So It Goes

Obama: The Digital Campaign Pioneer

A PIECE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES a few days ago pointed out what others have observed recently: that the Obama campaign has used digital (that is internet, etc.) strategies more skillfully than any of the other campaigns. I'm not one to make such pronouncements, but it's probably safe to say that political campaigns will never be the same again. Or will they?

There's little doubt that the campaign has mobilized followers in ways and in numbers that scarcely any movement or political campaign has before. Those huge crowds of tens of thousands of people who attended Obama rallies late in the primary season and the many who organized their own personal outreaches on his behalf didn't just magically show up. It was all part of a process that made it easy for people who resonated to Obama's message and persona to join the bandwagon. Through social networking tools like Facebook and through Obama's official campaign site, there were many ways that people could connect and feel like they were contributing.

That's very empowering,and it clearly made it possible for many supporters to move from passive support online to real-life action on the hustings.

Didn't all of the campaigns do this? Apparently not. The Times article cited Yochai Benkler, author of “The Wealth of Networks,” an influential book about online collaboration, saying that he "points out a crucial difference between Mr. Obama’s approach to attracting supporters and that of his chief rivals. 'On the McCain and Clinton Web sites, there is a transactional screen,' Mr. Benkler said. 'It is just about the money. Donate, then we can build the relationship. In Obama’s it’s inverted: build the relationship and then donate.'”

Shouldn't every campaign operate like this from now on? Yes, and, well, maybe. A few work colleagues of mine, some of whom actual implement such virtual social networking strategies for our clients, and I sat around yesterday talking about this phenomenon. We agreed on a couple of caveats for any politicians to be cautious of should they decided to campaign as Obama did.

First, a social networking strategy such as Obama's requires the campaign to give a lot of control over the messages and directions of the campaign. Sure, all of the online supporters are given talking points and careful directions about how to behave and proceed in their personal activities. But, for the most part, they were on their own.

That sort of structure scares a lot of campaigns, as you never know if one of your far-flung supporters will say or do something that will embarrass the campaign and the candidate. Though, as my colleague Ben Clark, who has run digital operations for campaigns in the past, pointed out, there seems to be more acknowledgment today that the candidate cannot be held responsible for bad behavior of its distant supporters. That wasn't so true a few years ago, Clark said, when opponents of his boss, Howard Dean, tried to nail him for nasty things a Dean supporter wrote on a chat board someplace.

I hope Ben is right about that. I hold my breath though; desperate political opponents may try anything to tar each other with unfair allegations. And there are people out there who will buy. 

Ceding control is risky, too, because if a candidate disappoints in some way, angry followers can turn on him in a second and in force. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Caveat number two for any candidate who wishes to use digital tools to campaign is this: there's no substitute for a good product. The tools themselves did not win the campaign (so far) for Obama. They were just a medium through which excited followers could express their support. Let's face it, Obama may be one of the best campaigners in a generation (which is saying a lot, as I thought that of Bill Clinton). People want to be a part of his ascension. They are swept away by his spellbinding speeches and star quality.

As a public relations practitioner, I have always laughed when people use the word "spin" to describe what we do. Yes, we can accentuate the positive and try to frame discussions in certain ways. But, at bottom, you can't spin away the truth (without lying, which is not part of the effective p.r. toolbox, as surprising as that may sound to some). When I first started working for a p.r. firm, a friend said of my newly adopted field: "Oh those are the people who make shit taste like ice cream." Well, guess what, no amount of "spin" can make shit taste list ice cream.

Third, as Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the namesake of the DailyKos political blog, said in the Times article, “The Obama campaign is still very much a top-bottom operation. They’ve made it very easy for people to hop on the bandwagon, but those in the back of that wagon still get no say in where the campaign is going.”
One has to wonder if some disillusioned supporters in the back of wagon get frustrated somewhere down the road (maybe after Obama becomes President) that their views are not being taken into account. That the campaign was coveting their bodies only, not their minds. I suspect that most understand that this is just not reasonable, that millions of followers cannot expect to have that kind of input. But what if some walk away feeling stymied, used?

All those caveats aside, it will be fun to watch how Obama uses these new tools of digital communications, taking the political process to a whole new place.

Jeff

Time for Straight Talk About Fox News

In an article this morning about Hillary Clinton's appearance on Fox News's "The O'Reilly Factor, the Washington Post referred to Fox as "a television network that many liberals say is biased against them."

Now, I understand that a straight news article such as this one has to be careful not to present opinion as fact. But, come on, is there really any doubt that Fox News is biased against liberals? Why can’t a straight news story state this as a fact?

Beating up on liberals is the Fox brand, the keystone of its success, a great source of its institutional pride, right? I know, I know, Fox News coyly claims to be the anti-bias network, remedying the alleged liberal bias of the rest of the news media. That’s the official line.

But don't most people, especially its loyal viewers and defenders, pretty much acknowledge that much of what Fox does (and generates ratings specifically for this reason) is trash so-called liberals?

If the demographics of its audiences are any proxy for its brand, then the Washington Post shouldn’t feel compelled to say merely that “liberals say.” According to a survey by the Pew Center for People in the Press, "[W]hile roughly the same proportion of Republicans and Democrats view Fox News as credible, Fox ranks as the most trusted news source among Republicans but is among the least trusted by Democrats." (That survey admittedly came out four years ago. But, while things can certainly change in four years, I think we can all stipulate that Fox has, if anything, intensified that profile.)

And why would a Republican president and his administration grant so many interviews to Fox if they didn’t think they’d be getting sympathetic treatment?

