Bob McDonnell: the archconservative revealed

            With Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, Virginians knew that we were getting a social conservative-cum-moderate whose onetime fixation on limiting abortion rights now translates into a focus on ending transportation gridlock and bringing jobs to the state.  But over the weekend, The Washington Post explored a whole new dimension of the former attorney general.

            McDonnell’s master’s thesis, written at age 34 for Regent University (which was at the time called the Christian Broadcasting Network University), laid out a fifteen-point action plan for Republicans to follow to claim the moral and electoral high ground on family values.  Most of them were explicit statements of deep conservatism: pass anti-abortion laws and right-to-life constitutional amendments at the state level; make respect for parental authority and views on covenant marriage (in which it is more difficult to receive a divorce) a prerequisite in considering judicial appointments; gradually transfer responsibility for social welfare programs to community-based groups; use vouchers for housing, education, and medical care; repeal welfare by eliminating “conditional federal funds for family programs.”

            Two of the points deserved to be quoted entirely. Number 8: “Fight any attempts to redefine family by allowing special rights for homosexuals or single-parent unwed mothers.”  Number 9: “Fight the use of federal funds for state sex-education programs or school-based health clinics giving abortion referrals, contraceptives, and family planning.”  He also lamented the fact that Judeo-Christian traditions were not being taught in schools, that women entering the workforce are a detriment to families, and that “government…should prefer married couples over cohabitators, homosexuals, and fornicators.”

            McDonnell has quickly asked Virginians to judge him on his record as a legislator and as attorney general, rather than a strongly-worded piece of academic literature.  In response, his Democratic challenger, Creigh Deeds, put out a fact sheet laying out McDonnell’s record.  It includes such instances of voting to extend conscience protections for pharmacy workers dispensing contraception; voting to ban college health centers from distributing the morning-after pill; voting against improving child care training and access to child care for low-income families; voting against a resolution in support of eliminating the gender pay gap; and voting against allowing for local distribution of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families grants.

            To be fair, McDonnell’s apparent sexism and homophobia is not indicative of a typical Virginia Republican.  Democratic Sen. Jim Webb caused a stir in his 2006 campaign when it was revealed that he had written an essay entitled “Why Women Can’t Fight” at age 33.  He succinctly argued that given the horrors of war and the raw endurance needed to train for it, women had no place in the military.  I did not entirely agree with that conclusion, and neither did Webb in 2006.  Normally, such literature would deal a heavy blow to a person’s candidacy, especially if he were a Republican. 

         But, given that national attention was focused on the “macaca” gaffe of Webb’s opponent, George Allen, Webb emerged relatively unscathed.  Since the election, nothing in his voting record—including his support for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination, and the new GI Bill—has shown Webb to be against protecting and expanding the rights of women.

         This begs the obvious question: if McDonnell is elected, will he govern pragmatically and economically like former governor Mark Warner?  Or will he let his anti-tax, anti-social welfare, anti-abortion, anti-homosexual agenda define his administration?  Either way, if McDonnell keeps hammering the moderate-to-conservative Deeds because of his supposed support for the Obama administration’s “liberal” policies, Deeds has every right to question just how centrist McDonnell will be if elected.

Congresswatch: healthcare (in)action, gun (mis)action

            Members of Congress have one simple responsibility: to make laws.  All the other stuff—cutting ribbons at new train stations, getting their pictures taken with Little League teams—provides a nice ego boost, but is superfluous at best.  Thus it is a bit mystifying why, six months after President Obama’s inauguration and a decade-and-a-half after the Clinton administration’s effort, congressmen are looking to the White House for more guidance and more time on healthcare reform.

            As of now, I believe there are only two committees—one in each chamber—that have yet to finalize a bill.  The main sticking points are how to fund both an expansion of healthcare to the currently uninsured (deficit-neutral) and how to decrease costs over the long run (bending the curve).  House Democrats are concerned about a tax on the wealthy, which some have pointed out as being unfair to small business owners, who apparently have to report their income with their revenue.  The “small business” defense always arises every time the issue of raising the marginal tax rate comes up, so why can’t Congress simply fix the tax code to prevent these people from being snagged by the system, rather than forgoing a legitimate and necessary source of revenue?

            Having said that, I don’t think that only the wealthy should pay for healthcare reform.  Since we are creating a new public good, everyone has to pitch in.  And if that means taxing health benefits for union members and other workers, then that should be part of the solution.  The important part is to just do something—anything.  During the Bush administration, Congress’s will to do stuff atrophied a little, as signing statements, evasions of subpoenas, and blatant disregard for regulation rebuffed the legislature’s role as a check on the executive branch.  Now that Obama has given them free reign, legislators have splintered into 535 different interest groups, each with a Napoleon complex and access to partisan cable talk shows.

