ASHLAND TIMES-GAZETTE
Wednesday, March 26, 1997

Speaker discusses political trends
By Tim Busbey
Times-Gazette Staff Writer

The political party that can combine vision and relatability will be the one to lead us into the next millennium, according to David Zanotti.

Zanotti, president of the Ohio Roundtable and the Ohio Freedom Forum, spoke Tuesday afternoon as part of the Spring 1997 Major Issues Lecture Series “Tools for Changing the Culture,” sponsored by the John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University.

Zanotti spoke on “Who Will Win in 2000?” He described his work with the Ohio Roundtable and the Ohio Freedom Forum to assure the audience, “I’m not coming at this from the typical inside-the-beltway perspective.”

The Ohio Roundtable and Ohio Freedom Forum were founded in 1980. In 1986, Zanotti was elected to serve as president of the two state-based public policy organizations.

He also Serves as the national chairman of the Association of State Policy Councils, an organization of state-based public policy organizations representing more than 25 states.

Zanotti. who did his graduate work at Ashland University, discussed a few trends which he believes are not being discussed much by the public but will be vital in the near future, and will influence who will win in 2000.

The first trend he pointed to was term limits. According to Zanotti, by 2002, 23 states, including Ohio, will have term limits for the state legislatures. This, combined with the fact that there are no term limits on the national level, will cause problems.

“One thing it certainly will do is create a mass flow of new blood searching for seats,” Zanotti said. Another problem is that it will hamper the progression which   has developed of someone serving in a state legislature for a number of years and then working their way up to the national Congress.

A second trend Zanotti discussed was the maturing of the “Baby Boomers.” Zanotti explained that not only are the “boomers” reaching their peak spending years, which is good for the economy, they are also reaching their voting  maturity years.

“I know I am starting to pay a lot closer attention to things I didn’t before,” Zanotti himself admitted.

A third trend which Zanotti believes to be important is a group of serious problems which he sees in the near future.

Included in these problems is the health care problem, which Zanotti said, “hasn’t gone away.”

“We have concerns about people losing the ability to choose the type of health care that you want to have,” he said.

Another problem, one which has come to the forefront in Ohio this week, is education.

“Certainly at the State level, we have sizeable challenges, not just funding,” Zanotti explained.

Of the Ohio Supreme Court decision on Monday to revise the system for funding public schools, Zanotti said he and hi3 colleagues have come up with a term for the situation.

“You’ve heard of  ‘mad cow’ disease. Well our judicial system has now reached the level of  ‘mad judge’ disease,” he said.

Zanotti then turned to the issue of who will win in 2000 and what people look for in a candidate.

“People either want John Wayne or a talk show host type,” he explained. “If we can’t get John Wayne, a man of vision, we’ll settle for a talk show host, someone who we can relate to.”

To illustrate this, Zanotti pointed to the 1996 elections in Ohio. The majority of the Ohio voters said in exit polls that they were moderate or conservative, proved by the defeat of the casino gambling bill. However, Bill Clinton, a Democrat, beat Bob Dole in Ohio.

“The Republicans didn’t give them John Wayne so they went to a talk show host type because they (the voters) believed that he felt their pain,” Zanotti said.

Zanotti believes that the Republicans focused too much on money. “I’m a capitalist with a capital ‘c’, but I know that the world isn’t driven solely by money,” he said. “People were looking for John Wayne or a talk show host but all they see up there from the Republicans is Scrooge McDuck always saying ‘money, money, money.’ The people will continue to think what they’ve always thought, that all the Republicans are worried about is money.”

Whoever wins in 2000, they will have to take advantage of modem technology.

“The biggest voting block is a  group of people who have only learned their heroes from TV,” Zanotti said. “Anybody who wants to win the White House, or even on the state level, better have a great candidate for TV.”

Vision and relatability are the two things a candidate needs to combine to win the hearts of the people. “People want a government again that speaks of vision,” Zanotti said. “People are hungry for something that is beyond themselves.”

I believe it was the Judeo-Christian principles echoed in the Declaration of Independence that built America and the closer we remain to them, the better off we will be,” Zanotti said.

During a question and answer session, Zanotti was asked what his response was to the Ohio Supreme Court ruling Monday on education funding.

“Stick it in the court’s ear,” he said emphatically. “As an institution they are honorable, but as individuals, I don’t know where they were coming from on this issue.”

Zanotti said that the Ohio legislature should use this as an opportunity to change the whole educational system. “They (the legislature) should defy that inane decision and not back down,” said Zanotti. “Obviously we have to do more for school funding. But what the supreme court basically said is that money is the answer and the legislature should challenge that to the hilt.”

In response to a question on what the public can do in reaction to this decision, Zanotti said, "The fastest way is to unelect people who you disagree with.”