Money Overtaken by Surprise

The most gratifying result of the 2012 election has been the defeat of big money at every level. Billionaires could not buy a President in the national election or defeat an international bridge in Michigan. Our faith in the democratic voice has been vindicated.

But more intriguing is the possibility that uncontrollable conditions might have elected our current President, events that no one could have bought or predicted.  We have no way to measure the impact of three men or a hurricane, but their effects are impossible to ignore.

The first surprise was John Roberts who blind-sided the country with his vote to let the Affordable Health Care Act stand. If anyone was betting on the Supreme Court decision, they probably lost a lot of money.  Not only did he vindicate the President’s primary first-term accomplishment, but he changed public sentiment about the law. Polls immediately started to support the law after a year of decline.  Potential voters increasingly said they supported “Obamacare” and President Obama himself decided to own the mocking expression “Obamacare,” defusing much of the criticism from the right.

Two Senatorial candidates managed to alienate most of the female voting public with ill-advised pronouncements about rape and abortion in the late summer.  Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin gave more support to pro-choice candidates than millions of dollars in campaign ads could have yielded.  The public remarks were so outrageous and unanticipated that political operatives on both sides of the issue were shocked into nearly identical denunciations of the Republican candidates’ insensitivity.  Most stunning was the fact that Akins’ public humiliation did not deter Richard Mourdock from duplicating the outrage.  The voters might have forgotten one silly blunder, but the coupled insults to women sent an indelible message.

And, of course the real October surprise was from Hurricane Sandy, which took aim on the most populated area of the country and showed how ill-prepared we were for an ocean surge, even when we were forewarned and forearmed. President Obama and Governor Christie suddenly became partners in the rescue of victims of coastal flooding, and even the opposition candidate had to grudgingly admit that FEMA had performed with swiftness and grace.

The mere presence of FEMA on the northeast coast suddenly highlighted the role the federal government had to play in preserving its citizens. All the bad air about the inefficiency and cost of federal programs suddenly dissipated as citizens could see their tax dollars put to indispensable use.

None of these factors should underestimate the amazing efficiency of the campaign’s get-out- the-vote army.  Republicans and Democrats alike will learn about mobilizing voters from the surprising results on November 6.

But the moguls who thought they could buy this election should reflect on what uncontrollable events can do to change the outcome. Three men and a natural disaster trumped billions in p0litical advertising and deceitful messaging.  You can’t buy what you can’t predict, and a democracy thrives on the unpredictable.

Public Service or Servitude?

Mitt Romney pretty much ignored education for most of the Presidential campaign, but suddenly he has become concerned with the damage teacher unions are doing in public schools. In his latest stump speech he declares parents will have more voice in choosing their children’s schools, because “parents have no unions.”

Governor Romney has no clue what goes on in public schools, but he knows that teachers’ unions will not vote for him, so he can afford to demonize them.  Public service unions, in particular, are considered enemies of progress in Romney’s world.

Indeed public service unions in some cities and states have bargained their way into oblivion.  Sometimes they have treated their contracts as sacred documents, never subtracting, always adding. Sometimes they have protected those who deserved to be fired. But those days are gone.

No public service employee on the ground level is getting rich in these days of enforced austerity, so it is time to remember why public service is unionized in the first place.

For those who did not buy their way into it, public service is exactly that—service.  Those who choose to teach in public schools or walk a beat in the police force or risk their lives fire-fighting, could earn much more in private employment.  Even public school teachers, who earn more than many of their private school counterparts, could move into higher brackets by starting out in the banking or computer or insurance industry and using the literacy and numeracy skills from a solid liberal arts education.

As a teacher educator I meet both teenagers and middle-aged candidates for teaching in advising conferences as well as the classroom every day.  They understand the nature of service and the challenges of even finding a teaching position in this economy. But they have a vision of “making a difference,” they love the subjects they teach, and they want to impart that love to students.  No one has ever asked me how much they will earn by teaching.

You might say that visionaries like these really need a union.  Because they are committed to service, they are embarrassed to bring up anything that sounds like “What’s in it for me?”  Many teachers have issues with their unions, because they think teachers should be above grubbing for dollars.

No doubt Mitt Romney favors such teachers, because they will work for a pittance.  But I wonder what the parents and spouses of these teachers think? I wonder what veteran teachers think when they are disappointed in contract after contract, their district pleading poverty? I remember a entire decade of school district poverty in the 1980’s when teachers were routinely laid off and class sizes grew every year. Those were the years of Block Grant funding of education.

In 2012 politicians are less interested in squeezing teachers by cutting federal budgets, than they are dismantling the unions that advocate for their benefits.  The business model of education demands that the personnel budget line shrink, so those who do not send their children to public schools are not inconvenienced with taxes.  Not surprisingly those who benefit directly from public school funding have no trouble supporting tax increases, realizing that teachers have to eat, too.

So public service unions are needed just to represent what teachers and social workers and public safety employees are ill-disposed to represent for themselves. They are always reminded and mindful that they chose service, and that choice implies less compensation. They remind themselves “they are not in it for the money,” while those anticipating retirement remind their younger colleagues that there is a life after teaching, one that needs provision.

There is a difference between service and servitude.  Public service unions have been dedicated to marking that difference in negotiation after negotiation.  Only those who have avoided that service or, in some cases, bought their way into it, are willing to obscure that distinction.  But no one should treat public service employees as less than the professionals they are, and if unions are needed to protect them, than we must negotiate with unions and respect their role in public service.