Thursday, July 04, 2019
Patriotic Mayhem Thursday: The Master of the Possible
Earlier this week, I went down to Iowa to check out the political scene during the caucus run-up. I got a chance to see both Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar, and it was exactly what I hoped for: intense, informal and fascinating.
Amy Klobuchar's meet-n'-greet was on the back patio of a brewpub in Muscatine, Iowa, hard by a (very active) rail line and the Mississippi River. I loved the crowd: a mix of fans and those curious about Klobuchar's candidacy.
Her stump speech was impressive: informal, funny, warm, and smart. She tends to emphasize her ability to get things done-- she is the master of the possible. Her policy proposals are much less ambitious than Bernie's, but much more attainable. For example, instead of free college for all and the elimination of all student debt, Klobuchar promotes free community college and a doubling of the amount of each Pell grant. That's a smaller ask, but attainable, and potentially life-changing for the people who benefit.
Klobuchar and I are from the same field: criminal law. There, you realize what the stakes are in human lives when the government acts. You learn the value of what's possible, and that making the changes you can accomplish will probably help more people than advocating things that are unlikely to happen.
IPLawGuy taught me a lot of what I know about American politics. One thing he talks about is "change" elections. For example, in 2016, people wanted change and only one candidate, however flawed, offered that. I suspect that this is a change election, too. Superficially, that would seem to favor Bernie, but the truth is that practicality and accomplishment would be the biggest change from what we have now.
The trip made me love the way our country does some things. To be president, you have to go into a basement gym or a brewpub by the tracks and make your case to whoever shows up. How great is that?
The Bernie event was in a basement gym in Iowa City. He had an impassioned crowd of people who were ready to hang on every word. Also, they had free Ben and Jerry's ice cream!
Bernie is great-- and I mean great-- at describing many of the problems our nation is suffering from but not actively addressing: income inequality, health care disparities, climate change, and others. He has no equal at summing up what we need to pay attention to, and I was in thrall when he got rolling. Everyone there was.
His solutions, though, are sometimes politically unrealistic and probably over-broad. Eliminating all student debt and making public college free would cost (as he said himself) over two trillion dollars. That's just not responsible, and it would benefit a lot of people who can afford to pay off their loans or pay tuition in the first place.
Her stump speech was impressive: informal, funny, warm, and smart. She tends to emphasize her ability to get things done-- she is the master of the possible. Her policy proposals are much less ambitious than Bernie's, but much more attainable. For example, instead of free college for all and the elimination of all student debt, Klobuchar promotes free community college and a doubling of the amount of each Pell grant. That's a smaller ask, but attainable, and potentially life-changing for the people who benefit.
Klobuchar and I are from the same field: criminal law. There, you realize what the stakes are in human lives when the government acts. You learn the value of what's possible, and that making the changes you can accomplish will probably help more people than advocating things that are unlikely to happen.
IPLawGuy taught me a lot of what I know about American politics. One thing he talks about is "change" elections. For example, in 2016, people wanted change and only one candidate, however flawed, offered that. I suspect that this is a change election, too. Superficially, that would seem to favor Bernie, but the truth is that practicality and accomplishment would be the biggest change from what we have now.
The trip made me love the way our country does some things. To be president, you have to go into a basement gym or a brewpub by the tracks and make your case to whoever shows up. How great is that?
Comments:
<< Home
You are very lucky to have these up close and personal opportunities. Down here in NC there are no such events. Honestly the candidates need to court other voters in other states. I don't have a lot in common with the average Iowan or at least I don't think we share the same concerns once you move past healthcare and climate change.
I feel like the primary system is as broken as everything else. There are a handful of really good candidates this go around and by the time they get to NC most of them will have been written off. We get to pick who everyone in the early states said we get to pick. It makes it very hard to care (in a serious way) this far out.
Happy 4th
I feel like the primary system is as broken as everything else. There are a handful of really good candidates this go around and by the time they get to NC most of them will have been written off. We get to pick who everyone in the early states said we get to pick. It makes it very hard to care (in a serious way) this far out.
Happy 4th
Christine-- you are right about that. And it is also a problem that the two early states-- Iowa and New Hampshire-- do not come close to reflecting the diversity of the country.
It always amuses me when one of my boomer side kicks (although a younger one) tut tuts about how attempting to raise students and grads out of debt peonage is unaffordable. I went to public land grant universities for both undergraduate school and law school. I worked during the summers and part time, and I got some scholarship money, too, but I emerged from seven years of higher education with virtually no debt. I bought a house.
A lot of my classmates graduated debt free, too. Several of them took public service jobs that people can ill afford to do now. There aren't many doctors from the US in Doctors without Borders.
We're eating our seed corn. Throwing our hands up and saying it's too expensive is really blinkered.
Being really brutally direct here, Mark, I wonder if a couple of thing are in play here: 1) your rose-colored glasses view of AKlo, who I thought had a dismal record as a progressive as a prosecutor, and 2) Bernie is talking about public colleges of course.
A program of lessening the burden of public college would put private colleges [cough cough] at a financial competitive disadvantage.
A lot of my classmates graduated debt free, too. Several of them took public service jobs that people can ill afford to do now. There aren't many doctors from the US in Doctors without Borders.
We're eating our seed corn. Throwing our hands up and saying it's too expensive is really blinkered.
Being really brutally direct here, Mark, I wonder if a couple of thing are in play here: 1) your rose-colored glasses view of AKlo, who I thought had a dismal record as a progressive as a prosecutor, and 2) Bernie is talking about public colleges of course.
A program of lessening the burden of public college would put private colleges [cough cough] at a financial competitive disadvantage.
Absolutely correct. The populations in these two states are homogeneous and similar. They do not reflect the African American or Latino communities in any way.
Not wanting to put a big state in the mix I might think Colorado and Louisiana might offer up more diverse communities. Even NC, as despite our awful gerrymandered districts, the popular vote in the State is almost 50/50. Educated and modern and farming; black, white, indigenous and Latino and definitely some of the poorest counties with horrible health disparities
Not wanting to put a big state in the mix I might think Colorado and Louisiana might offer up more diverse communities. Even NC, as despite our awful gerrymandered districts, the popular vote in the State is almost 50/50. Educated and modern and farming; black, white, indigenous and Latino and definitely some of the poorest counties with horrible health disparities
Oh and I forgot. Sometimes people are simply unable to earn enough money, or any money if they become disabled, to ever retire student loans. I have a lawyer friend, twenty years or so younger than me, who has had a disabling mental illness for many years. He can't work as a lawyer, or anywhere else, really. But he continues to get dunning notices and bankruptcy offers no relief, thanks to, inter alia, Joe Biden.
I guess the lesson is, parents of college students who guarantee their student loans, be sure they have good disability insurance.
I now read that Klobuchar wants to make college more affordable on a "means tested" basis. She's the reincarnation of Halfway Hillary.
Universal public goods ought to be, well, universal. I mean we all paid for it. Really, public higher ed. is already means tested to some degree.
FDR recognized that means testing social security was the best way to kill the program.
The AKlo approach just appeals to lefty grievance and resentment; we can do that, too.
Post a Comment
Universal public goods ought to be, well, universal. I mean we all paid for it. Really, public higher ed. is already means tested to some degree.
FDR recognized that means testing social security was the best way to kill the program.
The AKlo approach just appeals to lefty grievance and resentment; we can do that, too.
<< Home
