By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Mar 8, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
Today marks the 25th anniversary of this Jewish pischer’s baptism into politics.
I’d been working for then Tennessee Senator Al Gore’s underdog bid for President for months, but March 8, 1988, “Super Tuesday,” was considered the potential game changer, two decades before “game changer” became a political cliché.
Since Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide, Democrats had been wandering in the Electoral College desert, only winning one Presidential election in 1976, in the aftermath of the GOP Watergate meltdown. Our problems had been identified by LBJ himself when he prophesized that Democrats “have lost the South for a generation,” upon his courageous signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Many blamed a leftward lurch by the party during the final years of Vietnam and the emergence of its George McGovernite wing, unfairly stereotyped as a bunch of hippies favoring “acid, amnesty and abortion.”
I had signed up for the 39-year-old Gore’s campaign because of his thoughtful and progressive views on arms control and the environment. But I also believed that as a more moderate Southerner, he could help the Democratic Party end its losing streak and take back control of the White House.
Behind the scenes, party moderates and pragmatists had been working on a plan to facilitate the election of a more electable nominee. At the core was the creation of “Super Tuesday” — a day with 21 primaries taking place, including all of the Southern states. The theory was that a Democratic nominee who could win the Southern primaries could win the nation in the fall.
As the returns came in 25 years ago today, I excitedly sat in the campaign war room — a 20 year old surrounded by a veteran group of 20- and 30- somethings. (My great friend from that campaign — and No Labels co-founder, Nancy Jacobson — calls me to this day the “campaign mascot.”)
I was in charge of keeping track of the vote tallies on the war room chalkboard. (Yes, this is before whiteboards and erasable markers, kids.) Things looked very promising when Al Gore steamrolled through the Upper South: his home state of Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and best of all, my old Kentucky home. (Side note: The Kentucky state director for the campaign is to this day, my best frenemy, George Phillips (read about him here). This is the only time in history George has ever celebrated a Kentucky victory — he is, natch, a Dukie.)
But, we were losing everywhere else: Jesse Jackson took the Deep South, while Mike Dukakis took the big prizes, Texas and Florida, where liberal voters dominated the primary electorate. While Gore stayed in the race a few more weeks, he was after “Super Tuesday” dead man walking. Dukakis ultimately won the nomination, but as many of us feared, was branded too liberal, and lost in the fall to the first George Bush. But not for a lack of me trying:
Well, we heard from Gore later, when he joined a fellow Southerner on the 1992 Democratic presidential ticket that finally turned the party’s fortunes around.
So while March 8, 1988 ended up on a sour note, it was a day that changed our country for the better.
And it began my love affair with politics, which continues to this day, albeit from outside any war rooms.
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Mar 7, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
What a long, strange week it’s been. A few highlights:
I Stood with Ashley Judd: The week began with my appearance on Kentucky Newsmakers debating my friend, Democratic political consultant Dale Emmons, about the viability of an Ashley Judd candidacy for the U.S. Senate. But days after celebrating the strong comments of support for Judd by State House Speaker Greg Stumbo, I was lamenting a very disturbing column in the state’s largest newspaper that gave a platform to a spouter of anti-Semitic conspiracy theory to launch a rant against the actress/humanitarian.
I Stood with Israel: I had the pleasure of attending the 2013 Policy Conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), with over 12,000 of my closest friends. I have been participating in this annual event, off-and-on, for two decades, but I am always impressed by the growing number of evangelical Christians with whom we’ve made common cause, as well as the thousands of college students who are on the front lines of the battle against anti-Zionism. Unfortunately, Israel’s biggest enemies in recent years have come from the so-called “Left” who conveniently ignore the extraordinary advances the Jewish State has made for women, the LGBT community, and a more compassionate capitalism. (Shameless plug time for my e-book, The Liberal Case for Israel).
I Stood for Hemp: I proudly joined James Comer, Kentucky’s young, Republican Commissioner of Agriculture as he won yet another battle to push the state closer to a regulatory structure for legalized industrial hemp, a cash crop that could create hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs in the Bluegrass State. I find myself on the other side of some of my Democratic friends on these efforts, just as I am opposed to state Senate Republicans as they try to water down a good piece of legislation sponsored by young Democratic Secretary of State Allison Grimes to ease the burden for our overseas military to vote, and to add a poison pill to important legislation drafted by young Democratic Auditor Adam Edelen that would promote transparency and ethics for state’s special taxing districts, that have grown into a billion dollar shadow government.
