What Governments Do
As a DC resident, I've been an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of today's election between Tim Kaine and Jerry Kilgore. The race is thought to have national implications of some sort (maybe), but the striking thing about the campaign has been its vacuousness. I've seen a lot of advertisements from both sides, but absolutely none addressing education or Medicaid, the two largest responsibilities of state government. Conversely, in the fake presidential campaign on The West Wing, education is the top issue even though the federal government has only a tiny role in schools and education is a miniscule share of a federal budget that goes overwhelmingly to Social Security, the military, Medicare, debt servive, and Medicaid.
There doesn't seem to be any way to impress these basic points about where the responsibility for what lies or what the federal budget pays for on the citizenry, but it seems to me that the widespread ignorance of these topics seriously impoverishes our politics. I keep hearing from Kilgore on immigration (a federal issue) and Kaine on zoning (a local issue) and it's simply not possible for anyone to propose a sensible plan to cope with a problem in an area that the office he's running for isn't empowered to deal with
Matt really has hit on something. So much of politics right now is shadow boxing. If people are basically happy with how things are, I suppose it can't be otherwise.
November 8, 2005 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Matt, you seem to have missed out on a lot of what's going on in the campaign. Some races may have too much vacuous content. It is also true that the Virginia campaign has been devoid of any real potential national stars. But Tim Kaine has talked about education and transportation/development. He proposed a universal pre-K program, and although I don't know specifics, that would be pretty big. It's also resoundingly popular among voters in Virginia. Kaine has also talked about the new for more slow growth and development controls in the state, which anyone who has seen northern Virginia recently would know is tremendously important.
Admittedly, a debate about the implications of Bush's tax cuts and Medicaid and its problems could have been important. I expect a discussion about the loss of manufacturing jobs would have been significant as well. But ultimately, the governor can't do a whole lot about those things at the moment, so the focus is elsewhere.
The most important thing nationally about the race may be the identity issues. Can a Ivy League education former civil rights lawyer who can speak fluent Spanish but still be Catholic win and balance in a southern State? Or is it too hard to attract upper middle class professionals and working class Southerners into the same coalition. A win for the Democrats would be pretty good in that respect.
November 8, 2005 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Virginia race has nationally political significance primarily because it, New Jersey, and the California ballot stuff (which are turning out to be likely snoozers) are the only big elections going on this year and all the national political junkies have to focus on. And VA is the most interesting of all of those.
Although, for the love of poor Ed Kilgore, I really hope his fellow Virginians don't elect Jerry Kilgore, to whom Ed is not related, and force him to explain that for the next 4 years.
Speaking of which, Kaine was talking about education and running commercials on it earlier in the campaign before the really ugly Kilgore death penalty and immigration stuff came out and torpedoed the whole damn thing.
I don't really think the issue is impressing upon people which level of government is responsible for what, because that's really not what the debate in elections is about--Except for times of war or serious economic downturn, when those issues become the whole agenda, most of the issues that get a lot of air time in elections are either issues that appeal to narrow parochial interests as a sort of bribe or pander, or issues that are a lot less about what the government is actually able to do than they are proxies for moral/values positions of the different candidates. Candidates talk about education because the way in which they talk about education sends a message to voters about who they are and what their values are. Immigration is similar. Zoning is probably a narrow parochial thing.
November 8, 2005 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kaine does have an education plan--his universal pre-K plan has been one of his showcase ideas.
And zoning isn't entirely a local issue. What has happened over the last few years is that the (Republican-controlled) General Assembly has been trying to tie funding for Metro to zoning allowing greater density near the Metro stations; Kaine is opposed to those requirements.
November 8, 2005 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
This relates to something Sam Donaldson said this weekend -- people haven't turned away from George Bush because his policies are bad, they've turned away because they no longer trust his character.
In the VA-Gov case, the candidates seem to believe that the voters don't care about policy as policy -- they care about policy as a way to infer "character" qualities, from which they will presumably infer policy qualities for whatever issues come up that actually relate to the Governor's office. This is an incredibly stupid and needlessly complex method of candidate evaluation, but I'm positive that's what's going on.
November 8, 2005 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
We should make a table of relevancies and then a map. You then watch debates and speeches on a split screen, and every time a candidate talks about something he or she won't have much to do with, the map lights up appropriately and a sign pops up that says, "IRRELEVANT!"
November 8, 2005 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Matt is right, but I think that debating issues upon which candidates can do little has its value.
Why? Because it's very tough for voters to devote the time needed to really educate themselves about an issue. They therefore make a judgement about the candidates and whether they comport with their values. THis is why debating immigration on a state race can have salience.
November 8, 2005 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can a Ivy League education former civil rights lawyer who can speak fluent Spanish but still be Catholic win and balance in a southern State?
YES!!
November 8, 2005 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
YES!
November 8, 2005 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that debating issues upon which candidates can do little has its value.
Debate? What debate? Kilgore didn't want public debates during this campaign, because he's a poor debater, and he was pretty successful at shutting them down. Didn't do him any good, though. [grin]
November 8, 2005 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think aaronetc. has it right. Why else would candidates for mayor talk about the death penalty, which they cannot enact and would not administer?
November 9, 2005 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink