By Jonathan Miller, on Mon May 13, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET I’ve lived a blessed life, and my 11 years in public office in Kentucky were pretty extraordinary.
There was one thing, however, I was never able to add to my bucket list — a positive editorial from any Kentucky newspaper. Not that I received a lot of negative editorials; I was just mostly ignored.
So I’d be lying to say that I wasn’t grateful for the following editorial that appeared over the weekend in Danville’s Advocate-Messenger. I didn’t embark on the hemp legalization initiative to get a bunch of atta-boys, but it is always a great feeling when your hard work is recognized:
EDITORIAL: Bipartisan effort something worth Kentucky pride
- 11:22 a.m. EDT, May 10, 2013
 A tip of the cap to our Republican Agriculture Commissioner James Comer and former Democratic State Treasurer Jonathan Miller for their inter-party field trip to Washington, D.C., this week. The duo, joined by Republican State Senator Paul Hornback of Shelbyville, visited Washington to drum up support among lawmakers for lifting federal barriers to legal hemp in Kentucky.
While it is too soon to tell whether the trip will pay dividends, the follow-through from Comer, and the bipartisan joining of forces with Miller, should make the state proud.
Legal hemp doesn’t approach the gravity or complexity of many controversial issues that divide Democrats andRepublicans, but it is refreshing to see leaders in both parties willing to stand together for something. The broad coalition Comer and Miller are helping to build, along with their federal counterparts, has been evident from their dueling, sometimes playful Twitter updates — one includes a photo of Comer flanked by Miller and Democrat U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth in front of Barack Obama’s portrait.
For his part, Miller has continued to put his time and money where his mouth is since swearing off electoral politics several years ago. After his unsuccessful Democratic primary run in the 2007 governor’s race and a stint heading the state Democratic Party, Miller started Recovering Politcian, an online forum devoted to a less shrill conversation about important issues.
As the Recovering Politician website states, Miller remains “a proud progressive Kentucky Democrat, but he’s learned that we must put aside our labels on occasion to work for the common good.” Miller, who spent time in Washington during the Clinton administration, has offered his full complement of Beltway contacts to his Republican partner.
Even without a positive legislative outcome, the gambit looks like another net win for Comer, who was swept into office with a decisive margin two years ago.
Comer’s ability to leverage public opinion and bipartisan support for the hemp bill, which was opposed from the outset by a Democratic governor and leader of the House, was truly impressive. Although Richie Farmer may be one of the easiest acts to follow in recent memory, Comer has done his level best to decontaminate his department and clean up the embarrassing, possibly criminal mess Farmer left behind.
It would be hard to blame Comer for also seizing the chance to rub shoulders with D.C. powerbrokers, or to bask in the reflected importance of our nation’s capital. If his star stays on the same trajectory, he may someday be able to choose between Frankfort and Washington.
Click here to read the full editorial.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Apr 23, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET The other day I was interviewed about who I thought run in the 2015 Governor’s race. Here is an answer I fleshed out that didn’t get quoted but I re-read it and liked.
“As fun as it is to speculate about who will run for governor in 2015 and who will be the strongest candidates, it is more art than science and more about personal timing than politcal timing. At bottom, running for governor is an irrational decision. One morning you wake up and decide to run because you can’t not run. It is a leap of faith. One of the boldest leaps of faith a mortal can ever take who is also politically inclined. And especially in Kentucky. Where it is two parts political and one part horse race.
 And the gambling metaphor is fitting. Running for governor is like walking up to a casino craps table and grabbing the dice. But before you throw the die, striping off all your clothes and crawling onto the table. And betting everything on yourself –physical, mental and emotional–on a single roll. Not because it is a wise or prudent thing to do. And not because you have nothing to lose or something to gain. It is deeper than that. There is something in the gubernatorial candidate’s DNA code that makes him or her feel they are betraying their genetic make-up if they don’t run. They run not because they worry of what others will say in their presence if they don’t run —but rather worry what they will whisper to themselves when no one else is around.
It is, in these candidate types, as if they were born with invisible wings. And like any animal blessed with wings, there will come a day when it is time to try to fly.
And that day, so to speak, is more about instinct and impulse that intellect and preparation. The day a gubernatorial candidate files to run for office is, in a very real sense, the day that particular political animal believes is the day he or she is finally ready to fly.
And they jump.”
By Jennifer Mann, on Thu Apr 18, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Only a few months have passed since I left office as a state representative—a position I held for fourteen years. I entered the Pennsylvania House of Representatives an entrepreneur, having started my first business at the age of 25, and gained a reputation during my tenure as a business-friendly legislator. During the last few years of serving my district, an inner voice increasingly grew louder, calling me back to the private sector and to new challenges.
