Summary: as Dr. Raul Ruiz goes to Washington as our Congressman, his early days in office will be a delicate time. He will need to be aware of that unreconciled camarilla of angry GOP supporters who wish him ill and will seek to take him down in 2014. He will need to be considerate in his utterance, avoiding both gaffes and analysis paralysis. The quality of his constituent services will, in many ways, be the test of his effectiveness in Congress; good constituent services build up a reservoir of goodwill; Sonny Bono and his widow both understood that constituent services was the key to reelection. It will also be important for Dr. Ruiz’s many supporters to remember that he is a Democrat in a GOP majority House, and not to project upon him unrealistic or unsustainable expectations. Too often, Democrats set up their officeholders for failure by expecting utopia to build in a day. We must avoid that temptation; we must have Rep. Ruiz’s back and wish him Godspeed.
By: Paul S. Marchand
A beginning is a delicate time.
-Frank Herbert, Dune
Today, for the first time in almost a generation, our Pleasant Desert is represented in Congress by a Democrat. Congressman Raul Ruiz took the oath of office earlier today as the new 113th Congress was sworn in. Dr. Ruiz’s coming to Congress represents a welcome upset; heretofore Republican dominance in our Congressional district has seen virtually unassailable. The conventional wisdom in our Pleasant Desert had been that our Republican congresswoman would have her seat as long as she wanted it.
Local political handicappers had expected that Mary Bono Mack would leave office on her terms, and not as a result of blowing the most important job interview in her life, viz. the one between her and the hundreds of thousands of disenchanted constituents in what is now California’s 36th Congressional District. As Dr. Ruiz takes office, a quotation from Frank Herbert’s epic novel Dune comes to mind: “a beginning is a delicate time.”
I was proud to support Dr. Ruiz, I consider him a friend, and I congratulate him -- along with my friend Congressman Mark Takano -- on his swearing-in. Dr. Ruiz won’t have an easy row to hoe; the House of Representatives is still controlled by the GOP (though the infighting and intrigues within the Republican Conference are starting to look like a bad outtake from I Claudius). Still, as a constituent, I do have a few thoughts about the challenges that in this delicate time await our new Congressman from the 36th District.
First, there remains an unreconciled camarilla of supporters of the previous Republican congresswoman for whom the election of a Latino Democrat represents the sum of all their fears and insecurities. We’ve seen enough nasty letters in the pages of our local right-leaning Gannett newspaper bemoaning Dr. Ruiz’s election to know that many of our local Republicans will be watching Rep. Ruiz very carefully, waiting to pounce on and magnify the slightest gaffe or indiscretion. While there will be a certain amount of excitement and enthusiasm as Rep. Ruiz settles into office, it will be important that neither he nor his staff succumb to the temptation to overplay the hand they have been felt or to lose touch with the constituents and activists who made possible the political earthquake that sent him to Washington.
It will also be important for Dr. Ruiz to steer clear of the Scylla of unguarded or indiscreet utterance while avoiding the Charybdis of controversy-shunning analysis paralysis. In that regard, he should --counterintuitively-- take guidance from the experience of his predecessors, Sonny Bono and his widow Mary Whitaker Bono Baxley McGillicuddy.
In a conversation with Dr. Ruiz’s incoming district director, I stressed the importance of quality customer/constituent services. The incoming district director and I were of one accord in agreeing that constituent services will be critical to Dr. Ruiz’s success as our representative in Congress.
Love her or loathe her, Mary Bono Mack’s constituent services set a gold standard for the way in which elected officials’ staffs should interact with District residents. Indeed, though it is embarrassing to acknowledge, Mary’s constituent services were often more efficiently delivered then those of Democratic members of Congress. Having been subject to the third degree and hit up for a campaign contribution as an implicit quid pro quo for constituent services by staffers for at least one Los Angeles-area Democratic member of Congress, I was gratified -- when I approached then-Congressman Sonny Bono’s staff with a constituent issue, to receive prompt, courteous assistance without regard to my political affiliation or views, which were not unknown to the then-Congressman.