Here I go again, as Ronald Reagan might say, mouthing the false assumptions of the haughty liberal class. Don’t I see that Fox has a few liberal commentators, and that it committed to "fair and balanced” coverage? Don’t I see that, shucks, the network is just trying to level the playing field for the good of the nation, the regular folks? That's how one defends deception, by accusing its accusers of deception. Hit them, then complain about getting hit.

I say all this not as a liberal, by the way, though I suspect that by most definitions I am, on most issues, "liberal." (I'm not crazy about such labels, which is another thing that bugs me about Fox.) I say it because Fox's positioning seems so deliberately misleading.

The truth is, I've got nothing against "conservative" news media, even if they sometimes make my blood boil and if on occasion I surprise myself and actually agree with what they say. If Fox News would just come out and say, “Hey, we represent conservative values, and that’s the lens through which we’re calling what we see,” I would respect it for standing up for what it claims to be.

Indeed, there’s a great tradition in American journalism of newspapers that took on a particular ideology. But I should qualify that.

The era of Republican and Democratic newspapers  took place when there were many more papers and you could count on getting several different points of view, even in the same small or medium-sized town. Today, with the consolidation of media organizations into the control of all but a handful of owners and with the stark cutbacks taking place in newsrooms everywhere, I'm not sure how much our society can afford that sort of ideological journalism -- at least not among those news outlets that are meant to cut across many different communities and provide a common public square where all points of view and the best ideas converge.

(If I sound like a civics puritan, well, maybe I am. But don't worry, the realist in me knows that that the obligation of media organizations to make money too often compromises the public service function of journalism.)

But this “fair and balanced,” “We report. You decide.” business that Fox feeds us is maddening for its disingenuousness. It mocks the notion of thoughtful, constructive discourse. It's a classic example of doublespeak

And we all know it, don’t we? Isn’t it time the Washington Post (and other straight news gatherers) acknowledged that as objective fact and not as a something that some people, supposedly with their own ax to grind, allege?

Jeff

The Speech: Not There Yet But a Good Start

IT HAS TAKEN ME A FEW DAYS TO GET TO WRITING ABOUT BARACK OBAMA’S race relations speech the other day, which some are calling one of the greatest political speeches of all time and others are shooting down as a rhetorical sleight of hand. My delay has to do in part with my busy life and in part with my ambivalence about it.

Let’s start with the simple stuff: Contrary to much of the swooning that’s going on around Obama’s speech, there’s nothing terribly original about a politician addressing the subject of race. It may have been a great speech, as speeches go, but others have tread this ground much more than Obama has in this campaign.

Bill Clinton deserves a lot of credit, for example, for tackling it through his Presidential Commission on Race. Many more cynically minded people never gave the Commission a chance to succeed. Yes, it’s true, it did bog down a bit in side arguments about whether one group’s victimization was greater than others. But it was a good try, and Clinton waded into the subject quite often when his advisors strenuously urged him not to, fearing it would get him into trouble. I think the nation is better for his doing it, but certainly not entirely reconciled with the issue of race.

Certainly, the subject of race was much more of a front-burner issue during the 1960s through the ‘90s than it has been in the last eight years from some reason. Up to the late 1990s, it was a subject about which there was a lot of great writing and speech making (and a lot of silly, noisy rhetoric, too). I know, because in those days  I read everything I could on those subjects. Somehow, there seems to be far less talk about race these days, which is surprising given that the Bush Administration has done precious little to advance the discussion for the better or the worse. Or maybe it's because of it.

Obama’s speech, while noteworthy for opening the subject at all, doesn’t even approach the kind of candid and smart talk I heard up to about eight years ago. It simply reminds people that we have to get back to the talk about it. That's admirable but not epic, as many are portraying his speech.

Most importantly, I’m ambivalent about whether Obama should get a pass, as many are granting him, for indulging the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

I feel a bit like Obama tried to have it both ways when he condemned the words but not the man who delivered them. To me, that’s essentially an endorsement of the words, and it undermines the decency of many African Americans – and I know of many – who would simply have found another church if their pastor had acted this way.

But he has a point that what Wright said is a common theme in the black community - doesn't make it right, but there's something in it for all of us to learn from.

Like Obama’s speech itself, there’s nothing all that new about Wright’s comments. Anyone who has listened to African American radio or read African American newspapers will be familiar with this kind of stuff. Hurtful and potentially dangerous as it can be, whites who are surprised by such sentiment have simply not been paying attention, assuming, I guess, that we’ve ‘gotten past’ all our racial problems – which is itself a reason for African Americans to be frustrated.

I think it’s delusional and dangerous to say some of the things Wright said: that whites are responsible for giving blacks the AIDS virus or that we somehow sowed the seeds of the 9/11 attacks by our previous behaviors, and so on (I've heard much worse). I have long been annoyed and angered by so many African Americans’ unwillingness to distance themselves from this sort of crap.

Still, while the content of speeches like Wright’s may be beyond the pale, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the spirit or the intent of those speeches. There’s something driving it that is telling us that, while we’ve come a long way in a generation or so since Jim Crow, African America is not at all feeling that the journey is over. Many admirable legislative and private-sector initiatives have been put in place to ameliorate the legacy of racism, but there is still much to be despondent about, and the real debate is about whether that’s because of residual white racism.

Yes, it’s good that Obama took a chance, and it’s good to see that the reaction was, for the most part, thoughtful and possibly constructive. I don’t think he’s fully extricated himself from the tight spot that prompted his great speech in the first place, and I'm annoyed with everyone from assuming that he has. Nor did he plow any especially original ground, a so many have suggested he has. But he's on to something. I hope it’s not the last we’ll hear from him on the subject.

