political consultants

A Washington Post article suggests that perhaps Howard Dean’s former campaign manager, Joe Trippi, decided to spend huge amounts of money on television because he is a partner in the firm that places ads for Dean’s campaign, and it captures a percentage of every advertising dollar. In contrast, money spent on door-to-door canvassing, events, phone banks, and mass mail does not enrich Trippi personally.

Trippi denies a conflict of interest and emphasizes that all his decisions were vetted by others. I don’t much care whether he’s guilty or innocent as an individual. I’m more interested in the general problem of consultants’ conflict of interest . There is a lot of evidence that door-to-door campaigning wins votes, but hardly any evidence for the effectiveness of TV advertising. Canvassing is also more likely to increase overall turnout, which is good for democracy. Since candidates could win by putting money into canvassing, one would expect them to do so. But not if their consultants advise them to spend on broadcasting–which enriches them personally.

Consultants reply as follows (I quote from the Post): “Although some disreputable practitioners may pad bills, other forces work against such behavior. Because ad strategists tend to make more money the longer a candidate stays in a race, it is self-defeating to spend wildly early on, they say. Moreover, winning is the best calling card of all: A successful campaign tends to burnish a media consultant’s reputation and put the consultant in demand for the next election cycle.”

The pressure to win has some influence on consultants, but it is only one factor among many. Besides, the reelection rate in Congress is at least 83%, so most consultants work for candidates who are bound to stay in the race until the end, and then win. Yet they choose to spend their money on advertisements rather than campaign techniques that would strengthen democracy.

Bush on the budget

When he interviewed the president on Sunday, Tim Russert spent most of the time asking about Iraq; this part of the interview has also attracted the most attention from pundits. But I was most struck by the following comment: “BUSH: If you look at the appropriations bills that were passed under my watch, in the last year of President Clinton, discretionary spending was up 15 percent, and ours have steadily declined.” The Heritage Foundation provides a clear graph of annual changes in discretionary spending, which shows that growth in the discretionary budget never exceeded 2% under Clinton. By my calculation, there was a 10% increase in 2002 and a 14% increase in 2003 . (I’m using this table for those years). You get slightly different results if you measure “discretionary spending” differently, but the basic pattern is clear. Spending inched up under Clinton and soared under Bush. The president is flat wrong. …

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no federal concern for civics?

The NAEP, often called the “Nation’s Report Card,” is a voluntary, federally-funded assessment of students’ progress in a field. Those who support the Civic Mission of Schools agenda favor a big expansion of the NAEP Civics Assessment. We want the Civics NAEP to be given every three years with separate representative samples in as many states as possible. We have argued that this is an important way to hold states–but not individual kids–accountable for civic outcomes. Furthermore, we believe that the NAEP civics assessment is a good instrument.

Now we learn that the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) has commissioned a report on the 12th grade NAEP, which will be received and publicized on March 5. We are told that this report will call for the abolition of all 12th-grade NAEPs other than reading, math, and science. This decision would represent a giant step away from our goal, at least at the federal level. On the other hand, if we can organize to block the change, we may gain some momentum and visibility. I think this is a crucial test.

It’s also a reminder of our fundamental goal. NABG is not contemplating the end of the NAEP Civics Assessment because it is a flawed instrument. Rather, they simply do not believe in the importance of schools’ civic mission. They are asking all fields other than reading, math, and science to justify themselves. They are putting us all in a position where we will have to compete for survival: civics against history; civics and history against the arts. We would not face this highly unpleasant situation if people believed that schools have a civic mission.

youth support gay marriage

On the very day when newspapers are covering the Massachussetts court decision that mandates gay marriage rights, CIRCLE and the Council for Excellence in Government released new polling data on young people’s attitudes toward gay marriage and other rights for homosexuals. The story we tell is compelling: “By six-to-one margins, American youth support gay rights and protections related to housing, employment, and hate crimes and those sentiments are held by all ideological, partisan, racial, geographic, and religious groups. One out of two respondents said they know someone who is gay; knowing a gay person has a significant impact on attitudes.” Also, a majority supports gay marriage.

I think these findings should affect the political calculus–to a degree. In the 2004 election, opposition to gay marriage is probably the safer political course (although morally wrong, in my view). But those politicians who oppose gay marriage today are likely to look foolish in 2024, when today’s youth predominate. I wonder whether fear of looking ridiculous in the history books will temper anyone’s opposition to gay marriage.

teaching controversial issues

I’m quoted in an article about how to manage controversial issues in elementary and secondary classrooms: see “Hot-Button Handling” from District Administrator Magazine. I make a couple of points in the article, but this is the one that I consider most important: “There is no question that there are horror stories about partisan teachers, racist teachers, teachers [who] give extra points for bringing in certain campaign signs. Those are disciplinary issues and should not be allowed to happen,” Levine says. “But do we throw the baby out with the bath water?”

I think we need to cut administrators some slack on those relatively rare occasions when teachers try to indoctrinate kids politically. If we punish administrators in such cases, they get very nervous and will discourage all political discussion in schools. And then kids can’t learn about issues.