Julius Caesar knew a thing or two about suspicion. As he put it: “As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men’s minds more seriously than what they see.”
Even on days when the world seems like a happy, placid, welcoming place, it’s best to anticipate trouble – and prepare a response.
The late Hiram Johnson, a crusty California governor and U.S. Senator, said boxing was the key to success in politics. “When you see the other guy getting ready for a punch,” he explained, “hit him first and hit him hard!”
What, then, is to be made of the official and unofficial “make love, not war” pact agreed to by U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and his presumed opponent in the upcoming Massachusetts Senate race, Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren?
Both sides seem to have agreed to “discourage” big-money PACs from flooding Massachusetts with negative campaign advertising; in part, through a weird scheme by which each candidate will donate money to charity equal to some percentage of the dough spent on the naughty ads.
Whew. As Mr. Caesar pointed out, there are grounds for some paranoia about what may be going on behind the scenes. Both candidates vow to be somewhat civil to each other – at least compared with the spectacle of the GOP Presidential debates.
Many candidates, of course, begin the long slog with the desire to be polite and “adult” and “constructive.” That always sounds better to the candidates, but only in the abstract. It’s like what Mark Twain said about “classic” books: “A book that people praise, but don’t read.”
The voters, as well as the candidates, might articulate a preference for playing nice, but you don’t learn what you want (or need) to know that way.
The attack ads and the speech rhetoric might not win any prizes for accuracy or nuance, but somewhere in all that huffing and puffing, voters sift through the worst of it and come to reasonably credible conclusions. If the alternative is gracious conversation about the merits of agricultural price supports, will the great unwashed really be better informed?
The Sales Pitch
The value of a certain level of chaos and irresponsibility isn’t limited to political campaigns. Consider the decorum and stuffy mock-dignity of the average annual meeting of a public company. For those deluded shareholders who attend the meeting hoping to actually learn something, their only hope is for a crazed “shareholder rights” activist to grill the CEO about why he makes so much more money than the guy on the shop floor, or whether board terms should be staggered
It won’t be lovely, it won’t be “sophisticated,” but there is wisdom to be learned from how a CEO responds to such stuff.
The Massachusetts Senate race is an unusual contest, which, despite noble promises to the contrary, will benefit from some unsophisticated shrieking and screaming.
The Elizabeth Warren snapshot is already in place: Her instinct would be to make life miserable – in a constipated, regulatory way – for Wall Street and other assorted financial services operations. Good thing? Bad thing? We probably would never find out through “reasoned” discussion. Let the Brown folks beat up on her a bit and see what emerges.
Brown? He’s a Massachusetts Republican, whatever that is. It took Ted Kennedy’s death to get Brown to Washington, aided and abetted by an inept Democratic opponent. His snapshot: A sort-of-moderate, centrist, Northeastern Republican kind of a guy – except when he isn’t. Particular issues? Is that really the point? Let the Warren folks slash and burn; we’ll see what we can learn.
Brown in particular would seem to have little to gain from a polite, placid campaign. The Massachusetts instinct is to vote for the Democrat; the fact that he is an “incumbent” is viewed more as an aberration than as an inherent advantage. For Brown to agree to discuss the issues quietly over tea (no Tea Party, to be sure) would be the death knell for his campaign.
Yes, it will be exaggerated and somewhat stupid, but the “best candidate” doesn’t come gift-wrapped at the door. You have to go shopping and listen to the sales pitch.
