With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

It is easy to get wrapped up in elections and their meaning. In victory or in defeat it is tempting to conclude that in judging our candidates for office, a judgement has also been rendered on our nation, on our philosophy, on our selves. We can forget that politics is a means to an ends. And though we may disagree on the best means, we have a shared vision of those ends. The point of politics is not to grant power to Republicans or to Democrats. The point Democrats and Republicans, and politicians of any creed is to advance the causes of liberty and prosperity.

There are many factors that contribute to the mad mood swings of the American electorate - reason and propaganda, hope and fear, optimism and despair. Politicians are swept in and out of office on these waves. Sometimes their electoral fate is deserved. Sometimes it is not. Whether they are coming or going, our representatives are best judged by their accomplishments on our behalf.

Viewed through this lens, I’m sorry to see Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes will no longer be representing New Hampshire in congress. They were both elected as part Democratic wave of 2006. In the past two years they’ve been active participants in Obama’s “do something” congress. Both supported the significant legislative accomplishments that provided stability in the face of economic calamity. They enacted essential and overdue reforms to our health care and financial systems. They were the rare politicians who were willing to engage with the real and serious issues facing this country. They served during a brief era when congress took on big issues and things got done. In all likelihood that era ended this week. I’m especially sorry to see Carol Shea-Porter go. She is someone I genuinely admired as a person and politician and is someone I hope to support again in future elections.

Shea-Porter and Hodes have been replaced by Republicans Frank Guinta and Charile Bass. In the senate Kelly Ayotte replaces retiring Judd Gregg. Their predecessors confronted a number of tough issues but left plenty of unfinished business. How will we restore robust economic growth? How will we put an end to trillion dollar budget deficits? What are we going to do about the millions of undocumented aliens living and working in this country? Will we confront the challenge of catastrophic global climate change? They sought and have been granted this power. It is now the responsibility of Frank Guinta and Kelly Ayotte to answer these questions.

Based on their election rhetoric and policy positions, I am skeptical that my new representatives have plans to confront the problems we face. I hope that this skepticism is not shared by the majority of New Hampshire voters. I assume that their supporters see opportunity where I do not. What solutions will they support? How do they plan to move the country forward? Our new representatives have the power and responsibility to legislate on our behalf. We’ve elected then. Now all of their constituents, especially the majority that voted for them, need to hold them accountable.

Support Carol Shea-Porter

Contempt for politicians is part of a rich American tradition - especially around election time. But here in southern New Hampshire, in the 1st congressional district, we are represented by someone we can be proud of. It would be a shame to give that up.

For the last four years Rep. Carol Shea-Porter has served us faithfully- supporting health care reform, voting for efforts to get the economy back on track, and fighting for New Hampshire residents.

Carol’s smart and reliable advocacy on the issues that matter are the best reasons to support her.

But there are plenty of other reasons. When she scored her come-from-nowhere, upset victory in 2006, Carol Shea-Porter became the first woman to represent New Hampshire in national office. Before her election Carol was best know for getting kicked out of a George W. Bush rally for wearing the wrong t-shirt. Our representative is not some vat-grown politician. Her background is one of noisy citizen turned public servant - something I can certainly get behind.

I’ve witnessed Carol performing ‘live’ in two different settings that could not have been more different. I’ve seen her facing down a cranky mob at a health care town hall. I’ve seen her rallying a crowd of Democratic supporters. On both occasions I’ve been impressed by her intelligence, commitment, and good humor. I’ve seen her stand up and take the tough questions. She comes off as open, principled, informed, and inspiring.

We are fortunate. Our representative is someone worthy of our respect and worthy of our vote. Vote for Carol Shea-Porter on November 2nd.

Paul Hodes for NH Senator

Here is a letter I wrote that ran today in the local newspaper, The Portsmouth Herald:

We know Paul Hodes will fight for us in Washington. Working for us in the House of Representatives, Paul Hodes has fought to improve access, reduce costs and make affordable health care a reality for all. He has extended essential support for unemployed men and women in New Hampshire. Hodes voted for economic recovery bills that have put our state back on track. Paul Hodes fought for the financial reforms we desperately needed and an end to taxpayer-funded bailouts.

New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg helped get us into the mess. Then Senator Gregg spent the last two years doing everything in his power to insure nothing improves. Gregg opposed the economic stimulus. Gregg refused to help us address our crumbling health care system. Senator Gregg refused to extend benefits to unemployed New Hampshire citizens. In the wake of the massive financial collapse that had a devastating impact on New Hampshire businesses -- Judd Gregg opposed essential, overdue financial reforms.