Jeff 

What Are We Complaining About?

IN A LITTLE MORE THAN 48 HOURS, we Democrats could have a presidential nominee. When that happens, I hope that most Democrats believe, as I do, that, whatever happens, we should be feeling fortunate. I worry that they don't.

What I mean is that we have what I think is a choice between two strong candidates. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are, in my opinion, capable of winning and capable of running the federal government well. But the growing conflict between Clinton and Obama supporters seems headed for another episode of Democrats doing everything possible to lose a near sure thing.

Both Clinton and Obama offer different, but equally valuable qualities. Clinton is a policy wonk who knows a lot about a lot of issues, and she is thoughtful and passionate about them. She's a marvelous antidote to a president who not only seems unfamiliar and often awkward with the major needs of the American public, he also seems incapable of making decisions himself and of reigning over the rogue and wrong "deciders" within his own White House. Okay, some people thinks Hillary's not sweet and warm (something I think is more of a hyped myth than a reality, though I don't know her any better than her critics do). But, let's face it: we're not electing someone to tuck us into bed at night.

Obama offers inspiration, no question about it. That's something I tend to value less than wonkery. But I have to admit that it counts for a lot in a President, who must quell fears and build the confidence necessary to move people -- and I mean all American people, not just the ones who share his party affiliation -- in the right direction. Franklin Roosevelt had that ability; so did Winston Churchill, who was also the utlimate policy wonk.

Contrary to what a lot of others think, I feel that Hillary Clinton has an ample supply of charisma to offer America. (And that's why, when it comes down to it, I'll vote for her in the primary because she combines a greater command of the issues than Obama, who has been too vague about many of his positions for my tastes, and because she still brings a lot of inspiration to the job.) But even she and her biggest fans would have to admit that Obama may be one of the most spellbinding speakers and political personalities on the national scene. Much as that might not get me to pull the lever for him, I think it still counts for a lot.

So we Dems should be happy, right? An embarrassment of riches, and all that. We can't lose with either of these candidates.

Well, no. Anecdotally, I still hear a lot of unhappiness -- and downright hostility -- between the Clinton and Obama supporters I know. And, while I think the media blew way out of proportion the public criticisms the candidates and their surrogates levelled between the camps (see clips one and two from the Daily Show for a great satirical commentary on this point), there seem to be way too many people who will actually be upset and even alienated if either candidate wins. I've been hearing about and witnessing angry verbal squabbles. I wouldn't be surprised, based on what I'm hearing now, if some Dems turn their backs on either Obama or Clinton when the general comes around.

That's such a waste and counterproductive, of course. Do we really want to blow this one? How does "President McCain" sound to you?

I'm not saying drop your principles. But I am saying that we have two great candidates to choose from. The problem is everyone expects perfect, according to their own values and needs. But, as they say, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Jeff

"What is the Matter With You People?"

Yesterday's Sunday comics section included a Doonesbury strip that I think says a lot about the relationship between the Islamic world and the West.

The strip (which is a "Flashback," meaning it ran once before, I think in 2007) shows two soldiers -- one of them American, the other Iraqi -- in an armored vehicle patrolling through a tough neighborhood in Iraq. Their dialogue begins:

American soldier: "Ready to do this, partner?"
Iraqi soldier: "ZZZ."
AS: "Great!... Okay, that's the safe house -- the big white building at the end of the street."
IS: "I know this house. The owner is Sunni scum."
AS: "Oh, yeah?... Well, intel wants us to capture the guy alive."
IS: "This will not be possible. I am sworn to vengeance!"
AS: "Why? What'd he ever do to you?"
IS: "A member of his family killed a member of mine."
AS: "What? When did this happen?"
IS: "1387"
AS: "What is the matter with you people?"

Whether or not this exchange reflects reality, Garry Trudeau is saying, within only a few frames and with only few words, that cultural differences between the Islamic world and the West are immense. Trudeau reflects not a "clash of civilizations," as so many of us want to believe exists, but rather the first-time encounter of two people who don't really know or understand one another.

The American in the strip views Muslims as one big, backward and dysfunctional family that is trapped in the past and unprepared for the present. He finds the Iraqi's talk of sectarian revenge -- based, no less, on something that happened more than 600 years ago -- incomprehensible. The Iraqi does not understand the cultural vocabulary of the American or fully grasp the reality of the moment. He sleeps through his patrol and is willing to ignore what sounds like a reasonable command, possible triggering a dangerous showdown.

For his part, the Iraqi embraces history as something truly meaningful and relevant today, even if it means ignoring the realities of the present. Americans tend not to look back too much on the past, or to understand why it stands for so much to other cultures.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to say how fair these characterizations are generally of people on both sides Muslim/Western divide. But I'm glad that Trudeau gets us thinking at least about what we all don't know. That's precisely what Akbar Ahmed, a professor of Islamic studies at American University, does, though he can fill in the gaps for us. Ahmed (about whom I have written before and for whom I have done some p.r. work) is foremost a translator between people who do not know each other and who literally and cultural speak completely different languages.

In other words, he occupies a critical role at a time when Islam and the West needs people like him the most. Through his many books, documentaries, lectures, diplomacy (he was Pakistan's High Commissioner to the U.K.) and plays, he has been a prime interpreter of Islam to the West, helping us get past the misguided shorthands we have about Muslims. At the same time, he interprets the West to the Islamic world, which swirls with myths and downright bizarre assumptions about Westerners.

