Plank by Plank, Scholars Build Party Platforms

Be sure to pay attention to what your professor says in class. Next week you could be hearing the same words out of the mouths of Bill Bradley, Al Gore '69 or George W. Bush.

While the upcoming presidential election is nearly a year away, campaigning for 2000 has begun in earnest, and already professors from the College and Harvard's graduate schools have begun to assemble behind their candidates.

Whether this is their first association with a campaign, or simply another step in a distinguished political career, these Faculty members have a hand in shaping election issues from crime to education to healthcare.

Driving the Issues

While the Harvard faculty can claim a hand in the three most prominent presidential campaigns in the nation, some professors admit to having a less influential role than others.

Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence Emeritus Charles Fried, for example, describes himself as an "adviser on call" to Texas Governor George W. Bush. There are several issues that he thinks are important to the upcoming election--such as minority set-asides and the division of federal and state authority--his opinion has not yet been solicited on most of them.

"I think it's a question of being asked, and I haven't been asked yet," Fried says. "I wrote a draft of a position paper that hasn't seen the light of day…but it's still early days in the campaign."

Harvard professors, however, have a more direct role in Vice President Gore's campaign. Elaine Kamarck, executive director of the Kennedy School of Government's Visions of Governance Project, serves as Gore's principal campaign policy adviser and advises the Vice President on a wide variety of issues.

Having chaired the National Performance Review in the Clinton White House, Kamarck has years of experience working with the Democratic candidate. She says that one of the most important aspects of the current campaign is deciding how to effect change without derailing the nation's economy.

"Among the most important issues in this campaign are education and keeping Social Security and Medicare solvent," Kamarck says. "How do you reduce the budget deficit, keep the economy growing, and make the kinds of change that families need?"

Professor of Law Christopher Edley has also worked as a general policy and strategy adviser to Gore.

"I've dealt with the full range of domestic and international issues, the economy, crime, and education," says Edley, whose areas of expertise include administrative law and civil rights.

Edley emphasizes, however, that advisers such as himself do not decide which issues will be discussed in the election, but only how they will be discussed.

"I care deeply about the issue of race, but so far Bradley and Gore have been quite close on race, so it hasn't become a major issue," Edley says.

Harvard Faculty have also played a central role in Bill Bradley's health care reform proposals.

While Professor of Economics David Cutler professes only a minor involvement in former N.J. senator Bill Bradley's presidential campaign, his area of expertise is health care economics--a key element of Bradley's platform.

"One of the main questions of this election is, are we going to do anything to help more people get covered by health insurance," says Cutler, who also fields occasional questions on other economic issues. "Bradley's proposal is fundamentally very simple--a system of subsidies to make health care more affordable, and mandatory health coverage for children."

Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Harold J. Bursztajn says that his contact with physicians around the country has allowed him to play a large role in forming Bradley's health care ideas.

"I was part of both the brain trust and the sounding board, working with others in my profession," Bursztajn says. "[Bradley] has reinvigorated health care as an issue."

"He recognizes that the lack of choice for patients causes both the quality of care and the doctor-patient relationship to suffer," Bursztajn adds.

Bursztajn admits, however, that his influence over what issues are being discussed is limited. For example, Bursztajn has expressed his concern over the reduction of federal funding for teaching hospitals such as the ones run by the Harvard Medical School.

"It's certainly something I've talked to [Bradley] and his campaign about," Bursztajn says. "I still think that he'll raise the issue at some point."

Entering the Ring

For several professors who have been involved in this year's campaign, networking with the Washington crowd is old hat.

Edley, for example, worked in the Jimmy Carter White House before becoming a professor at the Harvard Law School in 1981. During his tenure at Harvard, he took time off to work as the national issues director for Michael Dukakis's 1988 presidential campaign.

From 1993 to 1995, Edley worked as part of the Clinton Administration, serving first as associate director of the Office of Management and Budget. Later, Edley directed the White House review of affirmative action.

"I had a significant amount of contact with Gore, and developed a relationship through interactions on several different policy issues.," Edley says. "I became a huge admirer of his values and his approach to policy issues."

