Former Gov. Racicot says 'decency' missing from leadership today

Former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot used lessons taken from Montana’s Mike Mansfield to illustrate a national need for a return to “decency” and compromise during his talk on “The Meaning of Leadership” Monday night.

Headlining Flathead Valley Community College’s annual Mansfield Lecture, Racicot, who served as Montana’s governor from 1993-2001, took the opportunity to talk about where the country began and what it has since lost.

Following a lengthy political career on a state and national level, Racicot said he has seen an evolution in the nation’s government that has ended in a drift from what he considers the foundational requirements for civil, productive governance.

Decency, he said, has become a lost art in today’s systems where personal interest overrides people’s ability to compromise.

The word “compromise,” he said, has come to sound like a “deal with the devil,” and today seemingly represents the sacrifice of the best to suit the worst.

However, it was the former Montana governor’s opinion that the very spirit of compromise was what led to the successful creation of the U.S.

As George Washington presided over the convention in 1787 from which the U.S. Constitution emerged, Racicot said, the spirit of compromise rested on his shoulder like a dove.

Racicot called for the crowd’s patience as he recalled the convention’s procedural rules in detail, from the secrecy in which the proceedings were held to the manner in which delegates were expected to conduct themselves.

He ended his retelling by stating that it was from the same cloth as the founding fathers from which Mansfield was cut.

Mansfield served as Montana’s congressman from 1943-1953 and then as a senator from 1953-1977 before becoming the U.S. Ambassador to Japan from 1977-1989.

During his many years of political service, Mansfield took part in the passage of historic legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The way Mansfield led the senate as majority leader through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Racicot said, is remarkably similar to the way George Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

Mansfield’s example of leadership taught Racicot the importance of not only being a diligent student, working to understand all facets of every issue before forming and expressing an opinion, but also of being respectful of the voices and stances of others.

Racicot quoted Mansfield who said, “I’ve always felt that the true strength of the senate lay in the center. Not on the right and not on the left, but with those people who could see both sides.

Differences can be abridged. Solutions can be found. Concessions can be made. It is much better to take an inch, than to take nothing at all.”

His ability to “abridge differences” and lead in spite of them was exemplified through Mansfield’s repeated re-election, Racicot said.

Mansfield — a stern advocate for gun control — was elected four times in Montana despite his stance on a major issue that stood in opposition to most of the state.

“And the reason was because they knew and understood him and trusted him. They knew he was well informed,” Racicot said. “As you look around the country today, I don’t know that I could say with some sense of conviction that such things happen today.”

After watching and learning from Mansfield, Racicot said he believed there were a few things that both elected officials and those who elect them could do to improve government.

The first was relying less on electronic convenience and more on what he considered the necessity of gathering in person to discuss and resolve.

Meeting face to face allows people to see, speak with and understand each other on a human level, according to Racicot.

The second was bringing more respect, restraint and discipline to those meetings and conversations.

According to Racicot, the ways and language people use to communicate today has become bitter, edgy and angry.

“That does virtually nothing to provide a situation or a set of circumstances or environment where you can expect there to be anything civil that comes out of that atmosphere,” he said.

The solution, he said, is decency.

“Our decency, more than anything, is important to the cause of freedom. You can live in freedom all day long, but until you respect the freedom of others you can’t live, I don’t believe, for long in that freedom,” Racicot said.

Reporter Mary Cloud Taylor can be reached at 758-4459 or mtaylor@dailyinterlake.com.