Ever since he won the DFL endorsement for 5th District congressional representative earlier this year, Keith Ellison has been besieged by scrutiny -- interviews, articles in the national and international media, reviews of his past personal and professional conduct. In case you didn't know (and you had to have spent the last four months on a deserted island), Ellison will be the first African American to represent the state of Minnesota and the first ever Muslim representative in Congress. This puts incredible pressure on Ellison as he operates under the microscope of such intense attention.
As one of Ellison's soon-to-be constituents, I feel it's necessary to remind the rest of the world that, for all his uniqueness, Ellison was elected to represent the people of Minnesota's Fifth District. Yes, his presence in Congress as the only Muslim at this particular time of national hysteria about the Islamic world makes him a particularly potent public figure. (Case in point, witness the recent outrageous events in which six imams were prevented from boarding a US Airways airplane at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport because someone was suspicious of their prayers while they waited for the flight.) But, please, stop making such a big deal of Ellison's religious beliefs. He doesn't have three heads. He doesn't eat babies for breakfast. And he's not harboring Al Qaeda operatives in his garage.
With all of the heightened media attention now being given to the Islamic world, it's amazing how little real information is being transmitted about it. Daily footage of violence in Iraq between Sunnis and Shiites, as well as coverage of other incidences of violence in the Middle East, may convince the average Jane or Joe that things are out of control in the Islamic world. But it doesn't offer any insight into the whats and whys of the situation. Moreover, it isn't up to Keith Ellison, as the nation's most visible Muslim politician, to explain, refute or comment on it all. No one can hold the psychological projections of so many Americans and be expected to do his job adequately.
And that is really frustrating. Ellison's track record of involvement and advocacy in the district, combined with his experience in mobilizing across different ethnic and racial groups, has given him a solid base of experience from which to a raise a whole host of progressive initiatives at the national level. He's not the perfect representative. From the start of the congressional race, I was concerned about Ellison's history of mishandling his own personal obligations. Public officials shouldn't have unpaid traffic tickets, suspended licenses and missing campaign finance forms and expect folks not to wonder what this might mean for future performance. But, giving Ellison the benefit of the doubt, my central issue was always his track record as an elected official. On that score, Ellison was uniformly considered a strong and effective state representative. Moreover, the opportunity for the people of this community to send a person of color to represent them in Congress represented a unique and positive statement about who and what we are today.
So, to the national media I say, "Stop badgering my representative and let him do the job we sent him to do." It's enough for a new representative to have to find the bathrooms in the House office buildings. Ellison doesn't need to endlessly navigate the treacherous waters of national scrutiny on the way to his desk in Washington. We, his constituents, will have enough chances to render the verdict on his performance when he runs for re-election in two years. In the meantime, let Keith be Keith.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
The Hatchet Job
Leave it to Democrats to find the dark lining in the silver cloud. It wasn't enough that the Democratic Party swept control of both houses of the US Congress, both houses of the Minnesota Legislature and all but one of the constitutional state offices. Now we have the public hand wringing over Tim Pawlenty's victory over Mike Hatch in the governor's race. Fingers are being pointed all over the place, but mostly at Peter Hutchinson, the Independence Party's candidate for governor. Hutchinson allegedly "stole" (I use this loosely) enough votes from Hatch's liberal/progressive urban supporters to give Pawlenty the margin of victory.
It's time for some rational talk about the failure of yet another DFL gubernatorial candidate to win the state capitol. Here are some of my observations:
1) Hatch's agressive personality didn't sit well with some folks. While Hatch has been an effective attorney general, as long as a snarling bulldog is your model for an effective attorney general, governors need to play well with others. However, that has never been Hatch's strong point. Not that Pawlenty has been peaches and cream, but compared to Hatch, he's Mr. Nice Guy. People want a governor who has a certain presence that suggests that he or she could rise above the fray. Hatch seems like he would be the first guy into the mosh pit. And don't get some former employees of the AG's office started on some of Hatch's antics. There were quite a number of folks who were eager to see Hatch take a fall.
2) Many urban progressives have long been suspicious of Hatch and either either sat on their hands, held their noses or voted for Hutchinson. For all of his populist rhetoric, Hatch could never be considered a progressive thinker on most issues. Just look at his position on abortion. Listen to his waffling on tax policy, particularly the gas tax. Could you really trust the guy to do the right thing in a clutch if you cared about these issues? Hutchinson articulated positions that made sense to many urban progressives and they left the room. Also, let us not forget Hatch's past history of thumbing his nose at the DFL endorsement process and Becky Lourie's spirited candidacy that energized a significant number of urban progressives. These factors did not endear Hatch to a significant constituency whose support he needed.
