It’s What You Leave Behind
As Ezra Klein says, it’s ultimately far too limiting to look at the question of what incumbent members of congress ought to do purely through a narrow lens of electoral interest. Obviously nobody gets into politics without a certain nose for the electorate. But equally obviously, no congressional majority lasts forever. That’s life. Nobody’s that savvy.
But that’s okay—it’s not the job of an elected official to lurk around in office forever and ever. The job of an elected official is to do things. Hopefully things that make the world a better place. Winning an election is an opportunity. Not an opportunity run for election again—you can run again if you lose—but an opportunity to change the world. Look up any former legislature in the history books or on Wikipedia or what have you and you’ll see that he or she is remembered (or not) for his or her accomplishments (or lack thereof). Everyone leaves congress sooner or later, maybe in defeat or maybe in a coffin, but what ultimately matters is not how long you stay but what you leave behind.
37 Responses to “It’s What You Leave Behind”
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November 10th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Right. Back in our universe, what they actually want to accomplish while in Congress is to qualify themselves for a lucrative K Street job after they retire or are defeated. They don’t achieve that by passing things that help the peasantry.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:52 am
This post would be more convincing in sonnet form, Yglesias.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:56 am
The incentives for any institution are to pursue power for its own sake. Instead of trying to change human nature, the astute political activist will seek to channel this natural desire of parties and politicians into enacting the policies the activists and interest groups want while the opportunities are still there. Wiser still is for those interest groups to convince politicians to enact their desired policies by pointing out to them that doing so will extend their power and enhance their prestige.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Ohh byooo-tiful, for spaaaa-cious skies…
November 10th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Tyro’s prescription is of course correct- in the long run. But to get there from here, we would have to find a way to get the big money out of politics. Good luck with that, I’m afraid.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:02 am
No. The Republican opposition is so horrifically destructive that it is almost a certainty that when they regain power up to millions of humans will die. You know this. It is irresponsible and immoral to allow it to happen from mere subjection to process and nostalgia for a disappeared moderate Republican Party.
This is not an option, under any circumstance, at any cost. As mush as I dislike Obama, I would cheer him suspending the Constitution, becoming a dictator, and enforcing his rule if Palin or Huckabee were legally elected President.
They are that bad.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:03 am
While I normally go out of my way to disagree with the Eeyores, they’ve got a point.
I’d simplify it even more. Too many of these congresspeople seem to be living from day to day, contribution to contribution, election to election, ego-boo to ego-boo. The best work is done by those who see things as Matt does, which is about 2/3s of the Democrats most of the time and a handful of Republicans.
In the past, the hacks deferred to the idealists some of the time, even if doing so hypocritically. In our more open society, contempt for ideals is the norm, so they don’t have to hide their selfishness.
In the case of the Republicans, the hacks run everything, which is why the handful of traditional Republicans in the Senate always have that sour expression on their faces.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:05 am
A little existentialism for the morning?
November 10th, 2009 at 9:06 am
No No No No
It is 1932-33, or may be in 3 or 7 tears. It is immoral, insane to give that Party power.
In a sane world they would be illegal.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:07 am
If it that were true. Seriously, how can Lieberman possibly pull what he did Sunday and not be booted out of office? I simply can’t believe there is some douchebag heaven sandwiched between liberal MA, NY and RI.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Tom Daschle and Billy Tauzin disagree with you, Matt.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Matt, I think if you were a scamp, your nickname would be “Iggy.”
November 10th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Steve’s right. After sabotaging the US economy, Senator Phil Gramm waved gaily to his ten thousand bankrupt Enron constituents and went on to a vice president sinecure at UBS –the Swiss bank that helps rich Americans evade taxes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm#2007_mortgage_and_2008_financial_.26_economic_crises
November 10th, 2009 at 9:17 am
I agree with the other posters above. Far too many politicians are focused on what they will do after leaving office. Everyone knows it’s corrupt, but no one can do anything about it. You can’t prove that that million-dollar lobbying job or board seat was a quid pro quo for voting against the interests of their constituents.
The only way I can see around this is to outlaw any private-sector employment for ex-members of Congress. How will they make a living? Continue paying them their Congressional salaries for life. Ensure that they are beholden to no one but their constituents. If they can’t make ends meet on ~$125K+ a year, something is wrong. I’m sure there are plenty of other people who would be happy to take their place. Of course, there’s very little chance that this will actually happen. More likely, the U.S. will continue to deteriorate, becoming more and more ungovernable, until we eventually reach the point of France 1789 or Russia 1918.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:22 am
But has Obama done ANYTHING to rein in the corrupt hold the financial industry’s money has on Congress? Any indictments? Prosecutions? Regulatory laws to prevent this sabotage from reoccuring?
I think Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone had it right last March:
“It’s over — we’re officially, royally fucked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far.
It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country’s heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire….
…So it’s time to admit it: We’re fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we’re still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream. ”
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/1
November 10th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Well, at least Matt is making the small concession that the progressive agenda he favors is incredibly unpopular.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Yes. And, also, everybody should have a pony!
November 10th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Even by your brain-damaged standards that’s a laughably moronic misreading. As well as being demonstrably untrue.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:25 am
The first two commenters said it all, and there’s nothing to add. I feel so useless.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:31 am
This post would be more convincing in sonnet form, Yglesias.
Tim – how about this from Si Kahn?
It’s not the fights you dream of,
but those you really fought,
it’s not just what you’re given,
but what you do with what you’ve got
November 10th, 2009 at 9:32 am
You need to go back and look at the fall of 2008, and take the various principals seriously. All principled economists deemed the bailout bill absolutely necessary, yet the Republican Congress opposed it.
They would have let the world economic system completely collapse. They will next time. They cannot be allowed back in power.
Goddamn, I hate liberals.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Matt, I think politicians disagree with you. For them, it really is about how long you hold power. Otherwise, why would they be constantly making compromises to get elected?
November 10th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Taibbi explains WHY Obama’s acting in the same craven matter that George W Bush did:
“The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — “our partners in the government,” as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.
The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers.”
————
ha ha ha
Let’s add up the balance sheet so far:
1) Obama: close to $1 Million from Goldman Sachs , and several more million from the usual suspects (JP Morgan,etc.)
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638
2) Goldman Sachs: Stock has gone from $55 a share last December to over $180 recently. Record profits and $16 BILLION in bonuses to employees
3) US Taxpayers: $TRillions in the hole and unemployment rate of 10 percent — actually rate far higher because government doesn’t include millions of long term unemployed
November 10th, 2009 at 9:42 am
But the elites DID give the rabble a Negro President. That’s a big deal, right?
Even if he is Harvard trained.
Have Larry Summers explain to you what that means –e.g,. how Harvard GOT that $35 Billion endowment. (Hint: It wasn’t by having an overly strong sense of intellectual honesty or sentimental love for the rabble.)
Time to sell out, Matthew. Otherwise, that $160,000 and 4 years of work go down the drain.
THAT’s the REAL education.
November 10th, 2009 at 10:49 am
They would have let the world economic system completely collapse. They will next time.
And that would be bad, because…?
November 10th, 2009 at 10:56 am
I think we have strayed too far from our Roman roots. In the grand days of the Republic, only two Senators each year were elected to hold the office of consul, and they led the Republic jointly. This year alone, our Republic has seen at least 12 consuls take command of the Republic, the latest consul being Joe Lieberman, who replaced the discredited rent-a-consul Olympia Snowe.
This revolving system of consuls, on pace at the moment to reach more that one consul per month, is clearly detrimental to the health of the naaaaayyy…..what? What did you say? I see.
I have been informed that we don’t have a consul system. We have a President. Where have I been?
November 10th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Re Max at 26: Tacitus has left us an account of where the malign corruption in Washington will ultimately lead us in the coming years:
“I am entering on the history of a period rich in disasters, frightful in its wars, torn by civil strife, and even in peace full of horrors.
