Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life
Autor Douglas Kane Cuvânt înainte de Mike Lawrenceen Limba Engleză Paperback – 8 mai 2019
Douglas Kane, an American politician and economist, offers readers a straightforward, personal account of what it is like to run for and hold public office—the demands, conflicts, temptations, and rewards created by political, economic, and social forces. Throughout the book, Kane references Illinois and Wisconsin politics. The campaigns of his wife, Kathleen Vinehout, and her years in the Wisconsin senate show that the centralization of political power, the structure of campaign organizations, and the policy decisions that Kane experienced as an Illinois legislator are not unique to any one state.
In Our Politics Kane reflects on his nearly fifty years of active engagement in state and local politics. In a series of essays, he seeks to understand the forces, motivations, incentives and technologies that shape our politics and produce the consequences that we live with every day. He describes how candidates and officeholders deal with the fundamental contradictions inherent in the democratic process, and how and why the political power structure has changed. He also explores the personal experience of being a legislator, from deciding how to vote to building relationships with party leaders, fellow legislators, the governor, and the voters in the district. Kane concludes by considering the possibility of change, how it might happen, and the steps that candidates, political parties, activists and others might take to better our politics with results more to our liking.
While many journalists record politics from the outside, and numerous political memoirs focus on personalities and what happened to whom and when, this book gives an insider’s view of politics at the level of state government. This book is not about those politicians but about our politics, which together we have created and together we must deal with.
In Our Politics Kane reflects on his nearly fifty years of active engagement in state and local politics. In a series of essays, he seeks to understand the forces, motivations, incentives and technologies that shape our politics and produce the consequences that we live with every day. He describes how candidates and officeholders deal with the fundamental contradictions inherent in the democratic process, and how and why the political power structure has changed. He also explores the personal experience of being a legislator, from deciding how to vote to building relationships with party leaders, fellow legislators, the governor, and the voters in the district. Kane concludes by considering the possibility of change, how it might happen, and the steps that candidates, political parties, activists and others might take to better our politics with results more to our liking.
While many journalists record politics from the outside, and numerous political memoirs focus on personalities and what happened to whom and when, this book gives an insider’s view of politics at the level of state government. This book is not about those politicians but about our politics, which together we have created and together we must deal with.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780809337095
ISBN-10: 0809337096
Pagini: 254
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 16 mm
Greutate: 0.41 kg
Ediția:1st Edition
Editura: Southern Illinois University Press
Colecția Southern Illinois University Press
ISBN-10: 0809337096
Pagini: 254
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 16 mm
Greutate: 0.41 kg
Ediția:1st Edition
Editura: Southern Illinois University Press
Colecția Southern Illinois University Press
Notă biografică
Douglas Kane served as the director of staff for the Democratic leadership of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1969 to 1973, staff assistant to the governor of Illinois from 1973 to 1974, and Illinois state representative from 1974 to 1983. Prior to his public service, he was a reporter with the Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. He is an economist and for twenty years was president of Program Analysis, Inc., a consulting firm that specialized in economic and public policy issues. He is a longtime member of the Alma, Wisconsin, School Board and for four years chaired the Buffalo County Board of Supervisors.
Extras
Introduction
Personal and Public Perceptions
I am a politician—have been most of my adult life. Politics is not usually looked on as a noble profession, so I don’t tell people that is what I do when I am introduced. I would rather they get to know me first, discover something else about me that might go on the plus side to offset all the negative assumptions about politicians. I have relied on the belief that even though politics has an unsavory reputation and politicians are not highly regarded, most seem to like and respect the politicians they know personally. This has been true in my own experience. With few exceptions, the more I worked with others in the profession, the more appreciation I had for them and their efforts, even though we might not have always agreed.
Despite its reputation, politics is attractive and tends to be addictive. Once people are persuaded to become active participants, they get hooked. They find politics invigorating and fulfilling. Still, there are some who, after their first try, become disillusioned and drop out because they think that participating in the game entitles them to win, but they are not in the majority. It has not been my experience that familiarity with politics breeds contempt. Rather, familiarity brings some degree of appreciation and respect, even though one knows more about the less savory parts of the game. Contempt for politics seems strongest among those who choose to be spectators and not get involved. So I tell you without apology that I am a politician. I want to bring you into that experience so you can see for yourself what the game looks and feels like to a participant.
