More than three years after a federal campaign-finance probe destroyed then-state Sen. Jeff Smith’s political career, he has worked to create a new life for himself that still includes politics.
And it appears that he may have succeeded.
In fact, Smith’s role in Missouri governmental affairs appears to have grown, even though he continues to reside in suburban New York City.
Smith confirms that, as of a few months ago, he became executive director of the Missouri Workforce Housing Association, which is made up of 135 groups – up from 35 members just 18 months ago. The association’s chief mission is advocating for affordable housing.
Smith said the member groups include “community organizations, public agencies, contractors, private and nonprofit developers, construction material suppliers, and other professionals.”
“I’d consulted for them for over a year and we agreed that, given the organization’s growth and increased capacity, it made sense to formalize the arrangement,” Smith said in an interview.
“My role has been to a) grow the membership; b) work with our diverse membership to shape our policy objectives; c) manage our grassroots advocacy efforts; and d) oversee our day-to-day efforts within the Capitol, which are handled by Jorgen Schlemeier of Gamble & Schlemeier.”
Although he travels to Missouri about once a month, Smith expects to remain in New York for the foreseeable future. Now 39, he is married and has a 15-month-old son, along with two dogs.
“Life is great,” Smith said. “We just bought a home in the ‘burbs — sort of. We’re in the Montclair, N.J., area, which is like University City….Lots of restaurants, culture, diversity, vibrancy. Home to a lot of academics, writers, and other creative types, most of whom commute to the city.”
Smith is among them. He has a full-time position as a professor in the urban policy graduate program at the New School. “The students are bright and passionately committed to making a difference in the world; I love teaching them,” he said. “And my colleagues are both impressively credentialed as scholars and keenly interested in real-world issues — a relatively rare combination in academia. It’s a special place.”
Why, despite its periodic low points, does conservatism always rebound? The reason is that much more than their liberal rivals, conservatives understand the weaknesses of our modern bureaucratic, too balkanized society. The strings of bureaucracy do tie the hands of genuine innovators in the public space, and the costs include a substandard education system and income support structures that actually perpetuate poverty. The growth of government has taken on a relentless pace that has weakened constitutional values from the separation of powers to the Commerce Clause. Entrepreneurship is vulnerable to regulatory overreach. And the subdivision of Americans into factions and grievances based on identity has diminished the concept of a national interest.
But while conservatism has endured, it’s worth pointing out that in my lifetime, voters have tended to turn right primarily as a correction to liberal failure or disarray—the freefall of the sixties, the ineptness of Jimmy Carter, the excesses of Democratic Congresses in 1994 and 2010.
The challenge the political right faces today, and that it failed in 2012, is the one of earning American confidence during a crossroads period, when the country is middling along and neither left nor right seem to bear exclusive responsibility for the train wrecks around us. Of late, conservatism has failed to offer its own account of how the middle class became poorer and less upwardly mobile, much less how to turn their fortunes around. It has seemed incapable of defending its cultural values without resorting to derision or wishful thinking. It has seemed tongue-tied about the immorality of financial markets that squander investors’ capital with not an inch of respect for the restraint that orders the lives of smaller, less entitled businesses, much less the standards around kitchen tables.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: A New Year’s Resolution for Conservatives
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Dec 27, 2012 at 2:00 PM ET
As the Washington Post explains, our newest U.S. Senator, Brian Schatz — recently appointed by Hawaii Governor Neal Ambercrombie to fill the unexpired term of the recently deceased Danial Inouye — is a Member of the Tribe:
Schatz is married to architect Linda Kwok Scahtz, and according to his official biography, the two have a son and a daughter together. He lists his religious view as Jewish on his Facebook page.
With the recent release of the blockbuster, critically-acclaimed Lincoln, The Recovering Politician has asked Lincoln scholar, Matthew Pinsker — a professor at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania — to share some historical insights about our 16th President. Click here and here for his prior 2 pieces.
