Ever since the Mark Foley scandal broke over a week ago, pundits and commentators have been predicting that the 2006 election will represent some vicious backlash against the Republican Party for their years of mismanagement and corruption as the majority party in Congress. I certainly hope that the Republicans get their due this fall -- they've been playing the values game for so long (and co-opting Democrats in the process) that it has been a delicious turnabout to watch them run and hide while revelation after revelation appears about Foley's "naughty" e-mails. (Since when asking someone to measure the size of their penis was just "naughty", and not pornographic, is beyond me.) But I think some risks remain for Democrats regardless of the goal line fumbles committed by the party in power.
Here are some thoughts in the form of questions to a hypothetical Democratic candidate:
1) What do you stand for? - Let's talk in the language of values and how your actions have been consistent with those values. I know we all can say we value a strong educational system or want to protect the environment, but, to quote Janet Jackson, "what have you done for them lately." And more specifically, how is past performance indicative of future results?
2) What will you do when you get there? - Or as my wife says, "What's the plan, Stan?" It's not enough to say you aren't like the other guy. The other guy may be a thief, a liar, a hypocrite or just misguided. What I want to know is how you plan to deal with the pressing problems of our (fill in the blank - state, country, etc.)
3) What do you see as the biggest challenges to success? - Identifying what the central challenges are will give me an idea of where you intend to focus when you get in office. Give me some sense you have thought about how your plan could fail and what you intend to do to make sure that doesn't happen.
Here in Minnesota, it looks like Amy Klobuchar will walk off with Mark Dayton's Senate seat, barring any last minute catastrophe, surprise or "naughty" e-mail. As a woman and Democrat in a state that, for all it's now vaunted swing-ness, still has some semblance of progressiveness left in the body public, this would seem to be her year. As for the governor's race, Tim Pawlenty is locked in a virtual tie with Mike Hatch. Neither of these guys is my favorite politicians, but given the damage caused by Pawlenty to education and his complete abdication of responsibility on transportation, I'm ready to fill in the oval for Hatch hoping that he is less of a psychokiller than he's been at times as attorney general.
For all of these folks, and the competitive House and state legislative seats, I think it's critical that Democrats offer a positive vision for what they intend to do if/when they win. Otherwise, the tides of change will wisk them out to sea not long after their comrades across the aisle this fall.
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2 comments:
I can tell you from personal, painful experience that your hope that Hatch will be "less of a psychokiller than he's been at times as attorney general" is wishful. The best you can hope is that he will gore the oxes you want gored. If he does to the rest of the executive branch what he has done to the AG's office (in terms of firing or running out experienced, professionals replaced by toadys and synchophants) God help us all.
I am voting for Independent Peter Hutchinson. I realize that creates a risk that Pawlenty may win. But while I disagree with Pawlenty on most political issues, Hatch's complete disregard of the truth and repeated willingness to do anything to advance his personal political career doesn't give me any confidence that he'd actually do anything -- as contrasted with talking a lot -- differently.
And Hutchinson isn't just the lesser of three evils; he's a well-informed, government-experiended, level-headed professional with good progressive values (though not a socialist) who could actually do something.
But I recognize the dilemma.
Thanks, Paul. I would support Hutchinson in a heartbeat, if he had a ghost of a chance of winning. Unfortunately, he doesn't. I agree he is a decent guy and probably would be a better governor than either Hatch or Pawlenty. But I'm just not sure this state can afford another four years of Pawlenty, an outcome made more likely by voting for Hutchinson.
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