If there is one message that Westerners would do well to take from Ahmed, it is that Islam is more complex than we truly comprehend. In his recent book, "Journey Into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization," which was the product of anthropological visits to eight or nine Islamic countries in the Arab Middle East, South Asia and East Asia, Ahmed leaves no doubt that Islam expresses itself in countless ways, often within a single country or region and even within a single family.

Moreover, he argues that the very encounter with the West -- lately through the fast-moving, border-busting phenomenon of "globalization" -- has brought about many different challenges and responses in many parts of the Islamic world that were previously mostly insulated from the outside.

Islamic reactions to that encounter with the outside world are mixed, Ahmed shows, describing them using three broad typologies. "Islam's response to the forces of globalization... takes at least least three distinct forms: mystics reach out to other faiths, traditionalists want to preserve the purity of Islam, and modernists attempt to synthesize society with other non-Muslim systems" he writes in "Journey Into Islam." "Because most people in the West do not understand the complexity of Muslim society through models such as [these], they reduce understanding of U.S. relations with the Muslim world to good versus evil, and divide Muslims crudely into moderate versus extreme."

These three models "have been in play for the last two centuries," Ahmed  told an audience at the Brookings Institution last June when discussing his book. "This is an ongoing dynamic, an ongoing dialectic within Muslim society. Since the first impact with Western colonization in the middle of the 19th Century, and you are seeing, in a sense, the drama being played out right now. 9/11 was a catalyst. It escalates the drama, but it does not create the drama."

America's and the West's failure to understand the complexities of the Islamic world, Ahmed writes in the book, has led to much of the miscalculation and disaster that is the Iraq war. The U.S., he says, "needs to quickly appreciate the nuances of these societies. Muslims widely complain of the lack of justice, widespread corruption and collapse of law and order. Too frequently, the United States backs strong military intervention, unaware of how this support encourages turmoil and how negatively this support is seen within a country."

At the Brookings event about "Journey Into Islam," scholar Stephen P. Cohen seconded Ahmed's analysis by pointing out that a "wonderful euphemism that is circulating around Washington is kinetic solution, that is, beating up somebody or shooting them. Kinetic solutions don’t work. If you have to use a kinetic solution, that is, shoot them, you have already lost the war especially the war of ideas."

"America’s great strength," Cohen continued, "its practical approach to problem-solving, has really become a weakness of ours. We don’t take the time to listen, to understand, if not to respect, at least to understand other cultures and civilizations. The policy implications here are really get out and talk, meet with people, reestablish the libraries around the world. We used to be culture centers for many countries. I know in Pakistan when I first went there I think there were eight different American centers. There are zero now. In Pakistan and other countries, the American center, the American library was often the cultural and intellectual center point of local and national dialogue about their states as well as relations with the U.S. These kinds of institutions have disappeared around the world. They are still relevant. They are still powerful. We really need to rebuild them to be able to compete in the world."

Ahmed's criticisms of the Muslim world are the mirror image of those he has of the West.

• "Muslims need to recognize that the most effective 'weapons' for addressing their grievances are knowledge and reason, rather than brute force...."
• "Muslim leaders must [also] strive to live up to their own vision of the ideal society. Too many Arab rulers use the crutch of Israel directly or indirectly to avoid working toward democracy until that 'problem' is solved."
• If Muslims had reacted to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq with restraint rather than violence, it "would have impressed people in the West and created sympathy for Muslim causes. As it happened, the beheadings, the suicide bombings, and the hyperbolic rtheroric of violence... confirmed already existing steteotypes of Muslims. Very soon, people in the West began to equate violence and terrorism with Islam itself... and see all Muslims as inherently bloodthirsty...."

So, to paraphrase the American soldier's question in the Doonesbury strip: What is the matter with all these people? "Ignorance of other cultures leads to serious policy mistakes, whether conducting warfare of peace negotiations," Ahmed answers.

The real task, then, is to accelerate the pace with which we eliminate that ignorance among as many people on both sides of the divide as possible.

Jeff

What If Ted Baxter Were President?

APPARENTLY, I MISSED THE BIG NEWS, when it came out nearly a month ago that CNN anchor Lou Dobbs had waved off suggestions that he might run for President. That's right, of the United States.

"I'm an advocacy journalist," Dobbs told the Detroit Free Press. "I cannot imagine being a candidate for any office and certainly not president. I would be the candidate of last resort."

Any real, self-effacing "journalist" would have merely laughed at the question. But Dobbs had to give some justification as to why he wouldn't run. "I'm an advocacy journalist!"

(Well, at least Dobbs is honest about one thing: there's nothing objective or dispassionate about his rants on CNN prime business show. It's advocacy! Now it can be told! One has to wonder how the Cable NEWS Network can continue to justify what Dobbs does as news. What it must certainly be is a ratings grabber, which is the only reason I can think CNN would continue to leave him on the air, particularly in such a prominent time slot.)

But the Free Press interview was then. This is now. Like a latter-day Ted Baxter, so giddy that anyone would even suggest he run for President, Dobbs recently told the Wall Street Journal, "I cannot say never."

Reminds me a bit of the time many years ago when Arnold Schwarzenegger, appearing on the David Letterman Show, said with a straight face, "I am the best thing that ever happened to the Kennedy family." Like Dobbs's statement to the Journal, that line got a huge laugh. But the difference is that Schwarzenegger was joking -- spoofing himself, really. 