3) Hatch lost it in the last week and confirmed some folks' worst fears about him. Sure, Judi Dutcher made a big mistake with her E-85 comment the weekend before the election. But Hatch made things much worse by completely losing his cool in front of the media. Hatch started to act like the kind of paranoid hothead his opponents had tried to make him out to be. Whether or not that was a fair characterization, the damage was done too close to the election to repair and probably convinced some fence-sitters to look elsewhere.
4) Love him or hate him, Pawlenty is a pretty darned talented politician and kept his himself afloat while the rest of his party colleagues went down with the ship. The stiff anti-Republican headwind of this year's election made it much easier for Hatch to gain traction against Pawlenty. But Pawlenty never really lost his personal popularity, even as his party was tarred with all of the ills of the day. And the main issue that motivated voters to vote Democratic -- opposition to the Irag war -- was not all that relevant to the governor's actual job. Besides, when you get down to it, between Hatch and Pawlenty, who would you rather have a beer with? And compare Pawlenty's numbers to Mark Kennedy's numbers in the Senate race -- the governor was doing something right.
5) Many people actually don't have a problem with divided government. Pawlenty outperformed many of his Republican legislative colleagues on Election Day. In addition, there were a significant number of Klobuchar/Pawlenty ticket splitters, far more than than the reverse. Perhaps folks sensed that having a DFL legislature with healthy majorities would be enough of a counterbalance to a Republican governor. We'll see if that's right starting this winter. Already, Pawlenty has started to get religion on universal heath coverage for children in the state, after he gutted programs during his first term.
Personally, I'm not pleased that Tim Pawlenty is coming back for Act 2. I disagree with him on most issues and find his "aw-shucks" demeaanor to be a paltry mask to his mean-spirited policies. But Mike Hatch's inability to knock him off this month is more of a reflection of his own failings than the presence of Peter Hutchinson on the ballot or Judi Dutcher's ethanol blooper. In a year when Democrats were flying high across the country, Hatch should have been able to ride the prevailing winds to victory. He fell short because enough folks had doubts about him to vote otherwise.
It's time for some rational talk about the failure of yet another DFL gubernatorial candidate to win the state capitol. Here are some of my observations:
1) Hatch's agressive personality didn't sit well with some folks. While Hatch has been an effective attorney general, as long as a snarling bulldog is your model for an effective attorney general, governors need to play well with others. However, that has never been Hatch's strong point. Not that Pawlenty has been peaches and cream, but compared to Hatch, he's Mr. Nice Guy. People want a governor who has a certain presence that suggests that he or she could rise above the fray. Hatch seems like he would be the first guy into the mosh pit. And don't get some former employees of the AG's office started on some of Hatch's antics. There were quite a number of folks who were eager to see Hatch take a fall.
2) Many urban progressives have long been suspicious of Hatch and either either sat on their hands, held their noses or voted for Hutchinson. For all of his populist rhetoric, Hatch could never be considered a progressive thinker on most issues. Just look at his position on abortion. Listen to his waffling on tax policy, particularly the gas tax. Could you really trust the guy to do the right thing in a clutch if you cared about these issues? Hutchinson articulated positions that made sense to many urban progressives and they left the room. Also, let us not forget Hatch's past history of thumbing his nose at the DFL endorsement process and Becky Lourie's spirited candidacy that energized a significant number of urban progressives. These factors did not endear Hatch to a significant constituency whose support he needed.
3) Hatch lost it in the last week and confirmed some folks' worst fears about him. Sure, Judi Dutcher made a big mistake with her E-85 comment the weekend before the election. But Hatch made things much worse by completely losing his cool in front of the media. Hatch started to act like the kind of paranoid hothead his opponents had tried to make him out to be. Whether or not that was a fair characterization, the damage was done too close to the election to repair and probably convinced some fence-sitters to look elsewhere.
4) Love him or hate him, Pawlenty is a pretty darned talented politician and kept his himself afloat while the rest of his party colleagues went down with the ship. The stiff anti-Republican headwind of this year's election made it much easier for Hatch to gain traction against Pawlenty. But Pawlenty never really lost his personal popularity, even as his party was tarred with all of the ills of the day. And the main issue that motivated voters to vote Democratic -- opposition to the Irag war -- was not all that relevant to the governor's actual job. Besides, when you get down to it, between Hatch and Pawlenty, who would you rather have a beer with? And compare Pawlenty's numbers to Mark Kennedy's numbers in the Senate race -- the governor was doing something right.
5) Many people actually don't have a problem with divided government. Pawlenty outperformed many of his Republican legislative colleagues on Election Day. In addition, there were a significant number of Klobuchar/Pawlenty ticket splitters, far more than than the reverse. Perhaps folks sensed that having a DFL legislature with healthy majorities would be enough of a counterbalance to a Republican governor. We'll see if that's right starting this winter. Already, Pawlenty has started to get religion on universal heath coverage for children in the state, after he gutted programs during his first term.
