The Party's Over (Thank God)

The 2012 election was an endless dinner party whose guests showed up drunk, puked on the pets, and set the rug on fire. Now it's morning in America, and the house is trashed. There's a big screen TV on the lawn, there's a copy of Atlas Shrugged in the toilet, and there's pudding in the blender [Who the hell put pudding in the blender?]. I'm trying to coax the cats back into the living room. I'm saying, "It's over, kitties. Those awful people are gone." The felines know better though; the guests are still here. Some are sleeping, snoring, drooling. Yet a few are pre-gaming for the next big bash, God love 'em. They are, after all, us.

We voted (some of us, at least) on November 6th, but we also expressed our every thought on this grand debate, extolling our opinions all over Facebook, Twitter, and, for all I know, Instagram. We posted and we tweeted and we exclaimed, loudly, that these two candidates somehow reflect the Manichean cosmos of America, blithely ignoring our quiet doubts that the candidates never really debated, not in a meaningful way. Somehow we know that this election cycle was a war between pundits and handlers and flaks who battle only for their own aggrandizement. Party politics as reality television. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo in '16.

Yes, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney offered distinct agendas. And I preferred one to the other. I still do. Yet I know - and you know it too - that the parties who sustain them represent nothing more than a singular culture industry, a machine that produces little more than sound and fury, bread and circuses. At times it felt like we were watching a Coke-vs.-Pepsi Taste Test and actually caring about which sugar water quenches our thirst. It's a game of dissemination, not dialogue, and we're rotting with every corn syrup swig.

A few folks eschewed the vitriolic attacks and bumper sticker discourse that marked this sad, silly season. Jenny, to great credit, attempted a sane and responsible conversation over the past few months, even as some of her Facebook friends became increasingly unhinged. She explored the issues, read broadly, and struggled to make the right call. She tried to vote for both faith and facts. All too frequently, though, many of us abandoned our better angels. I certainly did.

More than once I said to some pals how much I hated Mitt Romney. Hated him. Not just for his policies (whatever they were that particular week) but for his pandering, his cynicism, and that sanctimonious half-smile that invariably preceded a lie. I hated him for the day, years ago, when he supposedly led a pack of prep school bullies to beat up a kid and cut his hair. I hated him for that dismissal of 47 percent of Americans as too lazy and too weak to be born a millionaire. And I hated his cowardly genuflection to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump. I admit it, I sometimes enjoyed how much I hated Mitt Romney, the clarity of it all.

And now the party's over and we're stuck with the mess. Mitt Romney will probably find a way to make a few more millions. But he'll still hang around too, if only because those Americans who voted for him aren't going anywhere. His partisans are no less sure of their votes now than before election night, and I can't blame them. We could take a walk of shame, but we'd wind up together, right (and left) where we started. It's our house, after all. Honestly I'm not sure how to start cleaning up the mess we've made. The cats are still freaked out, a stench is beginning to rise, and that gunk in the blender? I'm not sure it's pudding. At least I can take some solace in a few wise words I heard on Tuesday night:

"This is a time of great challenges for America, and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation… The nation, as you know, is at a critical point. At a time like this, we can’t risk partisan bickering and political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people’s work… This election is over, but our principles endure."

Those are good words, decent words. They remind us of our obligation to be a little kinder to each other, a bit more tolerant of our different beliefs, and a lot more humble. We Americans are a contentious bunch. Always have been, always had to be. We've faced imperial constraint, civil war, economic collapse, and totalitarian advance - and somehow we've stuck together. Better yet, somehow we've managed to expand the sphere of public life, slowly, to include more and more of us. We've been better than this past four years, and we can be better again.

"This election is over, but our principles endure."

Well spoken, Governor Romney.

Stop the Ad-Madness

Remember bell-bottoms?

I grew up in the seventies, and I remember how it seemed that everyone wore goofy pants with flared cuffs that appeared tailor-made for showing off those stylish platform shoes that were also popular back then. Just to be clear: I don't mean a little bit of flair, like you might see today. I'm talking about street-sweeping size-flair. Charlie's Angels-cast-off flair! The 70s, at least in terms of fashion, were a dark time for America. Sometime around the 1980s, though, the bell-bottom fad faded away.

Sure, some folks still wore 'em. Some folks still do - and God bless those brave retro-fashion souls. Yet most people have decided that bell-bottoms look kind of silly. And the companies that once produced wildly flared jeans have since learned to adjust their styles or go out of business. It didn't take a grand campaign to rid the world of 1970s-era bell-bottoms. It simply took a choice to look in the mirror and say, "I'm not going to do this anymore."

So if we could collectively opt out of the bell-bottom craze, abandoning it to the land of disco music and pet rocks, why can't we tell the politicians that their annoying, insulting, and manipulative campaign ads, radio spots, and robo-calls are out of step with the times? Why don't we demand a change of political fashion?

Given that we're in the middle of a presidential race now, it's possibly unreasonable to expect such a transformation in this year. But in 2016 I intend to support a presidential candidate who pledges not to run a single campaign ad. Not one ad. No television attacks, no radio pitches, no telephone intrusions. 

