t.a. barnhart's blog

This is not a new topic. I am certain every human emotion has been the topic of numerous studies in regards to politics. After all, there are not only thousands of poli sci professors, past and present, but grad students, think tanks, assorted academics, and many others. They have to write about something, and the why’s of politics — why do people act as they do in politics — has attracted political scientists since the time of Aristotle, if not earlier.

To make this relevant: I am pissed off. The primary election for Portland’s mayor has been horrible in many ways. The Oregonian and Willamette Week have both behaved unprofessionally, not to mention with poorly disguised sexism. Both of Eileen Brady’s major opponents, men who are political professionals, have treated her with disrespect and dishonesty. She has run one of the few 100% positive campaigns I have ever seen, with not one attack ad, not one hit piece on the internet (despite the fact that I have recorded almost every debate and forum they have participated in); in meetings with supporters, she talks about herself, the people she’s met, her plans and hopes — not what her opponents would do to destroy the city, not the mistakes made by others. Eileen promotes her own campaign, and she does so positively.

She is repaid with attacks, sexism and scorn.

So yes, I am pissed off. And I am a blogger. I have an audience, more on BlueOregon.com than this venue, but if I were to post video of what occurred during this campaign, it would be seen by many of Oregon’s progressive activist community, including many electeds. I could raise some hell with the video I possess. I could do damage to a young politician’s career, to an old one’s hopes for election (if that’s what next Tuesday’s primary brings about). I could act on my anger and my anger could have repercussions.

And those repercussions could be at me. Yes, I might be able to deal out some payback to Hales and Smith, but there would be consequences for me. It would be a great way to make enemies and then enjoy the pleasures that would bring. In other words, it would be a very stupid thing for me to do.

So to return to the topic, the Politics of Resentment. There are three ways to respond to the kind of resentment I am feeling. One, just ignore it. Do nothing. Swallow it — and let it fester. Let the anger build, the resentment sour. A poor choice; an unhealthy choice. Two, I can do as suggested above: lash out. Strike back. The likely outcome I’ve also suggested: punishment, vengeance, sorrow, despair.

The third option sucks in another way: Let it go and move on. I would love to strike out and enjoy the few moments of vengeance. But the smart thing is to let it go — not keep it inside, but release it — and move on to positive, constructive actions. Release the desire for vengeance; keep my eyes on the prize, keep my thoughts focused on what matters most. No, that’s not terribly political, but there is a political manifestation of this choice:

I won’t be crushed by enemies I’ve made.

And I’ll be of use to those I care about.

I canvassed tonight for the first time since January 2010, when I went out for M66/67. I knocked on 45 doors, most of which were unanswered (it was a very nice evening), only got one grump, and finished with two longish conversations from folks who wanted me to sell them on Eileen Brady.

On Monday, I tried phone banking. I couldn’t. I hate calling strangers on the phone; it’s not anything I can control. Over time, as voter-tracking software has gotten more sophisticated and phone banking has been directed at supporters or neutrals, I’ve been able to do more of it. But because this election is so important to me, because it’s become so personal, I cannot even phone supporters. I had a near panic attack and had to just give up.

But tonight I walked around my neighborhood for two-and-a-half hours, knocking on doors, leaving lit, and occasionally chatting with folks. It was enjoyable. I think the difference is that it’s face-to-face. I’m not just an annoying, interrupting voice on the phone; I’m an actual person, smiling, wanting to engage them in the political process. If they don’t want to talk, that’s cool. I smile and move on to the next door. It also helps that my neighborhood is so interesting; at one point, I was by SEI and some kids were practicing drums for marching, probably for one of the Rose Festival parades. The houses are an amazing variety, and it’s just not boring to walk around here.

On the phone, you’re at a desk, staring at a piece of paper, other voices around you. Sitting. No idea who you are talking to other than their name, age, registration and whatever else is printed out. No real chance to make the human connection of the first smile, eye contact, a friendly “Hello”. My problem with the phone goes far beyond this, of course; it’s a phobia and not easy to control. Add to that my being an introvert, that I’m generally happy to be on my own, doing my own work in solitude, and phone banking causing me a near panic attack is no surprise.

Politics can so easily be impersonal. Between attack ads, the distance between citizens and electeds, and the crushing role of money, the presence of human beings is often neglected or even forgotten. Our politics is at its worst when this happens. Anything we can do to bring people together, even if they don’t agree, is a good thing. For me, knocking on a stranger’s door to ask if they’ve cast their ballot yet is a way to connect with people in a way that I can handle and has some political efficacy. I also know my writing connects with people; as I click away on my keyboard, I know I’m involved in a social act, albeit less directly than knocking on a door and having a conversation. Getting personal in politics isn’t always easy, and we each must find how we can most effectively do it in our own life, but it is essential. We need a personal, human, person-to-person politics, or we’ll have a dysfunctional society.

