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BEHIND THE BYLINE

David Broder

By Martin Gottlieb

Dayton Daily News

David Broder is often referred to as something like "the most respected and influential political journalist in the country" (as writer Richard Reeves said), the "high priest" (Timothy Crouse), the "best newspaper political reporter" (Washington Journalism Review), "Washington's most highly regarded columnist" (a survey of journalists and politicians) or the "unchallenged dean" (U.S. News).

He established his reputation with The New York Times in the 1960s, then made the surprising switch to the up-and-coming Washington Post, where he has become an institution.

By the early 1970s, he was popular even among academics for his efforts to the take the long view on passing events. He won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1973.

Now he has been around long enough to have seen an awful lot of change. One of his early books (he has written seven) was The Party's Over, which lamented the decline of political parties as forces in disciplining legislators. This decline, he said (and many others agreed), was producing chaos in Washington, with no majority ever being on the same page at the same time. It's not a complaint that many would make today.

Broder is not out primarily to promote any agenda as to policy issues, but to report on the big trends in politics and to relate them to the problems of the day. Among politicians, he tends to like pragmatic problem-solvers at the state and local level. Unlike some old-school political reporters, he does not communicate contempt for politicians as a class.

He has written a book — Democracy Derailed — lamenting the spread of ballot initiatives in American politics. That's an example of where his interests lie: with the political process itself.

An example of Broder's standing among his colleagues and among political people generally happened in Ohio at the beginning of the 1990s. A organization of relatively moderate Democrats — the Democratic Leadership Council — held its national meeting in Cleveland. Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was the group's president. He gave a speech, as did many other politicians who saw themselves as presidential material.

Broder gave the best review to Clinton, who was still trying to live down a widely panned speech he gave nominating Michael Dukakis for president in 1988. After Cleveland, Clinton began a fateful upswing.