Whenever there was a chance to help the people of New Hampshire Judd Gregg said “no”. Now that Gregg is retiring, we don’t have to take “no” for an answer any more. We don’t want more of the same. We have a chance to replace the Republican Senator who has been working against us with a Democratic Senator who will work for us. We need a US Senator who cares about the people of New Hampshire. We need Paul Hodes. Vote on November 2nd. Vote for Paul Hodes.

The Twenty Percent Solution

How is this possible? The Republican party was cast out of office in disgrace only two years ago. Since then they’ve merged with the even-more-irresponsible Tea Party. How can the Republicans be making a comeback? How could the majority of Americans be falling for this? Again.

Here is the silver lining. The majority of Americans are not falling for it. Not even close.

Mid-term elections in America have very low voter turn out. In recent years about 37% of eligible voters showed up to vote. Those votes are split between two parties. Getting 19% of voting-age Americans to show up and mark the ballot for you means a whole bunch of big victories.

Can they get the majority of Americans to believe the President of the United States is a secret socialist bent on enslaving them? They can not. Can they get a much smaller number of Americans to believe that government is coming to take their guns, their money, their freedom and then issue a summons to appear before a deal panel? Yes. Yes, they can. Once people buy into that story, those people are going to show up and vote. And they are going to vote for people that “share their values”.

It’s a problem. But there is a solution.

• Do you believe the government works best when it’s run by people trying to make it work for us instead of being “part of the problem”?
• Do you think all Americans should have access to health insurance they can afford? Would you like to try that out, see how it goes, rather than see it taken away?
• Do you believe that the separation of church and state is a pretty good idea?
• Do you think “science” might not be cruel hoax invented by Al Gore to sell books?
• Do you believe the solutions to the problems of the 21st century won’t all be found in texts from the 18th century?
• Would you like to be represented by someone actually working to solve our nations problems?

These ideas are pretty radical. I don’t expect all Americans to agree with me. But. We only need 20%. There must be at least one American out of five who believes as we do. Surely 20% of Americans are willing to stand up and vote for what’s right.

 

Maybe you could join us. Maybe you know other people who would be willing to vote on November 2nd. You could talk to them. You could join us. The few. The patriotic. The citizens who give a shit. The elite. The people who don’t sneer when they say elite. The 20%.

What is the Tea Party?

What is the Tea Party? The movement has been evolving rapidly over the last 18 months. It was a potent force in the Republican primaries, and gets lot of coverage and commentary. But what is it? And where did it come from?

It’s not a party. That’s the first thing Tea Party members and sympathisers will tell you. You may think that with a name like Tea Party that they are, or aspire to be a political party. But they aren’t and don’t. It’s more of an advocacy group (think NRA or MoveOn.org - but less structured) that is loud, vague, and angry and doesn’t actually advocate for any particular polices (other than “not taking it anymore” - which they support).

An early invocation of the term “Tea Party” came from Rick Santelli’s bizarre rant from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Unless you’re setting it on fire, the CME seems a particularly inappropriate place to start a populist movement. But somehow the image of a bunch of post-bailout financial traders (which Santelli calls “a pretty good statistical cross-section of America”) railing against the injustice of federal intervention struck a nerve. Santelli’s complaint was that the government was bailing out homeowners. As millions of former-homeowners learned during their foreclosure, no such program existed. But a movement was born, and with it the rich Tea Party tradition of being incensed over purely imaginary federal programs.

Sensing another opportunity to rally gullible people angry at Democrats, Fox News quickly got in on the act and put its stamp on the young movement. The network sponsored and promoted Glen Beck’s 9/12 project, giving the Tea Party national exposure. The nation was not impressed. The obvious extremism on display gave rise to the impression that Tea Party members tend to be racist or insane.

Since those early outings, the movement has controlled its message a little better. Local groups appear to be somewhat more reasonable. The Tea Party has gained strength an pulled together a powerful coalition.

The Tea Party has been effective at re-branding of the Republican Party. They’ve got all the energy in the party and have had an impressive show of force. Even establishment candidates like John McCain have had to dance to their tune in order to win the primary. They’ve been able to bring back a lot of conservative voters that bailed after the Bush years. Being a ‘Tea Party Patriot’ running as a Republican is much cooler than being a ‘Bush Republican’. And they can rope in and energize the independent conservatives and libertarians.

Andrew Sullivan has described the difference between how the Tea Party members see themselves and conventional Republicans:

I think what the tea-partiers would say is that they are for real - that, unlike Bush, they won't spend the country into oblivion, that they won't bail out the banks, that they won't pass unpaid-for entitlements, that they actually will make sure that abortion is illegal, that they will round up illegal immigrants and enforce the border, and will not pretend that we are not fighting Islam in a civilizational war. And that they will refuse to raise taxes even if it means the most radical dismantlement of the entitlement state since the New Deal. 