I was on the downtown end of the Hawthorne Bridge this evening, on the outbound side where bikes come on to the main part of the bridge from both downtown and the Waterfront Park paths. It’s kind of hairy, as it’s also an area where cars are merging onto the bridge. And at rush hour, everyone is in a hurry and mistakes get made. Mistakes like the one shown in these two pictures:

It’s kind of hard to see, but the white car is parked entirely over the path that is drawn on the roadway for bicycles to transition safely from the roadway to the walk/bikeway on the bridge. Cars are meant to remain behind the dotted line until all bikes have passed by, and then they can merge with bridge traffic. Most cars manage this just fine; they know that after the bikes go past, they’ll soon be able to go forward, too.

This woman failed entirely. Looking at her as she sat there, blocking a long line of bicycles, it was clear that driving was freaking her out. She was clueless about what to do; she didn’t even seem to know why all the bikes had stopped and were looking at her with varying degrees of hostility. Part of the problem, I’m sure, is that she didn’t drive this route very often, especially at this time of day. She didn’t realize the basic procedure, although the dotted pathway in the road should have clued her sufficiently. But that leads us to the second part of the problem:

This is a very poorly designed traffic director.

Here’s the view from Google maps.

The circle on the right is the path from bikes coming up from downtown. The oval on the right is for pedestrians, although some bikes do use it (those who ride up on the sidewalk, which really shouldn’t happen but it does). And another major problem should be apparent: there is virtually no space between the bike and pedestrian crossings. Cars sit in there all the time, waiting to move on to the bridge. It’s just ugly, and I’m amazed bloody accidents are not the norm.

Something needs to be fixed, and not just some bright paint in the roadway, although that might be a good intermediate improvement (bright blue, green or yellow to mark the bike path). The entire intersection, of two car paths and two bike/ped paths, is awful. The arrangement is just the muddling-through of traffic engineers who tried to make the best of the existing roadway and bridge structure.

But that’s not good enough. Why not lights that are linked with the lights down at the intersection at the base of the bridge? Make all cars stop behind the pedestrian crossing, and make all pedestrians yield to cars: lights to control when peds and bikes can cross over on to the bridge. We can no longer accept making do with the existing structures; someone will die or get badly injured before too long. One day a car will slide into the bike crossway as a bike is actually crossing — it came close to happening in the 90 minutes I was standing there — and then, tragedy.

The City of Portland is devising new means of helping cars, bikes and pedestrians share the same space. In some cases, the green bike boxes work perfectly fine. In other areas, physically separating bikes and cars, whether by boulevards (SW Broadway, going up to PSU) or neighborhood greenways, is a better solution. But in some places, like where I was standing and waving my sign for Eileen Brady, we need to get even more innovative. It’s not a matter of providing special services to bicycles. It’s a matter of ensuring a nasty, and unavoidable, accident doesn’t happen.

Because the way things are now, that’s simply inevitable.

Politics is for crazy people.

Today is a gorgeous day in Portland: cool, bright, sunny. All over the city, people are at parks, walking in neighborhoods, working in their yards. Many folks are working, of course, and lots of tv is getting watched; the NBA playoffs and who knows what else. Errands are being run; groceries bought; naps taken. A day of enjoyment, work and normal life.

And a handful of crazy fuckers are doing politics.

In nine days, Oregon holds a general election. Anyone involved in a primary is working hard, and that means forgoing the park, the errands, the fun. Instead, it’s canvassing, phone calls, meetings, and everything else that is part of the final stretch of a campaign. There is no option, unless you have given up. Me, I’ve done some Facebook wrangling, and later I’ll be editing video for a man running for the state Supreme Court.

This is not normal behavior. Almost no one does this kind of thing: working on an election campaign on a gorgeous spring Sunday. What the hell is wrong with us? The various mayoral campaigns, of which I work for Eileen Brady’s, had people out door-knocking today. I’m guessing a few hundred people answered their doors. Seriously; I doubt it was much more than that. But you know what? Tomorrow morning, at 7:30 am, I’ll be standing on the east side of the Broadyway Bridge waving a sign for Eileen to the morning commuters. In the evening, I’ll make a few dozen phone calls. Tuesday, the same thing. Me and dozens of others, on our campaign and numerous others. For the next nine days, we’ll wave signs and make phone calls and knock on doors and post messages on Facebook and Twitter.

And we’ll think it matters.

It does. I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid. It does matter who the next mayor of Portland is. I believe the city will have its best chance if Eileen Brady is our next mayor, so I’ll do this crazy shit that almost no one else does. I believe in politics, and I believe in being personally involved in politics. I think the process matters, and I think the outcome matters. And I think if more people share might opinion, and got involved on a regular basis, if politics were a greater part of normal life and not less, then our entire country would be better off.

