Greasing Washington's Wheels

Sally Quinn,journalist

You get along in Washington like you get along anywhere else. Pretend you were a newcomer to a small town somewhere--say, Plains, Georgia. You'd try to meet as many people as possible. You'd look up the Carters. A lot of people would be friendly and bring over a pie or a covered dish. The smart, natural, spontaneous thing would be to reciprocate their hospitality.

If you were going to set up a business in that town, you'd make friends with the other business people and establish some form of communication with them. If you had a problem with your business, you could ask them for advice. In Washington, the businessmen are the Congress. The church people, social people, the local sewing bee or theater group--that's the "downtown" crowd in Washington: the lobbyists, the lawyers, the press.

The real work of this town is accomplished by communicating. You don't just send your people wandering around Capitol Hill. It all boils down to human contact and communication. A lot of it has to do with social life. Selling the Presidential yacht Sequoia was the most stupid thing Jimmy Carter has done. That boat was a place where you could get away, have a few drinks or dinner with some Congressmen and their wives. It was neutral territory, a pleasant environment where you could have a good time and relax for two or three hours. And afterward, everybody would be glowing!

But if you prefer to drink milk and read a book at night, don't complain when your bills don't get passed.

James Abourezk,former Senator from South Dakota, now Washington lawyer and columnist

All we've got coming into politics nowadays is technicians--Sanforized, preshrunk Senators. Carter is the kingpin of the technicians.

Whoever is in the White House ought to take the issues very seriously and never take himself seriously--that's the key to successful politics. Jimmy Carter did just the opposite.

If the President can lead the nation rather than follow, he won't have to worry about re-election. If he didn't worry about re-election so much, he wouldn't have to worry about reelection so much.

Morris Udall,Congressman from Arizona

Most Presidents have a tendency to spread themselves too thin. They don't recognize that history is going to judge them on only three or four or five things--a half dozen at the most. A new President ought to focus on the three or four things he wants to change. He ought to write down a list and look at it every few days.

He should avoid the idea that if he works 18 hours a day, he's a better President than if he puts in 14-hour days. He should also have a small staff. In many cases, the White House staff is just going to dig up more things for him to do, more demands on his time.

The President needs people around him not only who know him, and have a similar background, but who know Washington. He's got to know Capitol Hill, got to have someone who knows Russell Long's habits and what might tick off the Senator from West Virginia [Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd].

Outsiders who enter the race often think Washington is dumb and overcomplicated and all you need is someone with a clean broom and good old American common sense to shake a fist and knock a few heads together and everything's going to be lovely. But it's not that simple.

There are a lot of egos in Washington--some demand more attention than others. If there are moments when a Senator and his wife want to go to Kennedy Center, you might as well get the hell on the phone and get the tickets for them. And get his vote.

Art Buchwald,columnist

If the next President is Jimmy Carter, he should take the limo from the Capitol to the White House this time--the walk won't work two times around.

And if it's Ronnie . . . [at this point, Buchwald burst into prolonged laughter] he should ride down Pennsylvania Avenue on a white horse in his cowboy suit with a white hat.

Whoever the President is, he should get out of town as fast as he can. I'd (concluded on page 224) Greasing Washington's Wheels (continued from page 124) suggest he go to Camp David the next day. When he gets back from Camp David, he should mulch the Rose Garden. Then everything else should fall into place.

Ralph Nader,consumer advocate

A President has got to view the office metaphorically, as a man in a strait jacket would. The strait jacket is composed of well-organized special-interest lobbies--15,000 of them in this town.

The first thing the President has to do is take his little finger that is still free and try to get the people to come to his aid to break the chains. To do that, he has to increase the tools of citizen participation.

It doesn't matter what a President does in terms of being suave or being sensitive to certain powers that be, such as Tip O'Neill. That is not where his power is going to come from. It comes only from people who are victimized--taxpayers. Love Canal residents, workers, minority groups, people concerned about their children.

The President has got to rearrange his schedule. If he wants to know what he's done as President, all he has to do is look at his daily schedules. They say you are what you eat. Well, the non-physical equivalent is, you are what you've scheduled. It's almost demeaning, the conformity and standardized scheduling that afflicts one President after another. He has to have a two-track Presidency--one track that deals with the usual problems and ceremonies that a President goes through every day, and the other track that is the empowerment of the citizens.

Jack Anderson,columnist

A new President should make his peace very early with Tip O'Neill, who is sort of the bear of the mountain on Capitol Hill--and he's a grizzly bear. He is a charmer who practices the political law of Boston: "Don't get mad, get even." He will cordially cut your throat without so much as a growl. Jimmy Carter, who paid no attention to a list of little political projects Tip O'Neill sent him to be taken care of, almost had his head lopped off before he learned that.

I would suggest that the President attend the annual Gridiron Club dinner. All the big press people in the country are there--it's kind of their fun night. If he snubs it, as Jimmy Carter did this year, it is regarded as a snub of Washington. It means, I can get along without you and I don't have to pay attention to the little amenities.

A President can quickly convert Washington's old-line cave dwellers to his side, because he is automatically the center of their social sphere. All he has to do is let them in. The White House is located figuratively on a high mountain. It's the big house on the hill in Plains--if they had a hill. If a new owner moves into the big house and all of Plains society has been revolving around it for 100 years, the new owner is going to inherit that social position. He becomes the country squire. The new President needs to understand that he is now the center of social life in Washington and should go out and meet his neighbors.

A new President has to learn to operate in the back rooms, to press the flesh, slap a back, tell a political joke and toss down a cordial drink or two with the inner circle. These are the raucous back-room rituals in Washington. It's a good idea to become one of the boys very quickly.

Charls Walker,dean of Washington lobbyists, economic advisor to Ronald Reagan

A President has no real power--except the fundamental power to press that button and get those missiles going. If he thinks he can just send a bill up to Capitol Hill and that's it, well....

What it takes to be successful in Washington is entirely different from what it takes in business. A businessman can pick up the phone and tell somebody to do something and it's done. The reason George Shultz was so successful in Washington was that he used to be a college dean. College deans have no real power. A professor friend of mine once said, "A dean is to a faculty what a lamppost is to a dog." A dean--like a President--has to persuade. He is a leader in that sense.

Jack Valenti,president, Motion Picture Association of America, former Special Assistant to President Lyndon Johnson

A new President should forget about being a manager or administrator. He should concentrate on being an educator/communicator.

He should go on TV at carefully spaced intervals with one single issue--whether it is unemployment or inflation or the demise of the American capacity to produce competitively. Finally, after the sixth time he's repeated it, somebody out in Dubuque is going to say, "Yeah, I understand what he means."

He should make sure everybody on his staff understands that the single most important call he will get every day is from a Congressman or a Senator. Every call ought to be answered the same day it comes in. The President should say to them, "I don't want you to leave your office, even if it takes until midnight, until you've answered every Congressional call. And you treat the caller with respect, yessir and nosir, and you break your ass to see how fast you can respond to whatever it is he is asking. And if you have to say no, do it with tenderness and affection, so you don't rile him."

The President can't isolate himself from the town. He has to demonstrate to the power brokers here that he has people surrounding him who are people of quality. This is a very ego-centered town. Congress, the press, the press lords, the top opinion makers all have very fragile egos. The President should try to do things for them. He can't always ask without giving.

No President is going to find this job easy. As L.B.J. used to say, "If the job was easy, you wouldn't need a President. You could run this country with a part-time committee of shitkickers."