Here is the latest of his columns:
This question is easy to answer as far as the movie is concerned, but much more complicated to explain in real life. The movie needs a plot device that raises dramatic tension, and so the audience is encouraged to believe through a series of scenes that passage of the Thirteenth Amendment by the House before the war’s end is absolutely essential –both to ending the conflict and for securing the final destruction of slavery. The implication builds in scene after scene that it was truly now or never for abolition by the end of January 1865.
But in reality, there is no indication that President Lincoln actually considered quick passage of the abolition amendment to be so crucial. His message to Congress in December 1864 strikes a much different tone. He wrote that “the next Congress will pass the measure if this does not” and so suggested that since there was “only a question of time as to when the proposed amendment will go to the States” why “may we not agree that the sooner the better?” The confidence of that taunt (“the sooner the better”) was no accident. The National Union (Republican) Party had won a sweeping victory in the 1864 elections on a platform that explicitly called for a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The next Congress (39th) was going to have an anti-slavery super-majority in both houses. Lincoln considered the 1864 elections to have offered an overwhelming mandate. Many northern Democrats were demoralized and there was open talk in places like Tammany Hall (the New York City Democratic Party) about the need to distance themselves from slavery. And by every reckoning, the Confederacy was on the verge of total military and political collapse.
Professor Matthew Pinsker
This is not to argue that Lincoln was somehow reluctant about securing the amendment or not anxious at all about ending the war. But if Congress didn’t act on slavery at the beginning of January, it was going to do so either by special session in March or during the next regular session in December. Of course, it’s always possible that Lincoln feared any delays might jeopardize the balky Unionist/Republican coalition (represented in the film by the differences between Thaddeus Stevens / Tommy Lee Jones and his radical faction and old Francis P. Blair, Sr. / Hal Holbrook and his clique of conservatives).
Yet, practically every sign of the times suggested otherwise. For example, the movie makes much out of Lincoln’s fears regarding the Supreme Court and what they might do to his Emancipation Proclamation, but that was a concern much more relevant circa 1862 than early 1865 when leading abolitionist Salmon P. Chase was being confirmed as the new Chief Justice of the United States (replacing arch Lincoln enemy Roger Brooke Taney). I don’t think Chase’s name was even mentioned in the movie. Also left unmentioned was the fact that the Unionists / Republicans had actually packed the Supreme Court after 1863 –adding a tenth justice that helped their majority. Anti-slavery forces controlled the Supreme Court by the war’s end.
Read the rest of… Matthew Pinsker: Why Did Lincoln Rush the 13th Amendment?
Today, The Washington Post is bidding adieu to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), two giants of the Senate who have together served more than 60 years. The paper’s editorial page says bipartisanship in the upper chamber of Congress will suffer as a result of their retirement. Read the full editorial.
Both senators were known for valuing principle over party loyalty. In 1998, Mr. Lieberman delivered a searing indictment on the Senate floor of President Bill Clinton for his misconduct with Monica Lewinsky, while opposing his removal from office. He was devoted to increasing educational opportunity for poor children, especially in the District. Mr. Lugar supported treaties reducing nuclear and chemical weapons despite their unpopularity among many Republicans.
In their farewell speeches, Lieberman – a Democrat turned Independent – and Lugar – a Republican beaten by a Tea Party conservative in a tough primary fight – bemoaned the deeply polarizing politics that have come to dominate Washington today.
The U.S. Senate will surely miss Joe Lieberman and Dick Lugar.
By Jason Atkinson, on Mon Dec 17, 2012 at 9:15 AM ET
My party, the Republican Party, is stunned and wandering in the desert right now. Many just don’t understand how polls could have been wrong and how primary victories were turned into general election losses. Now that the dust has settled, most Republicans I hear from are blaming it on America’s slide toward socialism.
Let’s slow down here. We can agree America is changing, but we should look at us first. Our primaries are about who can out-conservative the other, then who can swing to the middle for the general election. It’s as if we’re telling voters we don’t even believe ourselves.