Call me crazy.

Ok, PolitiFact, I know you have to prove yourself worthy of the name, not to mention prove yourself worthy of whatever licensing that brand costs The Oregonian’s publisher. And yes, the election is 10 days away, and lots of people are suddenly wanting info on the candidates for mayor. But that doesn’t mean you just starting throwing stuff out willy-nilly as if you have any clue what you are doing.

And it certainly doesn’t mean you have to find a way to slam all three candidates just to slam all three. After a while, it’s just sad.

Charlie Hales: “I never billed Portland…” >> False!

Jefferson Smith: “The City doesn’t have to kowtow to CH2M Hill…” >> False!

Eileen Brady: “We could have saved ourselves money…” >> False……… um, wait….

And here’s the problem. Hales danced around the facts in his statement, and Smith made a dumb accusation during a debate. But Brady (whose campaign I work for part-time) didn’t make a factual statement. She asserted what she would have done, and she made a claim it would have led to a better result. Was she correct, or, as PF asserted, was this a false claim?

Who the hell knows? It was a hypothetical that never came to be! Had she been on the Council, maybe she’d have had a strategy to get to the resolution she sought. Maybe not. The point is, PF ruled False on something that never happened. They ruled False on an alternate reality that never came to be (well, it did come to be, an infinite number of times, so they are factually wrong an infinite number of times — and factually right as well). In their desperation to be The Arbiter of Truth and Fact, PolitiFact at the Oregonian has failed at basic logic.

I am pretty sick of PF and of endorsements and much else to do with elections. My view of progressive politics is that it’s about people being involved in their own neighborhoods and communities. It’s one reason I support Brady; she also believes that. I do not believe it is for PF or any other self-appointed guardian of the public good to tell us what is true, what is right, what is blessed; I can figure that out pretty well myownself. I need access to clear information, of course, something that we don’t get when
The O puts its resources into PF instead of reporters (not to mention, refusing to improve their website). I have been able to see all three mayoral candidates in action over the past six months, which has made my support for Eileen Brady easy. Few other people have had that opportunity and they allow themselves to be swayed by PolitiFact and others with an agenda that is separate from the public good.

Especially when they can’t even make basic sense.

I never listened to the Beastie Boys. I had no idea who there were, what their music was; I’m not even sure I would have associated “Fight For Your Right” to them. They were just some band, a bunch of rappers, and, therefore, not anything I’d enjoy.

Oh my god. I could not have been more wrong.

My friend Kriste got me hip to the Beasties a little over a year ago, and after I signed up on Spotify, I started listening to their albums to see what they were about. I cannot believe the great music I’d missed. I love the actual music behind it all, the melodic underpinnings to most of what they do. They did the rap/hip-hop thing with authority, of course, but they were, without a doubt, kickass musicians first and foremost. The more I listen, the more I hear and the bigger a fan I become.

Of course it’s too late now to ever see the band. Adam Yauch died today, and what a loss. People like Kriste who grew up with the Beasties, who know their music inside-out, are devastated. Understandably so. He was more than some guy in a really good band. He and the other two Beasties helped change American music. The band was iconic; brilliance can lead to that. He left behind a musical legacy anyone would be proud of. And he made millions happy because of his life. You really cannot do much better than that.

In politics, polls can be even more crazy-making than endorsements, and I hate endorsements. Some polls are accurate; some resemble the drunken Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou. Few get reported intelligently — for example, what questions are asked is rarely reported, so people assume the questions are fair; ha! — so they are ripe for plucking by partisan advocates. And on top of that, polls are both ephemeral and late: what might have been true a week ago when the poll was taken may no longer be the case.

Yet in politics, we bow our knee to polls in a manner that is secondary only to money. If a poll gives your candidate good news, the numbers are given the same credence as a voice from a burning bush. Both, of course, are myths unless understood properly. The new DHM poll on the Portland mayoral race is a good case in point.

1. The race is not a “dead heat”; it’s simply very close — for Hales and Brady. Smith is still behind.
2. Having “Undecided” in first place means no one has bragging rights.
3. Having your key issue identified by respondents as their key issue means you’re doing things right. Both Hales and Brady, with schools and jobs respectively, have this going for them (and, hence, their lead). The CRC gets a far lower “Low” importance rating than anything else; Smith tying himself strongly to that issue was not a good move and may be why he trails despite being a current member of the Leg.
4. Losing to a candidate who isn’t even running? Bad. But this poll has Smith behind incumbent Mayor Sam Adams.
5. Low negatives are critical. All three are in good shape that way.