            Being in Congress might be the only field of work in which generous deadlines can be ignored and no one is penalized.  At first, a bipartisan compromise seemed like the ethical as well as the most equitable form of deal making.  But now, with the Democrats feuding among themselves and the GOP determined to kill the still-ambiguous reform plan, it is useless to try talking to all but a handful of Republicans. 

Where Obama can come in handy is in urging Congress not to abandon several decades worth of reform planning.  To do otherwise would be letting him down, letting their country down, and letting themselves down.  But as influential as Obama is, he is not going to be vote number sixty in the Senate or number 218 in the House; Democratic leaders need to instill some discipline in their ranks.

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            Virginia Democratic senators Jim Webb and Mark Warner are no conservatives.  Webb, a former Marine, and Warner, a former business executive, are results-oriented pragmatists who happen to lie left of the ideological center.  That’s why it was strange and disheartening for both men to vote in favor of Sen. John Thune’s (S.D.) amendment to a defense bill that would have irresponsibly allowed concealed firearms to be carried across state lines.

            Warner’s vote in particular is disappointing because he should recognize, being a former governor, the struggles that accompany administration of the criminal justice system in any state, even without external complications such as this one.  Furthermore, the amendment would have given preference to states with the loosest laws regarding firearm possession, in effect depriving state law enforcement of the ability to enforce the regulations which have been dutifully debated, voted on, and signed into existence across the country.

            I’m very comfortable with ensuring protections for gun owners, but it concerns me when our senators are so afraid of getting slapped on the wrist by the NRA that they forget that the Second Amendment still has a long way to go in court before the John Thunes of the world can carry as many guns as they want wherever they want and for any purpose.

Letter to Va. Sens. on healthcare

To Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner

Re: Healthcare

Gentlemen,

         First and foremost, I believe two things.  One, that my health, your health, and the health of our fellow Virginians should not merely be a line item to a for-profit industry.  Operating for profit always creates an “in-group” and an “out-group”, in which the corporation need only respond minimally enough to the needs of the in-group to retain them as investors or customers.  For the healthcare industry, this not only means that rationing of care takes place (i.e. preexisting conditions) where unprofitable, but people themselves are rationed when they are ineligible for health insurance.  No one should be relegated to the out-group simply because of accident, circumstance of birth or wealth, or an economic downturn.

         Along those lines, my second belief is that at this stage in our country’s history, it is a disservice for our government, which is constitutionally tasked with promoting the general welfare of society, to tolerate a system in which the richest nation in the world either cannot provide care to its hardest working citizens or provides inadequate care vis-à-vis other industrialized nations.

         Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 outlined an “Economic Bill of Rights,” saying “true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence,” naming the rights one has to competition among businesses, an adequate industrial job, a home, and protection from accident, illness, or debility.  Indeed, how can we be expected to fully exercise our constitutional freedoms if we are too infirm to participate productively in society?

         To me, the key to healthcare reform is to ensure choice: choice of doctor, choice of insurer, and even the choice to purchase care from the government if the private sector is too expensive or inadequate.  I am in favor of a mandate for employers to provide coverage for their employees, or else pay them the monthly minimum amount to purchase the least expensive regional form of coverage.  The government’s plan, rather than edging out all private competition, could be the insurer of last resort for millions of families, albeit one whose quality of care and whose ease of enrollment would preclude stigmatization.

         To pay for this, new revenues must be raised.  Some conservatives are arguing that we should cut spending, and I cannot disagree with that in principle.  But the actual act of reducing spending is nearly impossible for this Congress.  The singular question is: what do we cut?  As a Virginian, I enjoy being able to ride Metrorail into the nation’s capital, as I’m sure Marylanders do as well.  But if funding for Metro were put before representatives of the other 48 states, they would unflinchingly exorcise it from the budget as pork spending.  Repeat that process for federally-funded projects all around the country and the critics will clash with the defenders in such a way that nothing ever really is eliminated, no matter how small a constituency it serves.

         I do, however, advocate the implementation of pay-as-you-go legislation to limit the soaring deficit.  Although it may preclude valuable projects from being supported by Uncle Sam’s pocketbook, it would also force lawmakers to prioritize budget items at the national level.  In the interim, though, taxes must ultimately be raised to pay for this expansion and the aftereffects of a $787 billion bailout and years of deficits under the Bush administration. 

