A friend who shares my concerns about Indiana’s governance for the next few years sent me a news link intended to cheer me up–sort of. His point was that it could be worse. We could live in Texas.
Over the years, when I have needed examples of truly bad policies as illustrations in my Law and Policy classes, Texas has often supplied those examples. I’d begun to think that the Texan fixation with secession may not be so misplaced; in fact, an amicable divorce was beginning to look pretty attractive. My friend’s link reinforced that opinion.
Peter Morrison, treasurer of the Hardin County Republican Party in Texas, suggests in his newsletter that the state should have an “amicable divorce” from the “maggots” who re-elected Obama.
Morrison posted on his Facebook page his post-election thoughts: “We must contest every single inch of ground and delay the baby-murdering, tax-raising socialists at every opportunity. But in due time, the maggots will have eaten every morsel of flesh off of the rotting corpse of the Republic, and therein lies our opportunity.”
“Texas was once its own country, and many Texans already think in nationalist terms about their state,” Morrison continued. “We need to do everything possible to encourage a long-term shift in thinking on this issue. Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government? Let each go her own way in peace, sign a free trade agreement among the states and we can avoid this gut-wrenching spectacle every four years.”
Reached for comment by Bud Kennedy at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Kent Batman, the chairman of the Hardin County Republican Party, said: “Wow.”
“OK, well — I guess I need to start taking a look at his newsletters,” Batman said.
This guy is an official of the Texas Republican Party. That’s bad enough. But even worse, the Chairman of the State Board of Education picked Morrison to screen the state’s public-school textbooks.
There have always been dueling American “myths” about who we are as a nation, and those national self-images clashed mightily during this year’s election. On the one hand, we had the “Christian Nation” folks and their enablers, the pundits and politicians whose appeal for our votes could be summed up by the often-intoned promise to “take back” the country.
From whom? They never said, but the implication was clear: from those Others. The non-white, non-native-born, non-Jesus-loving, non “real” Americans.
On the other hand, there were the growing percentages of the electorate who fell into those categories. As Eugene Robinson described in his column this morning:
Nationwide, roughly three of every 10 voters Tuesday were minorities. African-Americans chose Obama by 93 percent, Latinos by 71 percent, and Asian-Americans, the nation’s fastest-growing minority, by 73 percent.
These are astounding margins, and I think they have less to do with specific policies than with broader issues of identity and privilege. I think that when black Americans saw Republicans treat President Obama with open disrespect and try their best to undermine his legitimacy, they were offended. When Latinos heard Republicans insist there should be no compassion for undocumented immigrants, I believe they were angered. When Asian-Americans heard Republicans speak of China in almost “Yellow Peril” terms, I imagine they were insulted.
On Tuesday, the America of today asserted itself. Four years ago, the presidential election was about Barack Obama and history. This time, it was about us — who we are as a nation — and a multihued, multicultural future.
Power doesn’t pass easily. Very few people yield privilege willingly. Change of any sort is disruptive and unsettling. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised at the ugliness that has emerged during this period of social and political evolution, but it’s hard not to wish for a more graceful, even enthusiastic, acceptance of change. After all, our diversity–and our professed willingness to forge the “many” into “one”–has been a constant point of American pride.
However reluctantly, the nation is in the process of living up to that motto. We’ve chosen our myth.
There are plenty of Americans who aren’t happy with our multi-cultural reality. They’ll need to get over it.
Indiana proved to be an outlier. Except for the (predicted) victory by Mike Pence–and the fact that Republican extremists will have pretty much total control of Indiana government for at least the next two years–last night was satisfying. And even here, there were bright spots: Mourdock proved that even in Indiana, crazy doesn’t sell. (He should have taken a page from Pence’s book and refused to talk until after the election). Glenda Ritz defeated Tony Bennett, who never learned to play nice with other children. IPS got three new Commissioners who are likely to take the job of improving the schools seriously–and who are unlikely to rubber-stamp Eugene White’s decisions.
The best news was national. I’m still sifting through results, but I’m no longer waiting to exhale. The President won comfortably–a blowout in the electoral vote and a comfortable margin in the popular vote. The Democrats actually increased their margin in the Senate–something that really shouldn’t have happened, given the seats that were in play. And for the first time ever, marriage equality measures won at the ballot box.
It will be a few days until all the details are available, but Republican strategists should have listened to whoever it was who said “demography is destiny.” Or as Lindsay Graham put it a couple of months ago, there aren’t enough old white men to keep the Republican party afloat.