Dobbs's sense of self-importance also rose its ugly head when he told the Free Press last month: "These two parties are great about discussing wedge issues like gun control, or abortion or gay marriage but have little to offer in dealing with issues and challenges that matter to most people like free trade or illegal immigration."

I'm not sure that free trade or illegal immigration are issues that matter most to most Americans, though they're important. There's no doubt, however, that Dobbs has done a brilliant job of whipping a committed core of Americans who do care about these issues into a frenzy. Many people give him a lot of credit -- along with many of the other disingenuous talk show shouters -- for derailing the comprehensive federal immigration reform bill that was up for consideration on Capitol Hill last year.

And, because the federal government is now doing nothing to address a policy matter that should have been fixed a long time ago, Dobbs and his posse are beating up on the feds and Congress for, what else, doing nothing. If this problem of immigration policy ever got fixed, what would Dobbs have to talk about? Oh, of course, the evils of outsourcing.

What he probably won't acknowledge is that most of those Americans who care about the immigration problem don't really agree with where him and other restrictionists on some core points. As the Pew Research Center found in a survey last June, while many Americans were ambivalent about whether the immigration reform bill was a good one (regardless of political affiliation, only about a third favored it and large percentages -- about one quarter to one third, depending upon affiliation -- were undecided), most favored "a way for people who are in this country illegally to gain legal citizenship under certain conditions," according to the Pew Research Center's findings.

"Overall, 63 percent of the public -- and nearly identical numbers of Republicans, Democrats and independents -- favor such an approach if illegal immigrants 'pass background checks, pay fines and have jobs,'" the Pew Research Center concluded.

What's more, according to the survey, "In general, the public is less supportive of providing 'amnesty' for illegal immigrants than it is of providing a way for illegal immigrants to gain citizenship. Even so, a majority of Americans (54 percent) say they favor amnesty for illegal immigrants already in the country if they pass background checks and meet other conditions."

If that's the case, then why are the presidential candidates -- especially the Republicans -- contorting themselves to avoid saying anything about immigration, let alone utter the word "amnesty?" Maybe they're worried that Dobbs if takes himself so seriously, he'll actually run for President.

Jeff

Are America's Presidential Elections Un-American?

THE FIRST OFFICIAL VOTES have been cast in the run-up to America’s quadrennial elections of a president, and, once again, I can’t help but feel there’s something un-American about what’s going on.

I’m not talking about whether our method of electing presidents – which relies too heavily on cash from supporters and so-called “special interests” and is prejudiced by whether or not media commentators declare one or another candidate “electable,” thus scaring off all the supporters and “special interest” money – subverts the very principle of democracy. It’s a lousy way to seek the will of the people, but it’s our lousy way.

What I mean is that every four years (actually, it seems like all the time now, what with candidates’ pilgrimages to Iowa and New Hampshire almost as soon as the last presidential election ends) we obsess about whether one candidate has the character and ideas to lead the country. Countless profiles plumb the depths of each candidate’s personal history looking for those defining attributes and moments of epiphany that illustrate whether he or she is fit to hold the highest public office in the land.

More to my point, so many of us Americans convince ourselves that if we can only put this one person in  office, life as we know it will be transformed for the better. The economy will improve; social problems will be resolved; the general physical and mental well-being of all Americans will be better; the sun will shine every day.

Of course, I generalize and exaggerate, which is always dangerous, especially in the absence of empirical data. But anyone who pays even a little attention to the public and private discourse about our nation’s politics and listens to others describe their hopes and fears as they consider which candidate to support, can’t help but conclude that many of us are waiting for a Messiah to make it all better.

That sentiment feels so un-American to me. The political culture of this country, established by Enlightenment thinkers and reinforced over and over since then, is one that deemphasizes the importance of our leaders. This is not a monarchy or a dictatorship, where we must do whatever the Big Guy tells us. Indeed, our founders had precisely the opposite in mind when they laid down the fundamental American political creed, and this rejection of an aristocracy became one of the chief attributes of what is known as “American Exceptionalism.”

Another defining feature of “American Exceptionalism” is individualism (sorry for all the –isms). Especially as compared to people from many other cultures around the world, Americans to this day remain fiercely individualistic. This attribute has been an asset at many times; individualism has been the ballast of innovation and entrepreneurship, which have made America strong, and continue to. Individualism, though, can also be a liability, as a collection of individuals often struggles to find a common identity or cause that binds them.

My purpose is to ask rhetorically how it is that such an anti-aristocratic, individualistic people nevertheless fixate so much on a single person who will take over the White House (and the same can be said, I think, for many other public offices).  Why do so many of us place so much hope in the one person and almost give ourselves over to him or her? Why do we make such a big deal about these elections?

It is ironic that even American Enlightenment thinkers and public figures of that era were themselves treated like royals by their own contemporaries. I’m thinking in particular of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, who were icons of their time.  And throughout American history we have looked to the White House and to our military leadership as the saviors who will bring us from calamity to prosperity.

It shouldn’t matter to a group of individualistically- minded people who our leader is, should it? By definition, an individualistic, anti-elitist American should just get on with his work no matter who is in office. In fact, that’s often the case. Many American institutions, for example, don’t wait around for our political leaders to figure out what to do about the thorny political issues of the day, such as the status of gays and lesbians, affirmative action and environmental protection. Many private businesses, religious groups and universities often figure out how to solve such ideological logjams long before the politicians do.