Personally, I'm not pleased that Tim Pawlenty is coming back for Act 2. I disagree with him on most issues and find his "aw-shucks" demeaanor to be a paltry mask to his mean-spirited policies. But Mike Hatch's inability to knock him off this month is more of a reflection of his own failings than the presence of Peter Hutchinson on the ballot or Judi Dutcher's ethanol blooper. In a year when Democrats were flying high across the country, Hatch should have been able to ride the prevailing winds to victory. He fell short because enough folks had doubts about him to vote otherwise.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
The Chickens Come Home to Roost
Okay, I admit it. I'm thrilled that the Republican Party took a "thumping", to quote Bush II, in the midterm elections. Given all of the incompetence and corruption of the Congressional leadership, especially in the House of Representative, as well as the insane, reality-defying policies of the President on Iraq, I couldn't for the life of me understand how the result could be otherwise. Think about it: if you saw these kinds of accomplishments on a resume, would you hire these folks?
Besides taking the November 7 mini-revolution as evidence that there is still a Divine Presence in the world (I hesitate to say "God" for fear of evangelical backlash), I believe it is worthwhile reflecting on what this election may mean for both governance and politics in the future. The Democratic Party has now been tasked with a substantial charge -- how to actually participate in the governance process they have been almost completely excluded from for nearly 6 years. If this is to be a real sea change in American politics, it's up to the Democrats elected this past week to do the job they have been hired to do.
One commentator has offered that this election represents the end of the conservative era that started back in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan. As someone who came of political age in the Reagan era, it's hard to imagine a world outside of this construct. But, I think there is something to this. Two years ago, the pundits made sense of Bush's re-election by concluding it was all about "values" -- how the values of the president matched with the values of the electorate and how the Democrats neglected to demonstrate clearly what they stood for. This year, we have the demise of "values" and the rise of pragmatism.
What I think this election demonstrates is that you can appeal to the social and moral issues only so long before people wonder when you are actually going to get the job done. For the vast majority of Americans -- people who don't see themselves tied very much to ideology -- the expectation is that government will somehow address the problems facing the country. When American soldiers are dying in Iraq, job security seems non-existent, health care remains an elusive goal for many uninsured, and our environmental resources are being consumed at an expensive and alarming rate, bickering over Terri Schiavo's right to die and how to stop gay men and women from legally marrying seem like unnecessary and unsupportable distractions.
Americans expressed hopefulness in their votes on November 7th, even as they remain worried about the state of the war and the country. Rather than let themselves be cynically manipulated on cultural and social issues, they voted with the expectation that their representatives may actually have something constructive to do.
Ideology isn't completely dead. But, in light of the serious issues facing the nation, it may just be a luxury we can't afford at the moment.
Besides taking the November 7 mini-revolution as evidence that there is still a Divine Presence in the world (I hesitate to say "God" for fear of evangelical backlash), I believe it is worthwhile reflecting on what this election may mean for both governance and politics in the future. The Democratic Party has now been tasked with a substantial charge -- how to actually participate in the governance process they have been almost completely excluded from for nearly 6 years. If this is to be a real sea change in American politics, it's up to the Democrats elected this past week to do the job they have been hired to do.
One commentator has offered that this election represents the end of the conservative era that started back in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan. As someone who came of political age in the Reagan era, it's hard to imagine a world outside of this construct. But, I think there is something to this. Two years ago, the pundits made sense of Bush's re-election by concluding it was all about "values" -- how the values of the president matched with the values of the electorate and how the Democrats neglected to demonstrate clearly what they stood for. This year, we have the demise of "values" and the rise of pragmatism.
What I think this election demonstrates is that you can appeal to the social and moral issues only so long before people wonder when you are actually going to get the job done. For the vast majority of Americans -- people who don't see themselves tied very much to ideology -- the expectation is that government will somehow address the problems facing the country. When American soldiers are dying in Iraq, job security seems non-existent, health care remains an elusive goal for many uninsured, and our environmental resources are being consumed at an expensive and alarming rate, bickering over Terri Schiavo's right to die and how to stop gay men and women from legally marrying seem like unnecessary and unsupportable distractions.
Americans expressed hopefulness in their votes on November 7th, even as they remain worried about the state of the war and the country. Rather than let themselves be cynically manipulated on cultural and social issues, they voted with the expectation that their representatives may actually have something constructive to do.
Ideology isn't completely dead. But, in light of the serious issues facing the nation, it may just be a luxury we can't afford at the moment.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Deliver Us from Allen
If there ever was a politician who deserves to be sent to the dust heap of history this season, it's Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia. I can't vote in this one, given that I live about 1,000 miles away from the Old Dominion, but I would be thrilled if Virginians elected Jim Webb, the Democratic challenger.