The data in this poll allow for a lot of interpretation. Hales’ supporters can feel solid, Smith’s folks can feel energized, and Brady’s people can be confident knowing that their candidates, who came into the race with no political background, no rolodex of contributors, a Facebook fan base of zero, and a big hill to climb just to be considered relevant — she’s done all that. She’s in strong shape to move on to the General Election.

So often when I write about politics, the old feminist phrase comes to mind: “The personal is political”. Today this phrase takes a slightly different tack for me: some personal contacts that have helped me make a political decision about an election I had given little thought: the Oregon Supreme Court.

No one, of course, pays any attention to judicial campaigns; no one other than the candidates, their families, a few organizations and a handful of reporters who are tasked with writing an article or two. I certainly have no idea of the issues, the people or anything else regarding these races. I did learn recently that two men and a woman are running for the Supreme Court position in question. I heard two of them speak, a bland older gentleman (he may not have been that old; I wasn’t paying a lot of attention) and the woman, Nena Clark. She seemed bright and intelligent, and funny, so I figured I’d vote for her; after all, it’s not like we have a dearth of white male lawyers in elected office.

But this morning, I was hired to get some video of circuit judges endorsing one of the two men running for the Supreme Court. By the time I had finished listening to these four judges speak about their colleague, Judge Richard Baldwin, I had decided I would be voting for him.

It didn’t hurt that I got to spend about ten minutes chatting with him and getting to see that he is a good person.

All four of the judges who endorsed Judge Baldwin did so enthusiastically, and they pointed to key points that actually matter: his time in court, as a lawyer and a judge, so that he understands what’s involved with people going to trial (not all lawyers spend time in trial, it turns out). He has run both a drug court and a mental health court, efforts aimed to help get people the help they need to get healthy and escape the criminal justice system. His intelligence, wisdom and compassion were cited, and not tangentially. One judge said that when he faces a tough ethical issue, it’s Judge Baldwin he turns to for guidance.

During a campaign, we can get tons of information, much of it manufactured and finessed, and little of it that tells us what we’d really like to know. Today, I got the latter: the information I really want. I learned about Judge Baldwin’s background, and I learned what his colleagues feel about him. I’m sure I could get similar from his two opponents, but that’s not going to happen. Given his experience, and my experience with the personal of politics today, I’ve decided that I’ll be filling in the little bubble next to his name on my ballot.

Judge for Court of Appeals, Position 6? I have no idea.

(Turns out two of the people I interviewed are also on the ballot; both are running unopposed. I guess that makes that easy.)

The “WordCount Blogathon” does me no favors by showing up in May. I’ll spend over half this month as a part-time staffer for the Eileen Brady for Mayor campaign, and that means there’s a bunch of stuff I simply cannot write about. By June, I am likely to have a different role, mostly for that very reason: it’s harder than hell for me to be limited in my blogging and social media commentary because of my role in the Brady campaign. I made the agreement because I needed the work and because I wanted to support Brady’s effort to develop a grassroots campaign.

But it’s been tough. I am not known for my reticence as a writer. I have gained readers in various forums because I do speak my mind. I am respectful of others, most of the time, and I do my best to be intelligent. I have a knack for stating things clearly that others are also thinking; in my own way, I often seem to be in touch with the local progressive zeitgeist. I enjoy being able to write in that manner, so having to avoid writing about this campaign has been brutal. But as a staffer, and one who does have a following (I’d say I’m a medium fish in a medium pond), my words can too easily be attributed to my candidate. This is a false and dishonest thing to do, of course; whatever I am writing, if it’s got my name attached, I am speaking only for myself. I am not a Brady surrogate, but in politics, that’s how I am treated.

Especially if I write something critical of an opponent. Our campaign has made a decision, and we have stuck to it, to be positive in every way. We’re run no attack ads; we’ve done no push polling; in debates, Eileen has responded to personal attacks on her with positive responses and not the flinging of mud. If I were to, for example, post a blog detailing my critique of an opponent’s approach to the campaign — something I hope to do following the primary — that same opponent would use it to “prove” that Brady has “gone negative”. So I have two choices: Self-censor and support the campaign, or quit and go my way.

I am proud to be part of this campaign. I didn’t know anything about Eileen Brady before I began, but over the months of watching her and her two main opponents I have learned that she is the most qualified person to be Portland’s next mayor. She’s every bit as smart as her opponents; she has a wonk’s grasp of City policy Steve Novick would admire; and she is a wonderful, compassionate human being. Everything she says about herself is true; I’ve had the verified by multiple people who have worked with her. Do I hate having to limit what I write? Of course I do, but it’s worth it to be part of her team and to do something I think will benefit the city I love.

But be warned: Soon, I’ll be free to write freely. I plan to make the most of it.

Rachel Maddow introduces us to the kind of Republicans progressives can find common cause with: union Republicans. A very interesting, and encouraging, report.