The flap over Senator John Kerry’s statement in California (prior post here) has led to a number of things: howls of outrage, demands for apologies, and — at last — a hook, however late and tentative, on which Republicans can hang their attacks. That gaffe also pulled him off the campaign circuit, sending him home to(presumably) Massachusetts (WaPo):
The White House and Republican allies orchestrated a cascade of denunciations throughout the day to keep the once and possibly future presidential candidate on the defensive and force other Democrats to distance themselves. Kerry canceled plans to appear with several candidates and returned home to avoid becoming “a distraction to these campaigns.”
That last bit triggered an issue for Polimom: Why on earth was the Senator from Massachusetts stumping in California? I coulda’ sworn Massachusetts included people who don’t belong to the Democratic Party. Do those non-Democrats feel their Senator’s time is being well-spent by campaigning in other states?
And who’s paying Kerry’s salary? (ahem…)
Meanwhile, George Bush has been in the news a lot lately, zipping about the country to lend support to fellow Republicans in key races — lifting shrieking babies, raising funds, and generally trying to rally his party (Forbes):
Twenty-eight years after his first campaign, George W. Bush is waging his last. If the polls are right, the president could wind up experiencing the sting of defeat for the first time since that 1978 race.
[snip]
Bush has raised more than $193 million at about 90 events this election season. He has posed with dozens of smiling candidates on the steps of Air Force One. He has eaten ice cream with a candidate who admitted to marital infidelity. He traveled across the country to sign a bill sponsored by California Rep. Richard Pombo.
It’s not hard to understand why he’s doing this; the outcome of this election affects him, too… but then, he was front and center even more in 2002:
By contrast, before the 2002 elections, a much more popular Bush began appearing at rallies in August. In October alone, he appeared at eight and nearly all of his political events, of any kind, were open to cameras and reporters.
Needless to say, of course, all this frenetic activity has been spent supporting the Republicans, and… um… aren’t the American people paying his salary, too?
And then there’s Tony Snow — the White House Press Secretary. (Chicago Sun-Times)
After warm-ups in Wisconsin and Iowa, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow arrives in St. Charles on Saturday to headline a $175-a- person fund-raiser for beleaguered House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.
[snip]
It’s unusual for a presidential spokesman to go out on the stump, but Snow has his campaign calendar filled through the Nov. 7 election. He’s got 16 events — speeches, fund-raisers, drop-bys — on his schedule and five more in the works.
Again — correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Tony Snow’s salary paid by the American people?
The more I think about this, the less I like it.
If Polimom were a Republican living in MA, I think I’d be ticked that “my” senator was gallivanting all over the country; I’d be even more angry that he was spending his my time raising money and support for the Democrats.
I’m positive that George Bush has a full-time job leading the country… not just the Republicans. I’d have sworn there was enough work already packed into his job-description to keep him busy.
Polimom, of course, is a non-partisan Independent and a tax-payer, but for some reason, I’m partially footing the bill to further the fortunes of both parties. How did I get sucked into paying for all this?
I want my nickel back, please.
If I am correct, it is the American People (more specifically, the American Taxpayers) who are paying the salaries of all these folks. So, I guess the taxpayers in California have just as much a right to see John Kerry (or GWB, or Tony Snow, or any of the others) as the taxpayers in MA or any other state do.
You do have a valid point – but only somewhat. My understanding is that there are mechanisms by which the political parties are expected to reimburse the Federal govt for expenses related to the use of things like Air Force One (which the President pretty much has to use – think of the security nightmares if he decided to fly Continental Express or Southwest!) And, as regards folks like John Kerry, Tony Snow, et. al, I think it has always been presumed that with political office (and Tony Snow is a political appointee not a civil service hire) goes a certain amount of political glad-handing and “other duties”. Soooo, given that these folks tend to work at all unGodly hours of the day and night when it is called for, and oftentimes some of these rallies are not during “normal office hours” (whatever that is), I don’t know that I have a whole lot to complain about. After all, I would rather see these folks out there actually being involved with “we the people”, rather than delegating that duty to their spin-doctors.
~EdT.
As one of the Fargo 42 who were banned from Bush’s public, official appearance in Fargo, N.D. because we had (gasp!) gone to one or more Howard Dean for President meetings, I want Bush to personally reimburse me for every public apperance he’s made in the last six years, and every minute of television time he has been granted as President. However, it ain’t gonna happen.
I don’t have a perscription to solve the nation’s political ills. Worse, I suspect they are unsolveable. I am of the increasingly cynical view that the American Experiment is over and the result are in: It has failed.
I covered politics for a decade, worked on or around Capitol Hill for about that long, was a district chair for the Democratic Party in North Dakota (yeah, that’s the sort of dangerous people W blacklists) and even ran for the state legislature once. I believed that, no matter how bad things got, the pendulum could swing back.
Now I’m not so sure. I caught myself watching Ann Coulter last night (why does anyone invite that whack job on television?) and she said the first apt thing that’s come out of her mouth since she first crawled out of the slime and learned to walk erect: that historically the Dems should be picking up more than 70 seats in this mid-term.
She used that fact disingenously to imply that the Dems would fall short of what they should get (apt but not truthful). What she neglected to point out is that cooperative partisan gerrymandering has made reform of government through the ballot box an increasingly unlikely outcome.
It’s going to take a bigger wave than this, and of a very different and more radical sort, to upset the current system. If it’s not happening now in the midst of Iraq and everything else, I am increasingly convinced it may not happen in my lifetime.
Which is a depressing thought which tends to push me away from paying attention to politics as much as I once did.
Mark — my post this morning (link) was, in many ways, my response to your comment.
I hear you; I feel it, too. We’re going to have to look ahead, my friend… but I think the future is closer at hand. In fact, I think the future is often holding my hand, instead.