So often, though, it has been the case that our leaders – the good ones, at least – use their status as a way of mobilizing this nation of individuals toward common goals. While not everyone agreed with him during his time as President, Abraham Lincoln was certainly one of those leaders. In fact, with the Gettysburg Address and many other utterances and actions, he deepened our understanding and acceptance of the American Creed. Franklin Roosevelt did the same by saying, through his words and policies during the Depression and the war, that we are all in this together and each of us has a role to play in overcoming failure.

What history and our own contemporary experience tell us is that, notwithstanding the American Creed of individualism and anti-elitism individual leaders do matter in America. The Creed has not gone away; its impulses remain alive and well today. But even a nation of individuals – perhaps, especially such a nation – needs an empowered, though not unchecked president. That’s not just because of the policies and ideologies presidents bring with them to their offices, but also because of their capacity for mobilizing people toward good and bringing them together to combat threats and solve problems.

As George W. Bush has shown, incompetent leaders - especially those who ignore or fail to understand our American Creed, who can't to mobilize the best gifts of its people and who arrogantly (one could say aristocratically) act as though only they can know what is right - can be disastrous. And such leaders can ruin our precious relationships and standing among others around the world. In other words, leaders do matter. A nation that fails to recognize and address such failure - as we did in 2004 - is destined for more failure.

So in an odd sort of way, our quadrennial presidential election ritual, flawed as it is, might appear (at least to me) as slightly un-American. But it’s something that we Americans need now more than ever.

Jeff 

Who Will Tell the People the Truth About Immigration?

SINCE THE DEFEAT OF THE IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL ABOUT THREE WEEKS AGO in the U.S. Senate, we've heard most analysts say that this will be the last chance for this Congress and this Administration to attempt any such broad-sweeping overhaul.

Next year, they note, is an election year, so no sane politician, especially those who are standing for reelection, would dare bring up such a dangerously controversial policy matter, no matter how badly this country needs to retool what everyone agrees is a broken immigration system. Indeed, it seems we don't even have to be in an election year for the politicians to be stepping gingerly around the issue. Many on both sides of the partisan divide who we had assumed favored some sort reform scrambled for the cover of "no" votes at the last moment for fear that they would run into a buzz saw of voter discontent (and opposition distortion) in 2008.

Sadly, they have reason to be concerned. We all know about the tsunamis of phone calls and e-mails that swamped Senate offices, incited, some believe, by right-wing talk radio shouters and other anti-immigrant (or, more kindly: "restrictionist") rabble rousers.

And we've heard about instances like the one I mentioned last week of Prince William County, Virginia, which was considering a local measure to prohibit access to public services to illegal immigrants. The measure eventually passed, as this story in the Washington Post reports, though it was softened a bit from the proposed version. My favorite quote from the story came from Woodbridge, Va.'s Chris King, who supported the measure because it would supposedly stop the cultural decay that immigrants have brought to the community: "I'm tired of pressing '1' for English" on the phone," he said.

Okay, I'm being a little cheeky; in today's Post, there is a story about how many immigrant residents of the very same Prince William County have a tendency to keep chickens in their suburban backyards -- which is a violation of local zoning laws and such a terrible annoyance to other neighbors that many are moving out and property values are dropping. I won't dismiss that, just as has always been the case, immigrants often clash with the dominant American culture and the romantic notion of the melting pot should not always trump the hardship that it can create for others. There are laws and mores that newcomers must follow.

Just yesterday, The Gallup Poll released some emipirical data that, I'm sorry to say, backs up much of the anecdotal evidence our politicians have been reacting to. It basically demonstrates that most Americans think immigrants have detriminent impacts on the the nation's economy, morality, crime and tax situation.

                                                                                 

For each of   the following areas, please say whether immigrants to the United States   are making the situation in the country better or worse, or not having much   effect. How about -- [RANDOM ORDER]?
2007 Jun 4-24 based   on "better"   (sorted by "total")	Better	Worse	Not much   effect	Net better   minus worse
	%	%	%
Food, music, and   the arts	40	9	46	31
The economy in   general	28	46	23	-18
Social and moral   values	19	37	41	-18
Job opportunities   for you and your family	12	34	52	-22
Taxes	11	55	28	-44
The crime situation	4	58	34	-54

What's more, these negative views of immigrants seem to be getting more intense over the last several years as this next table shows.

                                                                                     

For each of   the following areas, please say whether immigrants to the  United States are making the situation in the country better or worse, or not having much effect.Net: % better minus % worse
	Crime	Job opportunities	Food, music, and the   arts	Economy	Taxes	Social and moral values
Total
2007 Jun 4-24	-54	-22	31	-18	-44	-18
2004 Jun 9-30	-41	-26	34	-19	-33	-9
2002 Jun 3-9	-42	-23	44	-4	-38	-5
2001 Jun 11-17	-43	-20	50	0	-34	1

So, yeah, a "smart" politician will wait this issue out, watch the tide roll away from the shore until voter antipathy toward immigrants (much of which, Gallup points out, corresponds to concerns many Americans more generally about the economy and personal economic opportunity) turns around.

John McCain, pundits are saying, was more "courageous" than smart. In addition to holding fast to his position that we stay the course with respect to Iraq, he has been an leading advocate for immigration reform. That, according to many, has done him no favors, and his campaign is in a fundraising and organizational tailspin. His standing in the polls has plunged, too.

Rudolph Giuliani used to be one of the shining examples of the pro-immigration advocate when he was Mayor of New York City. (About 10 years ago, I personally -- and successfully -- lobbied my own organization to offer him a keynote address at our annual meeting because of this even though some of my liberal colleagues were uneasy about giving a podium to a guy who pushed a conservative agenda in other ways.) Now, as a Presidential candidate, he is backing from his pro-immigrant profile. I won't say he's not the same person, but he -- and the other candidates who have taken steps in the same direction -- obviously know which way the wind is blowing.

