Slamming Washington:

The American politician, already a curious mix of slug, vulture and chameleon, is starting to look more like one of those wild rats that eats its own parents. It behavior in the 1994 campaign is perverse at best.

Having apparently no one else to blame (since no self-respecting politician would even think of blaming himself), congressional-wannabes have taken aim at the institution of Washington and are starting to blow it away. Few have stopped to think what will be left, if anything, when they move onto Capitol Hill.

The image of the Capitol Hill dome was once the symbol of a great, revered institution founded by the just and the free and the brave. In today's congressional advertising campaigns, the image of the dome looms darkened in the background, a symbol of some vague evil that steals from and disgusts its citizens.

This is the way candidates think they can win.

The New York Times's campaign coverage has spotted several such commercials. One features Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Montana) staring into the camera and saying. "In this town, the special interests are always out to get their hands on your money." As he speaks, a gray and grainy dome looms forebodingly on the screen.

Another has the dome opening up to expel the heads of congressmen who have voted to raise their own salaries. And yet another has a view of the dome under the large bold words, "Perk City."

Clearly, the days are gone when a Congressional hopeful could pose proudly in front of the Capitol and make a pitch to the folks back home. Nowadays such naivete is a certain recipe for defeat. Today's market-savvy slogans are: "Congress is more the problem than the solution; they're out of touch and we're out of patience" (Fred Thompson, the Republican challenger for Senate in Tennessee). Or, "The government is the most formidable enemy of all" (Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb.). The Times reports that these attitudes have spread and are now continually validated by campaign advertising from both parties."

There is a paradox in all of this, in a world where by their actions, both incumbents and challengers have turned conventional thought topsy-turvy. Experience in government is a liability nowadays, not an asset. Contempt for Congress is a virtue, not an unpatriotic vice.

Instead, according to a Republican pollster, a successful candidate need only "demonstrate that he or she does not represent the institution of Congress, but represents these people's interests against Congress."

In other words, candidates run to become a part of the institution they claim to hate. The 1994 campaign's main mentality seems to be: "The government is bad, but I'm good--let me be part of that government."

All this goes to prove that the American politician will do anything to get elected in the short-run, even if it means biting the very hand that feeds him. Candidates' advertising promotes a hatred of Congress that is philosophically inconsistent with their desire to be a part of it. Attacking the institution of government is in many ways easier than attacking the recent abuse of that institution, especially for incumbents. The unification of Washington only deepens and compounds public distrust in the institution of Congress.

In yet another perversion of the tyranny of the American majority, those rare unified blips on the heart-monitors of public opinion are invariably amplified and exploited by congressional campaigners. Showing no discrimination for which of those mass sentiments they exploit, many candidates simply tout the Gallup line, even if it means promoting hate for and undermining the very institution they seek to build. Polls showing that 70 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with Congress are like great waves of what the New York Times calls "sheer undifferentiated anger" on which candidates can coast to victory.

This is a collective action problem. All candidates have an interest in preserving a common source of legitimacy--namely Congress--but each wants to capitalize on a strategy that will undermine it.

Few can afford to pass up an opportunity to attract 70-plus percent of all voters, especially when every other candidate is doing it. The result is that they all contribute to a downward spiral, a free-for-all of Congress-bashing similar to small children ravishing an apple tree for the most apples, only to find that they've destroyed the entire plant.

The implications of this mass defection, the American candidate seems to think, are reversible. That may be so, but it is unlikely during only one term in office.

By casting Washington as the nation's scourge, ultimately successful candidates start off at a disadvantage in a system which they helped to incriminate. They need to repair an image that they've so fervently helped tarnish.

Somehow I doubt that resources on the scale used to vilify Washington can be used to vindicate it.

There will always be representatives and senators willing to further undercut the public's perception of Washington. Newt Gingrich, the number-two House Republican, has tried for years to strike down a Democratic House. As long as someone sees a benefit in doing so, the law of politics--myopic as it is--will provide an actor to play the role.

The solution to a steadily-deteriorating respect for Congress is easy to find. Instead of outright rejecting the body which gives them life, candidates need to send messages that they are ready and willing to change Congress for the better.

Unfortunately, as cliched as this notion sounds, it faces serious opposition. Strategists recognize that in an environment of severe public disenchantment with Congress, most challengers' dominant strategies are to vilify Washington's system and all those associated with it. Calls for reform from both incumbents and challengers, in comparison, sound weak and identify the candidate too much with legitimizing an unpopular and undesirable institution.

Candidates campaigning on issues like reducing congressional perks, staff size and term limits try to tap into a weak public desire for reform which is overshadowed by a stronger desire for venting anger. Measures like these merely try to rein in a system widely advertised as out of control, without addressing the reasons why the system itself evolved in that particular way.

Difficult as taking the high road may be, however candidates would do well to watch what they say today, because tomorrow their words could come back to haunt them. For example, Bill Frist, a physician who is seeking to displace Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), may not be using this slogan in a few years, if he wins his seat: "Bill Frist supports term limits to stop career politicians, and the death penalty to stop career criminals."

This will be remembered as the year that Capitol Hill became a bastion of evil, and experienced politicians became as morally objectionable as mass murderers. When one considers that these were selling points for voters, one can't help but wonder at the progress we've made in government.

Patrick S. Chung '96 is a frequent contributor to the Opinion page.