Jan
Big Goofs
Current events make good examples of ideas in action. This week is a good one. The senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy was up for grabs in a special election. The winner was not the Democratic candidate, who would have been a likely successor. Instead it was a young Republican. This was not entirely unexpected.
Just a few months ago, the incumbent Democratic candidate was overturned in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. Despite having the support of the President and other prominent Democrats, John Corzine got a well-deserved unseating by the Republican challenger, Chris Christie. Corzine outspent Christie for campaign ads by at least twenty to one. In New York, Mayor Mike Bloomberg outspent his opponent in campaign ads by something like thirty to one. Nonetheless, Bloomberg barely squeaked a win.
All three of these elections are telling. More money and more support were not enough. People voted with their dissatisfaction. The problem was not new. People had been dissatisfied for a while and said so. The politicians did not listen, so the people gave them a stronger message on Election Day. A look at the elections indicates very clearly what needed to be done.
The New Jersey Democratic party backed Corzine because they knew he would spend his own money to win. They ignored the fact that money or not, he was extremely unpopular. Corzine came across as someone who was going to stick it to the people with more taxes. The Massachusetts Democrats underestimated the discontent brewing in their state. And “Mayor Mike” learned that folks were not as happy with him as he thought. Of course, everyone else knew this long before these elections.
The lesson is not a matter of Democrat versus Republicans. Party affiliation is not the point. The point of the story is arrogance and stupidity. The politicians ignored blatant signs that people were strongly opposed to their policies. They thought they could force a victory. The New Jersey and Massachusetts Democrats earned them selves a loss. Mayor Mike got himself the message that it was his money and not himself that won a tight race against a relatively weak candidate.
Read the signs and pay attention. If you ignore the obvious, you set yourself up for a disappointment. Nobody is so big or so popular that he can ignore the facts. When arrogance struts forth, stupidity follows. And when it comes to high-profile politicians, we can also look to the old Jamaican adage: “The higher the monkey climbs, the more his ass shows.”
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Stupidiy is a large component of national politics. In the 2000 Presidential race, the Democrats ignored several inspiring candidates so they could run a candidate who was at the top of the “old boy” network. Maybe they felt the bland Al Gore would have a chance against the equally uninspiring George W. Bush. The race became a squeaker which was decided in court. Had the Democrats run a more inspiring candidate such as Bill Bradley, they would have won. The Republicans did not win on their own merits. The Democrats lost.
We saw the same kind of thing in the 2004 election. The Democrats ran an uninspiring and rather distant candidate named John Kerry. George Bush was able to defeat him handily by making issues of non-issues. Between his lack of charisma and the skeletons in his closet, Kerry was easily defeated even though many were dissatisfied with Bush.
The McCain campaign might have done better had it not been for Sarah Palin. What with the Senator’s age, folks thought there might very well be an instance of the vice president becoming president at some point. While Palin may have been a hit with some of the religious fanatics, she scared a lot of other people. Many who might have voted for McCain were deterred by the Alaskan governor.
All three of these are instances where politicians were focused on satisfying their pals rather than winning. When success is secondary, the likelihood of failure increases geometrically. Our nation’s politicians illustrate this point wonderfully with their failures and blundered elections.
Perhaps they are asking, “Were we that bad or were they that good?”