I was introduced to politics the year I finished a master’s program in journalism and became a staff intern for the Illinois legislature. I was part of a Ford Foundation program to encourage state legislatures to develop their own sources of information and become less dependent on executive agencies and lobbyists in making decisions. That was fifty years ago.
I lived in Springfield, the state capital, for twenty-five years. For eight of those years I represented the city and surrounding area in the Illinois House of Representatives. The city lived and breathed politics. The leading families had made their fortunes doing business with the state. Who you knew was important. Loyalty mattered. Being reliable brought rewards. Politics was influence, and jobs and contracts.
It is fitting that the architecture of that prairie city is dominated by the dome of the State Capitol, legacy of Abraham Lincoln, the city’s favorite son. It was Lincoln who, when dividing the spoils as a member of the Long Nine in the statehouse, saw the economic potential of politics and worked to make Springfield the state capital, letting members from other cities have the Illinois Central Railroad and the state’s new land grant university.
I experienced politics from a variety of vantage points during my years in Springfield: Democratic precinct captain, candidate, township official, staff to the legislative leaders, state representative, assistant to the governor, deputy state auditor general, campaign manager, and policy consultant. I also went back to the university for a graduate degree in economics, a discipline intertwined with politics in many ways. Shortly before leaving Illinois I ran for the state senate, a race I lost badly.
Twenty-four years ago, Kathleen Vinehout and I bought a farm in rural western Wisconsin and we moved our family north. There she ran a fifty-cow dairy operation for ten years before being elected to the Wisconsin State Senate, defeating the incumbent in a close race. Since then, she has been reelected twice. From the vantage point of political spouse, I experienced politics up close and personal in a second state, one with a very different reputation from Illinois. Since 1950, Illinois handily leads Wisconsin in the number of officeholders sent to jail, but it also produced five leaders of their respective parties in Congress and one U.S. president. Both results, I think, have their origins in the fact that in Illinois, many more political families go back several generations. The young are schooled early in the game, and everyone plays for keeps. The underlying processes in the two states, how-ever, are very similar. Political forces and incentives are not limited by state boundaries or to any particular party. The ideological differences between the Republican and Democratic Parties are great, but both play the political game the same way.
I began writing Our Politics as a way to make sense of the political game both for myself and for others. Why is it played the way it is? What are the forces that have shaped and changed it? What are the all too human motivations that animate the players and impact the outcomes? After one of Kathleen’s campaigns, a university professor sent her a questionnaire asking about her personal reactions, because, he said, researchers don’t know very much about how politics is experienced by the politician.
Lots of eyes watch politicians and record what is seen from the outside. Numerous memoirs are written by politicians that focus mostly on personalities and relationships, what happened to who and when. This book is not the personal story of an individual player in the political arena. It is not a memoir. Rather it seeks to describe, from the point of view of a player on the field, what the arena looks like, how the league is structured and the teams put together, how the rules that influence strategies and determine winners are made, and the impact those structures and forces have on the political experience of being a candidate and an elected public official.
Even those who have closely observed the process from the outside are surprised when they move to the inside. George Thiem, a Pulitzer Prize–winning political reporter for the old Chicago Daily News, who won his prize covering Illinois state government and was later elected to the General Assembly as part of a “blue-ribbon ticket,” wrote at the end of his first and only term:
It is only three feet from the press box in the Illinois House of Representatives to one of the big red leather chairs on the House floor. But when you make the transition from newspaper correspondent to member of the General Assembly as I did last January, you enter a new world. I never quite realized how different it would be. Now, after six months, I can say in all candor it isn’t as easy as it looks. The pressures, the frustrations, the constant necessity for making decisions, the close contact with hundreds of human problems add up to a bewildering yet challenging experience.
Our Politics attempts to bridge that three-foot gap.
I have thoroughly enjoyed politics and being a politician. There is exhilaration in the struggle of the campaign and the cheers of the crowd. Watching the votes come in on election night and being in the lead is a great high. There is a lifelong and instant camaraderie with those who have shared the political experience. Making decisions for the community and enacting laws gives a sense of meaning, importance, and direction. Being recognized on the street massages the ego, although at times I would have preferred to be anonymous. Politics has been a good life.
The endlessly fascinating part of politics has been the people I met. During the few times in my life I had a regular job, I found that I would get into a rut driving the same streets from home to work every day, running into the same people, having the same conversations. Not so with politics. I became familiar with every neighborhood and street in the city. I went to cocktail parties at mansions on the west side. I was taught to dance to the blues in small basement recreation rooms on the east side. I spent many Sunday afternoons in union halls drinking beer and eating hot dogs while listening to polka bands.
