Chafee’s Senate Seat: R.I.P.
Posted November 12, 2006 on 7:05 pm | In the category Politics | by JeffSoon to be unemployed Senator Lincoln Chafee illustrates the problem with being a moderate Republican in a moderate state during the Bush/Cheney regime. In an Op Ed piece in today’s NY Times, Chafee complains that he lost because Cheney and Bush embarked on an “aggressively partisan agenda that included significant tax cuts, the abandonment of international agreements and a muscular, unilateral foreign policy” in spite of his personal letter to Cheney after the 2000 election begging for collaboration, moderation, etc.
Chafee’s letter was written after a meeting with Cheney attended by several moderate GOP Senators. What is of particular interest here is that one of them, Senator Jeffords of Vermont, smelled a big enough rat to leave the Republican Party. Chafee was shocked to learn that “we seemed ready to return to the poisonous partisanship that marked the Republican-Congress — Clinton White House years.”
On which planet was Chafee living? Bush and Cheney had track records and their weaknesses were not exactly a secret to everyone else in Washington and a lot of people outside Washington.
Chafee is, by most reports, a decent sort – but on the evidence of this Od Ed piece he had no place in the Senate – he helped it organize itself to do Bush/Cheney’s bidding and now regrets “not be[ing] able to participate in the difficult, but critical, healing process that must take place in our government if Democrats and Republicans are going to solve the serious problems facing this great nation.”
We needed good Republicans but did not have enough of them that would buck the craziness and nastiness of the administration. The best thing that could come out of this election would be the return of the Republican Party to its roots of integrity, responsibility and seriousness. Until then we can hope that the Chafees of the country continue to pay the price for their party membership.
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Jeff asks “on what planet does Lincoln Chafee reside.” For me, Chafee is an alien life-form from the galaxy “fortunate son.” For me –and the population at large– the popular lyric applies : “it aint me, I aint no Senator’s son.” In his galaxy, Chafee was born of a Senator into the option of becoming a Senator.
Not only is that not funny, it isn’t even an attempt at a joke. The US political culture/system is fundamentally broken. Down in its foundation. A symptom –or partial cause –of the malfunction is that we went from a founding egalitarian instinct to a celebrity insider network that gives us the likes of Al Gore and Lincoln Chafee. Gives us Bush 41 and 43 and makes it quite possible that those two cards will be shuffled so that there is a Clinton 42 and 44 interlaced with them. What the fuck’s that about? Talk about an elephant in the middle of the room.
Is it possible that this phenomena is being replicated in other than the political institutions of American culture? Say, in the news media? Do we really deserve two generations of Wallaces bringing us TV news? Do we want two generations of Kopples?
Whatever, there is no getting away from the reality that at least US politics– if not other institutions–has its informal equivalent of inherited titles. This may not be all that bad but it at least it deserves to be remarked upon.
Chafee is a good place to make the remark. His Dad was a moderate and independent minded republican. Sonny tried to be the same. He was throw-back,however, to a time that is no longer. In his father’s tenure there was little party discipline because there was virtually no party dependency. Well, the post watergate election reforms created–with good intention to be sure–party discipline and dependency. Reform of the campaign finance laws virtually assured the partisanship that has plagued us since.
So Lincoln tried to swim in his father’s waters but those waters weren’t a sustainable habitat for the un-evolved pre-reform era son. Therein is the evidence that the son was admitted to the senate based on his inheritance rather than contemporary merit.
If his father had not been in the Senate it is highly likely that Lincoln wouldn’t have been as he himself implies in his op-ed piece. He is out of step with the trend and direction. The fortune of his birth allowed his anomalous ascension against the tide of partisanship–for a short while anyway. Those of us who regard his father’s time as a healthier, non-partisan epoch might be pleased with the circumstances of Lincoln’s short lived success. But no the process. We can’t really be pleased with the inherited aspect of the non-egalitarian process. Nor should we be complacent about what next that anti-democratic process might throw up for us.
We really should think about this “family-ocracy”–this elephant in the room. How did he get there? Is this sort of elitism–what else would you call inherited political privilege–an antidote to the dumbing down pressure of lowest common denominator democracy? If so, is it to be celebrated rather than corrected? How do it know? We need to think about it –as a country or as individual voters–and examine what it says about us and whether what it says is attractive or not.
End of rant. As you were.
Comment by Kiwi — November 12, 2006 #
Yeah, screw meritocracy - we like the House of Lords approach. This combines with a certain amount of celebrity electability - football players, sons of football coaches (G. Allen aka Sen. Macacawitz), tired old baseball flunkies. And of course the occasional billionaire whose money gets him/her elected so he/she can feel the power. Then there are the religious wingbats looking to feel the rapture. And of course the power of incumbency which comes with a “for sale” sign. The system is screwed and while this election might have been a slight correction, let’s see how it develops over time.
And, let’s truly hope that Wolf Blitzer has no child looking at a career in TV journalism. One’s more than enough.
Comment by Jeff — November 13, 2006 #