President Obama gave a dynamic, thoughtful State of the Union address [transcript] with a good balance between summarizing the progress his administration has made, with some admitted stumbles along the way, and outlining what he wants to focus on in both the near-term and over the longer sweep of time which responsible planning and budgeting necessarily encompasses.
Any sense that the President might have devoted too much of the speech to reminders of the state of the economy, in particular, when he was sworn into office dissipated as Virginia Governor McDonnell set about spinning the familiar talking points to gloss over what had happened during Bush & Cheney’s era of aggressive military policies abroad and laissez-faire approach to the economy. Perhaps McDonnell wasn’t paying attention in late summer of 2008 when Senator McCain abruptly suspended his campaign to rush back to Washington and (at least ostensibly) deal with the economic crisis that Wall Street became – or perhaps McDonnell’s speechwriters saw no benefit in reminding voters of reality.
Obama’s speech quite nearly removed the apparent basis of McDonnell’s performance, actually. Most of the Governor’s well-rehearsed litany as he described preserving choice for U.S. citizens in front of a hand-picked audience seemed destined to echo with GOP partisans, but unlikely to win the hearts, minds, or votes of any coveted “swing” voters who were more likely to hear it as echoing the points the President had just made. Perhaps the opposition piece would’ve been more effective if they’d waited to draft (and stage) their reaction to such a major speech until their speechwriters and strategists have had the time to digest and reflect upon what the State of the Union addressed and crafted an actual – well – response. The tax gibes, for example, on the heels of Obama’s citing dozens of tax cuts and proposing a spending freeze despite not having raised income taxes seemed ill-conceived despite being predictable.
While McDonnell’s effort was clearly more polished than the maladroit “Republican response” by Bobby Jindal when he was handed a similar opportunity last year, his performance evoked a sermon to the faithful rather than being an articulation of substantive differences.
The President resisted the chance to hammer lopsidedly on the opposition party, which highlights his awareness that there’s a restiveness among the electorate not confined to those who for the moment flock to the Teabaggers banner. He’s right that Americans, unified by the terrorist attacks in 2001, have been systematically re-dispersed by the calculations of politicians intent on retaining their personal power and influence — and that neither party in Congress has accomplished much on behalf of the people.
That unity was squandered by career politicos.
We expect politicians to posture and pander, to capitulate to public pressure only when they can spin it to their advantage. We’re accustomed, sadly, to them approaching challenges with all the flexibility of self-centered children more interested in hoarding their toys and getting attention than anything else. Yet, in the already complex world over 200 years ago the founding fathers established a system that explicitly relied on adults, acting for the greater good at home and overseas.
Hopefully Obama’s candor and diplomacy will break the persistent patterns of patronage that have overcome the good sense, and good intentions, of our nation’s elected officials so that they can, in fact, lead on the issues he’s rightly suggested cannot be postponed or denied: the health and education of the American people, the health and reliability of the American economy, and the sense that all people – not just Americans, but all people – are deserving of the respect articulated in the U.S. Constitution.
Voters, inspired by Obama’s vision of how great American can be, are watching both parties with barely contained skepticism. Obama doubled-down last night, daring supporters and opponents alike to deny the importance of restoring the U.S. economy as a cornerstone in the foundation of greatness.
If those privileged to serve in Congress seek a leadership role for themselves domestically and for America in the world they have to accept and adopt that leading can only be done by example. They don’t have to deny differences of opinion any more than the President did. They have to approach the challenges creatively, however, and confront them head-on rather than stamping their feet like petulant, privileged brats.
A shadowy smear campaign evidently intended to convince Minnesotans to stay home on caucus night, February 2, 2010 is underway — especially if they’re thinking of supporting Minneapolis Mayor Raymond “R.T.” Rybak in his bid to secure the party endorsement to run for Governor of Minnesota in November.
The facts are chasing the lies. The Minneapolis Star Tribune ran a column headlined “Rybak Good Deed for Taxpayers Gets Punished” that counters much of the information presented in the mail that’s targeted likely caucus-goers. It remains to be seen who the originator is, but in the wake of the Supreme Court decision freeing up corporations to spend freely on political advertising campaigns one can only imagine the slander, innuendo, and deliberate misinformation will be getting worse — more diverse and numerous — right through Election Day in November.
For years Minneapolis taxpayers had been overcharged by two pension funds that have been closed to new members for almost 30 years. No police officer or firefighter hired since 1980 draws any benefit from these funds — but all Minneapolis taxpayers contribute to it.