Watching Allen self-destruct over the past three months has been like watching a car accident in slow motion. You can't believe it's happening, but you can't possibly turn away from the entire messy scene. First, Allen got caught in the "macaca" at a videotaped campaign appearance in which he lobbed a racial epithet at an Indian-American campaign worker for Webb. Allen's explanations for using the word ranged from silly to just plain weird. But the damage had been done.
Then we learned the news that Allen's grandfather was actually Jewish. His entire approach to this information was bizarre. First, he issued statements in which he railed against those who would "cast aspersions" on him by alleging that he had Jewish blood. Excuse me? Who would consider that an aspersion to be cast unless he believed that actually being a Jew was worthy of aspersion-ness? There are words for that and none of them are flattering. I don't doubt that Allen's mother had her reasons for not telling her family about her Jewish father. But, please, don't act like it was the equivalent of finding out that your grandfather robbed banks for a living. When Allen finally fessed up, he acknowledged that this all was true, but he really still liked pork chops. How do you respond to something like that?
Then the house of cards really began to fall. We learned about Allen's adventures in racist behavior while at the University of Virginia. We witnessed Allen attempt to change the subject about financial dealings he neglected to disclose to Congress. Then we watched Allen shamelessly court the votes of women by running ads featuring women in the military who claimed that Webb said or acted in a sexist manner toward them. Only they misquoted things Webb never actually said.
Finally, with his campaign in a free fall (and his presidential ambitions thankfully in the toilet), we find out what George Allen really has been doing with his time: reading Webb's novels and finding, horror of horrors, passages involving sex. That includes sex that might make some of the women characters out to not be pristine porcelain dolls, nevermind that these are novels about surviving as a soldier in wartime. This of course is evidence that Webb really harbors some hidden sexist beliefs that he has conveniently tucked deep inside his writing. (The fact that Webb has written more words in his novels than Allen probably has read in his entire life, notwithstanding.) Please stop! I'm having trouble catching my breath from laughing at this foolishness.
Just when you think George Allen couldn't possibly drive the discourse any lower, there he is, a few circles closer to perdition. Please, voters of the Commonwealth of Virginia, save us from having to witness any more of these embarrassments -- send Jim Webb to the U.S. Senate and return Allen to some horse farm in the Shenandoah Valley where he can do no harm.
Watching Allen self-destruct over the past three months has been like watching a car accident in slow motion. You can't believe it's happening, but you can't possibly turn away from the entire messy scene. First, Allen got caught in the "macaca" at a videotaped campaign appearance in which he lobbed a racial epithet at an Indian-American campaign worker for Webb. Allen's explanations for using the word ranged from silly to just plain weird. But the damage had been done.
Then we learned the news that Allen's grandfather was actually Jewish. His entire approach to this information was bizarre. First, he issued statements in which he railed against those who would "cast aspersions" on him by alleging that he had Jewish blood. Excuse me? Who would consider that an aspersion to be cast unless he believed that actually being a Jew was worthy of aspersion-ness? There are words for that and none of them are flattering. I don't doubt that Allen's mother had her reasons for not telling her family about her Jewish father. But, please, don't act like it was the equivalent of finding out that your grandfather robbed banks for a living. When Allen finally fessed up, he acknowledged that this all was true, but he really still liked pork chops. How do you respond to something like that?
Then the house of cards really began to fall. We learned about Allen's adventures in racist behavior while at the University of Virginia. We witnessed Allen attempt to change the subject about financial dealings he neglected to disclose to Congress. Then we watched Allen shamelessly court the votes of women by running ads featuring women in the military who claimed that Webb said or acted in a sexist manner toward them. Only they misquoted things Webb never actually said.
Finally, with his campaign in a free fall (and his presidential ambitions thankfully in the toilet), we find out what George Allen really has been doing with his time: reading Webb's novels and finding, horror of horrors, passages involving sex. That includes sex that might make some of the women characters out to not be pristine porcelain dolls, nevermind that these are novels about surviving as a soldier in wartime. This of course is evidence that Webb really harbors some hidden sexist beliefs that he has conveniently tucked deep inside his writing. (The fact that Webb has written more words in his novels than Allen probably has read in his entire life, notwithstanding.) Please stop! I'm having trouble catching my breath from laughing at this foolishness.
Just when you think George Allen couldn't possibly drive the discourse any lower, there he is, a few circles closer to perdition. Please, voters of the Commonwealth of Virginia, save us from having to witness any more of these embarrassments -- send Jim Webb to the U.S. Senate and return Allen to some horse farm in the Shenandoah Valley where he can do no harm.
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