         I would argue that the best target is the federal gas tax, currently at 18.4 cents per gallon.  Raising this tax gradually and substantially would not only increase revenues for this particular undertaking, but would promote numerous agenda items of the Obama administration: reducing dependence on oil (foreign oil particularly), providing down payments on new renewable energy and mass transit projects, replenishing the Highway Trust Fund, and encouraging people to drive less frequently and thus reduce carbon emissions.

         There is no obvious solution to fixing health care and there are many pitfalls to each approach.  What I hope you will support is a plan that reduces the discretion of insurers to extort those who need care the most and that covers every individual from cradle to grave without indebting the nation further.  Expanding freedom of choice is key way to ensure quality of care over profitability, and a dedicated funding mechanism that cuts across legislative priorities will be both efficient and effective.  This momentous foray into reform need not be perfect, but it must be better than where we are today.

The Govs Must Be Crazy

            In the campaign for Virginia’s open Senate seat, former Democratic Governor Mark Warner is leading former Republican Governor Jim Gilmore in what can best be described as a popularity contest.  Strangely enough, Gilmore’s labeling of Warner as “an elite limousine liberal” and “a hungry piranha” for the people’s tax money has not endeared him to voters.  Gilmore’s platform more or less consists of attacking Warner for raising taxes despite campaign promises not to.  The fact that the budget crisis during the Warner administration was left over from Gilmore’s and that Virginia was named (along with Utah) the best managed state in the nation under Warner seem to resonate stronger in people’s minds than conservative demagoguery, however.  It is a shame that Gilmore cannot see the benefit in moderating his rhetoric to a state that has a Democratic governor, one Democratic Senator, a Democratic State Senate, and a huddled blue cluster of Northern Virginians that controls a good portion of the tax money which he supposedly wants to protect.  It also doesn’t help that Warner edges him out slightly in the “most handsome” category:

            Oh, and also: Gilmore apparently has corrupt friends in high places.  On financial disclosure forms filed in May and June, Gilmore reported that he sat on the Board of Directors for a company called Windmill International, located in New Hampshire.  Except Gilmore does not actually belong to that organization; the company to which he actually belongs, also named Windmill International (no affiliation) is based in Virginia, operated by a man who is a Gilmore campaign donor and appointee to the State Council of Higher Education during Gilmore’s governorship.  Gilmore’s connection with the group is obvious, even if his position cannot be pinned down in a single title (although the website currently lists him as a member of the “team,” though he denies this is so).  The big deal is this: the company’s owner and one of the other board members are being sued for having “conspired to defraud the government” by working on behalf of a contractor banned from Iraq to obtain additional contracts for that company.  To explain the complicated predicament, the ex-governor responded by calling the information listed on the forms a “clerical error.”

            Now, I am not saying that Gilmore should not be elected because he knowingly lied or because he may somehow be implicated in a fraud charge (his smears and illiberal stance on the issues is enough of a reason).  I am just saying that this may be his own “Macaca” moment to lose the public’s trust.  Of course, I am referring to the more publicized 2006 Senate campaign between Republican incumbent George Allen and Democratic candidate Jim Webb:  Allen had a 19 point lead over his opponent before he was caught on video at a small rally referring to the Virginia-born but ethnically Indian videographer (a mole from the Webb campaign) as “Macaca,” and proceeded to welcome him to America “and the real world of Virginia.”  After the tape was released to the media, Allen’s lead evaporated and, combined with an Allen security guard strong-arming a presumptuous blogger and other incidents, narrowly cost him the election.  (Remember the maxim “all politics is local”?  If Allen had not been caught making that comment in Middle-of-Nowhere, Virginia, Republicans would not have lost control of the U.S. Senate that year.)

            Given that the Democratic candidate is leading in polls this round, it might be up to Warner to doom his campaign with a verbal gaffe, but somehow I doubt that will be the case.  As it stands, unless Gilmore can overcome the legacy of Republican name-calling, racism, and corruption, Mark Warner will undoubtedly carry the election, and not just in the heretofore blue parts of the state.

7/24

Citizen Kaine; Charlotte’s Webb; the Obaminable Snowman — bad pun-ditry? Or winning combination?