Mayor Rybak and other city leaders stepped up to put a stop to the overcharging by the pension funds after the State Auditor alerted them to the problem. They approached the fund managers and the MN Legislature, but the overcharging continued. $50 million in overcharges, by some estimates, placing a huge burden on city taxpayers.
Ultimately the Minneapolis City Council unanimously backed Rybak in taking the pension funds to court — and they won. A Hennepin County judge ruled that the pension fund management illegally overcharged Minneapolis taxpayers. The lawsuit won back $10 million of the $50 million that property owners had overpaid, which has been promptly applied as property-tax relief.
One can only infer that high-priced lawyers and lobbyists who represent those who’ve been overcharging Minneapolis taxpayers are trying to get revenge for the money they lost by misrepresenting the facts and smear-mongering. With 10 other Democrats seeking the DFL endorsement every vote matters even though Rybak is clearly one of the front-runners.
If advertising didn’t matter, major companies would arrange their budgets very differently and we wouldn’t need truth in advertising laws, or to prohibit movie theaters from inserting subliminal imagery to drive the crowd out to the concession stand.
If advertising mattered less, media outlets wouldn’t waste time they could be charging for commercials on making sure to promote their own shows – their product – to keep us tuned in, to prop up their ratings.
Advertising matters. Information, in one form or another, is what moves goods out of the warehouse and off the retailer’s shelves. Capitalism is envisioned as a system where consumers with good, accurate information make informed decisions selecting the “right” goods and services, driving a sort of evolution where the best flourish and the inferior producers tend to go out of business.
The key word there is accurate.
If slogans and messages didn’t matter, Budweiser wouldn’t be the King of (U.S.) Beers, cigarette companies wouldn’t have plastered their names, images, and messages on every surface and/or object they could find, millions of dollars wouldn’t be spent during the Super Bowl each year, and the Fox network wouldn’t bother calling their reporting “fair and balanced.”
Characters welcome…
So, ask yourself, who benefits from advertising that the election of Scott Brown as a U.S. Senator is the end of Health Care reform in the Congress? Who benefits from describing it as a referendum on the Obama administration? Whose interests are served by citing one election as indicative of a trend?
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley & now Senator-elect Scott Brown
To be frank, Ms. Coakley ran a hapless campaign that hindsight can label overconfident. Her message, deliberate or not, was that baseball doesn’t matter, shaking hands with voters doesn’t matter, and that she had it all wrapped up months ago – that details didn’t matter if she just went through the motions.
Had Coakley sought, and been willing to heed, the sort of advisors that helped recent campaign “winners” there’s a chance she’d have won – but voters in Massachusetts were more inspired by an up-and-coming guy with a winning smile who went to work hard telling them what kind of person he was.
The key word there is voters.
Ms. Coakley left too many of the people who had given Obama his huge margin in that state in 2008 uninspired on election day — unwilling to take the time to go and vote.
You can suggest that there was infighting in her Massachusetts party, that others are hoping to win that seat in 2012 when the term of the special election ends. You can ask if the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee gave her the proper support. You can question the spin in the media, or what would have happened if the President had showed more enthusiastic support, sooner. You can be sure the exit polls will be discussed exhaustively, both on and off camera.
Those notions are being examined, of course, by everybody from the punditocracy to the elite strategists of the major political parties, and every candidate for any office that will be elected later this year. Meanwhile, because winning matters, the facts are being sliced, diced, and repackaged for your consumption by everybody with something to gain.
Bottom line:
Sadly, the skills needed to campaign effectively don’t test what kind of legislator a candidate will be, and the contest in Massachusetts was more about how two people resonated with the electorate rather than their platforms, initiatives, and policy goals — the only issue that was raised was Brown’s intent to be an obstructionist on Health Care reform (which surely accounts for no small fraction of the financial support he lined up.)
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In a contest with a relative unknown, in a state that reliably votes for Democrats, the outcome of the election to fill out Ted Kennedy’s term in the wake of his death was determined by the campaigns and leadership of two very different individuals – one who wanted it badly, and one who assumed she wasn’t in a contest.
Congratulations are due to the Senator-elect, the Cosmo “Centerfold Winner” clearly prevailed by inspiring more Massachusetts voters to go to the polls – though I doubt they were mostly “conservative” GOP voters, given his photo spread – so just what does it really mean for other elections? “Characters welcome.”
Remember, advertising matters: follow the money before you swallow the spin.
