For the first time in over a decade I am experiencing a federal election more like a member of the general public than a congressional staffer. Long-time friends of this page know that by now I should have been bombarding them with my (in)famously long posts on policy positions or political shenanigans. Instead I'm all carpenter bee photos and mental health introspection. Maybe I'm tapped out.
By 2006, I was already a Hill staffer and Jesse too. We volunteered on Jim Webb's successful campaign to take down George "macacca" Allen. Then I flew to Utah for the final weeks of my then-boss's similarly successful reelection campaign. I hate retail politicking but we all sensed it was going to be a wave year and being so involved -- for my home state, no less! -- was exciting. With the door-knocking help of my kid brother, Democrats took back the U.S. Congress.
In 2008, I was the financial services staffer working for my current boss, breathlessly listening on the phone on mute while Hank Paulsen and Ben Bernanke informed House Democrats that the financial world was about to implode. We passed TARP, saved the world, then I went home and popped out a baby a few days later. Two-week-old James wore his "My Mama's for Obama" onesie on election day and I voted even though as a DC voter -- where Obama won 90% of the vote -- it wasn't exactly a necessity.
In 2010, we were wrapping up the most productive Congress in a half-century having enacted over the previous four years:
Healthcare reform, credit card reform, student loan rate cuts, minimum wage increase, Lily Ledbetter workplace protections, Wall Street reforms, consumer financial protection, 9/11 Commission recommendations, "don't ask don't tell" repeal, nuclear arms treaty, children's health insurance expansion, medical cost coverage for 9/11 responders, food safety, American auto industry rescue, FDA regulation of tobacco, and on and on and on -- not to mention enacting a stimulus package that saved the country from a second Great Depression.
In 2012, I worked for Massachusetts, the state that hated Mitt Romney, and I had all my roots in Utah, the state that loved him. It was personal. It was a presidential year, and the future of the country once again felt like it was at stake. I'd spent 2 years watching firsthand what a Republican House majority was capable of. In my adopted home of Maryland, marriage equality was on the ballot and I got involved with the movement, spending election day outdoors wrapped up in my winter coat asking people to vote for civil rights, hoping that Maryland voters would become the first in the nation to vote for equality. (We were!)
But in 2014, I'm having a hard time getting terribly worked up about this election. There are a handful of important races (state ones, mostly) around the country and a handful of important ballot issues. But I just can't seem to care about the federal elections, normally my bread and butter. Democratic candidates for the House won over a million more votes last cycle than Republican candidates for the House, but thanks to 2010's gerrymandering, still Republicans kept control of the House. No one expects that to be any different this cycle. Republicans are poised to win slim control of the Senate only to find, I predict, that it's a Pyrrhic victory.
I don't buy Democratic fear-mongering that a Republican Senate is going to accomplish much of anything, let alone a stampede of legislation. This is the party that congratulated themselves for passing an extreme-but-not-extreme-enough budget plan (the Ryan budget) and then when it came time to actually stick to those ugly, unworkable cuts in passing a transportation spending bill, couldn't do it. It's the party that has voted to repeal Obamacare 54 times, but has never in 4 years come up with a replacement plan. It's a party where half of the Senate majority will be running for president -- and therefore AWOL -- and the other half will be running for re-election in blue states. Anybody think Pennsylvania's Republican senator wants to take a bunch of right-wing votes before he's up for re-election in a presidential year in a blue state? How about blue-state Illinois's Republican senator?
So, dear Facebook friends, I hope you have enjoyed this lull in political commentary. I'm sure I'll be back to my usual self come 2016.
By 2006, I was already a Hill staffer and Jesse too. We volunteered on Jim Webb's successful campaign to take down George "macacca" Allen. Then I flew to Utah for the final weeks of my then-boss's similarly successful reelection campaign. I hate retail politicking but we all sensed it was going to be a wave year and being so involved -- for my home state, no less! -- was exciting. With the door-knocking help of my kid brother, Democrats took back the U.S. Congress.
In 2008, I was the financial services staffer working for my current boss, breathlessly listening on the phone on mute while Hank Paulsen and Ben Bernanke informed House Democrats that the financial world was about to implode. We passed TARP, saved the world, then I went home and popped out a baby a few days later. Two-week-old James wore his "My Mama's for Obama" onesie on election day and I voted even though as a DC voter -- where Obama won 90% of the vote -- it wasn't exactly a necessity.
In 2010, we were wrapping up the most productive Congress in a half-century having enacted over the previous four years:
Healthcare reform, credit card reform, student loan rate cuts, minimum wage increase, Lily Ledbetter workplace protections, Wall Street reforms, consumer financial protection, 9/11 Commission recommendations, "don't ask don't tell" repeal, nuclear arms treaty, children's health insurance expansion, medical cost coverage for 9/11 responders, food safety, American auto industry rescue, FDA regulation of tobacco, and on and on and on -- not to mention enacting a stimulus package that saved the country from a second Great Depression.
Via the NYT: Measures that have almost become afterthoughts — pay equity for women and the new power of the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco, for instance — could have been signature achievements in other Congresses. And the Senate confirmed two of Mr. Obama’s nominees to the Supreme Court — both women, one Hispanic.I knew how much we'd accomplished, how hard we'd all worked for four years, how much we had sacrificed personally for the cause. Every constituent phone call from someone convinced there were death panels, every lying Tea Party meme posted on Facebook... I felt like I had to respond to it all. I'd worked too hard to see everything I stood for be washed away by people who were too lazy to understand what their candidates really stood for or who unblinkingly equated the mandate to buy health insurance with the genocide of 6 million people...
In 2012, I worked for Massachusetts, the state that hated Mitt Romney, and I had all my roots in Utah, the state that loved him. It was personal. It was a presidential year, and the future of the country once again felt like it was at stake. I'd spent 2 years watching firsthand what a Republican House majority was capable of. In my adopted home of Maryland, marriage equality was on the ballot and I got involved with the movement, spending election day outdoors wrapped up in my winter coat asking people to vote for civil rights, hoping that Maryland voters would become the first in the nation to vote for equality. (We were!)
But in 2014, I'm having a hard time getting terribly worked up about this election. There are a handful of important races (state ones, mostly) around the country and a handful of important ballot issues. But I just can't seem to care about the federal elections, normally my bread and butter. Democratic candidates for the House won over a million more votes last cycle than Republican candidates for the House, but thanks to 2010's gerrymandering, still Republicans kept control of the House. No one expects that to be any different this cycle. Republicans are poised to win slim control of the Senate only to find, I predict, that it's a Pyrrhic victory.
I don't buy Democratic fear-mongering that a Republican Senate is going to accomplish much of anything, let alone a stampede of legislation. This is the party that congratulated themselves for passing an extreme-but-not-extreme-enough budget plan (the Ryan budget) and then when it came time to actually stick to those ugly, unworkable cuts in passing a transportation spending bill, couldn't do it. It's the party that has voted to repeal Obamacare 54 times, but has never in 4 years come up with a replacement plan. It's a party where half of the Senate majority will be running for president -- and therefore AWOL -- and the other half will be running for re-election in blue states. Anybody think Pennsylvania's Republican senator wants to take a bunch of right-wing votes before he's up for re-election in a presidential year in a blue state? How about blue-state Illinois's Republican senator?
So, dear Facebook friends, I hope you have enjoyed this lull in political commentary. I'm sure I'll be back to my usual self come 2016.
Comments
Post a Comment