The Massachusetts Message

In Massachusetts recently, the unthinkable happened: the senate seat held by John and Ted Kennedy for 50+ years went to a Republican. All the hysteria and post-election punditry notwithstanding, what does this portend about the next ten months of 2010 political reporting? Some thoughts …

“It ain’t over till it’s over,” in sports and in politics. No election is a guaranteed outcome, regardless of what one may think going in. The good campaigners always know they could lose, and campaign fully from day 1 through election day.

A lousy candidate has a lousy chance to win, regardless of party affiliation or political beliefs. By all accounts, Massachusetts Democrats could not have picked a lousier candidate. Did Scott Brown win, or did overconfident Martha Coakley lose? All too often, never underestimate the Democratic Party’s ability to blow an opportunity. (See “a 60-vote supermajority.”)

Once again, Republicans showed that – all other conditions being equal – as a party they are typically the far better campaign strategists. And they can run a far more effective campaign – if “effective” is winning being the total objective at any/all cost – though they are likely to not run a more ethical or intellectually honest campaign. Democrats too often are really bad tacticians. (See Willie Horton, Swift Boat, racial ads in Tennessee, and Florida elections.)

Meanwhile, Democrats usually stand flatfooted against a Republican steamroller campaign and have never really learned how to counterpunch political attacks, even when grossly false. They have never learned the British art of the surgical oratorical cut, the comeback that exposes the untruth of your opponent in one sentence. Sometimes, no matter your druthers, you just have to fight back and respond in kind and call dishonesty out. Americans do not like dirty politics or blatant misdeeds, but they do like a fighter who will show strength about his/her convictions and a willingness to stand and fight for them. (See Michael Dukakis and John Kerry who didn’t, versus Bill Clinton who did.)

A political campaign is no place for a philosophical discussion. The voting public does not have the time or the attention span for that. You need simple goals expressed in simple tag lines with the details in the file cabinet (or web site) – but not too many details! (See Ronald Reagan presidential debates, Richard Nixon’s “secret peace plan,” versus Al Gore and John Kerry speaking in tongues in paragraphs.)

Scott Brown rode in a pickup truck and proposed “a Jack Kennedy tax cut” while simultaneously decrying deficit spending. We already tried that from 2000 – 2008, when Republicans piled on the spending rather than cutting it, and can we see the results? But the juxtaposition of these two conflicting ideas has never bothered any Republican. And it has always left Democrats scrambling on the defensive for how to say “no” to tax cuts without seeming to pick the middle class pocket. (See George W. Bush on the ranch in his pickup, looking like everyman’s beer buddy.)

American voters have such a short memory. The last three Republican presidencies each ended on a financial downturn from events accumulated during their term. Reagan, who began the dismantling of financial regulation, ended with a collapse of the savings and loan (remember those?) industry (a preview of the 2008 bank collapse), with an unstable voodoo economic instrument (remember “junk bonds”?), and large deficits from tax cuts that never trickled down to the middle class. George H.W. Bush left the country in recession, which Bill Clinton turned into an economic boom with a government budget surplus by 2000. George W. Bush left us nearing depression from the almost-collapse of the entire financial infrastructure world-wide, based upon yet another phony financial instrument (derivatives) along with our first trillion dollar deficit. So why would we turn to that same political party espousing the same economic policies who have no credibility to restore fiscal stabilization?

In the wake of Republican wins in 2 governorship and 1 senate races, the media and Republican leadership talk is all about some supposed Republican comeback. This restoration is supposedly built on a middleclass revolt against Democratic proliferate spending. But I think that is a false read. Is the populace angry? Yes, that seems clear. But I think they are now mad at everyone in political power, regardless of party or philosophy, particularly the “independent” voter. Mad at national, state and local incumbents. They are angry at being ignored, left behind, looking at a governing system that is lost and aimless, and not working almost anywhere. The political process is ugly, the wealthy are overtly calling the shots in the backrooms, the only economic trickle is up, corruption and dishonesty among politicians seems rampant, and political gamesmanship is the only thing seemingly important. Republican political stonewalling is as repugnant as Democratic deficit spending when people are looking for responsive solutions. Everyday middle class people, just trying to make it through the day, who need basic services and fairness from all levels of government, are feeling left out, powerless, unheard, and overwhelmed by it all, with no productive place to put their frustrated energies. So before anyone counts their electoral chickens prematurely, I suspect most all incumbents should be concerned. Is a whole new deck of cards held by brand new players the only way to break the impasse of these last years?

We need to prepare ourselves for a tough 2010. I wish this would not be so, but I am doubtful. More incumbents opting to bail out of the 2010 election. Complete paralysis of Congress as obstructionist senate Republicans hold it hostage to the 60-vote filibuster rule, rejecting any presidential/Democratic initiative just to prevent a success, so that nothing substantive gets done. Politics becomes even more of a simple blood sport, to no one’s benefit except the politicians themselves. And cable news incites everything to a screaming frenzy. In this period of irrelevant governments, most of us will be left to find our own solutions in spite of government.

After all of this is done, where will we find ourselves on Wednesday, November 3, 2010?