Three miles in 24:48 listening to a mix and then some upper-body lifting to burn what little energy I had left.
There is a problem, however. I maybe coming down with a cold. I hate winter.
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Glenn Greenwald’s post today on Salon is worth reading to get a sense as to why the more interesting candidates out there — in particular, John Edwards, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul — are treated as little more than novelties (in the case of Huckabee and Paul) or nuisances (in the case of Edwards).
(T)here is a clear dichotomy in both the Republican and Democratic fields — one which is a microcosm of our political system generally — of establishment candidates versus anti-establishment candidates. Edwards, Paul and Huckabee are clearly the latter. And that certainly explains a large part of how the media insufficiently covers their campaigns.
By definition, our most influential media outlets are vital parts of the establishment and dependent upon it in countless ways. They perceive attacks on the establishment to be attacks on them. And thus, most journalists are instinctively hostile to candidates which are outside and critical of that establishment. Journalists just don’t believe that the system on which they depend and which gives them their access and purpose can possibly be fundamentally broken or corrupt. They are, after all, the establishment press.
Such outsider candidates begin as the nerdy losers to be held up by our campaign journalists for adolescent, giggly mockery. If their campaigns prosper, they become the target of outright hostility (see, e.g., the media’s role in the destruction of Howard Dean’s candidacy in 2003). In different ways, that has been the arc of media treatment accorded to Paul, Huckabee and Edwards, all of whose candidacies — for better or worse — represent something significant in our political culture, represent direct challenges to prevailing conventional pieties and dominant power centers, and yet (or, rather, therefore) are treated as silly jokes when they are discussed at all.
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Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts wants to expand the state’s clean election program.
The Camden Democrat called this year’s pilot program a success Tuesday, said the program needed some “refinements” and not a “complete overhaul.”
“The 2007 Clean Elections experience was a vast improvement over the initial 2005 trial of public financing in legislative races,” he said in a press release, in which he outlined three broad changes in the program:
1. Expand the number of Clean Election districts; at a minimum, expand the program to include primary elections in 2009.
2. Strive for parity funding for third-party candidates so they have a more level playing field competing against the major party candidates.
3. Ratchet down spending in designated Clean Election districts as a means of extending public financing to more districts in future elections without requiring exorbitant increases in taxpayer subsidies.
The reforms are the logical next step for a program that helped create a level playing field in the 14th District — even with Common Sense America, an outside group, paying for ads that attacked Democrat Linda Greenstein’s record on taxes.
And leveling the playing field — and expanding opportunities for candidates not tied to the political power structure — is what the program is about.
What was most interesting about Speaker Roberts’ announcement, however, were not the trio of revisions he offered. Those have been on the table for weeks — both Assembly members representing South Brunswick, Bill Baroni, the Hamilton Republican was was just elected to the state Senate, and Linda Greenstein, a Plainsboro Democrat, have said they wanted to see the program expanded and subsidies to candidates reduced.
What is interesting is his interest in potentially expanding the program to local races.
In announcing his principles for improving the program, Roberts also said he is writing a letter to Governor Corzine’s chief of staff, Bradley Abelow, to request that any Clean Elections funds appropriated for the 2007 program remain in the next state budget. Roberts said the funds would be available for potential use in 2008 in the event the program is expanded for local elections – an idea the Speaker plans to examine.
The clean elections program is not perfect and, as the intrusion of Common Sense America shows, special interest cash is unlikely to be removed from the process completely.
But its influence can be reduced by providing candidates with public financing, allowing them to compete electorally without having to rely on corporate or special-interest money.
“The experiences from this year’s three Clean Elections districts prove that the addiction to special interest money can be broken and that voters can become willing participants in meaningful, issue-driven campaigns,” said Roberts.
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I was out of the office yesterday and running those season errands that make us all a little crazy in December, so I didn’t get on the road (or treadmill).
Today, I hit the treadmill, running five miles in about 43 minutes with the hope of putting in about 18 miles this week and crossing 800 for the year next week.
Music: a mix
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Read these two editorials on the governor’s school aid plan — one in The Star-Ledger and one in the Asbury Park Press.
As expected, the Press takes a pretty dim view of the plan, railing against previous efforts to improve schooling in cities while accusing the governor of not doing enough to help suburban schools. The paper makes some valid points — lower-income districts have been ignored in the past, as have fast-growing districts. But the editorial also hits the governor and the Department of Education for something else, a knee-jerk opposition to spending money on education.
There are other, less parochial, reasons not to like the new school aid formula, beginning with its allocation of an additional $530 million in funding — little of which will be applied to property tax relief — and its failure to offset that increase with improved efficiencies and cost-cutting measures. New Jersey spends more on education than any state. Its deficiencies are related to waste, mismanagement, its profusion of school districts and overly generous employee benefits. New Jersey should be spending less money on education, not more. And it should be allocating it in a way that is fair to all taxpayers and all children in all communities.
Again, there are some valid points here. There is waste and there are too many districts. But spending less money is the wrong prescription. In fact, the state needs to pick up much more of the tab, lessening the need for local property taxes in the process. New Jersey — when all school spending, local and state, is taken into account — spends more on education than any other state; but as the Ledger points out, the state provides less of it than other states.
The issue, unfortunately, has never just been about the formula; rather, it has been the political will of both voters and legislators who have rarely funded school aid formulas to the level necessary. By shorting funding at the same time that the state is forced to meet the court funding mandate for urban schools, the Legislature creates the perceived imbalance, generating resentment among suburban voters.
It is time to take a breath, to slow the process so we can truly understand the ramifications. Jumping to conclusions, as the Press does in its editorial, does little to advance the discussion.
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