The San
Francisco Chronicle details
Obama and Romney’s latest foray into campaigning for cash,
outlining not only the $50,000 per plate luncheons (Romney) and $4,277
per minute speeches (Obama), but also the
sharp restrictions which are imposed on the press, and the scripted nature of
the contact. Based on the dollar amount,
Romney remains the more inaccessible of the two by a long way: the cheapest
ticket at his cheapest ‘event’ was $2,500 at the Fairmont in San Francisco; for
Obama, it was $100 at Oakland’s Fox Theater, site of Governor Jerry Brown’s most
recent ascension.
Of course I shouldn’t feel too left
out...I can still read all about it all in the next day’s Chronicle. But what we miss
is the opportunity to hold our representatives to account.
There is a television programme on the
BBC, called Question Time, which I occasionally watch. It consists of a panel of five or so
politicians and other public figures.
The three main (British) parties are generally represented, plus
occasionally members of smaller parties, public intellectuals and academics,
journalists, cultural figures, and other news-makers. There is an audience and a moderator. The moderator (the venerable David Dimbleby,
due for retirement) calls on members of the audience, who ask their
questions. By and large, these are
intelligent questions, generally informed by the state of the country and the
world in that particular week.
This is not, it must be said, a shy and
retiring audience, but one which is encouraged to express itself. And it does.
Members are allowed follow-up questions, they hiss, they heckle, they
boo, they cheer, they clap. Members of
the panel quiz each other, launch barbed put-downs, heckle one another, heckle
the moderator, prevaricate, hide under the table, and so on. Even Dimbleby throws a few patrician elbows. The panellists are high-profile people:
cabinet ministers, party leaders, opposition politicians.
Question Time is part theatre. But it’s more than that. On one level its idealistic premise—that even
in the face of global financial, military, and other forces, ordinary people
can participate actively and effectively in politics—is cheesy. And indeed, some weeks are boring, and nobody
gets seriously heckled and there are no serious revelations. Sometimes it’s all slogans, talking points
and cheap shots.
But sometimes it works. And when it does, it’s magical. The show has generated politically defining
moments, most of them not anything necessarily to do with what the politicians
say of their own accord, but because of a spirited, pointed intervention by an
audience member, or the mass reaction of the audience to a particularly
ridiculous or ill-considered statement by a member of the panel. Sometimes (even through the make-up) you can
see the blood drain from a politician’s face when an irate Briton stands up and
takes him or her to task, always passionately, occasionally even
eloquently.
The show’s other wonderful feature is
that it’s not in binary. The Liberal
Democrats (Britain’s third largest party, and one which is currently in coalition
with the Conservative Party) probably benefited a great deal from the exposure
they received from being allowed to participate frequently. The leader of Scotland’s Nationalist Party is
a frequent guest. You’ll get veteran
left-wing trade unionist supporters as well as the editors of the most
rabidly-right wing rags in town. The
leader of a fascist party had a turn on the show (and probably wishes he
hadn’t), and the leader of the Green Party (now represented in Parliament by
the way) has appeared. It’s incredibly
refreshing, coming from the U.S., to see a participatory program that actually
includes a broad spectrum of views.
Watch it, if you can. There’s even a ‘Greatest Hits’ video buried
somewhere on the site.*
But what does this have to do with the
2012 campaign in the United States?
Democrats campaigning in the Bay Area
should be in their element. It mixes
high-earners packing political and economic clout with a vibrant grassroots progressivism
that is probably unmatched in the country.
But parts of Obama’s grand tour, credit card in hand, were in danger of
being overshadowed
by the protesters who took to the
streets, particularly in Oakland, to call him out on a wide range of
issues. Clearly people from his side of
the spectrum are dissatisfied with the President. But Obama doesn’t have to answer them.
Sure, he can sit in the Fox Theater and
allude to the protests outside (and to those of us who will protest in November
by leaving our ballots blank or voting for a ‘third party’) in passing, but he
has total control of the situation.
There’s no risk for the President, he remains unaccountable, no one gets
to shout him down or ask him a tough question, or follow up when he fails to
answer the tough question. They can
clap, but they can’t hiss. Moments of
dissension are dealt with quickly and efficiently. And it’s the same for Romney when the SUVs or
limos or campaign buses whisk him past the people who’d like to ask him about
those tax returns, or the corporations to which he sends birthday wishes, or
when exactly he retired from Bain Capital, or why he thinks honest people
should suffer when the ‘free market’ leaves them out in the cold.
Obama and Romney, here as with their
dabbling in censorship, are trying to take the risk, the spontaneity, and the
democracy out of our politics. Our
politics are no longer participatory in any meaningful sense of the word. Voters have become props and backdrop
material for television ads and news segments which are then manipulated.
Some will say that our politics were
never meant to be participatory, that we should quietly elect our
representatives and let them get on with things, let them have the debate. And indeed, that might reflect the intentions
of some of our founders and the desires of the corporate interests which dominate
the field of governance today, but it is a poor reflection on our civil society
if we allow ourselves to be sidelined in our own country in the practise of our
own politics. Some have suggested that ‘social
media’ is the best way of ‘taking back’ our politics, but political campaigns
have proved as adept at manipulating this media form, and people as inattentive
in acting on its revelations, as any other mode of contact. I think what we need is a less quiescent
electorate and a more responsive political leadership. The ensuing conversation should include a
wider array of actors than currently participate. Could Question Time serve as a model for one method
of reinvigorating our politics?
-----
* John McCain once suggested the
introduction of something akin to Prime Minister’s Questions in the U.S. (an
institution whereby opposition leaders and backbenchers from all parties have
half an hour to question to the Prime Minister each week). This would be a bad idea on several
counts. First, if you’re after public
accountability, it would be like setting the fox to guard the hen coop, the
poacher to protect the game park, or the capitalist to regulate the
markets. Secondly, John Boehner couldn’t
make it through a question without crying, and even if he did, the reflection
from his unnatural tan would turn the proceedings into one big glare for
television viewers. But mostly because
PMQs is a total farce which achieves nothing in the way of accountability—it consists
of 600, party-disciplined, certifiable lunatics locked in a room screaming
mostly lies and insults at one another like children. In the British case it is made marginally
less unbearable by the fact that many members of Parliament can speak in
complete sentences and are often quite witty.
Members of the United States Congress posses none of these
partially-redeeming features. Question Time, by contrast, involves the public
and is much less scripted.
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