On the day before my 25th birthday, I managed to get myself elected to the Minneapolis City Council. Our campaign had rented a room at the Leamington Hotel for our victory party.
One of the attendees, was clearly more radical than I, and while he had no problem drinking our beer, he accused me it the hallway of being a “fence sitter.” A term
that was not meant as a compliment.
At the time I was upset at him and his comment. I had no idea where and why he arrived at that opinion and it does not matter, today.
But I reject the idea of being moderate as a “chicken” play. In fact my actual experience as an elected official demonstrated to me that being in the middle was by far the more dangerous ground.
The people who really cared about any issue tended to be adamant in their positions. More than once I discovered that my effo
rt to find common ground between opposing forces only lead to both sides condemning the effort. The term appeasement is often used, with all its negative ramifications.
This blog is not about reliving the various issues I faced as a young office holder. But rather the lessons I have learned as a result, combined with the decades of practical experience in electoral politics since.
I have coffee weekly with Hal, who rightly argues that from a political perspective you need to push the limits in an effort to negotiate a middle that is more acceptable. That may be true in say, a labor negotiation. Ask for the moon and settle for 2% and an extra coffee break.
It fails in the real estate metaphor, when you ask a lot for a house and then not only do not get it, but much less when it become shopworn due to being overpriced. Realtors will understand the difference.
My approach is a bit different. And I suspect it arises from my youthful experience as an elected official. While I did get grief for compromises from both sides, I also discovered that compromise lead to getting things done.
I also learned from the time spent genuinely trying to understand the multiple points of view on most topics that there was usually merit to multiple points of view.
The challenge was to get past the passion. A passion that was often two sided. Passion in favor of a point of view and passion made up of fear of the motivations and after effects of the other side.
Today, there is a lot of fear in our political discourse. Fear of the outsider was actively and it turns out effectively used as an electoral tool. I will use Hillary’s word and call that fact deplorable.
And it is also true that Hillary was perhaps a bit weak on generating the passion on the positive end. Beyond a general passion for liberal principles and the breaking of the glass ceiling, the positive passion was overcome by the force of the dark side.
But even that is putting too much of a negative spin. For while crudely presented, the Trump campaign did offer a positive passion of its own. Portraying a swamp and then calling for its draining worked as an election ploy. Only time will tell if it was any more than that.