Keep the ‘Change’ – I’ll Take a Washington Insider, Thanks
I used to like the word “change” — until I had to hear it approximately 18,743 times in one week.
I’m all about changing: rotating handbags, buying variety packs, keeping six lip glosses in my top desk drawer just in case I want to change. I like finding change on the floor of the laundry room. “Changes” is a great David Bowie song.
So, in short, change used to mean something promising, uplifting — until everyone from Barack Obama to Mitt Romney to Oprah began cramming the word down voters’ throats.
Has anyone realized that, since our sitting president is termed out and the vice president isn’t running, any of the candidates will technically be change? Is it too much to ask that before trumpeting the C-word every three seconds, we pause to think about whether a certain candidate’s change will be good change or bad change? Is it too much to ask for hard-and-fast details from the “change agent” presidential hopefuls of the day?
For a change, the races for both party’s nominations are true horseraces. But with this vacuous catchphrase-dropping, within months we’ll all be scrambling to change the channel.
I, for one, can’t really bear to hear the slur anymore that (insert senator here) is a “Washington insider.”
As goes the logic, that means he or she does not represent “change.”
“If you really want to have change, you don’t just want to have a gadfly or somebody fighting for this or fighting for that,” Romney said at an event before the New Hampshire primary. “You want to have somebody who will bring change, who will sell the company America has — it’s going to have to be somebody from outside Washington, not a Washington insider.” Coming out of his Tuesday win in Michigan, Romney crowed, “Tonight is a victory of optimism over Washington-style pessimism.”
Actually, it was a victory for the Daily Kos, who encouraged Democrats to jack up the Republican field by casting a vote for Romney. But for reference, the lineup goes something like this:
– John McCain and Hillary Clinton: Washington insiders
– Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Romney: Washington outsiders
– John Edwards: Washington insider who pretends he’s an outsider
– Barack Obama: Washington newbie
– Fred Thompson: Hollywood and Washington insider
– Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich: Washington entertainment
The most amusing assumption in the “Washington insider” catchphrasing is that someone who comes from a statehouse as opposed to Capitol Hill is somehow untainted by the scourge of politics — or not willing to, ahem, pander to reap votes.
And then the question is begged: What’s really wrong with a “Washington insider” becoming the leader of the free world? After all, you come into the job knowing all the dirty little secrets of the dirty little town, so when you step inside the Oval Office you can actually get to work instead of learning about the tangled web in a D.C. 101 class.
George W. Bush was a Washington outsider who came to lean on insider Dick Cheney when it came to running the country, much to the chagrin of the left everywhere. But such is the role of an outsider president: being the student of those in the know.
Would, say, a newspaper be at the top of its game by hiring a news-outsider as its editor? Or would the best editor be someone experienced at news judgment, libel and ethics knowledge, designing pages, line editing, working well with reporters and publishers, and all the other drudgery that goes with producing a newspaper?
How would that newspaper’s quality — and bottom line — suffer if the editor had to take time to learn the ropes?
You could bring in someone who, like Romney touts himself, is a good manager — but they’d have to not only learn the business, but make the industry-wide connections that will enable them to be competitive, pull together their dream newsroom team, etc. You can rally the folks with morale-building speeches all day long, but the bottom line is putting out the top product.
Say a “Washington outsider” is elected president. How much of his first term would be spent learning the intricate inner workings of D.C.? A year? Two? Would he know whom to trust, and who’s bad news? Will he lean too much on advisers to get him through the days?
If assuming that a “Washington outsider” is a “change agent,” also bear in mind that politicians are politicians. Those running on “change” platforms know just as many backroom dirty tricks, and are running cutthroat campaigns just like everyone else.
Need any proof? Consult the New Hampshire video showing Romney staffers pulling McCain signs out of a snowbank and — dare I say — changing them to Romney ones.
Bridget Johnson is a columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News.
These individuals seek change for its own sake because they unwilling to do the serious thinking required in the political sphere. Politics essentially bores them and is not a top priority. They are childishly impatience and simply want to get involved in other things deemed more important—like worrying about Britney Spears or the local basketball team.
How much of an “outsider” can one be if one has spent their entire adult life in politics? Bringing in one of the “outsiders” would be like hiring a Burger King manager in Detroit to run your Burger King in St. Louis.
But, all of the talk about change is simply a ploy to avoid talking about any substantive issues. People are supposed to believe that “change” is good but one only has to look at what Congress has done over the last 50 years to understand that (a) change is expensive (care to tally up the cost for all of the “change” legislation?) and (b) “change” needs to be constantly revisited since the change didn’t work (most of what Congress does is related to what they screwed up in the past and will continue to screw up each time they touch it). “Change” is like “Quality”, you’re supposed to think that a store selling “Quality Merchandise” has good stuff but poor quality merchandise is still “Quality Merchandise”.
There are several examples of outsiders becoming President and doing a good job. Just because George Bush didn’t doesn’t mean that you just dismiss the rest. An insider has their policies clouded by their insider vision. They think that most policies are correct but need to be tweaked. An outsider is more able to see the illness in bad policy and start fresh. How about we just pick the best person for the job?
