Various thoughts on U.S. politics ...
there's been some discussion about Joe Klein's latest book that bemoans the consultant driven political culture of modern America. Candidates hire consultants who advise them on what to say, with the result that our political language is predictable, recycled and inauthentic. According to Klein. Most of Klein's discussion is about the Presidency, and perhaps not enough about the Senate and Congress. We (well, you, I can't vote here) ask too much of the Presidency. One person is meant to understand, represent and act on behalf of three hundred million people. How, exactly, is that meant to work? How is any man (I'll correct this post in thirty years when there's a woman president, that's a prediction, not an affirmation) to do that? It would be difficult to be President without relying on a lot of information analyzed and processed by thousands of other people. The growth of the political consulting profession is entirely unsurprising when you ask a small number of people to represent a large number and have opinions about many, many things.
Of course you also see consultants shaping campaigns for Senate, Congress and the Governor's office. Same problem. Hundreds of thousands of people to consider, not enough time to do it in. You can find authenticity in American politics ... in your state legislative races, in your city council chambers, in political arenas where the voters are not entirely unlikely to randomly see their representatives in everyday life. (I see our local city council person frequently. I saw him putting out the trash in his alley a couple of months back).
If you want to restore authenticity to politics, and reduce the influence of money in politics there is a relatively simple solution: dramatically increase the size of the House and the Senate. In a country of 300 million people a Congress of 435 people is far too small. Britain has 646 MPs for 60 million people, and they siphon off their executive branch from the legislature. A similar ratio here would imply about 3000 members. This might seem absurdly large but really, it's not.
Moving right along, I'm not sure how authentic George Allen is, but you really should read the lengthy article in The New Republic about him. Ryan Lizza does a great job of letting the man, well, I would say, hang himself with his own words, but if you read the article you'll see that's perhaps not the best metaphor. Or perhaps it is.
Posted by robe0419 at April 27, 2006 3:28 PM