So much for leadership. So much for profiles in courage. Again, without minimizing the real concerns that many Americans have with the changes immigrants are bringing to this country, who will stand up and speak loudly and clearly on behalf of immigration? Notice I didn't say "on behalf of illegal" immigrants. No one is in favor of illegal immigrants. Certainly, the illegals themselves would rather  have a system that enables them to come here legally and fill jobs, which are readily available and often unfilled.

That's what the proposed immigration reform legislation was about, or supposed to be. Who knows if it would have truly achieved the results we wanted, but we can be sure that now we'll have the same bad situation we've always had.

What we don't need are the Tom Tancredos, Lou Dobbs's, the FAIRs, the far-right talk show shouters and the other masters of intellectual dishonesty who are devoted to misleading the public about what immigrants offer this country. We need someone who will speak intelligently, without hyperbole and without dismissing the real difficulties that accompany immigration -- unlike the restrictionists, who paint immigration as only a bad thing, or the ones on the very opposite end of the spectrum who seem to get upset with any regulation on immigrants.

Businesses, ethnic groups and bleeding hearts (like me, I suppose) have long played the role of convincing the public that immigration is good for the country. But they have been discredited (unfairly) by the anti-immigrant crowd as too self-interested to be objective (as if the anti-immigrant types aren't).

The question is, then, who will most Americans believe when he or she stands up and tells them the truth: that immigrants are, notwithstanding some difficulties, enormously valuable to this country?

I'm not sure I have the answer myself. But we need to find out.

Jeff

Why We Need National Immigration Policy Reform -- And Why We Won't Get It

IF WE NEED AN EXAMPLE OF THE KIND OF EMOTION BEHIND THE OPPOSITION to the recently defeated immigration reform bill, as well as an illustration of why we need reform in the first place, let's look at what's happening in Prince William County, Virginia.

As reported in the Washington Post, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors is set to vote  on a package of new provisions that would require any county officials -- police, school administrators, medical providers, library workers, social service providers, recreation agency workers, and so forth -- to verify the legal residence of anyone who is trying to use county services or of anyone arrested for even the smallest infraction. The objective: the weed out illegal immigrants and to make everyone an agent of that effort.

It is all based on an assumption, embedded in the Board's resolution that "illegal immigration is causing economic hardship and lawlessness" and that "illegal immigration may be encouraged by public agencies within the county by failing to verify immigration status as a condition of providing public services."

"Citizens will no longer accept that our hands are tied and that responsibility lies with the federal government," said Supervisor John T. Stirrup Jr. (R-Gainesville), who proposed the resolution last month, reportedly with the help of a legal team supported by the virulently anti-immigrant organization, Federation of American Immigration Reform. "They want action."

According to Stirrup, "If they're here illegally, we have no responsibility to educate them," a policy that the U.S. Supreme Court has already said is unconstitutional. Stirrup compassionately told the Post that when it comes to emergency medical care, patients would be treated but promptly reported to the federal immigration agency.

The Post also reported that the proposed resolution, which the eight county supervisors (all up for reelection this fall) have all said they will support, also contains a provision that would give legal residents the right to sue Prince William County "if they suspect that a county agency has failed to comply with the resolution's aim of denying services and reporting violators." This means every citizen can be in on the act of turning in suspected illegal immigrants. Or as Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute told the Post, that particular measure is "as close to encouraging vigilante action as I have ever seen on paper."

Who knows how much they've thought this one through, but can you imagine the implications? If you wanted to take out a library card, or, presumably, even a book, once you've already gotten a card, the librarians would be required to search into your background to verify if you are a legal resident. To be truly fair, they should conduct such a search on everyone, right? It wouldn't be right to make assumptions about people just because of the way they look or talk. Many of those people who appear to be illegals might actually be legal residents or even full-fledged citizens. And many who appear to be legal might just turn out to be illegal. How would we ever know without checking everyone?

If that's what we're in for, the simple act of getting a library card could become mighty cumbersome. So could enrolling your kids in schools, getting medical treatment or social services. Where does it end? Should we all carry national identification cards, something that Americans profoundly reject whenever it comes up in public discourse? No public official has the guts to suggest that.

Let's consider also how our public servants feel about this. We get a taste of it from the Post article, which noted that Prince William County Police Chief Charlie T. Deane was not consulted about the pending legislation but that he wrote in a letter to the supervisors about a similar measure with a warning of "a potential chilling effect on witness cooperation and victim-witness cooperation." We know from many other cases around the country that local law enforcement officials are very hesitant to get involved in enforcing federal immigration laws, in part because of the difficulty of sorting through the paperwork (though the federal government is getting better with that) and because they fear they will compromise their relationships with local communities.

Finally, let's consider why those immigrants -- illegal and legal -- are there in the first place. There are jobs -- in the case of Prince William County, a lot of construction jobs -- and affordable housing. They are filling those jobs, keeping the economy moving. I don't doubt that with these populations there might also be a rise in some social problems -- crime and the like. Let us not excuse or defend that (though I suspect that most of those here illegally have nothing to do with those social problems and are, other than their illegal status, bothering no one). Nor should we excuse or defend the fact that many of these people are in the country illegally and their employers are using their services illegally.

