Sen. Phil Gramm says goodbye

Exclusive Interview with `Blunt, Feisty, Very Conservative' Texan

In 1976, the late conservative activist Phil Nicolaides (later a Reagan White House aide) talked me into having breakfast with an obscure Texas A&M economics professor who was challenging the popular moderate Sen. Lloyd Bentsen from the right in the Texas Democratic primary election. I resisted because Bentsen looked unbeatable in his bid for a second term after defeating the senior George Bush in 1970.

Out of friendship with Nicolaides, however, I agreed to meet with Prof. Phil Gramm at the Hay-- Adams Hotel in Washington. It began 26 years of conversations with the usually insightful, occasionally infuriating and always fascinating Georgia-born economist-politician-philosopher that ended a few weeks ago.

As Gramm's comments over the Hay-Adams breakfast table made obvious to me, he was much too conservative to prosper in the mid-1970s as a statewide Democratic candidate in Texas. After getting drubbed by Bentsen, however, Gramm came back two years later to be elected to Congress as a Democrat from a predominantly rural Texas district and was named to the House Budget Committee to represent what then was the still substantial Southern conservative Democratic fraction.

In 1981, he collaborated secretly with the new Reagan White House on what became the Gramm-- Latta budget bill and led some 40 fellow "Redneck Caucus" members into supporting it. That tore it for House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill (D.Mass.), who kicked Gramm off the Budget Committee. That tore it for Gramm, who switched parties and became a Republican.

Following the British tradition, he resigned his seat and entered the subsequent 1982 special election as a Republican. He won by a landslide in a constituency previously represented only by Democrats.

Gramm made clear to me even in those early days that his election to the Senate in 1984 was viewed by him as only a way station en route to the Oval Office. A dozen years later in the run-up to the 1996 presidential race, Gramm had amassed an impressive campaign bankroll and was regarded as the probable conservative challenger against front-runner Robert J. Dole.

The Gramm campaign proved a disaster, stylistically and substantively, and he alienated vital support on the right. He lost to Patrick J. Buchanan in Alaska and Louisiana, eliminating himself even before the traditional Iowa and New Hampshire early tests.

Phil Gramm looked washed up in politics. Yet, the six years since his presidential campaign debacle proved to be his best performance in the Senate and his entire political career. With growing mastery, he would take the Senate floor to deconstruct legislation-stripping from it pork-barrel spending, protectionist gimmicks, new government regulation and other political hijinks. His decision not to seek a fourth Senate term in 2000 comes at the peak of his powers.

In the closing days of the 107th Congress, I sat down with Phil Gramm in his Senate office. He was in character: blunt, feisty and very conservative. His explanation of why he is retiring, his views of the government and Democrats, his take on Theodore Roosevelt and his radical views on taxes follow:

Novak: Your. presence on the Senate floor will be missed.

Gramm: I enjoy participating in floor debate. I think it's important to try to define an issue in a way people can understand it.

Novak: How did the Senate change since you've been there?

Gramm: It's sort of conventional wisdom to talk about the dramatic change, but I'm not sure that I see a dramatic change. It is still a place where somebody who has energy and ideas can have a lot of influence. The fundamental principle of democracy is not "majority rules." The fundamental principle of democracy is that people who feel intensely about things can have an inordinate influence. It's one of the safety valves of our society. I think the way the system is structured it allows for that to happen. And the Senate is structured that way. A small number of people who feel strongly about something can have a big impact on the Senate.

Novak: You don't think there is more bitterness than there was when you first got here?

Gramm: I think things are more partisan than they were. I don't know to what extent that is as a result of how close the margins are. I see the Democrats are certainly more united than they ever were. I can't imagine 20 years ago that you could have had one special interest group like public employee labor unions.

Basically, they don't care what the public thinks about Homeland Security, they don't care how strong the case that the President has, nor how strongly the public supports him. They have the influence within the Democrat Party to hold all but one of their Senators in line even though it is got to be a heavy burden to bear in the election that you've chosen public.employee labor unions over Homeland Security.

Democrats have remarkable cohesion in standing with their organized special interest groups. The Democrats have a passion to govern, and they're willing to take positions that are to a large degree-at least to me-indefensible. Another example is the plaintiff's attorneys in terrorism insurance.