Okay–no big post today. Today is fingernail-biting/pundit-watching/whatever-happens-it’s- finally-over day. There will be time to chew over the results later.
A friend sent me an email with a small medallion attached; it said “Stay calm and trust Nate Silver.” Good advice–if not for the nagging concerns raised by the widespread efforts at voter suppression and intimidation. I can’t help contrasting two governors: Andrew Cuomo in New York, and Rick Scott in Florida. In the wake of storm Sandy, Cuomo has issued an executive order allowing New Yorkers to vote at any polling place. They just need to submit an affidavit that they are registered, and that the storm damaged their usual voting site. In contrast, Florida Governor Rick Scott has “purged” voter rolls of thousands of properly registered citizens, mostly minorities, and closed down early voting sites.
I hope the response to Scott and the others, like Ohio Secretary of State Husted, is a greater determination to exercise the franchise they are trying so hard to deny to the “wrong kind” of voters.
Tomorrow is election day–and I plan to breathe a sigh of relief, not just because the polls suggest generally albeit not totally sane consequences, but because we’ll have a respite from the incessant ads, if not from the punditry. (The effect of Hurricane Sandy, the impact of Facebook and Twitter, the various Wars on women, immigrants, poor people….the one prediction I am utterly sure of is that there will be two favored theories for every one talking head.)
I’m actually working on a theory of my own. It doesn’t explain any election result, and it may well be proven wrong when all is said and done, but I think it’s worth considering. I think Citizens United may have backfired on some of the people who were most elated when the decision was handed down, the people who were so certain the decision would give them the wherewithal to win big.
What do we know now about the unbelievable piles of money that were thrown at this year’s election?
Well, it muddled a lot of messages. All those SuperPacs, with their own consultants and PR “experts” didn’t necessarily adopt the messaging favored by the campaigns they weighed in on. The result in many places was a constant din of competing ads that didn’t reinforce any particular argument or advance a predetermined campaign theme. In some cases, this actually worked against the candidates the SuperPacs supported.
We also know that a lot of that money was wasted. (I don’t care, but I bet there are some corporate shareholders who do.) Not only was money wasted on inconsistent messaging, it was wasted by being spent independently on radio and television advertising . Broadcasters have to sell time to candidates at a discounted rate; they don’t have to offer that favorable rate to SuperPacs and other independent entities, and they don’t. Giving money to the campaign and allowing the campaign to buy the air time (as was the case before the Court opened the money gates) thus produced a much greater “bang for the buck.”
There have also been a number of reports of last minute spending sprees by the SuperPacs in states that are uncontested–states where the Presidential vote is a given and there is no other high-profile race to be influenced. Maybe it’s a last minute effort to drive up popular vote totals, but I doubt it–at this point, everyone but Seamus the dog has decided who they are voting for, and even if they haven’t, the airwaves are so saturated, new ads are probably occupying that coveted 2:00 am slot that used to be Ronco’s. It’s more likely that this last minute spending binge is being promoted by the only people other than broadcasters who have really benefitted from Citizens United–the politicians, consultants and media buyers running the SuperPacs and 527s.
Perhaps the most ironic consequence of all, however, is slowly dawning on state political parties. As several pundits have pointed out, SuperPacs have nationalized the election to an unprecedented degree. One result is that state party chairs who initially welcomed the prospect of big bucks flowing into their coffers have found their own influence and control considerably diminished. (It’s the Golden Rule, fellas: he who has the gold, rules.)
When Citizens United was decided, there was considerable glee among Republicans, especially, who felt–not without reason–that the ensuing flood of dollars would mostly benefit the GOP. Many of the political people I know–on both sides of the aisle–believed that a virtually unlimited supply of corporate money would assure a Romney romp to victory and would grease the numerically probable Republican takeover of the Senate. Both outcomes look pretty dubious right now, although anything can happen between now and Tuesday; should Romney pull out a win, it will be by a hair, and at this writing, the Senate takeover looks pretty unlikely.
An old political friend of mine likes to remind me that, in contests where the opposing candidates both have sufficient resources to get their messages out, the guy with more money doesn’t necessarily win. If a candidate is gaffe-prone, clueless or generally unlikeable–or if he has a message that voters reject–campaign cash alone usually won’t fix that. Money can buy a lot of lipstick, but as a general rule, if people decide your candidate’s a pig, lipstick isn’t enough.
I hope he’s right. Right or wrong, we’ll know soon.
