Smart Presidential Candidate

Posted on 2007-11-08 by David

LaVarr Webb commented today in Utah Policy Daily on a great column by David Brooks at the New York Times called The Happiness Gap. Brooks was talking about the gap between how happy people are with their own lives and how optimistic they are about government. I think Brooks is right that people are beginning to see through the fallacy that government solutions can fix personal problems, or that one level of government can solve the problems in another level of government. The more we trust to the federal government the more apparent it is that the federal government is not equipped to solve problems created by poor state governments. The same logic holds true with each level of government – state government can’t solve county problems, county government can’t solve city problems, etc.

The thing that really got me was Webb’s concluding paragraph:

I’ve written many times that the job description of the federal government has gotten so immense that it’s impossible to accomplish, hence the deep cynicism about the federal government. The nation’s founders intended for the national government to focus on a few things and do them very well. We need a national resorting of the roles of the different levels of government. A smart presidential candidate would do well to pick up on the mood of the people. (emphasis mine)

Webb was right on except that his last sentence left one thing out – there is a presidential candidate who has picked up on this mood. Ron Paul’s campaign is based on the principle of resorting the roles of the different levels of government – primarily reducing the role of the federal government and allowing states to take their proper place in addressing more of the issues they face. Right now the federal government is doing so much that it can’t even adequately address those issues that are properly in the sphere of the federal government, like national security and immigration. So he may not have known it, but Webb just endorsed Ron Paul as a smart presidential candidate.

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After We Vote

Posted on 2007-11-07 by David

One of the greatest things about our country is what happens after we vote. Rarely is there any large shouting about unfairness – calls of “they stole the election.” Most commonly the prevailing attitude among those who continue to be active after the vote is summed up by the question that Jesse asked, “So now what?”

Let’s put this legislation to the side for a while. I know, it’s really tempting to touch up the defeated bill and wheel it on out again, but we have some real work to do between now and then. We need to spend the next five years addressing all of the criticisms we faced this year.

These comments were pointed at the voucher discussion, but the same attitude also relates to candidates who, until the vote, were contending for the same offices based on opposing positions. (For more examples of this attitude read the comments to Jesse’s post.) Once the vote is over, our best citizens offer congratulations to those who won, condolences to those who didn’t, and an invitation to everybody to come together and work to find solutions on the issues that were discussed during the campaign.

Sometimes we might think that voting is where we choose the solutions, but really that is where the work starts. We have chosen a direction as we select candidates and vote on issues, now we have to make the changes that we voted for and tackle the problems that we will face before the next election.

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The Government Hammer

Posted on 2007-11-05 by David

My father-in-law is known for saying, “When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail.” Thomas Sowell talks about political crises created by Political “Solutions.”

Government laws and policies, especially the Community Reinvestment Act, pressured lenders to invest in people and places where they would not invest otherwise. Government also created the temporarily very low interest rates that made the mortgages seem affordable for the moment. . .

As for the flames sweeping across southern California, tragic as that is, this has happened time and again before — in the very same places in the very same time of year, just like hurricanes.

Why would people risk building million-dollar homes in the known paths of wildfires? For the same reason that people choose to live in the known paths of hurricanes. Because the government — that is, the taxpayers — will get stuck with a lot of the costs of dealing with those dangers and the costs of rebuilding.

Why is there such a huge amount of inflammable vegetation over such a wide area that fires can reach unstoppable proportions by the time they get to places where people live? Because “open space” has become a political sacred cow beyond rational discussion. . .

In other words, government preserves all the conditions for wildfires and subsidizes people who live in their path.

As for water shortages . . . The federal government’s water projects supply much of the water used in California that enables agriculture to flourish in what would otherwise be a desert.

We have created a culture where government is the solution to every every social “problem” (many times government is used to address preferences like open space which are not actually problems) just as technology is the solution to every technical problem. Lawmakers don’t intend to create crises, but crisis is the natural result when government gets involved in things that it was not designed to address (things like the cost of water or the price of home loans). In other words, if you have a hammer everything may look like a nail, but no matter how skillfully you hammer on a screw it won’t work like a screw – you need a screw driver to succeed with screws.

Posted in culture, National, State, technology | Tagged , , | 16 Comments

Missing the Mark

Posted on 2007-11-04 by David

I was gone for most of yesterday so today I saw the mail I got yesterday including a voucher mailing “Who’s opinion do you trust?” On the pro-voucher side they list four prominent state and national Republicans and on the anti-voucher side they list four prominent national Democrats.

