3 Responses to Race for Ted Kennedy’s Senate Seat Ignores Issues

1. powwow November 1st, 2009 at 9:57 am «

   Thank you for this important analysis, khin.

   This is part of what I was trying to convey in my recent Seminal diary here, about the difficulty of meaningfully distinguishing between candidates based on status quo-enforcing media coverage of campaigns.

   Thus, my idea for a semi-underground-promoted “PIC Pledge” that would ask each candidate – if they want to receive our vote or money – to pledge to work to further the following three federal objectives as a first priority, above and beyond any purported Party platform to which they nominally subscribe:

   Let’s call it the PIC Pledge – for a Publicly-accountable and Independent Congress – which would ask that federal candidates hoping for our money and our votes publicly pledge to:

   1. Work, as their top priority, to enact legislation allowing publicly-financed federal campaigns for Congressional (and presidential) office – legislation which does not discriminate against non-Party candidates. [The details of this should be defined so as to state which minimum acceptable provisions such legislation should contain, including, as part of the reform, some provision for encouraging ranked-preference/instant-runoff voting; the current publicly-financed campaign legislation introduced in Congress - S. 752 & 751 and H.R. 1826 - does seem to disciminate against non-Party candidacies, but may be a workable starting point.] Furthermore, pledge to work, as needed, given pending Supreme Court decisions, to promote and enact a Constitutional Amendment mandating publicly-financed campaigns for federal office.

   2. Work (with members of any or no Party) to democratize and open the legislative process in Congress (including disregarding undemocratic Party dictates); to re-establish meaningful oversight hearings (untruncated by artificial time limits, for example), via both rules and legislation, including working to end dangerously-excessive Executive Branch efforts to hide its doings from the public; and to resist encroachment on the Legislature’s prerogatives by the Executive Branch regardless of presidential Party affiliation. [This, of necessity, will bring successful pledged candidates into conflict with their nominal Party leadership and caucus, and such candidates will need to be prepared to pay the resulting politically-motivated price. There is, however, strength in numbers, and a group of pledged legislators, perhaps joined by some principled incumbents, would have more ability to challenge the status quo than individual legislators on their own.]

   3. Protect the Constitution at least as ardently as amorphous and ill-defined “national security,” and work to educate colleagues about the importance of being a Constitutional Congress. Such a pledge would, of necessity, involve reasserting Congressional decision-making about the deployment of American Armed Forces abroad, starting with re-examining and/or ending destructive, dishonest campaigns such as our current armed interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

   I wonder if voters or media publicly pinning down the Democratic Massachusetts candidates for U.S. Senate on those three issues might not expose significant daylight between them. Capuano, without prompting, could also raise these issues on his own as vital, and a reason to support him above the others, if he’s on board (although that may be doubtful, as Capuano’s long been an obedient Party member in the current, corrupt, Party-strangled Congress). Such a voluntary pledge might also draw more disaffected “Unenrolled” voters to the primary to vote for him (Party-unenrolled registered voters in Massachusetts actually exceed either registered Democrats or Republicans, right?).

   At a minimum, publicly asking about these matters might awaken voters to what’s really at stake in this election, even if the media itself never mentions those stakes – and even if no one running is prepared to fight, against their own Party if necessary, for a reformed and accountable Congress, which is the essential first step to good, citizen-friendly outcomes from all the important legislative battles to come.
2. letsgetitdone November 1st, 2009 at 5:04 pm «

   Thanks for illuminating this, khin. I hadn’t been following this and didn’t realize that Coakley was another pre-compromiser.
3. arob November 1st, 2009 at 8:09 pm «

   I agree, I’d like to see a senator that acts more like our lefty House members. Their stance on single-payer alone would make the decision for me. Capuano also voted against the Iraq war. My rep Barney Frank endorsed him. Barney’s not perfect, particularly on the financial stuff, but he’s one of the best.

   I’d like to see him come up with some aggressive job program proposals. We’re getting killed by unemployment down here in Fall River and the other post-manufacturing cities across the state!

   Thanks for getting the word out, khin, there’s not much time till the election, and these other candidates just aren’t progressive enough.