As and to the extent that Rep. Ruiz’s staff continue to live up to a high standard of constituent services, Dr. Ruiz should be able to build up a reservoir of goodwill that will stand him in good stead twenty months hence, when our local GOP uncorks its predictable vials of vitriol against him. When constituents feel they have been well and fairly served, they are more likely to vote for the incumbent who provided such services; good constituent services is the key to reelection.
The second major challenge Rep. Ruiz will face will come from his fellow Democrats, from some of the activists who were proud to identify themselves as his supporters during the campaign, and who may now be expecting immediate and far-reaching change. To these, my fellow fighters in the trenches, I offer an observation born of often bitter experience: you cannot build utopia in a single day. You cannot realistically expect immediate reform, only reform immediately begun.
Moreover, few victories are ever as complete as those who have helped gain them might imagine. We must avoid infighting and carping over the limitations of our victories and acknowledge that as excited as we may be over Dr. Ruiz going to Congress, the GOP is still the majority party in the House of Representatives. We must define victory in a more nuanced and pragmatic way than some activists might like to. As a professional colleague of mine explained to me more than two decades ago, if you’re facing 10 years of prison time and you bargain down to 18 months, that’s a victory.
Activists also need to remember that, from time to time, Rep. Ruiz may find himself taking positions with which they do not necessarily agree, or voting contrary to some cherished position. To such activists, I offer a sobering reality that it is neither reasonable nor sensible to expect one hundred percent agreement one hundred percent of the time, and that to have a conniption because “your” Congressman didn’t support your particular issue only advantages the numerous Republicans waiting in the wings of the 36th District eagerly anticipating the elections of 2014.
We must cut Dr. Ruiz slack in this delicate time, and not impose ideological litmus tests upon him. At all events, we must avoid setting up our new Congressman for failure by projecting unrealistic or unsustainable expectations upon him. We are not the Tea Party; we are adult, patriotic Americans who ought to know better.
A beginning truly is a delicate time. Rep. Ruiz deserves our support, our prayers, and above all our considerate forbearance; he is our Doctor in the House. Above all, we need to have his back and wish him Godspeed.
-XXX-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California. He had the pleasure of supporting Dr. Raul Ruiz’s victorious campaign for Congress, and was honored to have Dr. Ruiz’s endorsement in his recent campaign for city Council in Cathedral City. The views contained herein are his own, and not necessarily those of the Democratic Party or any other entity with which Mr. Marchand happens to be associated. Self-appointed enforcers or the easily “offended” who may not like what they see or read in this post need to get over themselves. The contents of this post are not legal advice, and should not be taken as such.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
LIVING IN INTERESTING TIMES: HAPPY 2013
Summary: 2013 promises to be “an interesting time.” In future years, historians may well express shocked amazement at the irresponsibility of the United States Congress in leading the nation go over the fiscal cliff, even if only briefly. Even if by the time this post goes up, the House of Representatives may have agreed to the Senate bill to avert the cliff. Of course, we should not expect that the Tea Party in the House would ever consider the national interest over its own hateful ideology. We should also consider whether, in 2013, the GOP continues to shoot itself in the foot by retreating into its own aging, largely white, largely male base, blaming its own shellacking on all those uppity women, people of color, immigrants, and queerfolk who broke so heavily for President Obama. Here in Cathedral City, the political dynamic may be changing as local media begin to take a more careful and critical approach toward the reign of embattled Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa. Already, local media have displayed more willingness to report potentially unfavorable news about her, puncturing her cult of personality and hopefully discarding the traditionally deferential, kid glove approach the media had taken toward her. There are unspoken and unexposed truths in Cathedral City that need to see the light of day.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Let me take a moment to wish family, friends, and neighbors happy new year on this first day of 2013. It promises to be an interesting year, and “interesting” covers a multitude of sins.
There is an old Scots malediction: “May you live in interesting times.” The Chinese, in similar vein, sometimes express the wish that one may be born “in an important time,” or that one’s times may be “the subject of study by historians.”