Many, many Republicans I know feel the party has left them. They believe the party is out of step, focused on fear and being the party of “no.” Whether other Republicans believe that or not isn’t the issue. Americans believe it, and they’re not voting Republican.
Parties and federal government aside, people today are just trying to hold it all together. We’ve all got bills, health care issues, aging parents and kids with cavities. Research shows that most Americans are center right, believe in limited government and personal responsibility, and don’t think government is a good steward of tax money, but they are choosing to be unaffiliated, independent voters.
It appears to many that Republicans have forgotten that politics is about serving people. Who cares if we’re ideologically perfect to each other but not elected to office?
If my party is going to win in the future, it must do 10 things immediately:
Read the rest of… Jason Atkinson: Advice for the GOP — Don’t be about perfection, be about service
During my six years as an accidental bureaucrat, after spending twenty-five years in the private sector, my friends often wondered how I could do it. They routinely asked versions of the question: doesn’t government move too slowly for you? My standard reply was that, yes, the public sector moves slowly – but then, big companies don’t move so quickly either. And come to think of it, I teased my friends in higher education, colleges and universities move more slowly than either business or government! The point is, all institutions move slowly.
What surprised me wasn’t how slowly the different institutions moved, but the different language, behavior, secret handshakes, and views of each other I found across sectors. Xenophobia runs rampant within public, private, non-profit, and for-profit silos. Each silo has created its own world completely foreign to inhabitants from other sectors. Visiting emissaries are always viewed with skepticism. (”I’m from the government and I’m here to help …”)
One epiphany from my immersion into the non-private sector is how strenuously social sector organizations resist the notion they have a “business model”. Non-profits, government agencies, social enterprises, schools, and NGOs consistently proclaim that they aren’t businesses, and therefore business rules don’t apply.
Well, I’m sorry to break the news, but if an organization has a viable way to create, deliver, and capture value, it has a business model. It doesn’t matter whether an organization is in the public or private sector. It doesn’t matter if it’s a non-profit or a for-profit enterprise. Allorganizations have a business model. Non-profit corporations may not be providing a financial return to investors or owners, but they still capture value to finance activities with contributions, grants, and service revenue. Social enterprises may be mission-driven, focused on delivering social impact versus a financial return on investment, but they still need a sustainable model to scale. Government agencies are financed by taxes, fees, and service revenue, but are still accountable to deliver citizen value at scale.
The idea that business models are just for business is just wrong. Any organization that wants to be relevant, to deliver value at scale, and to sustain itself must clearly articulate and evolve its business model. And if an organization doesn’t have a sustainable business model, its days are numbered.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: Business Models Aren’t Just For Business
By Michael Steele, on Thu Dec 13, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
This morning on a teleconference moderated by LEVICK’s Michael W. Robinson, former White House special counsel Lanny Davis, and former chairman of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele nominated “Simpson-Bowles” to be TIME Magazine’s Person of The Year.
Michael stated, “It reflects the bipartisanship the American people are looking for, and would hope will emerge in Washington. At least two individuals put information in front of the American people that challenges the status quo. I highly support that and have been an advocate of the value that Simpson-Bowles brings to the debate.”
Lanny added, “It is absolutely immoral to use credit cards to have our children pay for our debt. The one combination that won 60% in a bipartisan commission is Simpson-Bowles. This is a purple bipartisan moment. No political party has stepped up to the line. As TIME’S “Person of the Year,” this would be the moment to ask President Obama and Speaker Boehner to endorse this.”
Purple Nation Solutions is a D.C.-based strategic communications and public affairs firm founded by former White House special counsel and legal crisis management expert Lanny J. Davis and former RNC chairman, Lt. Gov. of Maryland Michael Steele. Situated in the heart of downtown Washington D.C., in proximity to Capitol Hill, the White House and federal regulatory agencies, we are a bipartisan, global, one-stop shop where law, media, and politics intersect.
LEVICK is the leading strategic communications firm that establishes and protects trust. LEVICK deploys uniquely qualified teams – armed with the instincts, influence, and experience needed to win your battles in an increasingly complex and challenging world.
