Braunstein Speaks

Did You Get the Message?

Politics is a strange business. You may have the best ideas, the best organization, the purest heart—well, maybe I’m getting carried away here—but if you cannot get elected to office, none of it matters. Conversely, once you are in office, if you lose your next election, all you can do is put on a short, tight skirt, lots of makeup, and hope for the best walking the streets.

I have always contended that there are only two political parties: those who hold office, and the rest of us. If you are an incumbent, it really doesn’t matter which party you belong to. All that matters is that you are on the inside. You can do almost anything you want as long as you help your fellow office-holders get whatever it is that they want. Even though congressmen get paid $174,000 annually, most become millionaires before they leave office.

Once upon a time, congressmen had to depend on satisfying their constituents for votes and money, and once upon a time ledgers were kept by clerks writing with goose-feather quills. Today, all your money comes through your committee chairman, but only if you vote the correct way. Since 90 percent of elective politics is name recognition, your constituents will vote for you if you have enough money to put your name out there.

Just throw your coat over your shoulder, loosen your tie, roll those sleeves up, and look like you care.

Every so often, however, things get out of kilter. It’s easy to lose your bearings in Washington. Maybe Barack Obama really thinks that he is a god. Newsweek’s editor, Evan Thomas, actually said so last year!

If the president is a god, then even a lowly Member of the House must also be some sort of deity—a demigod, at the least.

Washington is an insular town, and Congress is an insular fraternity. Remember: unlike being a state governor, congressmen don’t actually have to do anything. All they do is figure out the odds—and they have a staff for that—and vote whichever way gets them the most money.

As on Wall Street, there are only two emotions that govern politicians: greed and fear. Some of them might have been frightened last November when two incumbent governors—both Democrats—were voted out of office, but hey, those were just governors; not Senators and Representatives doing the Lord’s work.

But Tuesday, one of those things happened that made all politicians feel an icy grip around their hearts. Even though Martha Coakley was not the incumbent, she was the Massachusetts Attorney General, and a Democrat in the most liberal state of them all. Moreover, she was running for the Kennedy Seat, the very Siege Perilous of Democratic mythology. Only a Democrat with the purest liberal heart could possibly be seated there.

“This great image stood before thee. The image’s head was of fine gold … his breast and arms of silver … His legs of iron, and his feet of clay” – Daniel 2:31-33.

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