Politics provided an extended course in human nature. Because I was able to do things for people, fix a problem, or offer a job, and because I could change the law and with it people’s fortunes, everybody had something they wanted to talk to me about. The publisher of the newspaper, the head of the local mafia, the president of the chamber of commerce, the factory worker, the waitress, the farmer, the chief executive officer of the bank, the kid with-out a job, the driver with a DUI trying to get his license back—everyone had something to tell me, something to ask. The conversations were not small talk. If you listen, you hear the motivations that move people, their hopes, their fears, the trades they are willing to make, and the price that they put on themselves.
The public sees politics in a much harsher light. The public doesn’t see the personal—they see only a process driven by money and special interests, characterized by disinformation, harsh rhetoric, ideological polarization, and gridlock.
The Greek philosopher Plato, in his Republic, described democracy as a “charming form of government, full of variety and disorder.” For many the charm has worn off. Disorder has descended to dysfunction.
General skepticism directed at politicians has long been part of human history and is embedded in popular culture. Among the ancients, Aesop noted, “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.” Robin Hood is the medieval precursor of all the heroes we love for coming to the aid of those “despoiled by a great baron or a rich abbot or a powerful esquire.” For Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Sara Paretsky, and a host of other authors of private detective stories, the corrupt official is a staple character. Even Father Mapple’s sermon in Moby Dick strayed far enough from its main theme to mention the sin plucked from under the robes of senators and judges. Offhand, throwaway references to politicians by late-night comedians are almost always negative. It is true. Power does corrupt. Webster’s second definition of “politician,” “A person primarily interested in political offices from selfish or other narrow interests,” resonates far more than the first: “A person experienced in the art or science of government.”
For those of us past a certain age there is always the temptation to look with nostalgia on our more youthful adventures and assert to any who will listen that “it was better back then.” The stories of an earlier paradise from which humans have fallen are reinvented by every generation, and the young listen with skepticism and amusement. It seems to me, however, that not so long ago, our political institutions were not held in such low regard. There was some level of recognition that while politics by its nature was a messy business, someone had to do the dirty work. There were compromises that had to be made and interests that had to be accommodated. As long as things didn’t get too far out of hand, people were more or less content to let politicians be politicians. The mayor and the local senator were respected citizens. And even the “bad” guys—the ones who ran political machines and wielded autocratic power—were mostly local heroes.
It has taken time for the public to become alienated, to reach the point where a large majority believes that elected officials are not doing a good job, that legislators mostly do what lobbyists tell them, and that all incumbents should be voted out of office. Opinions about the institutions of government are the lowest ever in the history of polling.
Recent decades have served up good reasons to distrust politicians. In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson, who campaigned on a promise not to send American boys to fight an Asian war, landed the first American marines in Vietnam two months after his inauguration. By the end of his term four years later, 540,000 American troops were stationed in that country. In the 1970s, the unauthorized publication of the Pentagon Papers showed that successive administrations had systematically lied to both Congress and the public about the conduct and progress of the war. Later, President Richard Nixon’s involvement in the burglary of the Democratic Party’s offices at the Watergate Hotel forced his resignation. In the 1980s, top White House officials went to jail for directing the illegal sales of arms to the Contras in Nicaragua. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton dallied with Monica Lewinsky, and the House voted for articles of impeachment. In the 2000s, President George W. Bush took the country into the Iraq War on false assumptions, and Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby went to jail for outing a CIA operative in an act of political retribution.
The public has also reacted with skepticism to the practice of “messaging”—the new “word” for propaganda—at all levels of politics. Messaging at its best is the art of conveying ideas effectively, but it quickly slides into giving words new meanings with the intent to deceive and persuade falsely. The result of widespread propaganda has always been widespread skepticism rather than widespread belief. Messages that don’t match the experiences of the hearers are eventually disregarded. The propagandist may initially manipulate public opinion but in the long run loses credibility. Some of the reasons voters gave to reporters for liking Donald Trump in his run for the presidency were that “he doesn’t sound like a politician,” “he speaks the truth,” “he is not just pandering to people,” “no one else is that direct”—all of which says much about the public’s view of the way politicians generally talk.
The ascendency of money and the resulting centralization of political power have also contributed to the disillusionment of voters and their feeling of powerlessness. Politics left the neighborhood when the local party precinct worker was displaced by the professionally crafted messages carried by commercial media. Since then the dollars flowing into politics have become astronomical.