Without missing a beat, I launched a consulting firm immediately after leaving office. I never really gave myself an opportunity to enjoy a transition period in which I could reflect upon the past 14 years with the exception of a brief moment of an awkward feeling in not seeing my name on the ballot. And so, for the most part, my transition happened. No fanfare and no deep thoughts of reflection,
My new reality began to hit home immediately upon showing up to work—alone. Although I never took for granted the dedicated staffers who worked for me, and I did realize just how dependent I was on them, I just didn’t know how hard it would be to maintain the level of activity without them, until I was out on my own. Most of all, I miss their presence. The past presidential election brought some pretty bad jokes about empty chairs, but now when I walk into my office, it’s me, myself, and I, and…that empty chair in the corner. I miss the smiles and the chatter and the interoffice banter (It still happens some today, but by email and it’s not the same).
Fortunately, my new business involves a lot of face time with clients, prospective clients and those my clients would like to do business with. I am by the nature of my work in the company of others daily. But now, I am solely responsible for the scheduling of meetings, for the execution for each item on the to-do lists I bring out of meetings, and for the meticulous follow up I am known for. No more delegation. As a state representative, 90 percent of my to-do list would be carried out by my reliable team. Now, it’s me, myself and I…and that empty chair.
 But I still enjoy a touch of public life in some regards. I remain active with local charities, nonprofits, and serve on boards making speeches, shaking hands, and conversing with colleagues about political hot topics. Though I enjoy remaining connected in that way, I have to consciously draw the line and remind myself where to stop.
For example, the Washington Bureau writer of my city newspaper recently asked me to share my thoughts about a poll concerning next year’s gubernatorial election. Instinctively, I began to formulate a response. But then after thinking the matter through for a few moments, I decided to decline. Although I felt honored that a reporter approached me for a quote even though he was aware I left office, the torch has been passed and it is time to let others weigh in.
That is not to say I will no longer make comment concerning issues involving state government. As a state representative, I sponsored legislation to protect children against sexual predators and widen law enforcement’s net in capturing those who harm them. Protecting our children from predators is an issue dear to my heart and I will gladly lend my voice to protecting those young ones.
Life changed substantially since I left office. I do not regret my decision to return to the private sector and I remain excited by the prospects ahead. The transition I never took is moving full speed ahead on its own, as it will for any of us who have served our constituents over time. I look forward to sharing with you in the months ahead my reflections of that journey.
By Jeff Smith, on Fri Apr 12, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET  Q: I’m considering running for office in 2014, but here is my dilemma: I am not sure I want to put myself out there. My father and grandfather were both elected officials, and my father has encouraged me to run. I think I could win based largely on name ID, but having to knock on doors just is not my cup of tea. Do you think I could win without doing that?
—Definitely no initials or location!
A few thoughts.
First, you have to f—ing want it. If you don’t want it, voters sense it. And you’ll probably lose.
That said, knowing nothing about what office you’d run for or who your opponent(s) might be, or how hard you’d work (or they’d work), yes, I think you could win. I’m sure you’ve considered this, but your family probably has residual name recognition and, especially if your father or grandfather is alive, they likely retain fundraising connections that could benefit you. As a general rule I abhor dynasty candidates since so few compare to their parents (with some notable exceptions, such as Jeb Bush or the impressive Udall brothers), but the fact is that most Americans vote like they shop, and when given the choice between 7-Up and Super-Up, they usually buy 7-Up.
Second, if you dread knocking on doors, you probably shouldn’t get into politics. It is, of course, a people business, and if you don’t like people, you’re going to be pretty miserable most of the time. New York Times Magazine writer Matt Bai once profiled someone who reminds me of you, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, whose father, John, was a legendary U.S. senator. During Linc’s first campaign, for delegate to the state’s constitutional convention, he went to his home turf to knock on doors. According to Bai, “He sat there for 20 minutes, holding a stack of palm cards with his picture on them, trying to work up the courage to get out of the car.”
Now, he’s turned into a pretty successful pol, first reaching the U.S. Senate and, after a 2006 loss, recovering to win an unusual independent bid for governor four years later. Still, if you’ll read the profile, you’ll see that he doesn’t actually appear to enjoy the lifestyle—and these days, his numbers are in the tank. So, before doing it to please your family, take a hard look at what you’re getting into. I usually found it amusing when people slammed doors in my face. If you’re more sensitive, you’re gonna struggle, at least at first. And remember—some introverted dynasty candidates (think Al Gore) seem much happier now that they’re out of the game.
Q: Hey, Jeff, definitely not complaining, but why have you been writing about sex so much lately?
—N.L., Washington, D.C.
Because I’m married, and my wife is pregnant.
