1. Close media scrutiny forces public policymakers to either stop engaging in improper activities, or at least to be discreet about it.
It’s a good thing for public policymakers to think about how voters would perceive their private activities should they adorn the front pages of a local paper. Wise public officials spend a few hours engineering an acceptable, plausible, public explanation of their questionable private
behaviors, knowing full well that their constituents are quick to forgive human frailties and failures, and happy to indulge colorful and eccentric behaviors in their public leaders. Hence we regularly see confessional press conferences of contrite public officials, standing beside loyal family members, announcing their status as a person in recovery from at least one addictive behavior. One can doubt the sincerity of anyone who uses such a tactic but never the success of the tactic itself, because it almost always produces an improvement in name recognition and favorability ratings.
Betrayal of public trust is quite another thing. Public officials who steal taxpayers’ money or cheat on their income taxes or use their power to enrich friends and family cannot be saved. Not even their defense attorney’s lament that unfettered prosecutors, operating under new federal conspiracy laws, are unfairly fingering public officials for behaviors that were winked at in years past will help.2. Constant media exposure of stupid and unprincipled public officials discourages ordinary citizens from engaging in the political process.
This is not good. National pollsters have been paid a lot of money to confirm what most people already know: The public doesn’t know much about the public policymaking process, but they’ve reached some conclusions anyway. Many people think that politicians are crooks, bureaucrats are incompetent and lazy, and special interest groups engage in legalized bribery disguised as campaign contributions.
This pervasive bad attitude makes it hard for community activists to recruit community leaders to become involved in the making of public policy, especially leaders who pride themselves on being enlightened progressives. They say, “Why bother?” The whole process is corrupt, and we wouldn’t even get the time of day.”
The cardinal rule of organizing works when applied here: People will take action if it is in their self-interest. Activists prove this rule every day when they explain to ordinary people how their involvement in a particular public policy campaign can work in their direct self-interest, thus motivating and empowering them to approach their own elected and appointed policymakers to say, “Have we got a hero opportunity for you! We’ve got a problem you can help us fix!”3. Media exposure of foolish and unprincipled political figures reduces the media’s time for covering serious, substantive public policy problems and solutions.
Publishers and station owners consider public policy debates boring. These people need to sell more televisions and newspapers, attract advertisers, and increase their ratings. No longer can good editors afford to assign their best reporters to write front-page informative stories about complicated policy issues.
All of the players inside and outside the public policy arena today are having trouble getting their point across to the public. Even governors and mayors have a hard time convincing the media to cover important policy debates unless they are presented as a crisis or a potentially explosive-guess what-scandal. These days, the only ones who are able to mount a public education effort aimed at reforming policy are those wealthy people or special interest groups who can buy ads.4. Each time the media exposes even the most insignificant foolishness of a public figure, the entire public policy arena slows down, sometimes even grinding to a halt.
The targeted individual immediately enters a defensive mode and expends most, if not all, of his or her political clout mounting a campaign to protect reputations, positions, and careers.
Political allies suspend work on pending issues to form a living shield around their wounded colleague. Opponents stop their work to look for political advantage. Debate on important issues is distorted, as partisans on each side try to exploit the situation to their advantage.
…attended hearings, testified for bills, and more. We want to be involved. We want to be part of the process. As far as I know, there are not any scheduled “kitchen cabinet meetings” – I assure you, I am ready and willing to serve and continue to monitor and research issues as well as advocate for improvements in child welfare law, such as opening the cases, hiring more social workers and a lot more.
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p>But for most of us, well, there is no use “sitting by the phone.” It does not ring. We therefore find forums, run for offices [often local] but are not part of an advocacy team or framework for the very progressive governor most of us worked so hard to elect.
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p>I put off hip replacement surgery to be a Deval & Murray delegate and attended the convention on two canes, and worked media and my own constituency of family law and child welfare attorneys and professionals, and did a whole lot more than I had ever done for ANY candidate.