Certainly, 2013 has already become an interesting time, certain to be an object of future study by historians and political scientists who may well find themselves shaking their heads, expressing shocked amazement that the government of the greatest power on earth could so shirk its responsibilities, and be so caught up in personal, partisan bickering, that it would allow the fiscal well-being of the nation to hang upon desperate last-minute legislative maneuverings as the United States Congress sidesteps, wide-steps, and back steps frantically to try to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. As I write, the Senate has sent back to the House a hastily drafted amendment to H.R. 8, a prior money bill that had emanated from the lower chamber.
At a whopping 157 pages, the Senate’s “gut and amend” on H.R.8 contains enough new legislation to give Tea Partisans and other disturbers of the public peace in the House of Representatives ample opportunity to throw monkey wrenches into the deal. After all, no Tea Partisan has ever put country or patriotism above the opportunity to score cheap, ideologically driven, political shots. Nonetheless, events have been moving quickly in Washington City, and it is possible that by the time this post goes up, embattled House Speaker John Boehner may have been able to cobble together some sort of coalition -- a connubio, as the Italians (past masters at the art of unstable coalition government) might put it.
If Boehner can cobble together his connubio, the Senate’s gut and amend on H.R.8 may have some chance of passing, notwithstanding the stated willingness of the Tea Party to do as much harm to this country as they possibly can. If so, we may be able to un-go over the fiscal cliff, running in reverse the clip from Thelma and Louise that depicts the two women and their car soaring off the cliff at the movie’s end. If not, then to borrow a fatalistic old Russian expression, the best we can do is to make the Sign of the Cross and hope to God that we can escape serious injury when we hit bottom.
If, however, the House does do what it ought to do and pass the Senate bill, but we can at least take some comfort in having started off the new year on the right foot.
Nonetheless, the fiscal cliff will by no means the only issue that will roil the waters in the twelvemonth that lies before us. When I suggested that American voters this November had had a choice between a Democratic blueprint for a more perfect Union and a Republican blueprint for a doomsday machine, I also foresaw that the Republicans and the Tea Party would not take their shellacking with equanimity or anything even resembling grace. I was certainly right. The postelection truculence and anger displayed not only by the GOP, but by its chosen standardbearer, mendacious Mitt Romney, strongly suggest that in 2013 the Republican Party will retreat to the same tone deaf anger that has characterized it since the turn of the 21st century. Buckle up; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
It will certainly be a bumpy ride for immigrants, women, and queerfolk. We would be fools to imagine that the GOP, bent as it seems to be on shooting itself in the same foot it routinely sticks in his own mouth, won’t try to campaign on the tired old issues of God, guns, and gays. To the extent GOP efforts to “reach out” to women (binders of them!), immigrants, queerfolk, and people of color don’t immediately pay off, we should expect the Republican Party to circle its metaphorical wagons ever more tightly around its aging, largely white, largely male base.
As and to the extent that Republicans try to woo those voting blocs that broke so decisively for President Obama, they do so at the acknowledged risk that the targets of their lascivious ogling may not want to rush into the proffered embrace. After all, being cruised does not impose upon the cruisee any obligation to respond favorably to the cruiser. When lascivious ogling leads to rejection, rejection can lead to anger on the part of the one rejected. When, not if, minorities in American society reject the lascivious political ogling of the GOP, the GOP will ineluctably turn its anger on uppity women, people of color, immigrants, and queerfolk. To the extent the GOP succumbs to the temptation to blame women, immigrants, people of color, and queerfolk for its loss last November, it will have only itself to blame if, next year, its political fortunes decline even worse than they did in 2012.
Here in Cathedral City, 2013 also promises to be “interesting.” While embattled Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa may have squeaked into a fifth term as the result of election about whose integrity large numbers of Cathedral city residents entertain grave doubt, there has been a distinct change in the dynamic of media coverage of the incumbent. Until October, 2012, local media had largely been content to give DeRosa the benefit of all doubt, and to give her what amounted to a de facto veto on any media coverage of her that she did not approve of.