With the chance to remake the states and the nation to their liking, individuals with extreme wealth and strong beliefs are increasingly willing to give millions to elect candidates who share those beliefs and will turn those beliefs into law. Their motivation, whatever it is, is intense. They wouldn’t be giving millions if it were otherwise.
The centralization of political power has been ongoing, and it continues to increase. Money is the driving force. It can be gathered anywhere, sent anywhere, spent anywhere, and transformed easily into messages that can be crafted anywhere and delivered anywhere to any audience. The local, unable to match the resources from the outside, has been displaced.
Other results have followed. Partisanship and deadlock have increased. Not being affected by what happens in the lives of average residents in a com-munity, large donors follow a no-compromise, winner-take-all strategy. Issues are pushed to the extreme. The rhetoric becomes harsher, more inflammatory, and more personal. With more contributions coming from a smaller number of sources and an accelerating need to raise more dollars, the incentive for candidates to reflect the interests of their donors is large, pushing them to take positions they otherwise might not take, loosening the ties to their own constituents, and keeping them from solving problems in ways that are not approved by the donors.
Candidates from both political parties face the same situation. Both par-ties are being pushed to become more ideological, to reflect more completely the beliefs of their donors and organized supporters. It is becoming more common for incumbents to be challenged in their own party’s primaries because they are not pure enough and haven’t voted 100 percent the “right” way. It is a toxic mix we are stirring. Today, across the political spectrum, disillusionment is more widespread, alienation more profound.
One young person living in a small community and contemplating the possibility of getting actively involved in local politics saw more minuses than pluses. The reasons she gives are personal and concrete, but the themes are familiar, and they reflect what the polls tell us.
“I would guess that I am more interested in politics than the average twentysomething-year-old in my community, and the thought has crossed my mind to run for my township board. However, I have never seriously entertained the thought. Why?
“Time is one reason. I was passionate enough that I made time to work on the ‘Vote Yes’ campaign to create a countywide recycling program, but I am not passionate enough about public office to dedicate the time it would take to run a campaign. Alex and I are starting a business, and all of my time outside of my day job is dedicated to that, much like many people my age dedicate their nonwork time to their marriage or kids.
“Unlikeliness of success is another. I especially am not interested in dedicating time to a campaign that it is extremely unlikely I would win. A few years ago I observed a well-run campaign by the sitting county prosecutor. He had been appointed when the last one left the office mid-term. So although he had not won the position, he was the incumbent with yard signs everywhere. Although his name seemed to be everywhere and I heard a lot of positive talk about him, he lost (I think because so many people vote straight party Republican, and he was running as a Democrat). I chatted with him later, and he was actually optimistic because he had received more of the vote than people thought he would. He is now the chair of the county’s Democratic Party and told me that although he lost, it will take more and more Democrats running (even if they lose) before one wins. I see the logic in this, but I don’t want to dedicate the time to lose, even if it is a step forward.
“Lack of knowledge is a third. I know I am smart, and given enough time to research the issues properly I could take an educated position on any issue. I could even talk intelligently about them if I did enough research. However, I question my current knowledge base on such varied and complicated issues, and I question if I have the time required to become educated. I think that a lack of time and knowledge in addition to the larger systemic reasons for voter disengagement have resulted in a disparity of young people involved in politics. I have had discussions with the county chairs of both parties, and both are scratching their heads as to how to get more young people involved. “I see the merit in talking to your neighbor. This seems to be the corner-stone of how to bring politics back to the local level; however, I’ve seen so many people get worked up about politics/issues. They never seem to listen to the other person, they just get angrier and angrier, repeating all the talking points they’ve heard their candidates parrot. Frankly, I see nothing constructive in this and want nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, you can’t really tell how someone will react to a political question/issue, so I just avoid talking politics to people altogether. My guess is that I would get one constructive conversation out of every ten, and my temperament just can’t handle that amount of destructiveness. I would guess that many people feel the same, so no one wants to talk politics in order to avoid conflict. And when no one talks about it, it retreats in importance, thus leading to more disengagement.”
Personal and Public Perceptions
I am a politician—have been most of my adult life. Politics is not usually looked on as a noble profession, so I don’t tell people that is what I do when I am introduced. I would rather they get to know me first, discover something else about me that might go on the plus side to offset all the negative assumptions about politicians. I have relied on the belief that even though politics has an unsavory reputation and politicians are not highly regarded, most seem to like and respect the politicians they know personally. This has been true in my own experience. With few exceptions, the more I worked with others in the profession, the more appreciation I had for them and their efforts, even though we might not have always agreed.