But this seems to me to be the whole reason why Congress needed to act in some meaningful way to fix what everyone -- left, right and center -- agreed was a messed up policy. We have for too long had a situation where the rule of law has been ignored and flaunted. That needed to be fix. But it won't be now. It was the rage of many of the same kind of people who are pressing for the proposed provisions in Prince William County, Virginia, who killed those efforts to fix the mess. And they were proud to have killed it!

So it seems their goal is just to push these poor immigrants out of their midst and to offer no solution for how we should fill the huge gap in our workforce and social network once the immigrants  are gone.

This makes no sense.

Jeff

The Death of the Immigration Bill

MANY MIGHT ARGUE THAT THE PROPOSED IMMIGRATION REFORM LEGISLATION died in the U.S. Senate last week in large part because its principal supporters, including President Bush, didn't make a clear and compelling enough case for it to the American people. Still others might say that they wouldn't have had a chance anyway, that there this is too much of an emotional issue -- even more so than abortion or the death penalty -- for people to listen to reason.

True, the signs of immigrants' benefits to American are abundant to all. Whether we like to admit it or not, nearly all of us rely on immigrants -- most of whom are legal -- to provide an essential supply of workers in both skilled and unskilled positions that simply would not be filled otherwise and to add to the creative and intellectual capacity of the nation.

And, as I pointed out in a post last year, "like Europe, the U.S. is aging.... Increasingly, there will be fewer younger people to take care of older people -- both in terms of what they pay into the social welfare networks (principally Social Security and Medicare) and in terms of actual hands-on care. But with immigration, we are much better off than our friends in Europe, and Japan is facing a similar crisis."

For so many of us, however, this sort of longer term, national self interest is overshadowed by another kind of self interest and fear.

Take, for example, an article in the Washington Post last week that profiled a town in Georgia that has undergone some dramatic demographic changes due to immigration. In it, the reporter profiled Stephanie Usrey, "a stay-at-home mother of two... [who] has dreaded shopping at this particular branch [of Wal-Mart] ever since a Friday afternoon about five years ago, when she said she suddenly noticed she was the only non-Latino customer.

"'That was the first time I looked around and said, "Man, I didn't realize how many Mexicans there were here," ' Usrey, 39, recalled. 'And they don't seem to feel any discomfort when they're, like, six inches from your face and talking to each other in their language, either. I just felt very encroached upon. . . . It was like an instant feeling of 'I'm in the minority, and if we don't get control over this, pretty soon all of America will be outnumbered.'

"That sense of alarm, echoed in communities across the nation, helped seal defeat for the Senate immigration bill Thursday. Fueled by talk-radio hosts and Web sites, Usrey and tens of thousands of other first-time activists bombarded their senators with phone calls and e-mails decrying the bill as an unacceptable amnesty for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants."

I admit to grossly stereotyping the reasons why many of these activitists erupted and got the likes of Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, who is supposed to be leading the Republican caucus (especially on tough issues like this) to hide for several days and then show up at the last minute to quietly change his vote to a 'no' lest he endander his chances of reelection next year.

But so many of the arguments we hear are not unlike Usrey's: they don't want to be alienated by aliens -- and not just the illegal ones (if they make the distinction). Please don't make me press one for English. I'm tired of not understanding what the cab driver's and pizza delivery guys are saying.

And then there's one especially ugly, time-honored chesnut that's been surfacing with some curious regularity lately: immigrants bring disease to this country.  The Daily Show, God love it, did a great job unearthing these.

To be fair, there are others who offer more thoughtful arguments (about what immigrants do to pay scales, to the cost of public social service provision, etc.) against an immigration reform bill. But the bill, which was far from perfect, was trying to find a way to address many of these issues, so why tank the entire bill? It really seems that they are just against letting any immigrants in under any terms.

In a column in today's Washington Post, E.J. Dionne quoted Senator Evan Bayh (Dem.-Indiana) saying that there were two big reasons why many grassroots Americans opposed the immigration reform bill (which Bayh voted against last week).

First, Bayh argued "'the complete lack of a domestic agenda to address the needs of the middle class" in areas such as health care, pensions and education. When voters saw Congress directing its attention to 12 million illegal immigrants, [Bayh] said, 'They asked: "When are you going to get around to me? Are you going to get around to me?"'"

Second, Dionne wrote "the strongest arguments in the restrictionists' arsenal played on a widespread belief that the federal government was too incompetent to enforce whatever tough provisions the bill contained. Bayh pointed to poor planning for the Iraq war and the failure to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina as leading inevitably to skepticism. 'A government that's going to permit that is suddenly going to know how to make an entirely new employment system work?' Bayh asked."

Sounds like a dodge to me. On the first point, Bayh is making it sound like the immigration bill was just going to be a big handout to illegal immigrants. Not true at all. There were a lot of tough provisions in it -- which I think were warranted -- that were going to make illegal immigrants' lives pretty difficult.

And on both the first and second points, neither is a reason to do nothing about a policy that everyone agrees is broken and that is one of the few areas of our civic life in which the rule of law is flaunted openly and with the encouragement of many. True, I worry that our government, charged with enforcement of the complex set of rules this immigration bill proposed, may do everything possible to screw up the job.  But, again, is that a reason to do nothing, Senator Bayh? Are you really thinking this through, or are you just responding to conservative talk radio and the voluminous calls and e-mails to your office?

Yes, the immigration reform bill had become a mess, though that was largely due, from what I could tell, to those who were bent on amending it to death and making it virtually unpassable. But that was not what killed it. The real culprit was a fear of the stranger, even though we all know full well how much the stranger has given to this country in the past and is giving now. And even though we all know full well that the stranger is us.

Jeff