Category Archives: Random Blogging

The Vision Thing

Matt Tully and Erika Smith are the most perceptive-and provocative-commentators at the Indianapolis Star, and I agree with them more often than not. So when I opened Tully’s column this morning, I was inclined to agree with his basic thesis: Indianapolis needs a leader with a bold vision for what the city could become.

But.

What, exactly, is “vision”? I agree that it isn’t the issuance of ten-point plans, or plaintive explanations of good intentions. On the other hand, I think Tully is conflating vision with charisma. Vision, it seems to me, is the ability to articulate a coherent plan to move the city to a clearly identified place–i.e., we might say our vision is to create a city in which residents feel safe, can find employment, inhabit a vibrant arts community, and enjoy public amenities. Vision is evidenced by connecting those “ten-point plans” to each other in service of an overall goal, by showing an understanding of the importance of public transportation, for example, to both quality of life and economic development. As readers of this blog already know, I do not see that vision–or the management skills to achieve a vision–as attributes of our current mayor. (What is Ballard’s vision for Indianapolis after we’ve sold off all our infrastructure, I wonder.)

Bill Hudnut was widely seen as visionary, and I agree with that assessment, but he was also charismatic. Six feet four, with a commanding presence, a gift for public speaking, he could look visionary promoting the “Clean City” initiative. Neither Ballard nor Kennedy is charismatic, but that isn’t the same thing as a lack of vision.

And when we do go to the polls to vote for one of them, we need to take into account not only their stated goals, not only whether we think those goals are reasonable ones, but the likeliness that they have what it takes to achieve them.

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They All Count the Same in the Win/Loss Column

Numbers don’t lie, but you do have to ask them the right questions.

The most recent jobs report-as we all know by now–was awful. Totally flat. There were no net jobs added in August. If we ask “how many more people are working” the answer we get from these numbers is grim. The natural conclusion is that the administration is failing to enact policies that spur job creation.

If we ask a different question, however, we get a different picture–one with dramatically different policy implications.

In August, according to the report, hiring by the private sector was offset by job losses in the public sector. In other words, the savage attacks on public sector employees being waged by governors in a number of states (not just Wisconsin and Ohio), and their insistence on reducing the size of government, are preventing the sort of robust recovery we need.

This wholesale reduction of public sector employment has consequences that its proponents either don’t understand or prefer to ignore. A person without a job no longer pays taxes. He no longer consumes, or at least drastically reduces consumption, and that reduction means lower profits for businesses, which then pay lower taxes and forgo adding workers. Those consequences occur whether the lost job was in the public sector or the private sector.

Back when we had reporters with some experience and media outlets that employed such reporters, there would have been at least some attention paid to the issue of where the job losses occurred. But that was then, this is now.

As my husband reminds me when a bad call causes a team to lose a game they’d otherwise have won, fair or unfair, they all count the same in the won/lost column. So I guess this will count as Obama’s fault. Damn socialist!

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A Clear Choice

Yesterday, the Indianapolis Star did profiles of the candidates for Mayor, and focused on their respective “visions.” It was easy to agree with Melina Kennedy’s priorities–education, economic development and public safety–but in fairness, despite successful performance as Deputy Mayor charged with economic development in the Peterson Administration, she hasn’t been responsible for public safety or education. That’s an inescapable element of elections–voters have to decide which candidate is most likely to fulfill such pledges. Ballard promised to reduce crime when he ran four years ago, and despite his insistence that being a Marine was preparation for combating crime and managing the complexities of a 21st Century urban metropolis, has been unable to do so.

Let me be honest: there is no way I would vote for Mayor Ballard in November. His manifest lack of background for the job, and his subsequent dependence upon the political insiders who have actually run the city,  determined my vote before I ever knew who would run against him. And I am very impressed with Kennedy–who, I will remind everyone, is NO RELATION. But if I had any inclination to rethink my evaluation of this Mayor, his response to the Star yesterday would have killed it.

Here is the Mayor’s defense of his performance. “After three years in office, Ballard, 56, has faced frequent criticism from Democrats and others that he has lacked a coherent vision. He says they aren’t paying enough attention. He points to efforts to regain control of the city Police Department, privatize parking meters, rein in city and county spending and commit public money to private development projects. And his sale of the city’s water and sewer utilities kick-started his RebuildIndy infrastructure project with $425 million in proceeds.”

Let’s deconstruct that response. He has “made an effort” to regain control of the Police Department. That effort has been visibly, embarrassingly unsuccessful. The FOP endorsed his opponent, backing a Democrat for the first time in 50 years. More importantly, crime–despite some creative statistical spin by the Administration–is up. Worse still, the increase is most notable in the “violent” category. Most significant for the Mayor’s political prospects, people in Indianapolis feel less safe than they did four years ago.

Ballard also cited efforts to reign in spending. He had no choice; the ill-conceived property tax caps made it imperative. Those tax caps are choking cities throughout Indiana, forcing cuts to important services. Incredibly, in the very next sentence following that boast about his efforts to reduce spending, he lists as an “accomplishment” that he committed public money to private development projects. (Not to mention, sports teams and venues.)

Can we spell tone-deaf?

But what REALLY pissed me off was the Mayor’s evidently pride in his decision to privatize water and sewer services and parking meters. I’ve written a lot about these wrongheaded transactions, especially the 50-year giveaway of parking revenue the city desperately needs, and some of the ethical concerns surrounding it. But I’ll just quote a good friend of mine–a very successful businessman, civic leader and long-time Republican: You don’t sell capital assets to fund operations. Businesses that do so are soon bankrupt.

If Ballard’s list of “accomplishments” is indicative of his “vision,” we’d better be sure to elect Melina Kennedy.

