Memes That Matter2010-08-09

School will be starting in just a few weeks, so here’s a multiple choice quiz to shake off some of those summer cobwebs and get you ready for the fall campaign.

Question #1: Which of these statements is true?

1. In the last 19 months, Democrats have increased the size and debt of the federal government.
2. In the last 19 months, Republicans have set a record for the number of filibusters to try to stop any progress while ignoring their own culpability in raising the debt.
3. Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters are emblematic of self-dealing Democrats in Congress who’ve been around too long and who need to be retired.
4. Sharon Angle and Rand Paul are emblematic of intellectually incoherent, ideologically extremist candidates fielded by Republicans this year whose only positive agenda is to repeat the mistakes of the Bush years.
5. All of the above

Assuming you’ve all guessed letter “E,” you get to go on to the next level.

Question #2: Which voters often say, “I want my elected official to do what’s right instead of what’s popular?”

1. Republicans
2. Democrats
3. Independents
4. All of the above

Fortunately,100% of you are still eligible to go on to our final question.

Question #3: Which candidates will be rewarded in November for doing what’s right instead of what’s popular?

1. Republicans
2. Democrats
3. Independents
4. None of the above

While candidates and parties will be pushing their particular answers to the first question, and partisans justifying their support with the second question, let’s hope the public doesn’t opt to answer the final question “D.” 

With a bailout of banks and domestic auto manufacturers, two fledgling wars and a sagging economy under our collective belts, there is a laundry list of blame that can be meted out and no shortage of money to point fingers. 

Fine. 

Elections are supposed to be about choices, but what are the choices we are being asked to discern? Both parties have come up with memes they believe will propel them to victory (or at least stem their losses). These meta narratives are best exemplified in the Nevada US Senate race between Harry Reid and Sharon Angle: big government loving expansionist vs. Bush-loving crazy radical.

Is there some semblance of truth in those eight words? Sure, but pardon me for being underwhelmed. Then again, summer has always been the season for reruns.

It’s in that spirit that I offer a pre-election meme of my own, because if 2008 was an election about hope and change vs. more of the same, then 2010 is a choice between the courage of iconoclasts vs. the well worn(down) path.

Case in point: Troubled Asset Relief Program. The phrase “too big to fail” has become as reviled in the American lexicon along side “Mission Accomplished” “the check is in the mail” and “it depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.”

Roughly 50 lawmakers of both parties who live in what are loosely defined as “competitive districts” took an extremely unpopular vote on TARP in 2008-09 to bail out banks who had been making high wire risks with their investors money. Now I don’t happen to agree with a number of these TARP 50 lawmakers on any number of issues (yes, I’m talking about you Jean Schmidt), nor do I hold any particular fondness for Bear Stearns, AIG and the rest of their ilk, but in hindsight they did what was necessary at the expense of their own poll numbers to prevent what most experts now view as a certain financial calamity. Already, one sitting Senator, Robert Bennett (R-Utah), was defeated in a caucus primary election where activists tarred him with TARP as evidence of his profilgacy and liberalism; this to a man who has a lifetime rating of 84% from the American Conservative Union and a 98% rating from the NRA. 

Simply put, TARP transcended partisanship. Whatever your political leanings, there was something to hate about that bill.

The punditocracy will be keeping a running tally of these 50 members of Congress and no doubt reporting on their fates the first Tuesday night in November as if they were commodities on the stock exchange, complete with a tote board of TARP 50 winners and losers along with a pool of partisan commentators who will dismiss the single TARP theory in favor of a blanket indictment of the failure of liberalism, conservatism and a bunch of other -isms to suit your viewing habits--all of which miss the larger point.

While you and I will soon forget the names of the ex-members of Congress, if a vast majority of the TARP 50 lose their reelection campaigns, this vote and the members who took it will be labeled with the moniker that haunts the cloak rooms of Congressmen past and present--cautionary tales; politicians who were sacrificed at the altar for taking a tough vote.

If you think it’s difficult for our government to accomplish anything now besides sanctifying puppies and small children, listen carefully to the political whispers of the 2011 and beyond.

“Vote for energy taxes or immigration or Social Security reform or to stop funding the war?” party leaders will ask newly minted members in the next term. “Remember what happened to your predecessor…?” 

This is what shrivels democracies from the inside, and that’s why we need to question pre-packaged orthodoxies--to renew it.

To those who are going to vote Republican this fall, after your candidate has convinced you that he/she is going to secure the border, ask them if they are willing to harbor the hundreds of thousands of Afghani women whose lives will be in jeopardy when we leave their country because we told them they weren’t second class citizens and that they could go to school, go out in public and even vote. Furthermore, how will these immigrant bashers handle the inevitable 21st century version of the Vietnamese boat people when we vacate Afghanistan and Iraq after fruitlessly searching for ten years for a 6’4” Saudi hiding in a cave and weapons of mass destruction.

While we are on the subject of Afghanistan, ask them how much of your money are they  willing to continue to spend on a futile exercise in nation building--unknown sums which have funded our enemies--and if they are willing to square their beliefs in fiscal discipline with two wars that have cost more than the entire federal debt and thousands of lives?

If they are for ending earmarks, ask them if that means they’ll eliminate billions in subsidies for coal and oil so Americans have to see the true costs of our fossil fuel addiction or just which private company is going to risk building a nuclear power plant without government guarantees.

Did they vote against regulating Wall Street and eliminating the liability cap for BP--and how would they prevent these sorts of excesses by other means than government regulation?

For those of you voting for Democrats this fall, you’ll be happy to know your candidates will be doing their best to recycle; for the third consecutive cycle you’ll see ads blaming George W. Bush for everything from global warming to the downfall of NBC’s prime time lineup, but are your candidates willing to publicly repudiate the Bush tax cuts and argue for another stimulus package and increased taxes to balance the budget and create jobs?

Once your candidate is done scaring senior citizens that Republicans are going to privatize Social Security, are you willing to ask when they are going to level with the American public that we can’t continue to base a retirement system on a life expectancy that has increased by 17 years since the system was created?

Or when they claim they are for creating jobs, ask them why Harry Reid didn’t throw down the gauntlet in the Senate for a bill that would have unleashed an innovation economy designed to ensure Americans keep building things future generations will need?

Yes, the conventional political observers will be closely following the Nevada Senate race between Harry Reid and Sharon Angle As for me, I’ll be watching Reid vs. Angle for sport, but I’ll be keeping my eye on the TARP 50 for the future of our country.

Keep Up With The Conversation

Follow us in between columns on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.