Hank Kalet

As The New York Times points out, the new Democratic majority has a chance to fix the ethical potholes that currently exist in Congress so that officeholders can avoid falling into them. And the Democrats should make it their first priroity.

Many of the Republicans who took control in 1994 saw themselves as reformers from the heartland. But their leaders soon convinced themselves that the Democrats were a force so evil that any effort was justified in keeping them at bay. To do that, they made lobbyists a regular part of the government as they traded perpetual access for campaign re-election money. They created an extraordinarily efficient system for running the House, in which even moderate Republicans were iced out of the decision-making process. Enamored with their own sense of virtue, they shut down the ethics process.

The Democrats, as the editorial points out, already want to ban gifts from lobbyists and “publicly disclosing the secret ‘earmarks’ that get inserted into legislation on behalf of special interests before they’re passed into law.” They should be put in place the minute the new Congress is sworn in “while the Democrats are filled with fervor and not totally focused on what they’re giving up,” the Times writes.

The key, when all is said and done, is to change the culture of the institution — one that is insular and partisan and results in legislation that has nothing to do with the lives most of us live everyday.

Members of Congress tend to live in a bubble that reinforces the feeling that they are special and immune to normal rules. Being forced to fly coach, to pay one’s own tab at the golf course and resort, are useful reminders of their mortality. But the most destructive bubble of all is the one that shields elected officials from opinions other than their own. To really change the House culture, Ms. Pelosi will need to overcome the toxic take-no-prisoners political climate in which any concession to the other side is seen as a sign of weakness.

It is this bubble that got the Democrats in trouble in the first place (does anyone remember the check scandal) and that made the last 12 years of Republican rule so painful for the country.

Step 1 in making change has occurred. We’ve tossed out the troglodytes — or many of them. Now it is up to the Democrats to begin Step 2.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

It appears from all the available evidence that Jim Webb, the Democrat, has won the U.S. Senate seat in Virginia by the slimmest of margins. If it holds — and it should — that would give both houses of Congress to the Democrats.

But don’t expect the GOP to go down without a fight — it’s not the party’s M.O., even if Sen. George Allen, the loser in this race, is making nice-nice noises.

A recount is in the offing, one the Democrats may fight. That would be foolish. We should use the Florida model — the Democrats demanded a recount, were right to do so and should agree to one without reservations this time. The reality is that the 7,000 votes that separate the two candidates are not likely to be bridged by a recount and to fight one would leave the Democrats looking petty and partisan.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

The South Brunswick Republicans are officially deluded. There really is no other way of saying this.

In a story that will run in tomorrow’s South Brunswick Post, party Chairman Roger Craig talks of retooling and rebuilding the party in anticipation of 2008. But retooling will not be enough. This is a party that has fallen into complete disrepair. It has had trouble fielding candidates and the candidates it has attracted have tended to be weak or have already been rejected by voters.

As I told a friend, if the South Brunswick GOP were a car, you wouldn’t be able to trade it in or sell it. Your only option would be to park it by the side of the Belt Parkway, hope it gets stripped for parts and burned.

In this case, that means purging the party of its current leadership and replacing it with fresh blood.

My friend, who knows a bit about how these things work from the inside, sums up the party’s plight this way:

The South Brunswick Republicans will be a non-entity until one of two things happen … a) the Dems in office make a huge and spectacular error (e.g., a Metroplex-type decision), or b) one or more are implcated, prosecuted and found guilty of a Lynch-like-$-for-decision scandal related to such a bad decision as referenced in a), above.

There a third option (option C), he says:

A local with (state Assemblyman Bill) Baroni’s charisma, intelligence, enthusiasm and vision decides he/she want to run for local office, happens to be a close relative of Bill Gates and can fund his/her own campaign, and is unconcerned about the mud which can be slung in local politics.

Given those options, it’s better for the health to not hold one’s breath waiting for c) to occur before a) and/or b).

Not that a) and/or b) appear on the radar screen at the moment.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Another off-the-beaten-path commentary on the election that is worth reading, this time from Juan Cole.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Donald Rumsfeld has announced his resignation as defense secretary. Don’t let the door hit you in the behind on the way out.

(Side note to this: Former CIA Director Robert Gates is being nominated to replace him — not exactly a huge upgrade, but we’ll have to take it.)

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick