The ill-regarded practice of “teaching to the test” has a political corollary, jawing to win. The means-to-ends’ mindset is identical — disregard any deeper mission and do what it takes. Focus-grouped rhetoric, like commercial advertising, is oriented to one thing, to snare our attention and vote. Pollsters quantify our strengths and fears, reducing voters to an algorithm.
And so, like bargain shoppers, we are forced to dig beneath the political gloss to determine if there’s any there there.
A Gallup poll released earlier this year has Congress’ job approval at a basement-level 10 percent. (Journalism, once government’s watchdog, registers nearly as low.) The anti-Congress sentiment flows from a culture of polarization that began in 1995 and has only grown worse. For writer Ronald Brownstein, a two-time Pulitzer-prize finalist who visited the Northwest last week, the United States has become a “quasi-parliamentary system.” Democrats never cross the aisle to vote with Republicans, and vice-versa. Partisanship supplants compromise.
In the Pacific Northwest, we might look to a new metric, something concrete and rhetoric-proof, to measure a lawmaker’s worth. We might begin with a basic, unadorned, “What did you sponsor and what was the outcome?”
Asking essential, no-wiggle-room questions is critical for a number of reasons. Beginning in 2013, Snohomish County will have three members of Congress, with representatives from the newly drawn 1st, 2nd and 7th districts. Will these members strategize together (especially if they represent opposite parties?) They might be challenged (by The Herald editorial board and, more significantly, by future constituents) to sit down regularly with their colleagues to establish a get-it-done vision, of working in common cause to help Snohomish County as well as the country.
Demographics also inform the political culture. Even with net migration down relative to the 1980s and 1990s, the Puget Sound region could grow by a million-plus residents over the next decade. Washington’s ossified political class will need to track with this evolving population. Do we have the educational and transportation infrastructure to accommodate so many more souls? If not, why not?
As more new families begin to call Washington home, they might look to even long-serving members of Congress as tabula rasa. Our Congressional delegation should measure up to regular evaluations (which they do through elections) that are outcome-focused (what did you actually do?) versus outputs (what did you vote for or against?)
The political season is, alas, the cruelest season of all. It insinuates itself, erupting just as the days grow shorter and colder. Americans will likely never experience a post-partisan country. It doesn’t hurt to try, however. Those basic, unadorned questions are the first step.
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