Frank Wolf and Joe Lieberman have signed the civility pledge. Why this fear of a civility pledge?

It’s only 32 words. Yet, only two sitting members of Congress or governors have signed the civility pledge.

So what was it about civility that all the other 537 elected officials couldn’t agree to? Read it and decide for yourself.

I will be civil in my public discourse and behavior.

I will be respectful of others whether or not I agree with them.

I will stand against incivility when I see it.


In May, Lanny Davis, my friend and co-founder of the Civility Project, and I sent a letter to all 535 members of Congress and 50 sitting governors inviting them to sign a civility pledge.

We made it easy, enclosing a response form, return envelope and fax number. I’m sorry to report, six months later, that only two responded: Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

After a mid-term election season cluttered with attack ads, vicious direct mail pieces, ugly debates and lots of lying and screaming, some of you may be surprised anyone signed it.

Politicians love polls, so here are some recent poll findings they might be interested in. Recent studies by the Center for Political Participation at Allegheny College and by KRC Research found:

Two out of three Americans consider a general lack of civility to be a major problem for the country.

72 percent think this poor behavior has gotten worse in recent years.

More than two-thirds said Americans “should be ashamed of the way elected officials acted” during the health care debate.

83 percent said “people should not vote for candidates and politicians who are uncivil.”

If that doesn’t faze the political establishment, try this: Nearly half of all Americans surveyed said they are “tuning out” government and politics. And, to prove that incivility is a bi-partisan issue, “71 percent of Democrats view Republicans as uncivil, and 74 percent of Republicans view Democrats as uncivil.” The margin of error makes it a statistical tie.

Americans (that’s us voters) consider government and politics the most uncivil aspects of our society, according to one study—worse than crowded roads, talk radio, even professional sports.

Is there any hope for improvement? I’m not optimistic. In fact, on Nov. 2, for the first time in my life, I seriously considered not voting.

I am a conservative Republican and an evangelical Christian. I launched the Civility Project on the eve of Barack Obama’s inauguration. I asked Davis, who is a liberal Democrat and Jewish, to join me in the effort.

We met and had become friends around this issue. I wrote Lanny a letter toward the end of the bitter Democratic presidential primaries, commending him for his civil tone when doing battle on the increasingly uncivil airwaves of political TV. That letter sits in a frame in his office.

We share a conviction about the importance of at least trying to change a polarizing, uncivil political culture that now appears to be the norm.

Call it old-fashioned, but we believe debates should be won on the strength of ideas and words -- not on the volume of our voices or the outrageousness of our ads. Yet some emails I’ve received on our website are so filled with obscenities that they could not be printed in a newspaper.

Incivility is not just a political problem, according to Yale law professor Stephen Carter. “Rules of civility are thus rules of morality,” Carter said, “it is morally proper to treat our fellow citizens with respect, and morally improper not to. Our crisis of incivility is part of a larger crisis of morality.”

If a moral case for civility doesn’t compel you, I’d offer a practical one: It’s more effective.

So why wouldn’t any of Wolf’s or Lieberman’s colleagues, or a single governor, pledge to be civil in their speech and behavior, and respectful of others?

Let’s start asking them. Perhaps we can round up a few more as the 2012 campaign now begins.

Mark DeMoss is co-founder of the CivilityProject.org and president of The DeMoss Group, a public relations firm. He is author of “The Little Red Book of Wisdom.”

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