            On a hazy, muggy evening in Dixieland, a stone’s throw away from the national capital, there whipped into town the electrifying sensation that was touring the country by storm.  No, not Van Halen with David Lee Roth, but Senator Barack Obama, who on Thursday drew ten thousand supporters to fill the Nissan Pavilion in Northern Virginia to hear the firebrand sell himself.  His opening act came in the form of the comedic stylings of our Governostess with the Mostest:

He would retire backstage, leaving the crowd to incite sporadic cheers to victory among themselves.  Spirits were rising, as was the sweat cloud; if Obama could find a way to keep the mosquitoes at bay for the next hour, he would have my vote hands down.  Shortly, the time grew nigh and, waving and grinning, out strolled Timothy “Tim” Kaine, Jimothy “Jim” Webb, and the man of the hour, Barack Obama.

The good senator from the commonwealth took to the mic and wagered in his opening remarks that this was the most important election in our nation’s history (a point which may have been disputed by Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, or FDR) and remembered the circumstances of the election forty years ago—the year he graduated from the naval academy—as one occurring in the midst of the RFK and MLK assassinations, the Chicago riots, and the Tet Offensive.  To be frank, the senator could have used any rhetorical approach he wanted; so long as he didn’t nonchalantly call Obama “Macaca,” I think his constituents were satisfied.  He closed by mentioning that he was hopeful that Virginia, which has not elected a Democrat to be president since 1964, would make the right choice (he was preaching to the wrong crowd: Northern Virginia did elect a Democratic president in 2004):

            Obama took center stage to work his magic.  He gave his support for Webb’s GI Bill (paying full tuition, books, and housing for any state college to most veterans) and thanked Kaine for not only being a supporter in a red state but also for being a friend: 

 

          Obama (bottom) with Kaine and Webb 

 

            The speech itself was primarily a direct read from his address from Minneapolis at the conclusion of the primaries.  He spoke of how we expect too much of our soldiers overseas and too little of the Iraqi government; of how John McCain may have been to the Middle East but Obama has been to the middle of inner cities and rural America to get to know the average citizen; of how college should be more affordable and automobiles should be more fuel efficient; he even told the story of the unemployed man who could not put gas in his car to search for a job.  Each of these was an actionable idea but what was more impressive turned out to be the way in which people reacted to the address:

            An emphatic Barack Obama had a proselytizing effect—similar to the way a rock band can get its audience fist pumping, head bobbing, and singing along, this man was clearly getting a sincere reaction from this assembly.  I use the rock band comparison, but others may prefer referencing a style akin to Martin Luther King or maybe even a chip off Jeremiah Wright’s block.  Regardless, it was clear that his cheering, waving supporters—black, and white and everything in between; old and young and everything in between—believed that this man truly would bring hope to country.  Not because he was saying something revolutionary—indeed, Thomas Jefferson’s declaration that all men are created equal should not be celebrated as new and bold.  Jefferson just said what the people of the eighteenth century knew to be true but that no one in positions of power would acknowledge: that we all have certain rights and responsibilities that cannot be taken away.  Similarly, Obama represents what the American people know that we need—policies that work and respond to our critical problems.  When Americans want a president who is “like them,” they don’t necessarily want a candidate to bowl or drink with them.  They want a person who looks upon the people of the country with warmth and empathy and who looks out on the world with respect and the desire to cooperate and make globalization beneficial to each nation. 

So in reality, Barack Obama’s agenda is, as he has already concluded, “just words.”   He cannot help us any more than the preacher who excites his congregation can save their souls.  It is up to each person to live a more virtuous life and likewise each person must commit to bettering the country and world.  If we elect Obama, it is not significant that a young, black, inexperienced politician has changed the system; the significance is that we have changed our attitudes about how we prefer to fix the planet’s problems.  One man alone cannot give us hope and make change—those values existed before he came along and his job is to unite everyone into realizing, “Wow, everyone cares as much about our nation as I do.”  And that is Obamania.

 

I could not slide this last tidbit in eloquently, so I will not even bother with a segue.  Can we give those Hillary supporters who have vowed to vote McCain now that she is out of the race a reality check?  This is akin to storming off the dance floor because you were not voted prom queen.  Besides, she and Obama are almost the same person—two sides of the same policy coin.  The close nature of the primaries shows that we pretty much could have solved this by a coin toss and avoided months of agonizing news speculation.  I am not saying that the Democrats should unite in order to gang up on John McCain (that would be partisan), but if you thought Hillary would be the best candidate for this country, Obama is a healthy substitute.  She is one of the most powerful politicians in the country and still has a lot of fight left in her as a legislator.  But if that doesn’t work out, maybe Fred Thompson could get her an acting gig.

 

6/7