This attitude has swept through the Republican party. The question remains whether it will be popular with the rest of America. As much as they’ve been a force in the Republican primaries, it’s not clear they are going to be so helpful in the general election. Any group that thinks the likes of Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann are to be taken seriously is going have hard time getting themselves taken seriously by the American people. In the 2010 mid-term, where energy and base turn-out trump, they’ll be about a wash. After that, it’s not clear what the Tea Party does for a second act.

I would like to hope the Tea Party will pull the Republicans away from meddling in social issues and towards some actual fiscal conservatism. But real deficit reduction means taking on tax policy (and not just cutting taxes), controlling health care costs, and reducing defense. The Tea Party doesn’t offer serious proposals on any of that.

Actually, the Tea Party doesn’t really offer any policy proposals. They mainly like to complain about Democrats, say “freedom” a lot, and talk about the Founding Fathers. It is telling that the few members who seem to have policy ideas got very quiet about those ideas very fast after winning their primary. This suggests they are well aware that their actual plans may not be so popular with the general public.

The issues that motivate the Tea Party- health care reform, TARP, economic stimulus - are not the issues that will be confronting newly elected Tea Party members when they take office in 2011. TARP and the stimulus funds are spent and there seems to be little appetite in either party for more. Health care reform will continue and there may a fight over funding and implementaion. But full repeal will be unpopular and impossible.

The actual battles of the next congress will over deficit reduction, tax policy, immigration, the Defense of Marriage Act, Afghanistan, and corporate campaign disclosure. In theory, a libertarian-aligned Tea Party would be more sympathetic to the President’s positions on these issues than the conventional Republicans. In practice, we’re likely to find that the movement’s contempt for President Obama overrides any (as yet unseen) pragmatic impulse. Gridlock will get worse, even on issues when there is general agreement.

Once a few Tea Party members are elected they’ll have to take votes and support legislation. They won’t be able to stay in the realm of dreamy platitudes. If they want to remain relevant in 2012 they’ll have to do something to improves the lives of the American people. Since they’ve pledged not work with the President on any issue, it’s hard to see how they’ll do that. Unless Democratic voters get energized and vote this November, we’re about to find out.

You Are What You Eat

Over on Slate John Dickerson is considering a strange phenomenon. Voters prefer Democrats and Democratic policies to Republicans and Republican policies. But a majority are planning to vote for Republicans anyhow. Groping for an explanation Dickerson comes up with this analogy:

You're a long-haul trucker on the highway, and you're hungry. You wish you'd eaten a good healthy meal, but those are time-consuming and expensive. You see a choice at the next exit: McDonald's or Burger King. You're not thrilled about either, but in general you prefer McDonald's to Burger King and, if asked, you'd probably agree that you like every comparable menu item (fries, burger, drink, Happy Meal toy) better at McDonald's than at Burger King. But you've eaten at McDonald's for eight straight days. So, you go to Burger King.

That’s not bad. But Obama’s only been in office for a year and half. So I think we need to modify it a bit to really capture the national moment:

You're a long-haul trucker on the highway, and you're hungry. You wish you'd eaten a good healthy meal, but those are time-consuming and expensive. You see a choice at the next exit: McDonald's or Burger King.

You used to eat at this Burger King all the time. For year after year you had nothing but Burger King. It was terrible. It didn’t taste good. It wasn’t good for you. The service is terrible. But they have a big flag out front and they keep their prices low. As it turns out, the owner was philosophically opposed to meddling “food safety regulations”. The last time you ate there you got E. Coli and it nearly killed you. “That’s it!” you swore. No more Burger King for you.

You were pretty hopeful that McDonald’s would be better. And it is. You suppose. Can’t complain really. The food is better and the staff seems to be trying really hard. The problems is you’ve still got that stomach infection from the E. Coli you got at Burger King. All this gastrointestinal pain and massive diarrhea is kind of ruining your dining experience (not to mention all the long-haul trucking). Where did you get this stomach bug again? You forgot. But McDonald’s just isn’t quite what you hoped it would be.

Oh, look. Burger King got an even bigger flag!

Knocking on Doors for Democrats

On Saturday I joined my local get-out-the-vote effort and spent a few hours knocking on doors for the New Hampshire Democratic Party. It was a beautiful day to be out walking around, and I enjoyed the activity. For me the central pleasure is having an excuse to engage strangers to talk about politics. I was armed with stickers on my shirt and a clipboard. Clearly, I was duly deputized to ring people’s doorbells and ask whoever answered how they thought their elected representative in congress are doing.

