ELECTION '93 SHOWS CLEAR SPLIT: ELITES AND POPULISTS

Two years ago this week, this writer published a column on that week's election results, terming them some of "the most stunning of my life." Suggesting that a "disconnection" exists "between ordinary Americans and the classes of elites who claim to speak in our name," I observed: "... We ordinary Americans are rebelling against elites from every sector who claim to tell us what is good for us."

Two years later, populism is surging, and the revolt against elites shows no signs of abating. Let's review the latest findings.

Governors in Virginia, New Jersey; Mayor of New York

The three big races of 1993, and the GOP swept them all. Lessons abound. In Virginia, explicitly conservative, western boot-wearing Republican George Allen seized on the crime issue, promising abolition of parole. He ridiculed his opponent, Attorney General Mary Sue Terry, for having "sipped wine and nibbled cheese with Hillary Rodham Clinton." Ms. Terry, vastly better funded and once leading by 2-1, proudly backed by abortion rights and gun control forces, sank beneath the waves of Chesapeake Bay. She was last spotted Tuesday evening, glub-glubbing about being swept away in a "tidal wave of change."

In the Big Apple (5-1 Democrat), Republican Rudy Giuliani narrowly edged out incumbent David Dinkins. Crime and competence issues were controlling. Facing cunning opponents in the liberal power structure and in an overwhelmingly Democratic city council, Giuliani will have tough sledding as he seeks to halt New York's downward spiral into the Third World. It's a Hobbesian war of all against all.

Sweetest of all for Republicans is New Jersey. Incumbent Gov. Jim Florio, who pledged no tax hikes in his first campaign, took office in 1990 and immediately imposed $2.8 billion in new taxes. He was massively unpopular, but under the tutelage of Clinton campaign master strategist James Carville, Florio roared back to a commanding 22-point lead against an ineffectual campaigner, Bushie Republican Christie Todd Whitman. Whitman recovered her form late, proposing a dramatic, 10-10-10 30 percent supply-side tax cut, and eked out a victory. Carville, a peerless spin doctor and cunning strategist who had launched a vicious class-warfare attack on the wealthy Whitman, was AWOL from all the Wednesday morning talk shows, doing no spinning whatever.

Since Bill Clinton's election one year ago, there have been six major elections across the USA: Georgia U.S. Senate (Nov. '92), Texas U.S. Senate (May '93), Los Angeles Mayor (June '93) and the three this past Tuesday. The GOP is 6-0, as all six have switched to Republican from Democratic control. The country's two largest cities long the exclusive playpens of Democratic machines are governed simultaneously by Republican mayors.

Crime/Prison Building

Washington State voters overwhelming passed a "Three Strikes and You're Out" initiative that says a thrice-convicted violent felon goes to prison for life, with no parole ever. Texas voters approved $1 billion for prisons. Elites decry these measures, citing the cost of new prisons; the public says, "Build 'em."

Gun Control

In both Virginia and New Jersey, Republican nominees for governor faced withering attacks for their refusal to endorse gun control measures. The new Liberal Conventional Wisdom (CW) was that it was a political winner to attack the National Rifle Association and back gun control. That CW has been interred somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard. Though favored by elites everyhere, ordinary Americans are much more likely to regard gun control as the unilateral disarmament of the law-abiding.

Taxes

See New Jersey. And Virginia.

Gay Rights

Another elite-vs.-populist divide. In cities in Maine, Ohio and New Hampshire, voters said no to gay rights. Voters observe a distinction to which elites are blind. It is this: While no fair-minded person is comfortable with gay-bashing or needless condemnation, neither will homosexuals be accorded the status of special civil rights, with the coveted status of Accredited Victims. Barbra Streisand, call your office.

Term Limits

Perhaps no other issue so completely divides our New Class of permanent political elites from the voters who choose them. Voters in the state of Maine became the 15th state to limit the terms of elected officials. In New York City, long the citadel of American liberalism, voters followed suit by a landslide 61 percent. (Aside: in a gloriously cantankerous uprising, an astonishing 70 percent of Staten Island voters voted to secede from the other four boroughs of the Big Apple.)

Vouchers and School Choice

Teachers' unions, outspending pro-voucher forces more than 10-1, crushed the California school choice initiative, 2-1. Revolutionaries who believe in school choice will try to pick up the pieces, but this issue isn't going away. Look for more cautious proposals, such as pilot programs to test the concept. New Jersey Gov.-elect Whitman favors school choice, and can now enact pilot programs in Newark and Jersey City. The battle continues across America.

Incumbents

The message voters are sending is akin to the lines of a Country & Western classic that says, "... You can see light at the end of the tunnel ... but it's a train."