Despite its reputation, politics is attractive and tends to be addictive. Once people are persuaded to become active participants, they get hooked. They find politics invigorating and fulfilling. Still, there are some who, after their first try, become disillusioned and drop out because they think that participating in the game entitles them to win, but they are not in the majority. It has not been my experience that familiarity with politics breeds contempt. Rather, familiarity brings some degree of appreciation and respect, even though one knows more about the less savory parts of the game. Contempt for politics seems strongest among those who choose to be spectators and not get involved. So I tell you without apology that I am a politician. I want to bring you into that experience so you can see for yourself what the game looks and feels like to a participant.
I was introduced to politics the year I finished a master’s program in journalism and became a staff intern for the Illinois legislature. I was part of a Ford Foundation program to encourage state legislatures to develop their own sources of information and become less dependent on executive agencies and lobbyists in making decisions. That was fifty years ago.
I lived in Springfield, the state capital, for twenty-five years. For eight of those years I represented the city and surrounding area in the Illinois House of Representatives. The city lived and breathed politics. The leading families had made their fortunes doing business with the state. Who you knew was important. Loyalty mattered. Being reliable brought rewards. Politics was influence, and jobs and contracts.
It is fitting that the architecture of that prairie city is dominated by the dome of the State Capitol, legacy of Abraham Lincoln, the city’s favorite son. It was Lincoln who, when dividing the spoils as a member of the Long Nine in the statehouse, saw the economic potential of politics and worked to make Springfield the state capital, letting members from other cities have the Illinois Central Railroad and the state’s new land grant university.
I experienced politics from a variety of vantage points during my years in Springfield: Democratic precinct captain, candidate, township official, staff to the legislative leaders, state representative, assistant to the governor, deputy state auditor general, campaign manager, and policy consultant. I also went back to the university for a graduate degree in economics, a discipline intertwined with politics in many ways. Shortly before leaving Illinois I ran for the state senate, a race I lost badly.
Twenty-four years ago, Kathleen Vinehout and I bought a farm in rural western Wisconsin and we moved our family north. There she ran a fifty-cow dairy operation for ten years before being elected to the Wisconsin State Senate, defeating the incumbent in a close race. Since then, she has been reelected twice. From the vantage point of political spouse, I experienced politics up close and personal in a second state, one with a very different reputation from Illinois. Since 1950, Illinois handily leads Wisconsin in the number of officeholders sent to jail, but it also produced five leaders of their respective parties in Congress and one U.S. president. Both results, I think, have their origins in the fact that in Illinois, many more political families go back several generations. The young are schooled early in the game, and everyone plays for keeps. The underlying processes in the two states, how-ever, are very similar. Political forces and incentives are not limited by state boundaries or to any particular party. The ideological differences between the Republican and Democratic Parties are great, but both play the political game the same way.
I began writing Our Politics as a way to make sense of the political game both for myself and for others. Why is it played the way it is? What are the forces that have shaped and changed it? What are the all too human motivations that animate the players and impact the outcomes? After one of Kathleen’s campaigns, a university professor sent her a questionnaire asking about her personal reactions, because, he said, researchers don’t know very much about how politics is experienced by the politician.
Lots of eyes watch politicians and record what is seen from the outside. Numerous memoirs are written by politicians that focus mostly on personalities and relationships, what happened to who and when. This book is not the personal story of an individual player in the political arena. It is not a memoir. Rather it seeks to describe, from the point of view of a player on the field, what the arena looks like, how the league is structured and the teams put together, how the rules that influence strategies and determine winners are made, and the impact those structures and forces have on the political experience of being a candidate and an elected public official.
Even those who have closely observed the process from the outside are surprised when they move to the inside. George Thiem, a Pulitzer Prize–winning political reporter for the old Chicago Daily News, who won his prize covering Illinois state government and was later elected to the General Assembly as part of a “blue-ribbon ticket,” wrote at the end of his first and only term:
It is only three feet from the press box in the Illinois House of Representatives to one of the big red leather chairs on the House floor. But when you make the transition from newspaper correspondent to member of the General Assembly as I did last January, you enter a new world. I never quite realized how different it would be. Now, after six months, I can say in all candor it isn’t as easy as it looks. The pressures, the frustrations, the constant necessity for making decisions, the close contact with hundreds of human problems add up to a bewildering yet challenging experience.