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p>And I, like so many others, would LOVE to be involved, “part of the solution”, have my twenty years in the trenches form part of a informed data-set used to design practical programs and solutions.
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p>The “grass roots” would like to be part of the team – not only ME.
The devil is in the detail. Governor Patrick talked a good game. Oh well, we will have to live with our mistake and misfortune.
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p>The commonwealth is now in the hands of the Speaker and Senate President. The executive office is on autopilot. With Tim Cahill’s foreboding advise this morning, I would suggest that folks take a good look around and demand that the governor forego everything and go into survival mode.
Make the state legislature a two party system that allows for checks and balances. As long as the senate president or the house speaker have bullet proof authority and ability to over ride any veto, then the governor is a non entity.
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p>It would also help that the sacred cows on Beacon Hill and in the US Congress knew that their ass would get booted out at the drop of a hat. We have legislators who care not a wit what the voters think and they are still re elected time and again.
Mallificent was the name given to the magic-weilding being who put the curse on sleeping beauty because she felt so left out.
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p>You sound like YOU feel left out.
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p>It IS true that Massachusetts has the lowest rate of contested elections for incumbents of any state [if you need a cite or URL let me know – I have validated this].
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p>I do not think that Deval Patrick ran on false pretenses. I do think that governance for an elected official is much different then the executive authority in “the Board room” for a CEO and that governance is a learned art.
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p>I have advocated for a long time that those who believe that a “government of, by and for the people” get involved on the local, the state, and the national level in different ways.
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p>What offices have you run for, or local candidates have you fought for? I suppose most know I was a real ground fighter in the election for the 23red Middlesex, and to join the Democratic State Committee as a district wide electee – the journey of a thousand miles, it is said, begins with just one step…
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p>So I am learning governance, finding my voice, and cajolling as many as I can into doing likewise. So, whether as a Republican [and they DO need all the help they can get – between Bush and Romney the party of Eisenhower and Rockefeller and their kind is nearly deceased] or a Democrat – come on in. The water is fine.
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p>Talk and complaint from the disaffected outsider is cheap – change comes from within, and day to day slogging work.
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p>Mind you, I believe I have a lot to offer, so if my “offerings” are not sought out or accepted by the high and mighty and powerful, it is up to me to do what I can – AND I am.
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p>Let me know what town, county, or district you reside in “MCRD” and I would be happy to oblidge with a to do list, customized, for YOU.
She’s one of my heros.
I think HE thought he was being elected Top Democrat.
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p>None of that pettifogging, stifling crap they threw at the GOP Governeor – now, HE, DEVAL, would be Captain of the Pinafore, and a right good captain too.
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p>He was foolish enough to DEMAND a right good crew. It didn’t go over well with those who had decades of practical experience on him.
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p>Y’know, people wanted him to succeed. I went and testified at a Civic Engagement hearing myself – but the volunteer taking minutes of that meeting lost them, and then they weren’t available to those who attended. We all had to rely on our hand-written notes. A metaphor for how the grassroots wre mobilized, in my opinion.
“We have met the enemy, and he is us”.
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p>Words will not do, only pitchforks will suffice with the Legislature.
If someone is really that bad that person will attract, and even be defeated by, an opponent. You cannot simply “make the legislature a two-party system”. If you don’t like your legislator vote for the opponent, or if unopposed run yourself. I believe it only takes 150 signatures to get on the ballot for a State Rep. race.
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p>BTW, is it just me or are your posts always bitter?
…it’s been there. Won some, lost some.
“Tell me, my dear, if you want this nice picture of me for your campaign material.”
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p>Your Hero
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p>Maleficent
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p>file under anything to change the subject
…but I was talking specifically to MCRD, to whose comment I was responding.
I agree – its trendy to be critical and easy too. It’s hard to be informed enough to know what the positive things are (especially when they don’t make the headlines).
