Charley and I had a most enjoyable hour-long sitdown with US Rep. and Senate hopeful Mike Capuano yesterday at the Diesel Cafe in Somerville (which explains the substantial background noise in the recordings — sorry about that). Many thanks to Rep. Capuano and his staff for being so generous with their time.
We hit a lot of topics over the hour, and I’ve divided the audio up by question (as we did with our Coakley interview). One topic that came up again and again, in various ways, was the basic dynamic of insider vs. outsider: do you want someone who already knows Washington and its ways, or do you want someone new? With several candidates whose views on most major issues appear similar, that dynamic strikes me as very important in this race.
Capuano’s answer to that is very clear: he says of people pushing to elect an outsider that “they’re going to hurt the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” Here are several questions that touched on this topic in different ways — don’t miss his discussion of Rep. John Murtha, with respect to whom Capuano has already been in the paper recently.
- Charley asked how Capuano would influence his colleagues; Capuano answered that by explaining how he gets things done in Congress, and used Jack Murtha as an example.
- I followed up, pointing out that at some point ends always justifying means becomes problematic, as we’ve seen with Sal DiMasi. Capuano offered an unyielding defense of his approach, and explained why it led to his vote against defunding ACORN.
- Charley asked about specific earmarks sponsored by Capuano and connected to Murtha. Capuano remained resolute in refusing to judge his colleagues, and in continuing to work with the person who is “the one who can help get the things done that I want to get done.”
- A bit later in the conversation, I asked what Capuano would say to a voter who likes him on the issues but who, other things being equal, would prefer an outsider in the Senate. This is where he claimed that such a person would “hurt the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” Great stuff.
Health care, Cape Wind, and more, all to come.
I think it is easy to vote for a ‘Washington outsider’ when so many of our politicians get in trouble for corruption and petty scandals. I completely sympathize with those that want to ‘clean house’ and ‘kick the bums out’. The problem is ever since Watergate and especially in the early part of this century people have started to value being an ‘outsider’ over being experience. Al Gore had little to do with the scandals of the Clinton administration but a real reason the incumbent Vice President with a stellar record on all the issues and clearly far more policy knowledge than his opponent managed to lose with independents and swing voters who would normally reward competent economic management is because Bush ran as an ‘outsider’ not ‘tainted’ by (in this case the moral) corruption of Washington. Gore, a more competent and better candidate by every metric, and one of the few clean politicians to run for President, failed because he had the Washington taint. Bush as incumbent still ran as an outsider asking if we want these ‘insiders’ ‘back in charge’. I would argue the taint hurt McCain more than Obama because McCain by virtue of his being there longer made a lot more controversial votes and deal brokering that angered his base.
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p>So lately its become really hard for a clean, decent, hardworking public servant to actually get rewarded with promotion for a job well done. Mike is the rare Congressmen that lets you call him by his first name, that returns calls to his office, and that actually is candid and completely open about his job. He admitted he was under immense political pressure to vote for the war but ultimately said he could not in good conscience support it. Even in a liberal district like the 8th, the war was supported by most voters when it started and this was a much harder position than people looking back are giving credit to. He voted against the Patriot Act after 9/11, something no Senator other than Russ Feingold was able to do, and something that is considered mainstream now was considered treasonous in that poisonous period of political discourse in this country. In short us liberals take these votes for granted as if they were no brainer.
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p>But for a Washington ‘insider’ surrounded by a culture of poll consulting, lockstep in line with Congressional leadership, and a political culture within the Democratic party of avoiding sensible national security positions for fear of appearing weak, Mike stuck with his guns and still voted with his heart and mind against terrible legislation. Mike resisted the lure of the powerful corn lobbies and voted against Farm and Energy bills laden with pork that waste our taxdollars, hurt the third world, and the environment.
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p>Mike is an insider, he can broker deals that help the people of MA, he already knows the ropes in Washington and is years ahead of his opponents when it comes to this valuable experience. He is the only candidate that does not need on the job training. But let us not assume that this time in Washington has turned him into a creature of Washington. Time and time again Mike has voted his principles on every important issue the Congress has decided, he has never voted for political points or corporate dollars. So as much as we may want an ‘outsider’ without the experience to get the job done because we are that mistrusting of government, I say let us reward one of the few good guys left on capital hill with the promotion he deserves. Let us send someone who has represented my district well for over a decade to represent this entire state he loves so dearly. Being a politician should not disqualify someone from high office, especially if they have done a great job and have stayed honest in spite of their lengthy term of service and the temptations of Washington, it is a reason to give them a promotion not to discount their hard work.
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p>Is everyone here happy with the House Democrats? I’m extremely disappointed with what House Democrats have accomplished since Obama was inaugurated. I don’t think I’m alone.
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p>First, Capuano and his pals allowed the stimulus package to be watered down. If you haven’t noticed there are almost 50 million Americans unemployed and underemployed right now!
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p>Second, the US House has yet to pass anything on new financial regulations. What specifically has Capuano done about “too big to fail” and super-rich financiers risking other peoples’ money where heads they win, tails they win too, while US taxpayers are left holding the bag? It’s been over a year since last year’s Wall Street collapse and we’re still vulnerable to more Wall Street machinations.