In a week in which rumors were being circulated by well-respected Frankfort political insiders that The RP might be a candidate for U.S. Congress in Kentucky’s 6th District, The Recovering Politician has been leaked an incriminating picture of The RP, photographed next to a dead Hooker.
Hopefully, this will put to rest all rumors of The RP’s candidacy, allowing him next summer to defend his final table finish at the World Series of Poker, be made a fool on on national TV shows such as his recent appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and pontificate on controversial subjects such as marriage equality and marijuana legalization.
We now return to our regular programming…
UPDATE 9:16 AM
The RP (Jonathan Miller) issued an official statement on The Recovering Politician‘s huge scoop this morning:
I furiously deny ever knowingly having a picture taken of myself next to a dead Hooker. Perhaps it was a drug-induced blackmail plot by the Corleone family. More likely, it was a bad photo-shop job of my face on a picture distributed by “Weird Al” Yankovic.
Regardless, under no circumstances will I be running for Congress next year, or for any elected office in the near future. Indeed, the earliest I ever would run would be the later of my turning 60, or my hair turning the “silver fox” gray color of our incumbent Governor. (See picture at right.)
Simply put, while I cherish my nearly two decades in the arena, I have never been happier than in the two years since I left.
The pressure inside the political bubble to constantly prepare for the next campaign is extraordinary — I can remember feeling like my life would have no meaning unless I moved up the political ladder.
Now safely outside, I chuckle at my younger self. There is so much more to life than politics. And there are so many opportunities to serve the public and my community without the burdens of being part of a broken system. And most importantly — the quality and quantity time I spend now with my wife, daughters, friends and family is simply invaluable and deeply cherished.
And all of them believe me about the picture with the dead Hooker. At least I hope so.
More than three years after a federal campaign-finance probe destroyed then-state Sen. Jeff Smith’s political career, he has worked to create a new life for himself that still includes politics.
Why, despite its periodic low points, does conservatism always rebound? The reason is that much more than their liberal rivals, conservatives understand the weaknesses of our modern bureaucratic, too balkanized society. The strings of bureaucracy do tie the hands of genuine innovators in the public space, and the costs include a substandard education system and income support structures that actually perpetuate poverty. The growth of government has taken on a relentless pace that has weakened constitutional values from the separation of powers to the Commerce Clause. Entrepreneurship is vulnerable to regulatory overreach. And the subdivision of Americans into factions and grievances based on identity has diminished the concept of a national interest.
The challenge the political right faces today, and that it failed in 2012, is the one of earning American confidence during a crossroads period, when the country is middling along and neither left nor right seem to bear exclusive responsibility for the train wrecks around us. Of late, conservatism has failed to offer its own account of how the middle class became poorer and less upwardly mobile, much less how to turn their fortunes around. It has seemed incapable of defending its cultural values without resorting to derision or wishful thinking. It has seemed tongue-tied about the immorality of financial markets that squander investors’ capital with not an inch of respect for the restraint that orders the lives of smaller, less entitled businesses, much less the standards around kitchen tables. 
Parties and federal government aside, people today are just trying to hold it all together. We’ve all got bills, health care issues, aging parents and kids with cavities. Research shows that most Americans are center right, believe in limited government and personal responsibility, and don’t think government is a good steward of tax money, but they are choosing to be unaffiliated, independent voters.
Lanny added, “It is absolutely immoral to use credit cards to have our children pay for our debt. The one combination that won 60% in a bipartisan commission is Simpson-Bowles. This is a purple bipartisan moment. No political party has stepped up to the line. As TIME’S “Person of the Year,” this would be the moment to ask President Obama and Speaker Boehner to endorse this.”
Regardless, under no circumstances will I be running for Congress next year, or for any elected office in the near future. Indeed, the earliest I ever would run would be the later of my turning 60, or my hair turning the “silver fox” gray color of our incumbent Governor. (See picture at right.)
