THE MONSTER THAT ATE CLEVELAND
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From: Bruce S.
Date: Monday, January 25, 2010, 10:32 AM
Subject: The monster that ate Cleveland
ID: 269662

A few years ago, when I first started getting interested in politics, I bought a book by Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein, entitled

Politics Lost: How American Democracy was Trivialized by People Who Think You're Stupid

The flyleaf of this book has a quote that impacted me very strongly -- and seems more true today than ever:

"People on the right are furious. People on the left are livid. And the center isn't holding. There's only one thing on which almost everyone agrees: there is something very wrong in Washington.

"The country is being run by pollsters. Few politicians are able to win the voters trust. Blame abounds and personal responsibility is nowhere to be found.

"There is a cynicism in Washington that appalls those in every state, red or blue.

"The question is: Why? The more urgent question is: What can be done about it?"

I've come back to this quote over and over. It's why I got involved with Obama -- who, when he announced his presidential candidacy, sent us an email that said

"As challenging as they are, it's not the magnitude of our problems that concerns me the most. It's the smallness of our politics.

"America's faced big problems before. But today, our leaders in Washington seem incapable of working together in a practical, common sense way. Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can't tackle the big problems that demand solutions.

"And that's what we have to change first.

"We have to change our politics, and come together around our common interests and concerns as Americans.

"This won't happen by itself. A change in our politics can only come from you; from people across our country who believe there's a better way and are willing to work for it.”

- Senator Barack Obama, email broadcast, January 16, 2007, the day he announced his candidacy and my.barackobama.com went online

I knew Joe Klein was right when he wrote Politics Lost -- and I knew Obama was right when he sent out this initial announcement of his candidacy. This was a major reason I got behind Obama.

"We have to change our politics, and come together around our common interests and concerns as Americans.

"This won't happen by itself. A change in our politics can only come from you; from people across our country who believe there's a better way and are willing to work for it.”

I was reminded of all of this just now, because I've got MSNBC on in the background, and Joe Klein was just interviewed by Andrea Mitchell.

And Klein was talking about healthcare and what's been going in Washington -- and speaking of "broken politics", he described the healthcare issue as "the monster that ate Cleveland" -- because it has tied up so many critical resources and demanded such a huge investment of time and energy and effort -- all of which may be totally falling apart and going down the drain. Klein said that this issue "has hijacked the administration for the past six months".

I got into USA.CAN because I wanted to fix broken politics -- and though I still believe in Obama, and I still believe in his ideals and dreams -- it seems pretty clear he is either unwilling or unable to do much about "fixing broken politics" -- the very first pledge he made to us, and a theme he repeated endlessly on the campaign trail.

But he said it himself:

This won't happen by itself. A change in our politics can only come from you; from people across our country who believe there's a better way and are willing to work for it.

In this recent battle on NBC about late-night talkshows -- Conan O'Brien made a great statement -- repudiating cynicism. He totally rejected cynicism and said it was one of his least-favorite human tendencies.

I still say "yes we can". More than that, I'd say -- "yes we must".

This new vision -- working together -- just wants to come through us. It's in the air, it's in the ethers, it's in our souls -- it's in our national spirit...

Think about it. We are bigger than this little "who shall we blame this week" model we've been into lately -- "who shall we hate this week?"

One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

That's a great vision. We can "form a more perfect union". We gotta do it.