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p>Third, why hasn’t the House passed the Employee Free Choice Act yet?
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p>All these are major economic issues that directly affect the lives of millions of Americans. There’s no mystery to any of them. Democrats campaigned openly on each of these issues and won last Fall’s election overwhelmingly. What are Capuano and the House Democrat Leadership waiting for?
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p>Capuano votes 100% of the time with the House Democratic Leadership to insure his spot on a leadership track. Yes, let’s all give him credit for keeping alive his personal ambition to one day becoming Majority Leader.
Your accusations are bordering on the vitriolic and are patently false good sir.
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p>I take issue with the following assertions
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p>The House Republicans voting in lockstep in addition to a significant minority of Democrats would have been enough to defeat the bill. Pelosi’s majority relies on about 50-60 blue dog seats and these blue dogs would not have voted for the previous stimulus package. Capuano voted affirmatively on both measures knowing that the second measure was far more viable.
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p>Teddy Kennedy watered down his comprehensive immigration package to get support from Sen. McCain and President Bush he did so because he realized in the later half of his career that it is better to pass something now that is imperfect but better than the status quo than oppose anything but perfection and retain the unsustainable status quo. To me you are arguing that Capuano is an effective compromising and able legislator since he can get things passed even over the objections of blue dogs and Republicans. To me that is an asset not a liability.
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p>Second:
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p>These regulations are quite complicated and we need the extra time to make sure we can pass regulations that are actually effective. While you might want a Senator who would simply propose a bill to garner short term headlines I want a Senator who would fight to pass legislation that ensured long term results. Barney Frank and others in the Finance Committee will have a regulation bill out soon enough and it will be strong and will get some Republican and blue dog support.
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p>Because it is a bad bill? Because it failed to gain even solid Democratic support? Because the President no longer wants it passed? Because the unions were unwilling to accept the condition of a secret ballot, something sacred to American democracy, for their elections? Here it is the unions stubbornness both to adapt to the times and to make political compromises that doomed their latest attempt at relevancy-not Congress and certainly not Capuano who has been one of the strongest supporters of this bill and tried incredibly hard to keep it viable-unfortunately he had a partner unwilling to see the political realities and make a deal.
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p>Lastly your most unfounded accusation
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p>Capuano voted against the House Energy Bill of 2005 that was endorsed and backed by Nancy Pelosi. He voted against the Farm Subsidies Act of 2007 also backed by the leadership and supported by the rest of our states delegation. He voted against the Patriot Act which was overwhelmingly supported by Democrats terrified of the Rove attack machine. The biggest vote of his career though was his vote against the Iraq War. Not only did he defy the majority of Americans and even his district in that vote but he specifically defied the House Leadership you claim he always followed. By voting against the Iraq War which was specifically supported by the party leadership of Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle and it seems that Mike was unafraid of angering his bosses and was not a follower but a principled leader. Defying them as he did would not be conducive to his ‘dream’ of becoming Majority Leader of the House, but neither would running for the Senate which is another easy refutation to your baseless claims. I want a politician with principles. This means someone unwilling to vote against his conscience for political expediency, but it also means someone willing to make good political decisions to advance the causes he supports. If you want a far left matyr go ahead, I want a Senator who will at least try to match the plethora of laws Ted Kennedy passed, most of which required him to make extensive compromises and to ‘water down’ some of their components. Its what being a legislator is. Ted Kennedy did not become the Lion of the Senate by refusing to compromise and refusing to reach out to the other side. Neither will any of his replacements.
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p>Sometimes it’s a mistake to compromise. FDR didn’t compromise on the New Deal (e.g., Social Security, the CCC, the SEC Act, the Public Utility Holding Act). LBJ didn’t compromise on the Civil Rights Act and Medicare. GW Bush didn’t compromise on his tax cuts. Sometimes on major issues you run with the majorities that the electorate gives you. By compromising on the stimulus package immediately after winning a national election overwhelmingly, Capuano and the House Democrats let the bad economy and unemployment/underemployment continue to be an issue in the 2010 elections. And, are you sure Capuano and his pals won’t compromise on health care reform? [Capuano himself acknowledges that he similarly compromised on the death penalty.] If something like the Baucus bill passes, it will be a disaster and Democrats will be justifiably blamed, too.
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p>If the financial regulations bill has significant Republican support, are you confident that it will be “strong”? Personally, I’m not interested in ANY Republican support and it concerns me that Capuano might be (as well as Obama & Geitner). After all, Republican legislators are for the most part completely bought and paid for by Wall Street.
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p>As far as blue dog support, if Capuano and the House leadership acted with a little more guts like their predecessors (e.g., Sam Rayburn, Newt Gingrich/Tom Delay) and threatened the blue dog’s precious committee assignments, we might get more good legislation passed quicker. Just a reminder: Sam Rayburn got the SEC Act of 1933 passed in the first summer of FDR’s administration. Again, I ask what’s taking so long for Capuano, Frank and the House Democrats?
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p>Is that really Capuano’s position? Maybe that explains why Coakley is getting most, if not all, of the union endorsements.