I Stood with Rand Paul: OK, admittedly I was prone during much of the latter parts of the more than 12 hour fillibuster waged by Kentucky’s junior Senator. And I usually disagree with Rand Paul when he is critical of the President that I supported in both elections. However, I think Paul’s stunt yesterday highlighted a real civil liberties problem in this country, and I strongly support his efforts to discourage the use of drones and promote the American system of justice whenever possible.
And now, a few conclusions:
I’m so glad to be a recovering politician: It’s weeks like these that make me so happy and relieved to be outside the center of the political arena. The hyper-partisanship in Frankfort and Washington is suffocating, and consistently killls important pieces of legislation for all the wrong reasons. Additionally, there is no way an active politician can find himself straying from his party establishment on so many critical issues without paying a severe political price. While I am sure this very post will piss off several of my friends, I no longer have to worry about the impact on my career of expressing what I truly believe.
I’m so proud to be a No Labels co-founder: When I helped launch No Labels two years ago, I couldn’t anticipate how much lower our system of government would sink in such a short period of time. The very antics I decry above, as well as the unusual bi-partisan alliances I experienced just this week, further convince me that the No Labels’ priority of problem-solving over hyper-partisanship is the only thing that can fix our broken politics.
Red and Blue are overrated: I am a proud progressive Democrat. But the days of doctrinaire partisanship and ideology are behind us. In the past week, I found myself, depending on the issue, allied with liberal Democrats, moderate Democrats, conservative Republicans and Tea Party Republicans/Libertarians. That’s the way it is for most Americans, particularly in my generation and younger. And that’s the path for future progress for our nation.
From Janet Patton of the Lexington Herald-Leader (who has been doing some incredible reporting on the industrial hemp issue):
A week after a first attempt, a hemp bill made it out of the Kentucky House Agriculture Committee with a nearly unanimous vote. But the bill still could die if House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, blocks a vote on the House floor.
Committee chairman Tom McKee, D-Cynthiana, said he hoped that the bill would move forward for the sake of farmers and for the jobs that he said hemp could bring to Kentucky.
“I expected the bill to pass,” McKee said afterward. “In talking with members over the past week, I think a lot of people got some of their concerns relieved.”
McKee said he thinks the bill could pass easily in the House if a vote is allowed.
“That’s up to the speaker. I favor taking it to the floor,” McKee said. “He knows I would like to see it on the floor.”…
Stumbo said Monday that he isn’t for the bill. Late last week, he requested an opinion from Attorney General Jack Conway on whether the hemp legislation is needed, because state statutes require Kentucky to mirror federal law.
“It is my contention that Kentucky is already poised to adopt the federal hemp growing rules as soon as they come into existence and that Kentucky has no need for additional state bureaucracy involving permits issued by a state hemp czar,” Stumbo wrote.
In response, Comer has written Conway to say that the statute also requires the Kentucky Industrial Hemp Commission, which Comer leads, to “recommend legislation with respect to policies and practices that will result in the proper legal growing of industrial hemp. … By recommending SB50, the KIHC honored its obligation under existing Kentucky law.”
Hemp commission member Jonathan Miller, the former Kentucky treasurer and a Democrat, also has written Conway and planned to meet with him Wednesday to discuss why the hemp commission recommended the language in SB50.
Miller said that if President Barack Obama’s administration removes the restriction on growing hemp or issues a waiver, Kentucky might not be considered eligible without the licensing framework.
Miller also said that if the federal bill sponsored by U.S. Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville, and Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, and others in Kentucky’s Washington delegation passes, federal rules might not address the concerns brought up by Kentucky State Police.
Measures to address those concerns, such as requiring the GPS coordinates of all hemp fields, have been incorporated into Senate Bill 50, Miller said, but they might be part of a “one-size-fits-all federal regulatory scheme.”