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p>I saw Ian Bowles speak, the Secretary of Environmental Affairs in Massachusetts. It was really impressive to hear the depth of his and the Patrick Administration’s knowledge and how proactive they are about environmental issues in the state. It made be proud to live in this great progressive state, and I hope that this administration continues to help MA be national leaders in every progressive means that improves our quality of living.
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p>Too often people just love to complain about things, the casinos, the big dig, the drapes, the book. Those memes are old and their tread is worn out. Let’s move on.
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p>Case in point is the big dig. Sure the execution undoubtably left much to be desired. But the concept was impressive and forward thinking. I was thinking as I zipped out from the Airport and onto 93 the other day with no delays at all (93 itself was another story), and how only a decade earlier I had been stuck in traffic there coming out of a tunnel for many hours. Apparently we’ve complained so much (again, the execution warranted criticism) that other cities are shying away from similar projects. Isn’t quality of life for Massachusetts residents better because of the big dig? I’ve certainly noticed that.
Casinos are now downgraded to a “meme”? The biggest political push Deval has put on in the last 14 months isn’t on the level with the drapes. It’s not even close. Granted, casinos and the drapes both show how out of touch Deval is with people with any political know-how or experience in Massachusetts. They both show a willingness to do something against all demonstration that it’s a good idea.
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p>But they’re different. Nobody’s life will be destroyed because Deval’s drapes glossed the road to a vicious addiction. Those window treatments aren’t going to choke traffic and rake in millions to a morally suspect industry. The Cadillac isn’t going to make any crime rates go up.
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p>I’ll “move on” from the casino idea when the Patrick Administration moves on. This was their idea and their crusade. Cancel the $189,000 Cadillac of casino studies, disavow the idea, promise honest budgets, and prove to me that Deval’s Dream Deal is dead, not just dormant. Until then, I can’t take the governor’s apologists seriously, whether they’re on staff or not.
Being a meme itself is not a knock.
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p>Last time I checked casinos were voted down (in a rather NYT-scale significant public defeat no less). There probably is a conspiracy to put a casino in every town though. Glad someones on it.
So Deval is blowing $189K on a wild goose chase. That doesn’t really make things much better.
is a mere subsidy of globo-corp. The own you, your property and your children’s property. Best of all is that they have convinced you this is not the case.
Why doesn’t Massachusetts and the nation (eventually) do the logical and civilized thing–and do what EVERY OTHER industrialized nation has done–implement health reform that makes health insurance a form of social insurance.
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p>What is needed is improved Medicare-for-all with comprehensive benefits including drug coverage for ALL of us and with huge cost savings from streamlining the financing and bureaucracy. A huge step in that direction would be passage and implementation of the Massachusetts Health Care Trust bill, S. 703
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p>Where is the outrage about our ridiculously wasteful, dysfunctional and inhumane mish-mash of inadequate insurance coverage??? The new state insurance law Chapter 58 helps many people in the short term but at an unsustainable price while it punishes just as many more with draconian fines simply for being unable to afford to purchase private insurance. That’s immoral.
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p>If you’re not part of the solution then you’re a part of the problem. Sounds harsh but it’s true.
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p>Where is the leadership that Massachusetts and the nation so desperately need on this issue??? Perhaps Barack Obama will be one of these leaders, and it looks like his friend and our Governor Deval Patrick might be poised to help lead us there as well. What a wonderful legacy that would be.
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p>A recent Berkshire Eagle Op-Ed on Feb 8 by Clarence Fanto “Money woes confront state health program”, quoted Governor Deval Patrick as saying:
“…there’s a view out there that as long as private insurance is a part of health-care reform, we’re never really going to break the back of the pattern.” He called for serious consideration of a single-payer universal health care solution by the next administration in Washington.”
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p>Learn more about the solution at http://www.MassCare.org/about
and
http://www.HealthCare-Now.org and come to the Boston Day of Activism for Health Justice on Monday 4/28/08 (details listed at HealthCare-Now.org under “Events”)
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p>Lots and lots of people have been working very hard for this solution for decades and we need your help, too. Thanks.