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The Whys of Bests and Worsts

At my age, everyday events/experiences can trigger all sorts of semi-philosophical questions. Yesterday was one of those days.

In the afternoon, I took my car in to Downtown Car Care to have them look at a funny noise. Downtown Car Care is one of those vanishing places where “customer service” isn’t a phrase shouted from the TV screen by a pitchman surrounded by a lot of chrome–it’s a couple of guys who really, actually know what they are doing. There’s nothing fancy–their dusty, messy office was the waiting room until a coffee shop opened across the street–but they know their customers, and take care of them, because they depend on repeat business. And honest? A few years ago my middle son was in town; his car’s front seat mechanism–the thing that allows the seat to adjust–hadn’t worked for several weeks. He’d taken it to the dealership, and they told him the entire mechanism had to be replaced, and that would cost 800+. I told him to take it to Downtown Car Care for a second opinion and they fixed it. For 39 dollars. Anyway, they found my noise, fixed it, and I went home.

Later that evening, Bob and I met a friend at the Old National parking lot (aka the Murat Center, aka Murat Temple), the site of a “food truck” event. This was a new event, and it was–as my friend put it–a really cool idea.  Food trucks are a relatively new part of the Indianapolis scene, and the idea was to bring a number of them to the parking lot, add music and sell wine. Great idea–terrible execution.

We got there about half an hour after it opened, paid for our $3 tickets and walked in past a cart selling jewelery. Don’t ask me why that was there. There were seven or eight food trucks parked along the Alabama street side of the lot, and two of those were ice-cream/desserts. A number of the best-known didn’t participate. There  weren’t many people there at that point—it may have picked up later, but I hadn’t seen any publicity about it beforehand. Mayor Ballard was there with his wife and ever-present bodyguard. (I was so tempted to ask him why, if crime is down as he keeps insisting, he needs to take a bodyguard or two everywhere he goes. But I digress.) A DJ was playing “music” (note quotes) at such an ear-splitting volume that it was actually uncomfortable. Several people covered their ears, and you couldn’t talk to the person next to you.

It was obvious that very little thought or preparation went into this event. There was inadequate promotion. There were far too few food trucks, and that was just for the scattered crowd in attendance–if a lot of people had come, lines would have been far too long. The choice and volume of music were particularly odd: since alcohol was available, no one under 21 was admitted; it was First Friday, so organizers should have anticipated drawing from the many art lovers drawn to the area, very few of whom were likely to appreciate the pulsing, screeching “music.” Perhaps the folks at Old National, which sponsored the event, belonged to the “just build the damn thing and they will come” school of thought.

When I was raising a houseful of kids, I used to give them the same sermon most of us deliver to our children: if you want to succeed, you need to study and learn everything about whatever job you ultimately take, so that you know what you are doing.  (After all, most jobs aren’t like politics.) If you want your clients or customers to keep coming back, you have to provide them with value for their dollars. That, after all, is what capitalism is supposed to be all about.

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Sticks and Stones

I largely agree with Matt Tully’s “take” on Andre Carson’s controversial words in this morning’s Star. As Tully notes, Carson has been a substantive, hard-working legislator who has steadily gained stature, and the language he employed was unnecessary to and a distraction from the points he was trying to make. “Why,” Tully asks, did Carson deviate from his usual civil demeanor?

I agree with Tully that this was out of character and unfortunate. I also have a possible answer to his question “why?”

If I were an African-American Congressman who’d been spit on, who had watched the country’s first black President demeaned from the first day he was elected, who had seen the racist emails, the “clever” signs with watermelon patches on the White House lawn, the posters at Tea Party gatherings showing Obama as a witch doctor–if I had heard colleagues on the floor of the U.S. House ask for “proof” that the President was born in the USA, and political figures supported by the Tea Party call for repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Rand Paul)–if I had heard Rep. Peter King compare a settlement of the discrimination lawsuit by black farmers to “reparations”…..well, I could go on, but I’ll stop there–I might address the motives of these people in less than civil language.

The Tea Party spokesmen who are demanding an “apology” insist that only a small fringe is responsible for the racist signs at their rallies. Perhaps they are right–but I must have missed their calls for those people to apologize.

A lot of people who are well-meaning and not racist will excuse the bile and excessive, irrational hatred of the President by comparing it to Bush hatred. The problem with that comparison is that most of us who came to detest Bush really were reacting to his behavior in office. Most of us were agnostic about him early in his tenure, as polling from that time reflects, and if you asked us why we were so angry with the administration, most of us could give you a long list of policy decisions with which we strongly disagreed . In contrast, the venom directed at this President began before he even assumed office.

I had a recent conversation with a woman who self-identified as a member of the Tea Party, and asked her why she hated Obama. “He’s a socialist,” she told me. Leaving aside the fact that Obama’s “socialism” would have placed him in the middle of the Republican party back when I ran as a Republican, I asked her for an example. “Obamacare,” she said. I asked her if she was aware that “Obamacare” was pretty much the same program advocated by Bob Dole and actually enacted in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney. She refused to believe me. “Ok, what other evidence of Obama’s socialism is there?” No response. “What other proposals/policies has he advocated that you disagree with? “He’s a socialist, and he’s Muslim and he wasn’t even born in this country!”

I know there are Tea Party people who aren’t racist, aren’t hysterical, and who have genuine policy differences with the President that they can articulate. Unfortunately,they aren’t spending their time trying to weed out the folks carrying banners with the “N word” or those self-identified Tea Partiers who post to this blog (I spam them) to argue that Obama wants to give all “our” tax money to lazy drug-using mothers who have children so they can live on welfare.

None of this excuses the use of uncivil language. But it sure goes a long way toward explaining it.

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