Our Politics attempts to bridge that three-foot gap.
I have thoroughly enjoyed politics and being a politician. There is exhilaration in the struggle of the campaign and the cheers of the crowd. Watching the votes come in on election night and being in the lead is a great high. There is a lifelong and instant camaraderie with those who have shared the political experience. Making decisions for the community and enacting laws gives a sense of meaning, importance, and direction. Being recognized on the street massages the ego, although at times I would have preferred to be anonymous. Politics has been a good life.
The endlessly fascinating part of politics has been the people I met. During the few times in my life I had a regular job, I found that I would get into a rut driving the same streets from home to work every day, running into the same people, having the same conversations. Not so with politics. I became familiar with every neighborhood and street in the city. I went to cocktail parties at mansions on the west side. I was taught to dance to the blues in small basement recreation rooms on the east side. I spent many Sunday afternoons in union halls drinking beer and eating hot dogs while listening to polka bands.
Politics provided an extended course in human nature. Because I was able to do things for people, fix a problem, or offer a job, and because I could change the law and with it people’s fortunes, everybody had something they wanted to talk to me about. The publisher of the newspaper, the head of the local mafia, the president of the chamber of commerce, the factory worker, the waitress, the farmer, the chief executive officer of the bank, the kid with-out a job, the driver with a DUI trying to get his license back—everyone had something to tell me, something to ask. The conversations were not small talk. If you listen, you hear the motivations that move people, their hopes, their fears, the trades they are willing to make, and the price that they put on themselves.
The public sees politics in a much harsher light. The public doesn’t see the personal—they see only a process driven by money and special interests, characterized by disinformation, harsh rhetoric, ideological polarization, and gridlock.
The Greek philosopher Plato, in his Republic, described democracy as a “charming form of government, full of variety and disorder.” For many the charm has worn off. Disorder has descended to dysfunction.
General skepticism directed at politicians has long been part of human history and is embedded in popular culture. Among the ancients, Aesop noted, “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.” Robin Hood is the medieval precursor of all the heroes we love for coming to the aid of those “despoiled by a great baron or a rich abbot or a powerful esquire.” For Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Sara Paretsky, and a host of other authors of private detective stories, the corrupt official is a staple character. Even Father Mapple’s sermon in Moby Dick strayed far enough from its main theme to mention the sin plucked from under the robes of senators and judges. Offhand, throwaway references to politicians by late-night comedians are almost always negative. It is true. Power does corrupt. Webster’s second definition of “politician,” “A person primarily interested in political offices from selfish or other narrow interests,” resonates far more than the first: “A person experienced in the art or science of government.”
For those of us past a certain age there is always the temptation to look with nostalgia on our more youthful adventures and assert to any who will listen that “it was better back then.” The stories of an earlier paradise from which humans have fallen are reinvented by every generation, and the young listen with skepticism and amusement. It seems to me, however, that not so long ago, our political institutions were not held in such low regard. There was some level of recognition that while politics by its nature was a messy business, someone had to do the dirty work. There were compromises that had to be made and interests that had to be accommodated. As long as things didn’t get too far out of hand, people were more or less content to let politicians be politicians. The mayor and the local senator were respected citizens. And even the “bad” guys—the ones who ran political machines and wielded autocratic power—were mostly local heroes.
It has taken time for the public to become alienated, to reach the point where a large majority believes that elected officials are not doing a good job, that legislators mostly do what lobbyists tell them, and that all incumbents should be voted out of office. Opinions about the institutions of government are the lowest ever in the history of polling.
Recent decades have served up good reasons to distrust politicians. In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson, who campaigned on a promise not to send American boys to fight an Asian war, landed the first American marines in Vietnam two months after his inauguration. By the end of his term four years later, 540,000 American troops were stationed in that country. In the 1970s, the unauthorized publication of the Pentagon Papers showed that successive administrations had systematically lied to both Congress and the public about the conduct and progress of the war. Later, President Richard Nixon’s involvement in the burglary of the Democratic Party’s offices at the Watergate Hotel forced his resignation. In the 1980s, top White House officials went to jail for directing the illegal sales of arms to the Contras in Nicaragua. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton dallied with Monica Lewinsky, and the House voted for articles of impeachment. In the 2000s, President George W. Bush took the country into the Iraq War on false assumptions, and Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby went to jail for outing a CIA operative in an act of political retribution.