His close relationship with Vice President Gore was one of the reasons Edley was brought on board the Gore 2000 campaign last year as a general issues adviser. He has taken several months off of the campaign since then, but plans to resume his activity this month.

Bush, regarded as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has several Harvard professors on his staff whose diverse government connections include time spent as part of the Reagan administration

Baker Professor of Economics Martin S. Feldstein, an economic adviser to Bush, served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during Ronald Reagan's first term in the White House. Recently, he has served as an economic adviser to Mass. Governor A. Paul Cellucci.

Fried, who says he began working on political campaigns in the 1970s, served as Solicitor General under Reagan and as a federal judge until his retirement on July 1. While Fried was introduced to the campaign by a former student who works there now, he regards his connection with the campaign as inevitable.

"Every presidential election where there is nothing preventing me from becoming involved, I think it's my duty to do so," Fried says. "I support [George W. Bush], I want to help him and I hope he'll become the next president."

For other Faculty members, however, getting involved in this year's election was a somewhat less obvious decision.

Bursztajn, for example, co-directs the Program in Psychiatry and Law at the Harvard Medical School but has never advised a campaign before. A Princeton graduate, Bursztajn says he has long admired Bill Bradley, and was eager to join the campaign once asked.

"There are two reasons I went to Princeton--Albert Einstein and Bill Bradley," Bursztajn says. "I have always admired [Bradley's] love for the history of ideas….He's an individual with a mind of his own."

The Harvard Mystique

While most of the Faculty members advising this year's candidates earned their roles through previous experience in politics, they say their positions at Harvard have been both an asset and a liability.

While Edley has an extensive experience in politics, he says his position at Harvard gains him added esteem within the Gore campaign.

"Having tenure makes it easier to give forthright and, at times, blunt advice," Edley says. "I think that having an independent base and expertise is not only useful, but respected."

According to Bursztajn, his connections as an HMS professor has helped him to gain a perspectives on the issues that range far beyond the local medical community.

"Over the year, I talk to and teach more than 1,000 doctors from all over the country, so I'm able to look past regional concerns," Bursztajn says. "Harvard also offers a real trans-disciplinary opportunity....I get to speak to friends at the business school, the law school, and the medical school on issues."

As an HMS graduate, Bursztajn says he has also been able to keep in contact with an alumni network that has served as a testing ground for campaign ideas.

According to Ames Professor of Law Philip B. Heymann, who advises former Senator Bradley on topics related to crime, the Harvard name carries more weight outside of the U.S. than it does here.

"In foreign countries it helps a lot to have get the Harvard name in there; it can help [a cause] a lot," Heymann says. "In America it sometimes hurts, because it sounds and is somewhat elitist."

Fried, like many of the other political advisers in the faculty, relies more on his past experience rather than his status as a Harvard professor. He says his affiliation with the University has gained him "remarkably little" influence in the Bush campaign.

Still, Fried says that it is important for those in academia to take an active interest in the political realm.

"If you spend your time thinking about the issues like we do, it's important that you try to have an influence," Fried says.

From Campaign to Classroom

While being a Harvard professor might not bring many benefits in the political realm, Faculty members say their campaign experiences have proven valuable to their academic work.

Cutler often analyzes public proposals in his classes on the economics of health care. While he does not discuss the political maneuvering and negotiations that precede the approval of such policy, he asks his students to evaluate proposals from an objective standpoint.

"As a researcher, campaigns are a wonderful source of ideas and people with different perspectives," Cutler says. "When [professors] think about the issues, one of the important things is to relate theoretical issues to real-world proposals."

Especially for professors whose courses deal directly with public policy and legislation, the insights gained into the political process can translate into benefits in the classroom.

"For professors with an interest in public affairs, there can be enormous benefit to real world experience," Edley says. "It helps cast teaching and research in a different light."

The political world, however, is not for everyone. According to Edley, many academics are not familiar enough with the realities of Washington to become effective policy advisers.

For those advisers, working with political strategists who are consumed by public opinion and political maneuvering can become frustrating.

"Most advisers who come from academia are unfamiliar with and unsympathetic to the harsh constraints of the political system," Edley says.