Four emperors perished by the sword. There were three civil wars; there were more with foreign enemies; there were often wars that had both characters at once.
There was success in the East, and disaster in the West. There were disturbances in Illyricum; Gaul wavered in its allegiance; Britain was thoroughly subdued and immediately abandoned; the tribes of the Suevi and the Sarmatae rose in concert against us; the Dacians had the glory of inflicting as well as suffering defeat; the armies of Parthia were all but set in motion by the cheat of a counterfeit Nero.
Now too Italy was prostrated by disasters either entirely novel, or that recurred only after a long succession of ages; cities in Campania’s richest plains were swallowed up and overwhelmed; Rome was wasted by conflagrations, its oldest temples consumed, and the Capitol itself fired by the hands of citizens.
Sacred rites were profaned; there was profligacy in the highest ranks; the sea was crowded with exiles, and its rocks polluted with bloody deeds. In the capital there were yet worse horrors. Nobility, wealth, the refusal or the acceptance of office, were grounds for accusation, and virtue ensured destruction. The rewards of the informers were no less odious than their crimes; for while some seized on consulships and priestly offices, as their share of the spoil, others on procuratorships, and posts of more confidential authority, they robbed and ruined in every direction amid universal hatred and terror.
Slaves were bribed to turn against their masters, and freedmen to betray their patrons; and those who had not an enemy were destroyed by friends.”
November 10th, 2009 at 11:25 am
25:Because the liberals like MY still think you & I are worse than Palin;because they are the SPD in 1930
November 10th, 2009 at 11:48 am
The point isn’t to get elected for its own sake. The point is to get elected so you can serve several terms, make lots of connections, and turn around to pull in millions a year as a lobbyist.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
They would have let the world economic system completely collapse. They will next time.
And that would be bad, because…?
Millions and millions of people would die of disease and starvation?
The world economic system isn’t just bankers and your ipod. For about 6 billion people, it’s putting food on the table every day, medicine for the kids, and fuel in the stove in January.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
@28, it’s not obvious to me that the aftermaths of the collapse has to be some fascist dystopia. It may go either way.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
@30, how do you figure that a collapse of the financial system will necessarily cause millions of people to die of disease and starvation? People don’t eat their bank accounts. Couldn’t the result be the opposite?
November 10th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Spirits must really have fallen to a low ebb at CAP. This dreary post begging congresscritters not to miss their chance at history ! and two posts begging Blanche Lincoln to take one for the team.
Not what you’d expect from folks with confidence in the progressive agenda.
November 10th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
The reason for activists of any stripe to focus on electoral consequences is that it’s the most direct lever with which they can impact politician’s votes on legislation. You can give your all to convince a legislator (even a true moderate) that your preferred policy is the right choice for the country and it still won’t necessarily change his vote. It’s far easier to convince a legislator that if he votes against you, you will mobilize a sufficient bloc of voters to put his reelection at risk. It’s that whole “work within the system” idea, and it’s a troublesome one.
November 10th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
@30, how do you figure that a collapse of the financial system will necessarily cause millions of people to die of disease and starvation? People don’t eat their bank accounts. Couldn’t the result be the opposite?
Aside from a handful of subsistence farmers and hunter-gatherers hiding in remote jungles, the several billions of humans on this planet are linked to the international finanacial system through the exchange of commodities and manufactured goods. Break the international financial system and oil, food, and medical supplies stop moving from country to country or move only in small quantities at exorbitant prices. Poor people can’t get a paycheck, can’t buy food, they go hungry, they get sick, they die.
The international financiers are parasites, to be sure, but they’ve got their feeding tendrils firmly embedded in the arteries of world trade. You try to tear them out, you bleed to death.
November 11th, 2009 at 7:58 am
You’ll probably have a problem getting apples from New Zealand, but local economies should still work, I think. Or, anyway, adjust relatively quickly.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Are you watching the same legislatures I’m watching? They don’t thing of being in politics as an opportunity or a privilege. They think of it as a career. And no one wants to be fired from their career.
What matters is that you left enough behind to make yourself interesting to K street.