The public has also reacted with skepticism to the practice of “messaging”—the new “word” for propaganda—at all levels of politics. Messaging at its best is the art of conveying ideas effectively, but it quickly slides into giving words new meanings with the intent to deceive and persuade falsely. The result of widespread propaganda has always been widespread skepticism rather than widespread belief. Messages that don’t match the experiences of the hearers are eventually disregarded. The propagandist may initially manipulate public opinion but in the long run loses credibility. Some of the reasons voters gave to reporters for liking Donald Trump in his run for the presidency were that “he doesn’t sound like a politician,” “he speaks the truth,” “he is not just pandering to people,” “no one else is that direct”—all of which says much about the public’s view of the way politicians generally talk.
The ascendency of money and the resulting centralization of political power have also contributed to the disillusionment of voters and their feeling of powerlessness. Politics left the neighborhood when the local party precinct worker was displaced by the professionally crafted messages carried by commercial media. Since then the dollars flowing into politics have become astronomical.
With the chance to remake the states and the nation to their liking, individuals with extreme wealth and strong beliefs are increasingly willing to give millions to elect candidates who share those beliefs and will turn those beliefs into law. Their motivation, whatever it is, is intense. They wouldn’t be giving millions if it were otherwise.
The centralization of political power has been ongoing, and it continues to increase. Money is the driving force. It can be gathered anywhere, sent anywhere, spent anywhere, and transformed easily into messages that can be crafted anywhere and delivered anywhere to any audience. The local, unable to match the resources from the outside, has been displaced.
Other results have followed. Partisanship and deadlock have increased. Not being affected by what happens in the lives of average residents in a com-munity, large donors follow a no-compromise, winner-take-all strategy. Issues are pushed to the extreme. The rhetoric becomes harsher, more inflammatory, and more personal. With more contributions coming from a smaller number of sources and an accelerating need to raise more dollars, the incentive for candidates to reflect the interests of their donors is large, pushing them to take positions they otherwise might not take, loosening the ties to their own constituents, and keeping them from solving problems in ways that are not approved by the donors.
Candidates from both political parties face the same situation. Both par-ties are being pushed to become more ideological, to reflect more completely the beliefs of their donors and organized supporters. It is becoming more common for incumbents to be challenged in their own party’s primaries because they are not pure enough and haven’t voted 100 percent the “right” way. It is a toxic mix we are stirring. Today, across the political spectrum, disillusionment is more widespread, alienation more profound.
One young person living in a small community and contemplating the possibility of getting actively involved in local politics saw more minuses than pluses. The reasons she gives are personal and concrete, but the themes are familiar, and they reflect what the polls tell us.
“I would guess that I am more interested in politics than the average twentysomething-year-old in my community, and the thought has crossed my mind to run for my township board. However, I have never seriously entertained the thought. Why?
“Time is one reason. I was passionate enough that I made time to work on the ‘Vote Yes’ campaign to create a countywide recycling program, but I am not passionate enough about public office to dedicate the time it would take to run a campaign. Alex and I are starting a business, and all of my time outside of my day job is dedicated to that, much like many people my age dedicate their nonwork time to their marriage or kids.
“Unlikeliness of success is another. I especially am not interested in dedicating time to a campaign that it is extremely unlikely I would win. A few years ago I observed a well-run campaign by the sitting county prosecutor. He had been appointed when the last one left the office mid-term. So although he had not won the position, he was the incumbent with yard signs everywhere. Although his name seemed to be everywhere and I heard a lot of positive talk about him, he lost (I think because so many people vote straight party Republican, and he was running as a Democrat). I chatted with him later, and he was actually optimistic because he had received more of the vote than people thought he would. He is now the chair of the county’s Democratic Party and told me that although he lost, it will take more and more Democrats running (even if they lose) before one wins. I see the logic in this, but I don’t want to dedicate the time to lose, even if it is a step forward.
