VOICES: POLITICS
A Daily Column -- Or A Day at the Races?

BY JACK GERMOND

 

On December 20, the syndicated columnist Jack Germond of the Baltimore Sun's Washington bureau announced he was quitting the column that he and his partner Jules Witcover had produced five times a week for twenty-four years. On January 8, Witcover began the column with the words: "Readers of this space may notice a name missing from the byline today." He lamented Germond's decision to retire to West Virginia, "conveniently within shouting distance of the Charles Town race track" -- a reference to his colleague's penchant for following the fortunes of race horses.

The dual byline allowed Witcover and Germond to play good cop/bad cop, so that when a public figure was angered at something in the column, each could blame it on the other guy.

When asked how long he intended to cover politics, Germond usually replied: "Until they get it right." They never did, but he quit anyway. Here, he explains why.

Looking ahead to the 2000 campaign, I was quite prepared to make it my last. The nature of the campaign reinforced that predilection. The country was being offered two candidates whose principal asset was their family names, two men who had never had to worry about next week's paycheck, two men financed by outlandish amounts of political money, two men who showed early in the primaries that they would do whatever it takes to get elected. One was clearly not prepared for the office, the other was so unsure of his own identity he kept trying to change his persona every few weeks. Both ran totally contrived campaigns aimed solely at that sound bite on the network television news every night.

The artificial quality of the campaign was particularly hard to swallow. The exposure of the candidates was so carefully controlled that the reporters covering them were reduced to printing exchanges of charges and counter-charges by their hired guns. I will never understand why it was news if Karen Hughes had something negative to say about Al Gore or Chris Lehane about George Bush. It would seem far more newsworthy if a flack found something nice to say about the opposition. But we now live in a time when reporters line up after debates to get spin from the consultants. Giving equal attention to charges and rebuttals may qualify as fairness in American journalism but it hardly qualifies as insightful campaign coverage.

Both campaigns also proved once again, if further proof were needed, that you can sell any message if you stick to it long enough. One example: after losing the New Hampshire primary to John S. McCain, Bush began presenting himself as the "reformer with results," although there was nothing in his record as governor of Texas to support that claim. After ten days of relentless sloganeering, nonetheless, Republicans divided evenly when asked by poll-takers which of their candidates, Bush or McCain, was the true reformer.

There were still a few aspects of the 2000 story to be savored. For a few weeks, at least, McCain demonstrated that a politician could prosper by saying what was on his mind. Although he had many failings as a candidate in his primary challenge to Gore, Bill Bradley at least paid the voters the compliment of talking about serious matters in a serious way.

I enjoyed following the New Hampshire primary through monthly visits with a few local activists in Milford, New Hampshire, and the general election through similar people in several communities in Pennsylvania. There were days passed with governors and mayors who were, if truth be told, political leaders far superior to the two presidential candidates.

But, although I know full well that elections have consequences, I couldn't get very caught up in whether it would be Al Gore or George W. Bush in the White House in the next four years. Each of them has attractive qualities, and they seem to be decent men with good intentions. But parsing their programs and strategies seemed like less than serious work for me to pursue after almost fifty years of reporting.

So I decided to quit. I don't know whether this decision was primarily a function of the embarrassing quality of the 2000 campaign or simply proof that I had grown old and cranky. In fact, it doesn't matter. For whatever reasons, I couldn't face writing a column five days a week. So I left it to my partner of almost twenty-four years, Jules Witcover, who is still reporting with the same commitment and care he has always shown.

Although I have retired from The Sun, I hope to continue contributing to the paper as a free-lancer. I will continue shooting off my mouth on the Inside Washington television program every week and occasionally in commentaries for National Public Radio. If some publisher offers enough money, I plan to write another book. And I expect to get to the track at least twice a week.

Handicapping can be serious work.

Jack Germond and Jules Witcover wrote 6,912 columns together for the Baltimore Sun before Germond quit in December. His most recent book is Fat Man in a Middle Seat: Forty Years of Covering Politics.