Honesty in Virginia Posted by Michael Signer

We had an exciting development last week in my home commonwealth of Virginia.  Tim Kaine, the Democratic candidate for Governor, was elected by a stunning margin of 6 points. 

That a progressive candidate won so decisively in a state that's ostensibly as red as Scooter Libby's butt right now was no small matter.  I think the case can be made that a new progressive model has been developed in Virginia, and that every progressive should sit up and pay attention, especially in light of the President's astonishing Veteran's Day speech -- followed up, in true form, by a jaw-dropping Ken Mehlman performance on Meet the Press.   (This nugget was particularly priceless:  Russent: "16 of the 19 issues we presented to the people, they chose the Democrats.  Your party's in trouble?"  Mehlman:  "Tim, usually, when I get a poll like that, I will fire the pollster.  That's my response that I usually do to that.")

The gravamen of the President's speech was that (1) Congressional Democrats should share the blame for anything that's gone wrong in Iraq -- but that, wait, (2) nothing's gone wrong in Iraq. 

If you have trouble connecting the dots logically between the two points, don't worry -- that is, in fact, the point.  The lack of a rational or policy-based connection between the purposes lays bare the larger aim of the speech -- a political victory. 

As far away as Richmond is from the Beltway (actually only about an hour and a half), we've come up with an entirely different model of politics in Virginia, one that national-level Democrats would do well to learn from -- to borrow Bruce Jentleson's memorable phrase, we should be about results, not just resolve.

The essence of the Virginia model is that honesty can serve you well  -- even if it entails nuance and a certain political messiness.  Voters, it turns out, will extend you the benefit of the doubt -- as long as they see honesty in the context of hard work, sincerity, and good faith.

Governor Warner (for whom I currently work) has reached breathtaking approval ratings not by accident or fortune.  He started off his governorship under the thumb of a deficit created by Governor Jim Gilmore that had pretty much been swept under the rug. 

When the true depth of the crisis was uncovered, the Governor made a prime-time speech to the state where he disclosed the problem, and told Virginia that drastic measures were going to be required -- that everyone was going to have to share the pain to set our house in order.  Here's an excerpt:

At the end of the day, a budget shortfall of this magnitude cannot be solved with sound bites about "cutting the fat."  These budget reductions will affect vital services that Virginians count on, and there should be no attempt to disguise that fact. Let me give you some specific examples.

• Every DMV office across the state will close one day a week.  Twelve branch offices will close permanently.
• State support for local and regional libraries, and educational TV and radio will be reduced by 15 percent. The Library of Virginia will close one day a week, and many local libraries may shorten their hours as well.
• State support for local and state museums and the arts will be reduced by 15 percent. Some state museums will close one additional day a week.
• State support for cooperative extension will be reduced by 12 percent a year, eliminating 147 extension agents, faculty, and support positions.
• Funding for state colleges will be further reduced from 9 to 13 percent. Cuts for each college and university will vary, based on tuition level and percentage of students from outside Virginia.  The result will be larger classes, fewer course offerings, and for some students, perhaps additional time in order to graduate.
• State assistance for students who attend private colleges will be reduced 13 percent.

Refreshing, isn't it?  The budget-cutting was unpleasant, but he meant it -- and within a few weeks DMV offices were closing a day a week, while the Governor and his staff toiled into the midnight hours to try and get government working again.

It was difficult, but it worked politically -- perhaps precisely because it wasn't very political.  Throughout his tenure, the Governor has shown little interest in scoring political points -- in what he describes as "sound-bite politics."  His focus has always been on results -- on making government work for the people -- and on what he recently described, with an intentional prosaism, as getting "stuff done."

And so it was with Tim Kaine's campaign.  When he was attacked by conservatives for his faith-based opposition to the death penalty (he's a Catholic), he turned the tables -- not by politics or sound bites, but through honesty and nuance.  In a now-famous ad, he addressed the camera and explained that he would swear on the Bible to uphold the law, and that he would enforce the death penalty, despite his faith.

Virginians were convinced.  Kaine was elected Governor a couple of weeks later.

In the President's Veterans' Day speech, we saw the same stuff from the President we saw in Virginia from Jerry Kilgore, Kaine's opponent -- a fusillade of political ammunition directed at a political target for political ends.  Nothing about how to improve our situation in Iraq.  Nothing on the hard choice of how to withdraw and when.  Nothing about how to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. Nothing about whether a three-state solution, if emerging, ought to be controlled, massaged, or encouraged.  Nothing, in short, on what matters.

You reap what you sow.  The current whirlwind is the direct result of staging the first Congressional vote a mere three weeks before the mid-term 2002 elections.  This was a campaign move, like last Friday's speech.  Our soldiers are dying and Iraq is fragmenting because we never had a good plan.  We never had a good plan because the Administration never sold the country on the war.   And they never sold the country on the war because they approached it like a campaign, where they just needed to win a bare majority -- not lead the country.

It took the electorate a while to figure all this out -- after all, the Administration was playing hurry-up -- but they get it now.  And they're sick of it. 

