WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR IN A CANDIDATE?

A reply by Peter Bearse to a blog entry by Richard Barnes:

Richard Barnes has done well to try to refocus a discussion of the lead question. In his desire to shift the focus away from Chaz Proulz' emphasis on "the best organized, hardest working teams...", however, he too quickly moves on, bypassing factors important to campaign teams .

What about money -- the best financed teams? 2008 is well on the way to being a billion dollar plus plus political year, with hundreds of millions of dollars already raised and spent on the presidential race. Meanwhile, all NH major party candidates below the presidential level are aiming to join the million dollar club -- to fulfill the media's self-interested, self-fulfilling prophecy that no candidate can be considered "viable" if he or she can't raise at least a million bucks. Politics is now driven by an incestuous mix of big money and big media that drive a financial arms race of campaign finance. This is a race that we all lose unless we're political pro's, media owners or career pol's.

Even though we can all think of races lost by rich candidates, the evidence shows that the likelihood of winning rises with the level of campaign financing. So, the self-styled "activist" who won her Congressional seat with a "low budget" campaign in 2006, Carol Shea-Porter, has joined the Washington club and played the same go-along/get along, party-animal, party-politics game as her predecessor -- voting the party line with her party's leadership 98-99% of the time. Surprise! -- Her campaign's bank account registered nearly $600,000 at last count, with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ready to pitch in a lot more money to make sure she retains her seat. She also has the gall to describe herself as "middle class" while being paid $165,000 per year plus additional rich perq's and bene's received by Members of Congress.

OK, Richard, let's accept your challenge: "We don't often support the candidate who is the best or even who's views most agree with our own..."(and so we need to) "start looking past the campaigns, at who IS the best..."

The problem, Richard, is that you don't provide any basis (criteria or characteristics) to help folks judge "the best." One way I try to do this is to pose a lead question at the start of my campaign brochure: "Who do YOU need to represent YOU in a NEW CONGRESS? ---

* An organization man or an entrepreneur
* A money raiser or a people raiser?
* A politician who reacts to polls & media, or a legislator who listens, thinks and deliberates?
* A political party-crat or an independent man?
* A go-along, get-along, YES-man, or a Rep. who asks tough questions?
* Someone who plays politics in the present tense or a Congressman who legislates for the long-term, a better future?
* A Representative who joins the DC Congressional Club to empower himself, or someone to empower YOU?

The answers depend how a voter feels, on two levels, about :

(1) The temper of the times we live in, and the state of our nation: Is it a time of change, uncertainty, danger and threat -- of tough times, with many more folks hurting, on the edge and having to make tough trade-offs between fuel, food, medicine and rent or mortgage?

(2) Congress as an institution: Is the House of Representatives the people's House or part of the best Congress money can buy? What are taxpayers' dollars buying in the way of performance, problem-solving, etc.? Is Congress an adaptive, innovative, responsive institution, or backward and resistant to change?

On (2): Note that criteria should differ between the executive and legislative branches. The sad thing about the Presidential primary season is not only that it has sucked up obscene amounts of money, time and attention but that it has reinforced an assumption that undermines our democratic republic -- that all we need is to pick a white (or black) knight who would ride triumphantly on a white horse into the White House to save our butts. The fact that most of what government does has to pass muster in the Congress has been conveniently ignored.

Polls, news and analyses all confirm what in our guts we know is true, what people are saying district-wide. Congress is not doing the public's business well at all. It is a hidebound institution dominated by political dinosaurs and two major incentives: go-along/get-along and spend, spend, spend. Neither major party is well-regarded. Neither provides answers to the major questions of our time nor solutions to the big problems we need to face as a nation, together. Congress is full of party animals playing party games that don't serve any of us well. Most voters are looking for someone who recognizes, as has not been recognized since 1994, that Congress is seriously in need of reform -- real change in the way things are done, not the big promise but small change of political advertising. Talk is cheap.

Thus, on Nov. 4th, we may see a reversal of past patterns. Rather than a vote for an independent candidate viewed as a wasted vote, a vote for a party nominee of either major party would truly be a wasted vote if one wants to see real change -- change that puts people front and center and minimizes the influence of big-money. A vote for either the Democratic or Republican candidate is a vote for politics and government as usual -- SS/DY [same sh--, different year]. So, on the 4th of November, many more voters may recall the 4th of July and decide to DECLARE their INDEPENDENCE!

These paragraphs provide a new perspective on Barnes' challenging question. The new perspective moves us away from the narrow, horse-race framing of political campaigns by the media. It distinguishes what the country needs from what political consumer-voters may want. The country needs candidates whose personalities and experience:

* Best match the challenges of our time: of increasingly rapid change, rising inequality, globalization, growing uncertainty, a reduced middle class and the American dream under threat.

* Demonstrate how to fill the talent gaps in Congress, including: the lack of an ability to deal with economic issues, lack of international experience and inability to involve constituents in seeking solutions to the problems that affect them, rather than treating them as client-recipients of political advertising or sources of donations.

* Show how to overcome Congressional disabilities, including short-term-itis, "dialing for dollars" over listening and service to people, ad-hocism, reactionary actions in response to media coverage of events, failing to read bills or attend to the Constitutionality of bills before voting on them, and hiding from the public rather than providing full accountability, information and transparency of Congressional actions to taxpayers.

Will voters "want" these qualities? We'll see. Good politics is an act of faith and love -- of faith in the judgment and common sense of the great American majority, and love of American people, individuals all. Such good politics is a prerequisite of a better government. Only people can take back their government from the incestuous mix of big money and big media that have so corrupted it.

PETER BEARSE, Ph.D., Independent Candidate for Congress, NH CD 1, 8/18/08.

And that is why Pam's rejoinder is so important, showing that the winning formula for some of us is very simple: POLITICS = PEOPLE.