[NOTE: Such a pledge will also require the candidate to firmly disavow any ads run by third-parties - on a daily basis, if need be. I should add that this proposal applies only to the post-primary presidential race. I haven't a clue about how to clean up the primary process.]

When it comes to the final two or three candidates in the presidential race, I will only support one who promises to limit her or his campaign communications to a handful of messages: perhaps a website, a newspaper editorial, a YouTube video, and maybe a book.

Taking a page from Newt Gingrich, my ideal candidate will also pledge to compete in a series of Lincoln-Douglas-style debates. These unmoderated debates, organized by the campaigns themselves, would allow candidates to state their policies, plans, and goals without interruption - taking turns to explain their cases, refute their opponents, bolster their claims, and summarize their arguments.

The debates, potentially lasting three hours or more, would be held in various locations around the country, thereby inviting candidates to demonstrate their grasp on regional issues. Each debate would surely receive full coverage by even the most stridently partisan news networks. Together, these debates, in addition to the other messages shared by candidates, would help Americans make a reasoned choice about our next president.

Well, that's my plan. It requires no government mandate, no unconstitutional restrictions, no complex rule-changes. It's a personal choice, the decision to say, "If you want my support, you'll stop the ad-madness and communicate clearly about what you intend to do for our country." It's an individual decision to abandon bad political fashion, one vote at a time.

Think about it. We stopped wearing bell-bottoms, we stopped wearing leisure suits, and we stopped wearing mood rings. I know we can stop the ad-madness too.

I'll explore some ideas to implement this proposal in the near future.

Demand-Side Political Reform

Yesterday I was thinking about the interminable nature of modern political campaigns - focusing especially on the blizzard of inane television advertisements that accompany almost any serious race for national office. Most folks despise these ads. They also hate the mailers, the radio spots, and the robo-calls. Yet we're told that candidates need these weapons to win their campaigns.

One result - beyond the barrage of annoying ads - is a political system that compels politicians to cater to powerful interests who can bundle together insane amounts of money to purchase all those campaign spots. For members of the U.S. House who face two-year terms, that means a perpetual campaign. From their first day in office, each representative must begin raising money for the next election. Senators and presidents may enjoy more breathing room, but they are hardly freed from the demands of fundraising. Someday soon, they'll need to run new spots that cost money. Lots of money.

And while individual donations are limited by law, a plethora of soft money sources ensure that special interests are free to raise the stakes year after year. You can bet that the Supreme Court's recent decision allowing corporations to throw virtually unlimited amounts of money into the system rigs the game even more against us. It's an arms race, with each campaign raising the stakes to unfathomable heights. Thus this year's presidential election alone could cost over two billion dollars - much of that money meant to buy ads that no one wants.

How can we disarm this crazy political system?

A supply-side solution would mandate public financing for all campaigns, requiring candidates to restrict their spending to those limits, kind of like ensuring that each side in a war starts with the same number of weapons. Such an approach may sound "fair," but few serious candidates would consider that option these days, particularly with all that soft money sloshing around. Moreover, a supply-side restriction would run afoul of constitutional free speech provisions (especially in today's judicial climate).

The larger problem, though, is not the financing of ads but rather the ads themselves. Fewer ads, or the same number of ads per candidate, fails to address this issue. Typically built to shove carefully calibrated soundbites into 30- or 60-second increments, most campaign spots trade reasoned discourse for bumper sticker thinking. They work that way because campaign advisors tell their candidates that people will not tolerate more thoughtful forms of discourse.

If those advisors are correct, if we will not sit still long enough to consider all the arguments for one candidate over another, if we're willing to suffer the onslaught of ads that we actually hate, then perhaps we deserve our dysfunctional government: a rigged game where practical, moderate, bipartisanship is abandoned as politicians chase the money to pump ever more shrill, ever more ubiquitous advertisements into our lives.

But what if the political hacks are wrong? What if we chose to expect thoughtful discourse from our candidates, vowing not to tolerate the television spots, the radio blather, and the robo-attacks? What if we initiated a demand-side solution? The idea I offer may sound naive, it might appear overly simplistic, and it will surely need substantial refinement. But it promises at least some improvement over our current mess.

Tomorrow: I'll share some specifics on a plan to disarm from this pointless war.

Tired of the Endless Campaign?

Jon Stewart, as usual, conveyed some sense of the absurdity of the GOP primaries, recently comparing the candidates with a Whitman's Sampler. Poking through the dreary selections, Stewart dispensed with Michelle Bachman (too nutty) and Rick Santorum (too gooey), concluding that Republicans will dilly and dally - only to select the boring chocolate square in the center: Mitt Romney ("the little messenger boy" covered in gobs of "Santorum").

Still, I don't think Stewart went quite far enough. You see, much of his argument relied on the supposedly shared assumption that most folks wade through many of Whitman's offerings while enjoying few of them. Maybe I'm alone here, but I like pretty much everything that comes in a Whitman's box. Yeah, even the cherry cordial. [OK, maybe I said too much here.]