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Mar 6, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
As this is a bi-partisan site, and as yours truly has been using this space to air my support for an Ashley Judd for U.S. Senate candidacy, I feel it is critical to give Team Mitch (McConnell) some equal time.
With that in mind, here is the latest McConnell for Senate campaign video:
h/t to Joe Sonka, liberal columnnist/blogger for Ace Weekly (Louisville) who tweeted:
We can finally credit McConnell for bringing some progress to America: The Harlem Shake is officially dead: youtube.com/watch?v=VMp_yz…
The RP and Kentucky Democratic consultant Dale Emmons debate the potential Ashley Judd U.S. Senate candidacy, as well as discuss other political news of the day:
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Feb 28, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
Fascinating piece in this week’s The New Republic about how the brilliant Netflix series “House of Cards” reflects the misogynistic treatment of women journalists in Washington. I can attest that the phenomenon Marin Cogan reports is equally true in Frankfort (and perhaps other capitals), and applies to women staffers as well:
In popular fictions of Washington, everyone is a prostitute in one way or another; when it comes to female journalists, though, the comparison is often tediously literal. “I can play the whore,” Barnes later tells her very own congressman, House Majority Whip Francis Underwood. It’s not that sex never happens between political reporters and their sources, as David Petraeus’s affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, recently reminded us. It’s not even that women (and men) don’t sometimes flirt in the process ofnews gathering. It’s just that the notion of sexy young reporters turning tricks for tips is not how news is usually made in the nation’s capital. For every Judith Miller, the ex–New York Times reporter who would sometimes quote her live-in lover, former Representative and Defense Secretary Les Aspin, there are dozens of female journalists for whom the power of appropriations is not an aphrodisiac. We have not “all done it,” as Skorsky claims. And yet, the reporter-seductress stereotype persists, in part because some men in Washington refuse to relinquish it.
As a political reporter for GQ, I’ve been jokingly asked whether I ever posed for the magazine and loudly called a porn star by a senior think-tank fellow at his institute’s annual gala. In my prior job as a Hill reporter, one of my best source relationships with a member of Congress ended after I remarked that I looked like a witch who might hop on a broom in my new press-badge photo and he replied that I looked like I was “going to hop on something.” One journalist remembers a group of lobbyists insisting that she was not a full-time reporter at a major publication but a college coed. Another tried wearingscarves and turtlenecks to keep a married K Street type from staring at her chest for their entire meeting. The last time she saw him, his wedding ring was conspicuously absent; his eyes, however, were still fixed on the same spot. Almost everyone has received the late-night e-mail—“You’re incredible” or “Are you done with me yet?”—that she is not entirely sure how to handle. They’re what another lady political writer refers to as “drunk fumbles” or “the result of lonely and insecure people trying to make themselves feel loved and/or important.”
These are the stories you don’t hear, in part because they don’t occupy the fantasies of the mostly male scriptwriters of Washington dramas and in part because women reporters are reluctant to signal to any source—past, present, or future—that they might not be discreet or trustworthy. Such stories tend to fall on the spectrum somewhere between amusing and appalling. Sometimes they reach the level of stalking: One colleague had a high-profile member of Congress go out of his way to track down her cell-phone number, call and text repeatedly to tell her she was beautiful, offer to take her parents on a tour of the Capitol, and even invite her to go boating back home in his district…
Studies suggest that men are more likely than women to interpret friendly interest as sexual attraction, and this is a constant hazard for women in the profession. The problem, in part, is that the rituals of cultivating sources—initiating contact, inviting them out for coffee or a drink, showing intenseinterest in their every word—can often mimic the rituals of courtship, creating opportunities for interested parties on either side of the reporter-source relationship to blur the line between the professional and personal. A source may invite you to meet at the bar around the corner from your apartment. If you agree, he might offer to pay for the drinks and walk you home. One Washington climate reporter remembers an environmentalist stroking her leg at one such outing and noting, disapprovingly, that she hadn’t shaved.
“I always remind young female reporters to be wary about falling victim to the ‘source-date,’ ” says Shira Toeplitz, politics editor at Roll Call. “You’re on a second glass of something, and it occurs to you, he may be misinterpreting this as a date. I advise them to drop an obvious clue along the lines of, ‘I’m going to expense this.’ ”
