RSS FeedLiving History: The First Info Age Election
The failure and the eventual passage of the financial bailout bill show that this election is a turning point in American politics. Welcome to politics in the Information Age.
LAS VEGAS, NV (October 1, 2008) – The House rejection of the bailout package made Monday very queasy. The stock market dropped an unlucky 777 – even by Las Vegas standards. Trust me, seeing the crisis from inside the financial markets evoked panic and some sleepless nights for me.
I was also angry at the House members who failed to see what I saw. Tom Friedman spoke my feelings.
This is dangerous. We have House members, many of whom I suspect can’t balance their own checkbooks, rejecting a complex rescue package because some voters, whom I fear also don’t understand, swamped them with phone calls. I appreciate the popular anger against Wall Street, but you can’t deal with this crisis this way.
Friedman wrote that today, two days after vote-down Monday. Now that it’s Wednesday and another vote is approaching, I don’t feel the same way. In fact, I think Tom is missing the point; a point he wrote about in his book, The World Is Flat.
Friedman predicted that both political parties would split and re-form based on free-market and Information Age principles. This is what happened this week.
I believe this upheaval in the financial markets and this renegade bunch of lawmakers on what seems to be the diametrically opposed extremes of their parties have ushered in the first real election of The Information Age.
My feelings began to change when I began to search for the reasons these lawmakers voted no in the face of the Bush-Paulson-Bernanke warnings. Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post hit the nail on the “all fact, no ideological” head.
It’s no coincidence then that of the 205 members who voted in support of the bill today, there are only two — Reps. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) and Jon Porter (R-Nev.) — who find themselves in difficult reelection races this fall. The list of 228 “nays” reads like a virtual target list for the two parties.
Yes, it was pure politics. These folks were, in essence, saving their political necks.
But let’s look further. Aren’t they supposed to answer to voters? Yes, but then aren’t our leaders supposed to vote to protect constituents even if they don’t know what’s happening? Sure, but here’s the difference. I’m beginning to think the voters do know – or at least know enough to care.
I think the tons of phone calls and emails to House members reflected the national polls. People are wary of this economic bailout with good reason.
First, we’ve heard from our government that we can bail out certain firms and not bail out others. We then heard a certain fix will work and then the problem seems to get worse.
Second, we heard the same dire arguments about Iraq’s terror apparatus targeting America. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on the Thursday before the vote used a split screen comparison of Mr. Bush’s speech in 2003 about going to war and his speech urging the bailout. The tone and words were comically and frighteningly identical.
Did Jon Stewart kill the bailout? No, George Bush did. How can you believe him after the last seven years? Why would you want to place extra power in his Administration?
Third, why do we want to help the titans of Wall Street who failed to manage this crisis? Sure, by rejecting the bailout, we’re also hurting Main Street; that is, if nothing is done.
And as I write this, it appears that a new bill will make it to Congress. Granted, the plunge in stock prices may have had some of the “no votes” in the House questioning themselves and reconsidering. And I really do think the renegades were running to save themselves politically – and not to fulfill some higher standard of political accounting to the people. But in essence, that’s what might have happened.
Here’s the reality. Never before have voters been so absorbed in an election. Sure, we’re in tough times and that makes us pay more attention. We’re also a crisis reaction country; not a preventative bunch of folks. Still, thanks to the Internet and 24-hour cable, we’re watching. And yes, probably the most extreme are the ones yelling on the phone to the Congressional offices.
And yes, most of these folks have no idea what this financial crisis is. But here’s what’s important: they now want to know. People now no longer want droves of information; they want clarity. They want to know what the government’s actions really mean.
Here’s what I think voters are saying.
We want more transparency. We want to understand this situation and the possible outcomes. We don’t want you to tell us something as if your hair is on fire. We can’t just hand over more power to you when it seems you have failed to use the power you already have by getting us into this situation. We want everyone to be rescued, not just those who so actively asked for less oversight and more freedom. And if you can’t explain what some of these complicated financial instruments are, then we shouldn’t have them.
Any good salesperson knows this. If you speak over your prospect’s head and they don’t understand, then the prospect is unlikely to be a customer. This is what happened Monday.
And the move to transparency has been happening for a while. People like Tom Friedman and me, while writing about it, we missed the meaning this week in the midst of our economic fears. On the other hand, Congress and most of our political leaders are just plain late and will need time.
Mark Cuban, the tech entrepreneur and owner of the NBA Dallas Mavericks, offered his assessment of the bailout to Greta Van Susteran on Fox News Channel last week. My wife caught it and brought it to my attention. Cuban says the people and the Internet could help solve the oversight problems of government and big business.
All the social networking we talk about–we need to make sure that every transaction that takes place, wherever there is money injected, wherever there is a purchase made, all that is made available for all the citizens of the country to see. Because it’s not going to be an oversight board that catches problems. It’s going to be the citizens of this country that go online and on a second by second basis that catch problems.
We’re starting to see it here in Nevada. Gov. Jim Gibbons has directed that every state transaction will be posted online, “so you can see where your money is being spent,” he told a recent event honoring him. Gov. Gibbons, a golf partner of mine in past celebrity events, has had a rocky first two years in office. But this directive of his may be his most positive legacy.
Gov. Gibbons was honored at a fundraiser for the Nevada Policy Research Institute, an event I emceed. At dinner I had the pleasure to sit next to John Tsarpalas, the Chief Operating Officer of the Sam Adams Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to open government and reducing government waste. His work is inspiring and does exactly what the Information Age is supposed to do – empower the informed citizen to make government and life better for all.
Among the open government projects they’re working on: training bloggers to search government websites to find excesses that hurt taxpayers. Sounds like John should contact Cuban.
Is this a panacea for perfect government? No way. Will citizen journalists/investigators cause problems? Absolutely. They will raise questions and deliver some answers that might not be truthful or correct. After all, some of these folks will have agendas.
But government and our future leaders will know this. It will create more work for government and that means more government, not less in the years ahead. Get used to it.
However, it will also reduce the waste in government. No longer will the fat-cats of Wall Street, the laggards of society, and our elected officials find it easy to keep feeding off the taxpayers – without many of us knowing. Plus, it will force government to offer an impartial hand so that truly the economic playing field is even or flat for all of us.
Let’s hope.