The United States is no longer a middle-class "bell-curve" society, but rather is becoming a "barbell society," with the number of people at both ends of the economic spectrum increasing, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer '81 said Saturday during a panel discussion of three alumni who are political heavyweights.
Addressing a crowd at Princeton for the first time since becoming governor in January, Spitzer stressed the importance of goals, ideals and "electing people who, when they get there, want to accomplish something."
He spoke alongside former Senate majority leader Bill Frist '74 (R-Tenn.) in a panel moderated by former Rep. Jim Leach '64 (R-Iowa), currently a visiting professor in the Wilson School, which focused on the relationship between passion and government service. The discussion was one of several events sponsored by the Wilson School's fifth annual Princeton Colloquium on Public and International Affairs.
During his campaign for the New York governorship, Spitzer, a Democrat, urged voters to "bring the passion back to Albany." His approach to government seeks to "bring back some of this emotional energy" and ideology to debates and policy planning, he said, because "there's some who get into politics because it's a profession, and there are some who get into politics because it's a cause."
As New York's attorney general, Spitzer was well known for pursuing cases that his predecessors avoided, including litigation against several large Wall Street firms for unethical business practices and greater enforcement of environmental laws.
Nevertheless, Spitzer was cautious about how much he can accomplish in his current capacity. "The reality is that the world changes more because of technology than because of political theory," he said.
Frist spoke about his own roots as a physician and his conception of the "citizen-legislator" as the ideal participant in representative government.
"How can one convert healing one-on-one to healing [on a broader scale]?" Frist asked the audience. After a fulfilling early career as a transplant surgeon, he said, he felt driven to broaden his efforts to improve people's lives. In his case, the answer was to join the U.S. Senate, where he tried to push "medicine as a currency for peace."
"I've traveled to 40 countries as a United States Senator," Frist said, adding that his intent was to learn about life in different areas of the world and to "[take] that understanding right back to the floor of the Senate."
Since leaving office, he has returned to several of those countries — including Sudan, Rwanda and Kenya — to perform surgeries and continue to learn how best to bring aid to the region. "On the ground you talk to [ordinary] people," Frist said. "There's no partisan, no liberal, no conservative point of view."
Citing his professional work, Frist said he thinks "real-life experience with a job" is a necessary quality in a government official, along with "not staying forever and stepping away for a while."
During his first campaign, Frist said, he promised his constituents: "I'm going to serve two terms in the Senate and then come home." He noted that this was a highly unusual statement to make during an election, since most politicians hope to remain in their positions indefinitely.
More senators and representatives, however, should run with the intent of eventually leaving office, Frist said, because they will then be more inclined to bring issues and goals to the debate floor instead of pandering to the interests that will get them reelected.
In the end, the two speakers agreed that it was personal determination and a willingness to leave office that would make the greatest impact. "If you get into this business," Frist said, "you have to be willing to lose."
After Frist and Spitzer finished speaking, the panel opened up the floor to the audience for a question-and-answer session.
When asked how a politician can bring passion to his position while still getting along with his colleagues, Spitzer said, "I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer that question," as the audience laughed.
As a lawyer, he explained, he was accustomed to a world of clearcut guilty or not-guilty verdicts and only had to reach agreements over settlements. Now that he is an executive, he must "work with legislators with whom I don't always agree."
Spitzer said he is willing to make compromises, citing an instance when he negotiated with the New York legislature over the distribution of education dollars. Though the agreement ostensibly violated his commitment to protecting local education budgets from legislative encroachment, Spitzer said, he felt it was worthwhile because he received a concession for more money toward funding stem-cell research in return.
"Purists complain," he said, "but it's their job to be pure, and it's my job to get things done."
When the discussion segued into campaign finance, Frist said that to win political office, "you can't just be a person with good ideas." He cited the high price of dealing with the traditional media, both in buying political advertisements and organizing press conferences around the country.
Frist, Spitzer and Leach agreed that money in politics was a problem, but Spitzer was optimistic. "Technology could be the answer to campaign finance," he said. "Nielsen ratings show that we're [moving] away from network television" and increasingly turning to the internet for information.
Leach added that "any American that isn't violently for campaign reform isn't thinking very deeply," which draws applause from the audience.
"I never asked anyone for money [to fund my campaign]," he said. "It creates awkward relationships in our society."
Former Ohio governor Bob Taft GS '67, who attended the panel, said in an interview that he was pleased with the content of the discussion. "People who are not in politics may not appreciate the importance of public debate," he said, and may therefore not notice that politicians are not discussing the right things.
"Maybe we need to educate people better about the political process," Taft said.
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