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p>As far as your secret ballot red herring: If you’re not aware, companies with unions can de-certify their union with the same, non-secret ballot process. All the EFCA does is institute the same process for union certification as exists today for de-certification. If the lobbyists for union busting companies are willing to have secret ballots for de-certification, maybe then we can talk about secret ballots for certification.
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p>Okay, I’m guilty of hyperbole. Maybe not 100% of the time, but Mike does vote 99% of the time with his mentor, Nancy Pelosi. You have correctly noted the one exception that Mike didn’t vote with Pelosi (2005’s Energy Bill).
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p>Capuano deserves a lot of credit for wisely cozying up to Pelosi and placing himself on the House leadership track. His place in the House leadership is, for me, the best reason to keep Capuano in the House and not the Senate. Don’t you think we should keep Massachusetts’ best shot at a future Speakership?
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p>And, my main point remains. While Mike can be given a lot of credit for his liberal voting record, I would never characterize it as particularly “courageous.” It’s not courageous to vote liberally when you represent Cambridge and Somerville. My opinion is that a more accurate portrayal is Capuano has voted wisely, consistent with his constituents, and mindful of his House leadership ambitions.
A tangent, but just to correct something:
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p>As Senate Majority Leader (a position that now has its current powers thanks to LBJ), Johnson certainly did compromise on the first Civil Rights legislation passed. If I recall correctly, there were few or no enforcement provisions in that bill in order to get enough southern senators to vote on it.
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p>If you haven’t read Caro’s series on LBJ, I highly recommend it.
Sorry. I should have mentioned that I was referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when LBJ was President.
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p>You’re absolutely right that the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was toothless when LBJ was Senate Majority Leader.
…my take on Gore’s loss is he didn’t tie himself closely ENOUGH to Clinton. He refused to run on an eight-year record of unprecedented peace and prosperity because his adbisors were afraid of “Clinton fatigue”. The ironic thing is that Clinton himself probably could have cleaned Bush’s clock if it weren’t for the 22nd amendment.
Yo editors — it makes the front page absolutely grind. Please put only one audio tab “above the flip” for a given post, so that it’s not so slow to load, scroll, etc.
running a fast computer on Comcast, and this is my third attempt to load BMG on Firefox (it keeps crashing).
I need to update my computer. I’ve tried but it’s going to be difficult so I will work on it this weekend. Did listen in on his conference call tonight. It was great.
problem is not with your computer.
Install FlashBlock. It has the added benefit of keeping things from wiggling around on web pages that you want to hold still.
and I also have one for you:
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p>https://addons.mozilla.org/en-…
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p>Has a great collection of extensions you can add at will.
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p>Think the original problem though on this page was the Quicktime audio player (noticed on other sites that QT stuff loads painfully slow, regardless of connection speed). David seems to have fixed the problem nicely.
Bragging about working with one of the most corrupt Representatives on Capitol Hill, Democratic or Republican, takes real self-confidence.
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p>It also shows a disquieting lack of judgment.
One of Ted Kennedy’s best legislative allies was the corrupt Ted Stevens. This does not make Capuano corrupt by any stretch. One of his key MA allies is Barney Frank, a man who once ran a prostitution ring in his apartment. Murtha is addicted to pork and nearly got caught in ABSCAM but is also a key lieutenant of Nancy Pelosi and an essential partner for any legislative efforts in the House. Would you rather he keep his hands clean and do nothing for the state or would you rather he god forbid work with politicians, some of whom might be unsavory. Guilt by association was discredited with McCarthy.
I don’t think you have the facts straight on the Gobie incident.
You did. I have no reason to think Capuano is corrupt.
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p>I do question his judgment, however. I questioned his judgment not just in choosing to work with Murtha, but his evident pride in it. I’m sure Capuano works closely with ethical members of Congress, and it’s odd that he chose to highlight a rather unsavory partner. Kennedy may have worked with Stevens, but he’d talk about working with Hatch or McCain instead. It’s one thing to make a deal with the devil, it’s another thing to wave around the contract with a smile on your face.
I don’t know whether its a codec issue or what, but they don’t play on my machine and the installer is no help (I just spent half an hour updating iTunes and QuickTime, and now it demands some unspecified plug-in — life’s too short). I run Firefox 3.5.3 and have the QuickTime Plug-in (v7.6.4) installed.
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p>Any chance of converting this to something like Flash or even the dreaded WMV?
You have no idea what I went through to find a damn player that seemed to work. OK, OK, I’ll look for another. No rest for the weary…
no good deed goes unpunished (but glad to know that I don’t have to rebuild this install again).
Please say yes.
Computer is still running slow, but the audio was fine.
Thanks so much.
Much better, I truly appreciate your effort.
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p>Even more, I admire your successful accomplishment of the feat!
Do it for all of the candidiates, as it is extremely useful for people who want to learn about where the candidate stands in their own words.
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p>Perhaps you can keep a link to all the interviews near the top of the home page (in a side column?) through election day…
It’s 7 PM
Weird that it’s not listed on his blog.
Address is 119 School Street, Waltham.