Month: October 2012

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Rush Week

This is the nation’s biggest “Rush Week,” the week before the willing and the gullible are inducted into the voter fraternity.  It is no exaggeration to compare the wooing of the eligible voter to the seasonal Rush on college fraternities and sororities, except this Rush is not selective. It beckons every registered voter to its side of the ballot.

A word of caution about “the Rush.”  During Rush Week, fraternities have a plan to attract the most worthy by closeting the least worthy. Because, despite some of the most elitist policies in a democratic society, fraternities always seem to have a few embarrassing members, the ones they sadly disparage as the “nerds,” the “geeks,” or the “turkeys.”   Traditionally these potential embarrassments get “movie money” to abandon the house during Rush parties, so the recruits never suspect what manner of fraternity brother they will encounter if they join the fraternity. I have no idea if fraternities still stoop to this practice, but I know it is occurring right now in the Republican Presidential Campaign.

While Mitt Romney is gliding to the center of the political spectrum, his Tea Party brothers and sisters have become invisible, or at least inaudible, in the media. They are buttoning their lips while the nominee gives ground to a woman’s right to choose, the need to expand health insurance, the protection of Medicare and Medicaid, the preservation of college loans, and the peace-making role of the U.S. in the Middle East.  If the Party nominee had let these hedged positions slip during the Primary season, he would have been drummed out of the fraternity.

But the “Tea-keys” of the Republican Party have graciously stepped out the back door of the frat house during the Rush.  While their nominee has implied that he will go after tax deductions at the upper level of income, they have stopped their ears and held their tongues.  They know the rules of the Rush: let the Chairman do his job and don’t meddle with success.

In the weeks leading up to the big Rush, a couple of gobblers squawked out of turn in Indiana and Missouri. They apparently did not get the message that conservative discourse had been suspended.  Fortunately the brothers cornered them in the pantry and convinced them to revise and apologize before they drove the recruits screaming from the house with their unauthorized convictions. The Chairman also declared he would have none of their misogynist mutterings.  He didn’t kick them out, but he did give them movie tickets for a month of openings.

After the Rush, the “unmentionables” always return, and the fraternity carries on like nothing happened.  Except the once-invisible members now have the run of the house. They might even be officers in charge of things.  In actual fraternities it hardly matters, because the brothers don’t influence the cost of tuition or the distributing of scholarships.  They just plan parties, organize fund-raisers and promote camaraderie.

Not in the nation’s House.  The faithful of the Tea Party will stalk the halls of Congress, declaring their non-negotiable positions.  They will bully the freshmen and threaten the moderate upper-classmen until the Party line is solid and inviolable.   Their rules will be the House rules.

This is the fraternity that is courting the American voter this Rush week, an affable and welcoming group, whose most dogmatic and recalcitrant members are lurking in the closet, waiting for the Rush to be over.  They are confident of their clout, once their guy is in the White House, and they know nothing has been promised that they can’t circumvent.

The question for us, the prospective pledges, to answer is, Can we live with all the members of this fraternity–even the closeted ones? Are we comfortable with the likes of the Republican Primary candidates, the ones who cried ‘no amnesty’ for all undocumented residents and who denied a woman’s right to choose under any circumstances?  Are we going to join on the basis of a handshake from the smiling Chair of Rush Week?

Ever since “The Revenge of the Nerds” we have learned to respect the outliers, the ones we used to closet. They turned out to be our bosses or our formidable competition.  Likewise no one should underestimate the power of the closeted ones after the 2012 election.

 

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Would You Buy a Four-Year Term from this Man?

Frank Bruni’s column offered debate advice to President Obama this morning: “Never Waver, Never Wobble.”  The gist of his Monday morning quarterbacking was that audacity beats truth every time.  But truth is not audacity, to riff a little on the President’s memoir.

With a bit of irony Bruni ruefully reflects, ” We worry about our flaws, sweat our mistakes, allow the truth to be our tether, and let conscience trip us up. We tiptoe. We equivocate.”  These cynical reflections seem only to regret that Obama’s lies were smaller than Romney’s lies.

But truth still matters when someone tries to sell you a bill of goods. Governor Romney still has to make the sale, regardless of how he presents himself: moderate millionaire, deficit hawk, guardian of the safety net, or advocate for the 53%.  Claiming to preserve Medicare, he still has to reckon with the “voucher plan” advanced by the Republican Platform.  Claiming to hold college loans sacred, he still has to reckon with his “borrow from your parents” advice on the Primary campaign stump. Claiming lower taxes for all, he still has to clarify what he means by a “fair share” paid by those earning more than $250,000.

Anyone who has bought and traded a car knows how to deal with double-talking salespeople.  If the deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. We probe for the weaknesses in the claim that we are stealing the car off the lot, that we are actually buying below wholesale price, that we are getting all the upgrades for free.  We understand that we have to be our own advocates.

The Republican Party has always viewed politics as selling a product.  Most Democrats have cherished the illusion that they are selling a narrative. Our story is better than your product.  Everyone likes a good story.

But we also like the deal. We like to think we are are shrewd and skeptical consumers. So Democrats need to probe the deal, the hidden costs, the losers and winners, the bottom line of the sales agreement.  They need to remind the voters that this is a four-year lease with no buyer’s remorse.  They need to be a voter’s advocate trumpeting, “Show me the the CarFax!”

Until the debate on October 3, the Democratic campaign had taken on the half-truths of the opposition fairly consistently. But Wednesday night a new salesman came out of the showroom, wearing a new suit and an audacious smile.  It is a little unsettling when the dealership shifts strategies at the last minute, and probably the new Romney threw the President off.

But the strategy is the same: sell the public on the deal at whatever cost to the truth. Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware! If we remember we are negotiating for our lives no less than when we buy the car we can barely afford, we can keep the salesman at arm’s length.  Remember we can walk away and leave the attractive, but prohibitively expensive car in the lot. Remember that facts are audacious and they prevent us from being swindled.

And at the next debate, let the President be our consumer’s advocate, pointing out the flaws in this deal, showing how the salesman takes away with one hand what he “gives” with the other, how the fabulous trade-in is eaten up by the costs of the loan, and how asking the right questions can prevent us from getting stuck with a deal we can’t afford.

Truth is what gets us our best deal in the car showroom and at the polls. If we remember we are dealing with salespeople and their only goal is sell at the highest acceptable price, we will make good choices. It is not so much cynicism to say this as it is caveat emptor!