I was fun. And I learned a few things about my neighbors and fellow citizens.

One thing I learned is that people really don’t take care of their doorbells like they used to. Homes with functioning doorbells were a distinct minority. The other thing I learned was that the good people of Portsmouth appear to have better things to do on a gorgeous Saturday in August than staying home to attend to random canvassers like myself. Nobody was home.

But I was able to engage a few people. The people I spoke with were uniformly pleasant. They were not angry or overly disillusioned. Times are tough. But most places seem to be worse off than Portsmouth. Peoples’ concerns were general and economic. We’re in a hole, but the Democrats are the ones trying to dig us out. Even the guy who was “definitely not a fan” of the Democratic party applauded my civic-minded purpose.

Mostly, my mission was to not take more of people’s time than they seemed inclined to give. I wanted to be sure and state the names of our candidates. Representative Carol Shea-Porter. Paul Hodes for senate. Governor John Lynch. I was on their doorstep to extend a personal invitation to come on out and vote in November. I wished them a pleasant weekend and was on my way.

A Year of Questions and Answers

When I started up this blog one year ago, I was moved to start writing again by two impulses:

1. The country has problems. With a new president and substantial Democratic majorities we had a chance to address those problems. But we seemed to be blowing that chance.
   
   
2. Despite the depth of our woes, there were a whole lot of people who wanted to the president and the congress to fail. I wanted to figure out why. 

Today, one year later, I’m not so worried about #1. Obama and the congressional Democrats have produced a number of substantial achievements. The passed health care reform. Affordable health insurance will soon be available to all Americans. Health care costs continue to rise. But there is a structure in place with which to contain them. Unemployment remains high and the economy weak. A series of stimulus bills and stabilizing measures have, at considerable cost, extended the safety net. We’ve turned an economy going off a cliff into one experiencing modest growth. We’re still stinging from the last financial crisis. But thanks to financial regulatory reform, we’ve put necessary structures in place to ward off the next one.



These are substantial accomplishments. Add in the victories of the past few weeks, and that’s a whole lot of leading and legislating. Throughout it all President Obama has been methodical, persistent, and deeply practical. Congressional Democrats have shown remarkable dedication, perseverance, good sense, and remained focused on tending to the people’s business.



These are politicians. Inevitably, their vanities and hypocrisies are going to be exposed. But when it really counts, Democrats have been kicking ass. In a big, messy, diverse, democracy -- this is as good as it gets.



The Republican party may have some competent governors and state legislatures out there. But at the national level, in congress, on the internet and air waves, they have been the model of dysfunction. After the disaster of the Bush administration, the GOP has not embraced governance as central to who they are or who they seek to be. They are dead weight on all policy discussions, on issues foreign and domestic. It’s all cable news nonsense and culture wars.



It is with weary dismay that I greet the conventional wisdom for the upcoming elections. The Democrats are disillusioned. Republicans are fired up hoping to make some big gains. Why? Why don’t the Democrats get credit for their accomplishments? What does anyone hope to accomplish by voting Republican in this cycle?



The party in power tends to take a beating in mid-term elections. And when unemployment is high, incumbents take the hit there too. So, maybe that’s the whole story. When times are bad we vote for the “other guy” -- regardless if we think the current guy is doing anything wrong. Even if we don’t think the new guy can do any better. Even if a Republican administration got us into this mess.



I can understand it at a macro level, but the expected Republican resurgence perplexes me when it comes to individuals. I can see why people who aren’t paying attention would go with their anti-incumbent-gut. But I don’t get the anti-incumbent activists. If you’re active and plugged in enough to be commenting on message boards, arguing on the forums, crashing town hall meetings, or attending a Tea Party rally -- what do you want? What do you think Republicans in power will do? Should do?



That’s the question that drove motivation #2 above. After a year of searching, I’m frustrated by a lack of answers. My efforts haven’t been exhaustive. But they have been sincere. I’ve been to a health care town hall, done battle and probed on Politico, whipped out the gauntlet and slapped a few faces, and attended a local Tea Party rally. I’ve approached each engagement with the same questions. What do you want? What are you mad about?



I’ve got nothing. I still don’t understand it. I’ve learned that “Well, what do you think the president should be doing differently?” is a pretty reliable conversation killer. I suppose the non-answer is it’s own answer.



Is it all just tribalism? Just rooting for your team? Maybe it is only wonk-wannabees like me who expect a system of cause and effect. Maybe the ones that are the most engaged in our political discourse are just the members of the tribe prone to the most chest-thumping.



Here’s the bottom line:



We are the public. We get to vote. There’s an election this November. That’s the only poll that counts. Show up. Vote for the Democrats. They’ve earned it.