“Lack of knowledge is a third. I know I am smart, and given enough time to research the issues properly I could take an educated position on any issue. I could even talk intelligently about them if I did enough research. However, I question my current knowledge base on such varied and complicated issues, and I question if I have the time required to become educated. I think that a lack of time and knowledge in addition to the larger systemic reasons for voter disengagement have resulted in a disparity of young people involved in politics. I have had discussions with the county chairs of both parties, and both are scratching their heads as to how to get more young people involved. “I see the merit in talking to your neighbor. This seems to be the corner-stone of how to bring politics back to the local level; however, I’ve seen so many people get worked up about politics/issues. They never seem to listen to the other person, they just get angrier and angrier, repeating all the talking points they’ve heard their candidates parrot. Frankly, I see nothing constructive in this and want nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, you can’t really tell how someone will react to a political question/issue, so I just avoid talking politics to people altogether. My guess is that I would get one constructive conversation out of every ten, and my temperament just can’t handle that amount of destructiveness. I would guess that many people feel the same, so no one wants to talk politics in order to avoid conflict. And when no one talks about it, it retreats in importance, thus leading to more disengagement.”
Cuprins
Contents
Foreword Mike Lawrence
Introduction: Personal and Public Perceptions
1. The No and Yes of Politics
2. It’s a Deal
3. The Power Structure Has Changed: All Politics Is (Not)Local (Anymore)
4. Will You Be Our Candidate?
5. It’s a Play, and You Are the Lead Actor
6. Politics Is a Team Sport
7. Yes Is Always the Right Answer
8. What Do I Know about That?
9. There Ought to Be a Law
10. Make the Rules, Win the Game
11. You Always Know When the Governor Is Serious
12. Lead Me Not into Temptation
13. Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven; Nobody Wants to Die
14. Not in My Backyard
15. Summoning the Better Angels of Our Nature
16. The World Is Run by Those Who Show Up
17. Reflections Going Forward
Bibliographic Essay
Index
Foreword Mike Lawrence
Introduction: Personal and Public Perceptions
1. The No and Yes of Politics
2. It’s a Deal
3. The Power Structure Has Changed: All Politics Is (Not)Local (Anymore)
4. Will You Be Our Candidate?
5. It’s a Play, and You Are the Lead Actor
6. Politics Is a Team Sport
7. Yes Is Always the Right Answer
8. What Do I Know about That?
9. There Ought to Be a Law
10. Make the Rules, Win the Game
11. You Always Know When the Governor Is Serious
12. Lead Me Not into Temptation
13. Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven; Nobody Wants to Die
14. Not in My Backyard
15. Summoning the Better Angels of Our Nature
16. The World Is Run by Those Who Show Up
17. Reflections Going Forward
Bibliographic Essay
Index
Recenzii
"Candid, informative, exceptionally well written, organized and presented, Douglas Kane's "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" is an extraordinary account of contemporary American politics as rarely provided to the general public." —James A Cox, Midwest Book Review
“Kane drills deep into the politics of America to tell us how and why our once responsive, essentially local political system has been replaced by faraway and typically well-financed special interests. He shows us how the so-called bad-old days weren’t so bad after all. Read this book and you'll learn a lot about why our political system has become so dysfunctional today.”—Dave Beal, former business editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and coauthor of Manufacturing Works: The Vital Link between Production and Prosperity
“Kane is a twenty-first-century Machiavelli, though constructive in tone, neither partisan nor cynical. He advises not the prince but the voters on how to turn our centralized, angry and polarized, money- and message-driven political system on its head, returning political decision-making to our local communities. For the sake of all of us, let’s hope Kane is onto something. Our Politics is well worth a read by concerned citizens of all stripes.”—Jim Nowlan, coauthor of Illinois Politics: A Citizen's Guide and Fixing Illinois: Politics and Policy in the Prairie State.
“Kane drills deep into the politics of America to tell us how and why our once responsive, essentially local political system has been replaced by faraway and typically well-financed special interests. He shows us how the so-called bad-old days weren’t so bad after all. Read this book and you'll learn a lot about why our political system has become so dysfunctional today.”—Dave Beal, former business editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and coauthor of Manufacturing Works: The Vital Link between Production and Prosperity
“Kane is a twenty-first-century Machiavelli, though constructive in tone, neither partisan nor cynical. He advises not the prince but the voters on how to turn our centralized, angry and polarized, money- and message-driven political system on its head, returning political decision-making to our local communities. For the sake of all of us, let’s hope Kane is onto something. Our Politics is well worth a read by concerned citizens of all stripes.”—Jim Nowlan, coauthor of Illinois Politics: A Citizen's Guide and Fixing Illinois: Politics and Policy in the Prairie State.
Descriere
Douglas Kane, an American politician and economist, offers readers a straightforward, personal account of what it is like to run for and hold public office—the demands, conflicts, temptations, and rewards created by political, economic, and social forces.