Allow me to rephrase your culinary analogy. Suppose you have a kitchen producing terrible godawful food that is so bad you figure there must be a million kinds of contamination happening at every level in every step of the foodmaking process. If you want better food, do you promote someone from within the staff, simply perpetuating the backwards thinking and incestuous political culture, er the cooking style, or do you bring in someone from outside your horribly corrupt and ineffective kitchen?
“…or do you bring in someone from outside your horribly corrupt and ineffective kitchen?”
Horribly corrupt? Is that how you truly view the United States? This country’s problems are nowhere near that serious. We only need to put in sufficient effort to resolve our present issues.
Bridget writes: “Actually, it was a victory for the Daily Kos, who encouraged Democrats to jack up the Republican field by casting a vote for Romney.”
Not according to CNN:
“WASHINGTON (CNN) – Despite urging from some activists like Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas that Michigan Democrats vote for Mitt Romney over John McCain, CNN exit polling indicates the Arizona Republican won the liberal vote.”
Kos “screw the troops” Moulitsas has a big enough head. He has no reason to be proud of his prowess in shaping elections (also see J. Lieberman).
Well…..
If the culinary workers routinely poisoned their customers and put out unwholesome food……..
This is inane, and insulting.
There is an old saying, “Age and treachery will defeat youth and enthusiasm every time.” Your point is well taken. I think insiders fall under the age and treachery category. A president must be wise as a serpent to navigate the political mine field in D.C.
>Why is there so much hatred against insurance companies, corporations, big pharma, and so forth. Those are some of the best institutions we have in America. I’m only 33 years old and insurance companies have already helped me out tremendously. Corporations are great!…as Dennis Miller says, you can buy shit and return it. They employ millions. Wall Street…its the most egalitarian institution in the world, open to anybody. Big Pharma, one day you are going to save my life!
The only thing we should ‘change’ is the amount of money government spends and collects. WE need them both to be LESS>!
So you want the same people in office who have promised, but lied about closing the border, lowering taxes, fixing social security, spending like drunken sailors…..(need i go on?). Romney staffers stealing mccain signs? How about McCain pushing anti-mormon phone surveys! Romney has been the most successful leader and you can stand it because he’s mormon. Wake up.
Wow, more anti-Romney slanders from the MSM. There is only one candidate who consistently gets the vote of conservatives in every state. That’s Mitt Romney. And there is only one candidate who can unite ALL types of conservative…fiscal, defense, AND social. Again, that’s Mitt Romney! And here I though PajamasMedia would conceal their bias better than Politico and Carl Caomeron at FOX.
Democracy is supposed to be representative of the will of the People.
The People, as a Nation, are not packed cheek-by-jowl in Washington, DC. That lovely little Emirate of Incumbistan that has so worked itself so as to control the Vassal State of Electistan so they don’t really have to represent those poor Electistanians anymore… just some fraction of them that can be paid off with goodies and promises and convinced to come out and vote.
The definition of ‘representative democracy’ at the founding was: knowing your representative so they could represent you. Not trying to get through a number of staffers and flacks that would dissuade you from even thinking of trying to communicate with your representative. Only at the Presidential and Senatorial level was that to be the case. Now at the Representative level we get 1:500,000 or higher which means your chance of actually knowing your Representative is: 0.0002%.
That is your ‘Washington indsider’ from Incumbistan. And they help to arrange things to that the payoffs to certain parts of their district will reward some and not others, and then they vote on things to provide ‘services’ to those without which would be called ‘bread and circuses’ but we call ‘pork’ and ‘social safety net’ and ‘sub-prime bailout’. This has helped to depress voter turn-out over the last 40 years to the point where a mere minority of the population, below 30%, is needed to win a ‘majority’. And that is in *Presidential Elections* with the elections between them needing less than 25%. By pure percentage turnout as a demonstration of the legitimacy of democracy, the NSDAP in 1932-33 did better in Germany than either of the two parties are doing, today, in the US. That should be extremely frightening for those liking the idea of democracy and governing by the consent of the governed.
Why would you choose an individual actively working, over time, to make the distance between the governed and those doing the governing *greater*? That being ‘Washington insiders’. If you don’t trust non-career politicians used to packing pork in, taking money from you and then returning pennies to keep the poor, poor and increase the lack of education… then *do* choose one. Just don’t complain about ‘gridlock’, increased taxes, you having less say in things, pork barrel projects galore, and the lack of accountability in the system of representative democracy.
That is if you go out and bother to vote.
Which the majority no longer do between Presidential elections… and this may be the first Presidential election to see *that* happen, too in quite some time… since the Civil War, I believe…
Since when has Romney been able to bring in defense conservatives? He’d be a great candidate back in 2000 – I would voted for him over Bush in a heartbeat – but he doesn’t seem to be the guy who could win the long war. That is my priority in this race. I’ve tossed aside my pro-life stance, all my social conservative leanings, and a good part of my economic views. I want someone who can lead us to victory. Can Romney do that?
This is one brilliant and apt article. It is fun to read and it is the most correct line of thinking about the methodology of picking the leader of the free world. Anyone who reacts negatively to it obviously has neither a sense humor a connection to reality.
“…or do you bring in someone from outside your horribly corrupt and ineffective kitchen?”
Horribly corrupt? Is that how you truly view the United States? This country’s problems are nowhere near that serious. We only need to put in sufficient effort to resolve our present issues.
Was 1994 too long ago for the defenders of the same old tired faces?
That is what it boils down to.