If Congressional Democrats start taking a cue from Virginia and talking openly and honestly about what government can and should accomplish, recognizing and even embracing nuance, and disavowing politics for the sake of policy, they might just have a chance of driving a working vehicle through the Mack truck-size gap left by the DeLay/Meiers/Libby implosion.

Comments

[Dan Kervick]

Michael,

Excuse me if I decline to doublethink, and skip the witless cheerleading over this wonderful "new progressive model".

Let's review:

For several years now, Republicans have pursued a strategy of handing away massive tax cuts while running up huge deficits, thus producing their desired "fiscal train wreck". The idea is create budgetary facts on the ground which cannot be undone.

Sure enough, the hapless Democrats now come along, pat like the catastrophe in the old comedy, and propose draconian cuts in these deficit-ridden budgets. Yet there is nothing "progressive" about slashing the hell out of vital government programs in order to bring the budget back in line with the criminally meagre revenue streams dammed up by the Republicans.

Yes, it is good government to pass responsible budgets; it is sound public administration to keep expenditures roughly in line with revenues and vice versa. But there are progressive forms of good government and conservative forms. Conservatives prefer budgets that are balanced by funding teensy-tiny governments from itsy-bitsy revenues. Progressives prefer to fund activist governments from ampler revenues.

When Democrats come along and slash budgets to drop them down into line with low Republican-style revenues, they are not following a "new progressive model". They are simply executing phase II of a conservative Republican strategy. They are fulfilling Republican hopes beyond the Repubs wildest dreams.

Honesty and nuance may be fine things. But they are neither fine Democratic things nor fine Republican things; neither fine progressive things nor fine conservative things. One doesn't automatically earn a progressive star just by being honest and willing to advance "nuanced" policies - not that there is anything particularly nuanced about slashing spending.

[Mike Signer]

Dan: Whoah there, pardner. I'm not sure exactly to what you're referring, when you're talking about "slashing budgets" in Virginia. The next year, the Governor actually led a budget reform package that rebalanced the taxing policies of the Commonwealth and led to the largest investments in public education in Virginia's history.

But aside from nettlesome facts like this, what in the world are you talking about, when you say, "Conservatives prefer budgets that are balanced by funding teensy-tiny governments from itsy-bitsy revenues. Progressives prefer to fund activist governments from ampler revenues."

So you can only be a progressive if you like big government? If you're a lavish spender? That doesn't make any sense to me. The Governor got 140,000 more children on health insurance in Virginia -- not by spending a lot of new money, but by pushing the agency to reach out to its audience much more aggressively. That sounds "progressive" to me.

[Dan Kervick]

So you can only be a progressive if you like big government?

I don't know how big a government has to be to count as "big". But I would say you can only be a genuine progressive if you like bigger governments than conservatives. That's what American conservativism is all about, after all - small governments. How can someone honestly be a progressive who wants a government that is no bigger than conservative governments? Yet, rather than fall into the Republican rhetorical trap of saying progressives love Big Government, I would prefer to say that Republicans love Impoverished Government.

I would have thought that it was a truth universally acknowledged that what distinguishes progressives from conservatives is that progressives prefer activist government. And it is axiomatic that if you want a government that does more, then it is going to cost more to fund it. There is only so far you can go by finding innovative, smart government means of stretching the measly budgets that the Republicans leave you, and achieving new efficiencies.

Of course, one might argue that we do not live in a particularly progressive era; that we live in a hard-bitten age of uncompromising sink-or-swim self-reliance, unrelenting Social Darwinism, and a belief in the sanctity of individual ownership and the depravity of transfers from the rich to the poor; that the majority of Americans are self-regarding and tight-fisted penny-pinchers who despise the poor, have contempt for the unemployed and have little interest in educating and caring for the various have-nots of different colors.

This might be true. Hence perhaps the best Democrats can do these days is to avoid running genuine progressives, and instead run a few kinder, gentler Republicrat bean counters and efficiency experts. Unfortunately, I see this as a bleak and depressing national tragedy - a successful social colonization by the right, not a "new progressive model."

[Darin London]

Instead of focusing on 'Big Government Democrats' versus
'Small Government Republicans', why dont you exploit the
fact that, for the first time in my generation, we are witnessing 'Big Government Republicanism', which is Repuplicanism stripped bare of any pretense of the old 'Smaller, More Efficient Government' mantra that _WAS_ part of the 'Contract With America'. Ask people which kind of 'Big Government' they would prefer, and set out a mandate for how to get their using responsible government.

[David Shorr]

In case ther are others who have fallen behind in their DA reading. The word springing to my mind a lot lately is "maturity." I think the public is indeed more ready than we realize to face complex realities and difficult choices. In my own effort to spur a more mature debate about the UN, I talk not only about its ideals, but also its messy politics and nettlesome challenges.

[muhtar]

Thank you for your sharing.! seslichat seslisohbet

[cheap coach handbags]

Thank you for your sharing! I like i very much!