Read the rest of…
Jeff Smith: Do As I Say — A Political Advice Column
By Artur Davis, on Mon Mar 4, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET The Supreme Court may be on the verge of striking down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which mandates federal approval, or “pre-clearance”, of any changes to election procedures in states under the Act’s jurisdiction (mostly Southern, but some scattered northern jurisdictions, primarily in New York). It could be a mixed triumph for conservatives—a blow against a regionally discriminatory rule of law that limits Virginia and South Carolina from passing statutes that are perfectly legal in Kansas and Indiana—but a victory that will only fuel the impression that the political right is bent on suppressing minority voters.
Conservative legal activists would have been better advised to concentrate on doing away with or revamping the other elements of the Act that actually do much more damage to the proposition of a color-blind politics. Ending Section 5 would be explosive, and still won’t alter the Act’s evolution from an instrument of black voter participation in the South to a prescription for rigged districts that look exactly like spoils and quotas.
 The VRA is a textbook of generally worded terms that subsequent courts and career bureaucrats have reshaped. It’s entirely appropriate command that covered states refrain from passing election laws that discriminate against their minority citizens has been swollen into a requirement that minorities be aggregated into legislative and congressional districts that are overwhelmingly dominated by their race. Even a slight rollback of the percentages, say, from 65 percent to 58 percent is prohibited on the theory that such a contraction “dilutes” the minority vote.
The effect is that in the Deep South, black voters influence politics solely inside their centers of gerrymandered influence: the numbers that remain elsewhere are not substantial enough to create authentic swing districts where Republicans might have to seek black support to win. In the same vein, the nature of nearly seventy percent black districts is that their elected officials are just as un-tethered from the need to build coalitions with conservative white voters.
Not surprisingly, black Democrats and southern Republicans have not complained. The South that results is the single most racially polarized electorate in the country and its African American politicians are hemmed into a race-conscious liberalism that marginalizes them statewide. In addition, more conservative black Democrats and Black Republicans are rendered unelectable in minority districts that leave no room for a non-liberal brand of candidate.
Conservatives ought to recoil from an anti-discrimination principle shifting into a mini political apartheid. Rather than condone a de facto spoils system, they should be trying to undo an arrangement that is more bent on electing a certain kind of black politician than on empowering blacks to engage the democratic process.
This article originally appeared on ricochet.com on February 27, 2013.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jan 28, 2013 at 2:15 PM ET Lincoln and the power of story–and humor. And a lesson in leadership.
Throughout the movie Lincoln starring Daniel Day-Lewis, we are treated (as we should be) to multiple instances of Lincoln entangled in a tense and threatening situation only to hear him start his response with a story. The stories Lincoln tells are usually pithy, homespun, humorous and wise. They each sound at times like an Aesop’s fable all dressed up in grown up clothing. And often-times don’t even seem to be on point with the topic at hand. But work nonetheless.
This story-telling tic, or device, of Lincoln’s worked profoundly well for him. And for our nation.
The stories –and the time it took to tell them–communicated something much more important than an answer to the question posed. Which Lincoln would eventually get to.
First, the story was a distraction which defused an already overly tense situation. But the time Lincoln had finished his story, others present had had time to broaden their perspective and return to the ability to be reasonable rather than just react hastily. And the humorous punchline only helped punctuate this for the president.
 Second, it brought everyone in the room together on an unrelated matter. Sure, everyone may be divided by the national conundrum they were debating, but for a few brief moments they were reminded that there was more than united than divided them by laughing together at a commonplace story. And if they could do that, perhaps they could agree on bigger issues. At least, I believe, that was the subconscious message achieved by Lincoln.
Three, Lincoln would re-establish through his story that he was “one of them” –just an ordinary fella not a slick, manipulative, self-serving politician. He could be trusted and was a person of goodwill trying to solve a thorny problem for reasons beyond merely self-interest. Like his familiar stories. He put his audience at ease with him and the process they were engaged with.
Read the rest of…
John Y. Brown, III: Lincoln and the Power of Story
By Artur Davis, on Mon Jan 28, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET The consensus about Barack Obama’s inaugural address is right. It is the most fulsome presidential defense of liberalism we have heard since 1965, and the most programmatically specific inaugural speech since the thirties. This was also the rhetoric of a partisan who believes his opponents are losers and fools, who won’t have much threat left in them ten years from now.
But before liberals feel too deep a thrill, they should consider the following proposition: Obama’s words will be paired with a second term resume that could be the thinnest since Richard Nixon. Given the alignment in the House, and the number of Red State Democratic senators on the ballot in 2014, there is no viable chance Obama can actually enact a single item on the liberal wish list. Not one, from an assault weapons ban to an overhaul of corporate deductions, to cap and trade, to comprehensive immigration reform, to a government financed infrastructure plan, to a recalibrated war on poverty, to campaign finance reform.
So, Obama Part 2 is more about the tactical work of isolating conservatives than classic presidential legacy building: in other words, not so different from the stalemate of the second half of Obama’s first term. Of course, for liberals, the president’s middling results have had the perverse consequence of providing a rallying cry without a record of accomplishments that are susceptible to backfire (the backlash at Obamacare is a window into how vulnerable Obama might have been if he had managed to pass legislation on immigration or climate change).