Reading media coverage of DeRosa prior to last October was somewhat like reading Renmin Ribao (the People’s Daily)’s sycophantic coverage of Mao Zedong at the height of the Chairman’s cult of personality. When DeRosa hurled an F-Bomb at local restauranteur Mark Carnevale at a candidate forum in the presence of numerous percipient witnesses, the Desert Sun had no choice but to report on the event. Interestingly, DeRosa’s first attempt -- through surrogates -- to deny the event soon foundered on the rock of corroborating evidence. It did not take her long to change her story and claim that she had somehow been “set up” or provoked.
The rebuttal to DeRosa’s self-serving claim of victimhood was swift and simple: leaders do not allow themselves to be baited. If DeRosa allowed herself to be baited into hurling crude personal insults at a constituent, she engaged in conduct seriously unbecoming a leader. Like Charles I of England, who tried to set himself above the law and paid the ultimate forfeit, DeRosa seems not to understand that self-serving tergiversation inevitably erodes credibility. The willingness of the Desert Sun to take a more critical view of DeRosa’s conduct certainly reflected a significant change in their previously deferential, kid glove posture toward an incumbent with remarkably monarchical conceit of herself. We may hope that as 2013 unfolds, we will see our local media take a significantly less deferential stance toward DeRosa, and more critically review her so-called leadership style. There are unspoken truths in Cathedral City, truths that need to be spoken and exposed and to see the light of day.
We live in interesting times. So, as the Russians might say, let us make the Sign of the Cross and step boldly into this Year of Grace 2013. Happy New Year.
-XXX-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California. He served eight years on the city Council. His critique of the poor performance of incumbent mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa is no secret. He also serves on the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily the views of any organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to be, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Let me take a moment to wish family, friends, and neighbors happy new year on this first day of 2013. It promises to be an interesting year, and “interesting” covers a multitude of sins.
There is an old Scots malediction: “May you live in interesting times.” The Chinese, in similar vein, sometimes express the wish that one may be born “in an important time,” or that one’s times may be “the subject of study by historians.”
Certainly, 2013 has already become an interesting time, certain to be an object of future study by historians and political scientists who may well find themselves shaking their heads, expressing shocked amazement that the government of the greatest power on earth could so shirk its responsibilities, and be so caught up in personal, partisan bickering, that it would allow the fiscal well-being of the nation to hang upon desperate last-minute legislative maneuverings as the United States Congress sidesteps, wide-steps, and back steps frantically to try to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. As I write, the Senate has sent back to the House a hastily drafted amendment to H.R. 8, a prior money bill that had emanated from the lower chamber.
At a whopping 157 pages, the Senate’s “gut and amend” on H.R.8 contains enough new legislation to give Tea Partisans and other disturbers of the public peace in the House of Representatives ample opportunity to throw monkey wrenches into the deal. After all, no Tea Partisan has ever put country or patriotism above the opportunity to score cheap, ideologically driven, political shots. Nonetheless, events have been moving quickly in Washington City, and it is possible that by the time this post goes up, embattled House Speaker John Boehner may have been able to cobble together some sort of coalition -- a connubio, as the Italians (past masters at the art of unstable coalition government) might put it.
If Boehner can cobble together his connubio, the Senate’s gut and amend on H.R.8 may have some chance of passing, notwithstanding the stated willingness of the Tea Party to do as much harm to this country as they possibly can. If so, we may be able to un-go over the fiscal cliff, running in reverse the clip from Thelma and Louise that depicts the two women and their car soaring off the cliff at the movie’s end. If not, then to borrow a fatalistic old Russian expression, the best we can do is to make the Sign of the Cross and hope to God that we can escape serious injury when we hit bottom.
If, however, the House does do what it ought to do and pass the Senate bill, but we can at least take some comfort in having started off the new year on the right foot.
