Spitzer '81 chides GOP for public's distrust of government

A panel of four alumni, including New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer '81, reflected Friday on the benefits and detriments of government service, as part of an all-day symposium in honor of the Wilson School's 75th anniversary.

Spitzer, who has announced his intention to seek the 2006 Democratic nomination for governor of New York, pinned the latest downturn in government service on the ideology of recent Republican presidents.

"I think the argument I would make is that the ideology that a magnetic leader proffers to the public will either lead to a desire to participate in public service or it won't," Spitzer told the audience, made up predominantly of University alumni. "Since 1976, there has been, other than Bill Clinton's eight-year hiatus, an overwhelming argument that public service and government doesn't matter."

Leonard Lance GS '82, the Republican Minority Leader in the New Jersey State Senate, had a different take on what has driven qualified people away from government service.

"My experience is having run for election versus having been appointed," he explained. "The pool [of candidates for elected office] is confined to the rich, and, indeed, the very rich. We only have to look at the recent race for governor in New Jersey, where the losing candidate spent a pittance of $35 million. Each was nominated, in my judgment, for his wealth and his ability to fund his own campaign, which is a growing and disturbing trend."

Mike McCurry '76, who served as President Clinton's press secretary from 1994 to 1998 and was the senior strategist for the 2004 Kerry campaign, said that the current political climate has driven many away.

"Until we reach that point where people are not about destroying each other politically so that they can win and government is about mediating and compromise, people aren't going to go into government to make a real difference," he said.

Speaking for the "younger generation," Cara Abercrombie GS '03, who is the country director for India at the Department of Defense, said that the world of government was hard to enter.

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"I think the civil service hiring practice is broken right now," she said.

To fix these problems, the panelists offered a wide array of solutions.

Spitzer said he supported a "year of national service, be it military or teaching or working in any of the [government] agencies that would bring people together," drawing applause from the crowd.

Abercrombie advocated wider advertisement of government positions. "When I was an undergraduate, I didn't think of the government as an option because they weren't coming on campus and recruiting us," she said.

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Abercrombie added she saw a "vast number of people who are retiring" in what she called a "top-loaded" government.

Ultimately, McCurry said that public servants need to regain the nation's trust.

"Most Americans would find it newsworthy that public officials and elected folks try hard to do the right thing because their impression now is quite the contrary because all they read about is scandal and corruption and malfeasance and people doing stupid things," he said.