This entirely unpredictable element–that gridlock has spared Democrats the consequences of their policies floundering–plus shifting demographics which Republicans have struggled to adjust to, have left an altered political landscape. If not quite the liberal dawn that some Democrats are prematurely celebrating (as they did four years ago), the terrain is changed enough that major stretches of Obama’s speech already seem more boilerplate than visionary.
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Artur Davis: Obama’s “Us Versus Them” Speech
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Jan 21, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET Happy Martin Luther King Day
A man who taught us about the importance of fighting for — in a humble, appropriate and civilly disobedient manner– the God-given freedoms bestowed on each of us.
Even if others who claim they are the actual bestowers of these freedoms, in fact, are usurping them.
“Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, I am free at last” has become the universal rallying cry for all who have ever found freedom from bondage, political or personal.
By Artur Davis, on Mon Jan 7, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Having offered my perspective about the shape of a conservative rebound, I will end the year with a bout of wishful thinking about what 2013 might bring, if the stars align in just the right way. Here are twelve hopes for the next twelve months:
(1) That George HW Bush and Nelson Mandela have more good health in front of them. They are not a commonly linked pair, but their lives epitomize the values of political tolerance and forgiveness. The elder Bush had his brass-knuckled side, as Michael Dukakis can attest, but he is arguably the last president who regarded election to federal office as a compact for Republicans and Democrats to achieve some rough consensus around the country’s challenges. Some of the deals cut, on federal employment laws and acid rain, looked then and now like sensible compromises; the 1990 tax package only preceded a recession and more rounds of rampant spending. But Bush’s four years were notable for their absence of intense division; it is no accident that he is the only president in my adulthood given the moral credit of never being despised by his partisan foes. And Mandela: what more needs to be said other than that he forged a political peace with a regime that jailed him and snatched the prime of his life away?
(2) That the missing cause of 2012, education reform, is discovered alive and intact. For that to happen, liberals will need to extricate themselves from the embrace of the teachers’ unions that have wilted the Democratic reform agenda down to charter schools and not much more; conservatives will need to remind themselves that no other initiative satisfies the right’s goal of upward mobility through self determination more effectively.
(3) That some influential observer will write the seminal book or article documenting the degree to which modern Democrats have abandoned the political center. For all the hand-wringing over Grover Norquist and the Tea Party, it is today’s House Democratic Caucus that refused to supply a single vote for continuing the Bush tax cuts for all but millionaires, until recently the favored position of Democratic moderates; this year’s Democratic platform that discarded the notion that public policy should strive to make abortions rare; and the current Democratic mainstream that has declared opposition to the Affordable Care Act or same sex marriage—views that thirty- five to forty Democratic congressmen held just a few years ago—as, respectively, stone-hearted or hateful.
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Artur Davis: Wishful Thinking in the New Year
By Artur Davis, on Thu Jan 3, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Tim Scott’s appointment to represent South Carolina in the US Senate has been met with a notable skepticism from most African American commentators, with Adolph Reed’s essay in the New York Times and Jamelle Bouie’s column in the Washington Post providing articulate examples of a common theme: that Scott’s status as a strict fiscal and social conservative means that he will be an impediment to black economic interests as well as the socially liberal agenda that most African American intellectuals have embraced; and that the selection of Scott is an empty and false token meant to prove a Republican inclusiveness that does not exist.
To be sure, Scott’s ascension is the polar opposite of the kind of racial breakthrough that the same critics have fantasized about. When Scott stands for election in 2014, he will depend on the conventional alliance of white suburban and rural conservatives that sustains the GOP’s hold on the Deep South, as opposed to the coalition of blacks and metropolitan whites that liberals assume as a prescription for the election of a black candidate to statewide office. In blunter terms, Scott’s win would mean that he had reassured voters who hold the prevailing right-leaning views in his state that he is one of them, and of a piece with their vision of limited government and traditional cultural values, as opposed to the ideal progressive pathway of convincing those voters to rethink their mindset.
But regardless of the reservations on the left, Scott’s victory scenario is likely the only kind of African American electoral win in the Deep South that is conceivable at this point. In the parts of the region (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi) where the Democratic share of white voters has slipped to the upper teens, and even in the slightly less polarized areas of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, not a single one of the seven black Democrats who hold congressional seats are regarded as plausible statewide figures. Only Atlanta’s Mayor Kasim Reed, a pro-business moderate, is regularly cited as a prospective black contender for a governorship or a Senate seat, and it is worth noting that the last two black Democrats nominated for Senate seats in Georgia have hovered around the 40 percent threshold.
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Artur Davis: Tim Scott’s Rise
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