing how his administration would "embrace the highest common denominator of the American spirit"--whatever that means--it sure sounded as if he thinks that denominator, high or low, is himself.

Mr. Bush, by contrast, talked about "a different kind of leadership" in which we "need to put partisanship aside." He outlined a vision of government in which life across America would become less dependent on officials fighting in Washington--because Washington would be less busy spending our money and supervising our daily lives.

Mr. Bush talked over and over of findings ways to bring Americans together, of setting fair rules and trusting individual Americans to seek common ground. Asked about affirmative action, for instance, he replied that he favors "affirmative access" and added that he is against quotas because they "tend to pit one group of people against another." He underlined as his theme: "I trust people. I don't trust the federal government." And, giving credit to the American people, not the government, for the wealth we have already produced, he summed up: "I don't think the surplus is the government's money. It's the people's money."

Perhaps the difference here comes down to a basic grasp of human nature. Apparently unschooled by the colossal cautionary tale of central planning this past century, Mr. Gore seems to think that if he just does enough fighting--and spends enough of other people's money--he can create a sort of micromanaged realm of state-mandated happiness here in America. This has never worked anywhere else, but this is hardly the first time the world has produced a politician who thinks that, under his personal supervision, it is possible.

Mr. Bush, with humility more appropriate to a rational leader of a mighty nation, noted last night that "it's hard to make people love one another." His goal is the more useful one, for a sane society, of providing a fair framework that lets people do business with each other, and satisfy themselves, rather than try to please the government.

Even in the relatively small and immediate matter of manners, these differences filtered through. Last night we saw yet another debate in which Mr. Bush observed the rules both candidates had agreed upon, while Mr. Gore seemed once more incapable of abiding by any controlling authority other than himself. This round, Mr. Gore's sighing and eye-rolling of the first debate were mostly replaced with a sort of general slopping over the baselines of fair play. He interrupted Mr. Bush, badgered moderator Jim Lehrer for extra time, and broke the ground rules by posing his own direct questions both to Mr. Bush and to the audience.

Well into the debate, Mr. Bush finally responded by noting that to Mr. Gore, "evidently the rules don't mean anything."

So it seems. These debates are a sample not only of what Mr. Gore is fighting for, but of how he fights. This casual handling of the rules is something American voters might want to think about. Take it a step further, and look at a question Mr. Bush said he posed to himself, in deciding to run for president: "Could an administration change the tone in Washington, D.C.?"

It's worth a try.

Ms. Rosett is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. Her column appears Thursdays on OpinionJournal.com and in The Wall Street Journal Europe as "Letter From America."