"THERE ARE NO REAL issues in this campaign because we are in good times." I parked my car at the curb in front of my apartment, turned off the ignition, and continued listening to a panel of political analysts on the car radio. Both the Democratic and Republican experts basically agreed with the Republican claim of "peace and prosperity," with the Democrats merely pointing to the deficit and an uncertain future.
I had heard enough. I stepped out of my car and stood there for a few moments, surveying the scene in my Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Southern Columbia Heights. The meaning of the political commentary I had just heard suddenly became clear to me: Neighborhoods like this one are invisible. Especially during the heat of political campaigns, candidates like to pretend that poor people just don't exist.
The presidential contest waged between George Bush and Michael Dukakis has been criticized as dirty, empty, boring, embarrassing, and disgusting. As true as all that is, the failure of the candidates and their campaigns goes much deeper. This election was decided without ever coming to grips with the two things the nation most needs--an honest facing-up to pressing social realities and a courageous offering of moral vision. Social reality and moral vision were the most avoided topics in this most dismal campaign.
There are more and more children in poverty in America. One out of every five children and half of all black children are born poor. The gap between rich and poor has steadily grown as a changing economy leaves more and more people behind. The swelling ranks of the hungry and homeless, now including many families, are a highly visible moral contradiction in a nation that prides itself on its standard of living. A politically neglected and continually poisoned environment poses real threats from global warming trends, ozone depletion, acid rain, contaminated water, unhealthful food, polluted air, toxic and nuclear wastes, and ravaged wildlife.
Public school education, health care, low-cost housing, the family farm, and the industrial work place are all in a state of crisis. Drugs and crime are literally out of control, while the proposed solutions fail to deal either with underlying causes or individual responsibility, neglecting both perpetrators and victims.
The fight against racism has been halted at the highest levels of government, and its ugly resurgence is upon us. Hard-fought progress made by women for equal rights is now under attack from many quarters. The nation's foreign policy continues to violate its expressed values and cause untold human suffering principally to poor people of color. Our collective conscience has been numbed, and the sanctity of life is diminished with each passing year of moral accommodation to nuclear weapons, escalating abortion rates, and vengeful capital punishment.
It is not only the country's "infrastructure" (highways, bridges, factories, etc.) that is deteriorating; the moral structures and foundations of the nation are also unraveling. This is the state of the union which was not addressed in the presidential election and is unlikely even to be mentioned in George Bush's Inauguration Day speech.
Instead, the fall campaign was dominated by images, symbols, and illusions. The triumph of technique over substance now governs American politics, with television as the controlling medium of political discourse.
YET, DURING THIS SAME election year of 1988, another campaign was fought that did try to face many of these realities, while also articulating some new visions for America's future. Jesse Jackson made a moral appeal, and the response to it began to show the possibilities of a new coalition for change which crossed boundaries of race, class, and issues.
In addition, the response of many to Pat Robertson's ill-fated effort also revealed the deep desire for the infusion of moral values into the nation's political life. Those two campaigns were the most important this election year, and what they represent remains the most significant for the future.
Because Jackson's message was the only one that rose above media images during the spring primaries, all of his Democratic opponents gravitated toward it. When the technocratic Dukakis abandoned any message and chose instead to run on his "competence," he lost to a smarter group of image makers and media manipulators. It was only at the very end of the campaign, when Dukakis desperately and awkwardly became a populist, that he began to close the gap.
But the reluctant populist was too late. While Dukakis jettisoned Jackson and his constituency, Bush incorporated many of Robertson's themes, as Garry Wills has pointed out. These became his "social and cultural" issues of family, flag, morality, crime, and national strength.
That such issues often can (and this fall did) cloak ugly appeals to racism, nationalism, and militarism should not obscure the fact that they also demonstrate the longing of many people for renewed moral vision. Both Jackson and Robertson supporters were motivated by a moral desire to make their nation a better country. Most voters were disappointed in both Bush and Dukakis precisely for their lack of moral vision and example.
Dirty politics and technological competence are hardly compelling presidential values. Even Ronald Reagan's popularity rested more on his ability to sound like a visionary than on the content of his policies.
Despite the lack of recognition in last fall's presidential campaign, we are indeed in a social crisis. It is a crisis that confronts us with choices--critical choices of national values and direction. Honest truth-telling and bold moral vision for the future are urgently needed. The combination of the two is in fact the essence of what political leadership must be in the days ahead.
A discernible hunger exists in the nation for just such leadership. Whether it is strong enough to produce a winning electoral possibility in the near future is a question we can't answer yet. But I believe the American people deserve to be offered such a choice. And, even more important, we have a religious responsibility to offer it. That has always been the prophetic vocation.
Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.
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