Politics and good government
I've always been interested in the inherent conflict between politics and good government. Allen Johnson's interview with political handler Bill Burckley is the latest illustration that good politics doesn't beget good government. Burckley says about blogs:
I enjoy reading them but my advice to any potential candidate is don't ever blog.... People get sloppy when they blog.
The inference I draw is that constituents might be told something that is impolitic. If government is of the people, then shouldn't government and its policy makers be more transparent? Shouldn't they be proud of their actions and decisions and deliberations rather than veiled and quiet? Shouldn't they let their opinions and leanings be known so that constituents can give them feedback and vet their ideas?
Is it harder to get elected when voters know what you really think? I'm not so sure. Granted, it may be harder when political handlers twist what you say, but I'm not ready to restrict freedom of speech. But running government -- and politics -- is a rough business. You aren't going to make everyone happy, ever. So why not say openly what you are thinking?
From an important post by Jeff Jarvis: Why should we be asking for information about and from our government? The government should have to ask to keep things from us. Government information -- every act of government on our behalf -- should be free by default. We must insist on an aggressive ethic of openness. The exceptions should be rare: the personal business of citizens, national security, ongoing criminal investigations and court cases (while they are ongoing), and little else.
Imagine the possibilities.
Jarvis also writes about blogging.
Government officials and agencies should blog. This ethic of openness should go beyond official documents and files. Openness should be part of the work habit of government officials and conversation with constituents should be an ethic of government. The open blog is merely a tool and a symbol for this -- and a more efficient tool, I'll add, than individual letters and phone calls.
We had one city council member who blogged. She was defeated by a candidate handled by Burckley. Now we have no council member or city government official who actively blog. Many of us are awaiting the transparency pledged by candidates during last fall's election campaign to take root. With a few exceptions, closed meetings still seem to be the rule.
That may be good politics, but it's not good government.
Update: Ed's take.
Comments (5)
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Sandy Carmany was not defeated because she blogged. She was defeated for blindly following Mitch Johnson. If you followed her posts she defended or gave the explanation for actions that Johnson told her only to have the facts come out and make a liar and/or a fool out of her. This happened several times but Ms. Carmany never did catch on to the fact that Mitch Johnson, his actions and his lies, was going to be her downfall. People didn't prefer Trudy Wade or do any more than laugh at her funny ads, they simply voted for Trudy Wade's campaign promise to get to the bottom of the David Wray fiasco, which we all now know would clear Wray of all wrong doing, and to open up city government to the light of day.
Unfortunately for the voters not one of the city council members have kept their campaign promises. David Wray is still dangling in limbo because of a lie, Mitch Johnson is still City Manager despite being proven a liar several times since this new council took office not to mention his many "crimes" under the last council, and meetings are still held behind closed doors.
If council members truly wanted to open government all they would have to do is come out of closed meetings and tell all. This will surely get them heat from those who want closed government, but it just may get enough of the others to stand up to the four who prefer to operate in the dark. (Johnson, Well, Bellamy -Small and Perkins)
Posted on March 23, 2008 12:51 PM
Agreed.
Posted on March 23, 2008 4:53 PM
John, I have written many times before that there is nothing I have blogged about or commented on that I wouldn't defend as a candidate for office.
I am not running for anything right now, but if I do run again in the future, I have a long record of posts and comments that might be useful to opponents or even newspapers. I fully expect to be deliberately taken out of context at some point in the future, but that is the cost of participating in the forum and that is where retail politics is headed.
I agree that people should know the people they are voting for and what they really think. If they don't want to buy what the candidate is selling, well then the marketplace of ideas has worked. That has been my position when I ran my first campaign in 2000, well before the blogging phenomen took off and it hasn't changed. Politicians should embrace the medium as a way to get to know people and a way for them to get to know you.
Posted on March 23, 2008 7:56 PM
I think the success of my campaign thus far is because I blog. My blog has been the anchor of my website.
Posted on March 24, 2008 7:37 AM
Now to address your theme: Politics and Good Government.
It is an unfortunate fact that the two are mutually exclusive. Defined below you can see they simply can not coexist.
1) Politics: use of intrigue or strategy in obtaining any position of power or control, as in business, university, government.
2) Good government: considering the good of the whole in making decisions irregardless of the needs and/or wants of any segment of the community.
On the local level it truly should be possible to have good government. In a city the size of Greensboro what takes place in one part of the city affects the economic and social welfare of the entire city. Somehow however those elected and those hired by those elected have for too long acted as if the welfare of the individuals, groups and neighborhoods are separate entities whereby the fair treatment of one MUST cause hardship to another. Of course this is because the definition of "fair treatment" has always focused on the WANTS a small group rather than the common sense of what is good for the whole.
The White Street Landfill isa prime example. A small group of individuals CHOSE to purchase homes near a landfill. No one forced these purchases, no group or individual was made to live in that particular area. The days of any group or individual being denied equal opportunity to live where ever they chose was long past when most of these home were built and purchased by their owners. And yet a small group of people who purchased these homes fifty some years after the landfill was op[end claimed "environmental racism" and our city "politicians" voted to close the landfill to household waste forcing the rest of the city residents to pay to haul the entire city's household waste away at enormous expense. All this because of the poor choices made by a few! This was politics and not good government.
Posted on March 24, 2008 2:07 PM