I looked at the list of Republicans and 3 of the 4 I completely don’t trust (nor do they represent my values). Not much better than the 4 out of 4 that I don’t trust of the Democrats they showed. That’s hardly going to make me vote for vouchers.

Posted in State | Tagged , | 2 Comments

What is Our Narrative?

Posted on 2007-11-03 by David

I found it interesting to read what Michael Barone had to say about politicians who were successful as they presented a narrative of where the country was an what it needed to move forward. Of our current parties and candidates he says:

Neither party is presenting a narrative, as the Roosevelts and Reagan did, that takes due note of America’s great strengths and achievements. Each seems to take the course, easier in a time of polarized politics, of lambasting the opposition.

That got me wondering, what kind of a narrative would be successful today – and will any candidate present such a narrative? I think I might take a look at the various candidates again for myself to see if there are narratives from their campaigns that Mr. Barone is missing. Does anyone see a candidate who is presenting what they feel is a compelling narrative?

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Help Me Brainstorm

Posted on 2007-11-02 by David

I ran into one of the candidates for city council today who happens to work in the same building I do. We took a few minutes to talk (politics naturally) and as we talked we realized that both of us have a similar desire to accomplish two things here in Lehi – we want to discourage apathy among citizens and increase transparency in our local government (all levels of government really, but let’s not bite off more than we can chew right now). We have agreed to get together soon after the elections are over next week and discuss some ideas for getting more people interested in what’s happening in our local government and for making information about what’s happening with our local government more readily available.

Our hope is that by doing this we might be prepared to hold candidates accountable in future elections for what they say, and how they respond to citizens. If we can get more citizens interested in the issues that the city is facing that might encourage our elected officials to be more proactive about communicating, or at the very least they might realize that there are many people who are interested in the challenges that the city is facing.

As I sat down to write tonight I realized that I know many people who are very interested in politics (local politics in many cases, but few who are local to Lehi) who might be able to come up with some ideas on how to accomplish these aims. I decided to invite the thoughts of my fellow bloggers on how we might go about encouraging participation and transparency. Are there technologies that you would recommend for these aims? Do you have any ideas about how to encourage people to be more active? Do you know any tricks to building a politically oriented organization that could accomplish these goals?

Posted in life, Local | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Endorsements for Lehi City Council

Posted on 2007-11-01 by David

The Daily Herald had an editorial today on what to look for in a candidate. I liked the criteria they listed:

Candidates to be wary of:

    • Have that “deer in the headlights look”
    • Spout too many cliches
    • Have too much experience – What worked in 1987 or even 1997 might be as outmoded as a Betamax video tape player today.
    • Have no backbone
    • Worry you now

They gave a good example of the “no backbone” criteria:

One test we find interesting is Referendum 1. School vouchers are not a municipal issue, of course, but at one forum recently, city council aspirants were asked to stand or sit to show where they stood on vouchers. A couple of candidates responded by neither standing or sitting, but by going into a sort of crouch. That sort of response worries us.

Look for hopefuls who:

    • Know their stuff
    • Acknowledge difficulties
    • Plan for progress
    • Work well with others
    • Accept change

I would add one more criteria for those who are interested enough to get involved in the political process early. A candidate should be responsive to voters.

I have been meaning to list my endorsements for Lehi City Council and I think that fits well at the end of this criteria. We have 3 incumbents and 3 new candidates for city council. They are largely campaigning as two groups. To a certain extent the groups are fitting. The incumbents have been largely unresponsive to individual questions outside of the few candidate forums while the new candidates have been more anxious to answer questions on their positions. As groups, both seem to have grasp of the issues comparable to the other. Some individual candidates have demonstrated a better grasp of the issues than others. Sadly, the incumbents were more likely to campaign on “I love this town.” (In one case that seems to be the entire platform.) If I had to vote for one group or the other I would vote for the new candidates. For information on each candidate visit Utah-Candidates.com.

Thankfully I get to vote for individual candidates. I know two candidates that I really want to vote for. Selecting my third choice was a bit harder. I am supporting Jeff Ray, Craig Laurence, and Mark Johnson for Lehi City Council. Overall, these three candidates each have a grasp of the issues and seem prepared to work for the city rather than working for a special interest or simply enjoying their position on the city council.

