HONESTY IN POLITICAL BUMPER STICKERS
Until now, the campaign finance reform debate has overlooked perhaps the most powerful technique used by political campaigns to manipulate millions of American voters.
Bumper stickers.
Not so long ago, Virginians by the thousands were stunned to learn that Gov. Jim Gilmore's ``No Car Tax!'' campaign slogan had been a tad skimpy on details. As angry vehicle-owners stood in line at county treasurers to settle up before the deadline, many expressed frustration that the tax they thought they had voted onto the junk heap still clung to their cars like a Denver boot.
Perhaps they felt the slogan should have been edited to read something like: ``No Car Tax, starting perhaps in five years, assuming the economy stays strong and after an initial phase-in and delayed refund in the first year, allowing also for the needs of localities to find alternative revenue sources!''
Such wording adjustments, of course, would have required a bumper sticker the length of a whole bumper.
But even more problematic, the amplified slogan would have passed muster with the political consultants who labored so hard during Gilmore's 1997 campaign, and who have since fanned out across the country to peddle the ``No Car Tax'' school of governance to other receptive pols.
Deep down, however, I suspect that these back-room strategists feel shame.
The pain that they, too, must sense in the voices of the deceived voters has surely saddled them with some guilt over the information pollution they unleashed on a trusting Virginia.
They're asking themselves now whether it was moral to portray the election as a choice between the grim, cloudy-day act of writing a large check to the government and the skip-in-your-step sunshine of a day when you can leave that checkbook in the drawer.
I think these guys are ripe for a way to redeem themselves.
Here's the proposal: Gilmore's team of consultants should put their political salesmanship behind an effort to enact federal regulations to require all political bumper stickers to be no shorter than 25 words.
I think when they're alone with their consciences these professionals would agree that no serious public policy proposal or platform can be responsibly expressed in less than 25 words.
And this most civic-minded of improvements to the political process could be ably enforced by that Washington pit bull known as the Federal Election Commission .
Imagine, if such regulations existed, how history might have been altered.
Bumper stickers in 1964 would have read:
``In your heart you know he's right--True, Barry Goldwater will get stomped in a landslide and might nuke the North Vietnamese, but it's important to make a statement to rekindle the conservative movement, and his defense of extremism is a public persona that covers a mellower, straight-talking individual!''
Or, more recently:
``Impeach Clinton--but only after first toning down the hostile rhetoric in response to the President's favorable poll numbers and then by adopting the House Judiciary Committee Republican majority's resolution allowing an open-ended inquiry with a scope ranging beyond the Lewinsky matter described in Independent Counsel's referral at least until we get a reading from the next election.''
If this movement catches on, we will all be functioning with a new definition of the word�succinct.
To see how I'm doing my part to make it happen, watch the back of my car this fall.
There's a wide, wide sticker that lays out my proposal: ``Honest Campaign Slogans Now!''
Charlie Clark is a frequent contributor to the Idler.