Nonetheless, the fiscal cliff will by no means the only issue that will roil the waters in the twelvemonth that lies before us. When I suggested that American voters this November had had a choice between a Democratic blueprint for a more perfect Union and a Republican blueprint for a doomsday machine, I also foresaw that the Republicans and the Tea Party would not take their shellacking with equanimity or anything even resembling grace. I was certainly right. The postelection truculence and anger displayed not only by the GOP, but by its chosen standardbearer, mendacious Mitt Romney, strongly suggest that in 2013 the Republican Party will retreat to the same tone deaf anger that has characterized it since the turn of the 21st century. Buckle up; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
It will certainly be a bumpy ride for immigrants, women, and queerfolk. We would be fools to imagine that the GOP, bent as it seems to be on shooting itself in the same foot it routinely sticks in his own mouth, won’t try to campaign on the tired old issues of God, guns, and gays. To the extent GOP efforts to “reach out” to women (binders of them!), immigrants, queerfolk, and people of color don’t immediately pay off, we should expect the Republican Party to circle its metaphorical wagons ever more tightly around its aging, largely white, largely male base.
As and to the extent that Republicans try to woo those voting blocs that broke so decisively for President Obama, they do so at the acknowledged risk that the targets of their lascivious ogling may not want to rush into the proffered embrace. After all, being cruised does not impose upon the cruisee any obligation to respond favorably to the cruiser. When lascivious ogling leads to rejection, rejection can lead to anger on the part of the one rejected. When, not if, minorities in American society reject the lascivious political ogling of the GOP, the GOP will ineluctably turn its anger on uppity women, people of color, immigrants, and queerfolk. To the extent the GOP succumbs to the temptation to blame women, immigrants, people of color, and queerfolk for its loss last November, it will have only itself to blame if, next year, its political fortunes decline even worse than they did in 2012.
Here in Cathedral City, 2013 also promises to be “interesting.” While embattled Cathedral City mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa may have squeaked into a fifth term as the result of election about whose integrity large numbers of Cathedral city residents entertain grave doubt, there has been a distinct change in the dynamic of media coverage of the incumbent. Until October, 2012, local media had largely been content to give DeRosa the benefit of all doubt, and to give her what amounted to a de facto veto on any media coverage of her that she did not approve of.
Reading media coverage of DeRosa prior to last October was somewhat like reading Renmin Ribao (the People’s Daily)’s sycophantic coverage of Mao Zedong at the height of the Chairman’s cult of personality. When DeRosa hurled an F-Bomb at local restauranteur Mark Carnevale at a candidate forum in the presence of numerous percipient witnesses, the Desert Sun had no choice but to report on the event. Interestingly, DeRosa’s first attempt -- through surrogates -- to deny the event soon foundered on the rock of corroborating evidence. It did not take her long to change her story and claim that she had somehow been “set up” or provoked.
The rebuttal to DeRosa’s self-serving claim of victimhood was swift and simple: leaders do not allow themselves to be baited. If DeRosa allowed herself to be baited into hurling crude personal insults at a constituent, she engaged in conduct seriously unbecoming a leader. Like Charles I of England, who tried to set himself above the law and paid the ultimate forfeit, DeRosa seems not to understand that self-serving tergiversation inevitably erodes credibility. The willingness of the Desert Sun to take a more critical view of DeRosa’s conduct certainly reflected a significant change in their previously deferential, kid glove posture toward an incumbent with remarkably monarchical conceit of herself. We may hope that as 2013 unfolds, we will see our local media take a significantly less deferential stance toward DeRosa, and more critically review her so-called leadership style. There are unspoken truths in Cathedral City, truths that need to be spoken and exposed and to see the light of day.
We live in interesting times. So, as the Russians might say, let us make the Sign of the Cross and step boldly into this Year of Grace 2013. Happy New Year.
-XXX-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California. He served eight years on the city Council. His critique of the poor performance of incumbent mayor Kathleen Joan DeRosa is no secret. He also serves on the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily the views of any organization with which he is associated. They are not intended to be, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
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