Sure, few people will agree on which candy tastes best. That's why the boring choice usually wins a popularity contest. Indeed, as much as I'd like to believe that Michelle Bachman suspended her campaign this morning once Iowans had concluded that she's bat-shit crazy, I know that many voters base their choices on electability rather than sanity. At the same time, plenty of people genuinely like Bachman's brand of battiness. Nuts can be popular too, even if they fail to win the mainstream taste-test.

So I was thinking this morning: what's something that pretty much all people agree that they dislike, even more than those occasionally regrettable Whitman's choices? Let's see. Reflecting on the past month, I'll bet all of us can remember at least one holiday party we attended just because we were expected to be there. Yet most folks still like holiday parties, yes? OK, how about fruitcakes? Who really likes fruitcakes? Maybe a smaller number of people. But some folks like 'em. Not ironically but for real.

Yet there is one thing, no matter the season, that almost everyone hates: television campaign advertisements. Think about it. Even if you believe in the candidate, don't you get tired of seeing his or her face in your living room every five minutes? All those blathering platitudes, all those banal slogans, all those clichéd images. Does the candidate support education? Here comes the footage of fresh-faced school kids raising their hands all at once! Does the candidate have a plan to "get America back to work?" There's a hard-working joe turning a wrench.

And we all know the script for the opposition spot: eerie music, grainy photos, and that earnest, alarmed voice ("haven't we had enough of [whoever, whatever]?" We suffer the same drama season after season, and maybe we even believe that some candidates are "Bad For America." Yet I don't know a single person who actually likes the onslaught of campaign effluvia we must endure every two years. Not one. And yet we feel powerless to stop it. What can we do?

Well, I have one idea that, oddly enough, I borrow from Newt Gingrich. More tomorrow…

After Power

Drudge plucked another doom and gloom article from the Financial Times to highlight the depths of despair that is our due for having the audacity to hope that President Obama was the real deal. Generally I ignore these red flags, especially since the American Right appears to be dead set on taking Obama down. Even so, Gideon Rachman's essay makes the depressingly credible argument that our nation will inevitably be required to seed dominance to China, adding, "Those who refuse to entertain any discussion of decline actually risk accelerating the process." No matter who wins the 2012 elections, we all should prepare to lose our "We're Number One" attitude.

The article offers a reasonable enough parallel between our decline and that of Great Britain after the Second World War, adding, however, that our approaches toward also-ran status couldn't be more distinct. While Britain faced the loss of empire with a certain magnanimity, the U.S. is far too invested in its "American Exceptionalism" identity to recognize the passing of power. Some among us, for instance, respond to the Rising China thesis with a smug reminder of our 1980s near-capitulation to Rising Japan. It's a fair point. Remember when Japan Inc was buying America from under our feet? Doesn't it seem strange to recall? I mean, really, when's the last time you heard someone say that we all must learn Japanese to stay competitive?

Still, as Rachman rightly points out, China's got tough numbers to beat. They're awash in money, they've got an increasingly potent military force, and they've got workers, workers, workers. They face their share of structural and fiscal problems too. We mustn't forget that. And all of us, the U.S., the Europeans, the Chinese - the whole world - we all confront an economic contagion that threatens to make the 2008 crisis seem positively healthy in comparison. The Occupy Wall Street protestors, for all their goofy eclecticism, seem to know this better than most. Something has deflated in the American psyche. A privileged few will ensure the continuation of their personal pleasures. The rest of us will pay the price. China is part of that new future. But they are hardly its author.

Read the piece: America must manage its decline

Tonight's State of the Union

Wary promises that some members of congress might break tradition and deign to organize themselves in groups not aligned solely to exacerbate our deep cultural divide do little to assuage the sense that the state of our union is anything but strong. No, we're not in Civil War-mode, not really. Heck, I imagine that folks who endured the 60s could point to even more profound fissures in our nation a mere four decades ago. Still, President Obama faces a large and rowdy contingent of lawmakers who seem more indebted to Tea Party bombthrowing than to managing the people's business.

Health care reform (remember that?) is getting wound up for a second serving of anything-goes partisanship. Threats of a government shutdown are echoing through the halls of Congress (as opposed to the plodding of tourists who are now safely isolated from much the Capital Building - another loss to our grim post-9/11 world). And then there are various wingnut committee chairs bent on raining two years of nonstop investigatory fury on a president they'd cheerfully send to a Guantanamo Bay if they could. They presume, I suppose, that all this poison will bleed dry once the other side takes over, that then they'll do half the things they promised their constituents ("Department of Education? Sold to the University of Phoenix. IRS? New headquarters for the Chamber of Commerce!"

Pundits will opine that tonight's State of the Union will mark a major milestone in the Obama presidency - maybe one of those "make or break moments." Yeah. Problem is, they all are. Each speech is a crisp, clear moment of clarity that somehow blurs into the muddy maw of legal wrangling, vicious brinksmanship, pious grandstanding, and guilty handwringing that defines American politics these days. Just how screwed up have things become? Here's a clue: Some people say that Ronald Reagan couldn't get the GOP nomination now; he'd be damned for being too liberal. If that's not a sign that the state of our union is really a mess, I don't know what is.

So good luck, Mr. President. We need it.