Posted in Local | Tagged , | 17 Comments

Get Vouchers Right Next Time

Posted on 2007-10-31 by David

It’s not often that I get to see Utah featured in a nationally syndicated column about a positive policy debate. Usually when Utah makes the national news it’s for things like a mine disaster, raging wildfires, or polygamy. Today John Stossel wrote about the voucher issue in Utah. Naturally he is in favor of vouchers – like I am, but the Utah legislature was kind enough to give us such a bad proposal that it’s a no-win situation for those who favor parental choice. It’s easy for people outside of Utah to say “take the leap and give parents more options” but those of us inside Utah who have studied the issue know that it’s not that clear-cut.

If we get vouchers (which does not look very likely right now) we will have a poor implementation that will be used to ridicule the idea elsewhere while we pay the price for our mistakes. If we vote against Referendum 1 – as I plan to – our votes will be painted as opposition to parental choice.

Let me clear up the message of the vote I will cast next week on this. I am in favor of parental choice and I think that vouchers can be a useful vehicle to encourage parental choice but HB148 and HB174 do not make for a good implementation of vouchers. I hope that their defeat next week will not discourage those who want more parental choice. I hope instead that it will force them to come up with a much better solution. Besides learning something about crafting good law, they can also learn something about engaging in shady politics. Parents for Choice in Education should clean up their act or be shunned. They need to do a much better job at defending the issue if they are involved and they need to avoid the political trickery that is more a smear on them than a strategy for changing public opinion.

Posted in State | Tagged , , | 18 Comments

Put Virtual Politics on the Ground

Posted on 2007-10-30 by David

I have been thinking about the words of Tom Friedman when he wrote about what he calls Generation Q.

I am impressed because they are so much more optimistic and idealistic than they should be. I am baffled because they are so much less radical and politically engaged than they need to be. . .

The Iraq war may be a mess, but I noticed at Auburn and Ole Miss more than a few young men and women proudly wearing their R.O.T.C. uniforms. Many of those not going abroad have channeled their national service impulses into increasingly popular programs at home like “Teach for America,” which has become to this generation what the Peace Corps was to mine.

It’s for all these reasons that I’ve been calling them “Generation Q” — the Quiet Americans, in the best sense of that term, quietly pursuing their idealism, at home and abroad.

But Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good, and for the country’s own good. . .

America needs a jolt of the idealism, activism and outrage (it must be in there) of Generation Q. That’s what twentysomethings are for — to light a fire under the country. But they can’t e-mail it in, and an online petition or a mouse click for carbon neutrality won’t cut it. They have to get organized in a way that will force politicians to pay attention rather than just patronize them.

Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy didn’t change the world by asking people to join their Facebook crusades or to download their platforms. Activism can only be uploaded, the old-fashioned way — by young voters speaking truth to power, face to face, in big numbers, on campuses or the Washington Mall. Virtual politics is just that — virtual.

I am among those who feels right at home in the world of the internet whether I am pursuing my political interests, searching for some bit of information or trying to decide about my next major purchase. I see lots of political dialog on the internet, but I also realize that all the blog posts in the world don’t have the same power as a meeting with candidates or elected officials to discuss an issue. I know that talking about liking one candidate or position will never have the same reach of influence that speaking with my wallet has.

The main stream media is spending more and more time talking about the power of internet based politics and the parties and candidates are getting better at engaging within this new medium of communication. Perhaps it is easy for us “digital natives” to mistake this as evidence that this has become the primary mode for political action. We put ourselves and our views in danger unless we take time to remember that the primary means of achieving political influence is and always will be the same as it was when our country was founded. Writing posts may have replaced writing tracts or pamphlets, but the real power to make things happen comes in gathering together to share ideas so that people will be energized to go out and vote at the ballot box and also lend their resources (time, energy, and money) to bring about the goals that they had previously only talked about.

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Congress – Do Something

Posted on 2007-10-29 by David

A month into the fiscal year and Congress has not presented an appropriations bill for the President to sign because they don’t care enough about making things work when there are accusations to be flung, fights to pick (like SCHIP), and post offices to be named. The New York Times takes issue with the fact that they are putting the 2010 census at risk by failing to fund it.

The sad part of all this dithering in Congress is that there are more funding issues like the census, where there is little disagreement about how much funding it should receive, than there are like SCHIP where there is much disagreement about funding. The other sad thing is that the things where there is little disagreement are generally more important for keeping the government functioning than the bills where there is contention. The New York Times suggests that Congress should fund the census with their emergency appropriations bill for the California fires. They also offer a decent reason to explain the combination.

I agree and I think that Congress should also set about submitting an appropriations bill on all the other issues where there is little disagreement on the funding – at least we could ensure that parts of the government are funded while issues such as SCHIP are being “discussed.”

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