Thoughts On The Franken Fiasco

Well that just happened.

I'll start by saying I'm coming at this whole thing from a different angle than a lot of the progressives who have been writing about it both here in Minnesota and the rest of the country.

I actually was never a really big Franken fan.

Back in the good ole days of 2008 I actually worked on this guy's campaign who ran against him. I did so under the theory that while Franken was a funny comedian and wrote some fun political books his background (he'd said a lot of offensive stuff over the years, he hadn't lived in the state for several decades etc)  as well as the nature of Minnesotan culture (see here for a good explanation of what "Minnesota Nice" is) meant he would be a weak candidate in a general election. I also thought that he didn't have the skill set to be a good Senator. And really needed a job, so off we went!

It didn't work. The Ciresi campaign was a bit of it's own mini-fiasco, while Franken ran a great  campaign headed by some serious political talent, the backing of major national money, and an army of progressive volunteers in support. Wisely the Franken camp had a multi-year long major wooing effort with Democratic-Farmer-Labor (the state Democratic Party in Minnesota) activists and other party actors to lock up their support long before I got involved. And since Minnesota has a caucus/convention process with an endorsement that still means a lot in the spring before the August primary, me and my clipboard just wasn't enough to turn back the Franken tide.

But even if I was stupid to try and stop him back then, on my first point I was obviously correct. Despite spending a eye-popping amount of money Franken only won by the narrowest of margins during one of the biggest Democratic banner years in recent times. In other words he was a weak candidate. On the second point up until a few weeks ago I'd say I was somewhat wrong. Franken is no Hubert Humphrey or Howard Baker but he did get a few good amendments in on some important issues over the years.  See Ian Millhser for the most optimistic read of Franken's legislative record, as well as a more pessimistic read on his ultimate legacy. But then again the last three weeks are...uh...kind of important so I guess I was right on those lines too. Good for me!

If I had to pick an Senatorial analogy for Franken I'd go with Gary Hart, that is a campaign showhorse who drew a lot of media attention over the years but didn't have that big an impact when it comes to legislating and ultimately blew himself up in a truly epic fashion.

But he did cast some crucial votes over the years for things I care about, and I grew to find he had a sort of quirky charm so it's not all bad, I guess. Anyway your mileage may vary.

Personally I'm not that interested in discussing the things he's have alleged to have done. It's not that I don't have opinions, I do, it's just I'd prefer to leave it to others to talk about that. I'd rather talk about the politics, especially since I think there's a major flaw in a lot of discussion surrounding the Democrats' response to this. So let's do that.

I personally think the Democrats did the right thing here morally and in some ways practically, there's really no way he could do the job of representing Minnesota considering the position he had placed himself in. Moreover it's pretty clear that his caucus in the Senate wanted to get rid of him, he didn't want to go quietly, and so he had to be shoved. You might think that was right or wrong, but it's seems to be what happened. In other words the Democrats decided to "Take A Stand", especially considering the cultural moment we are in.

And it's this "Stand Taking" that I want to talk about. Because while I agree Democrats are doing the right thing here, I think a lot of pundits, journalists, and other people are dead wrong arguing that is the "smart move politically."

Nate Silver gave a great example of this line of thought during a recent chat with folks at his 538 digs:

micah [Cohen]: Wait, so imagine a world where Democrats have forced out both Franken and Conyers. Is the party better off in that world?
I’m trying to get at whether the moral high ground is important politically? Whether message coherence matters, basically.
harry [Enten]: I don’t think they’re worse off.
natesilver: I think Democrats made a political mistake, yes.
micah: Nate, you’re not explaining how the mistake hurts them.
natesilver: Because they look like fucking hypocrites, that’s how.

Silver later elaborates his point this way.

natesilver: For one thing, Micah, the Democrats are supposed to be the “woke” party on treatment of women (and good for them). So they look more hypocritical if one of their members abuses or harasses women, in somewhat the same way that an anti-gay-marriage Republican would look more hypocritical than a liberal (ostensibly straight) Democrat if they had a gay affair.

I personally think hypocrisy is a pretty overrated political sin. And to be fair Nate wrote a follow up piece after Franken resigned arguing this will pay off for the Democrats as they no longer look like "fucking hypocrites Micah", and who knows, maybe he's right! But his "too little, too late" tone shows that it will be pretty easy for Republicans to make that argument, or "what about Bill Clinton!" as a effective defense as well.

Or just shrug or shout "You are fake news!" when asked questions about these sorts of things. Seemed to work for Trump around the Access Hollywood tape after all.

Likewise at Vox Dara Lind updated a post she wrote slamming the Democrats for not organizing their plan to make Franken resign and avoid a potential Shirley Sherrod type set up quicker (well she doesn't phrase it like that) to argue that now that now that they have done the right thing, Democrats will be handsomely rewarded. As she puts it:

It’s easy to see this as an act of shortsighted martyrdom: losing power by adhering to your ideals, winning a moral victory while losing the war. But that’s not actually how it works.

The Democratic Party isn’t just attracted to the idea of “the resistance” out of idealism. It’s attracted because that ideal — and the backlash against serial harassers in the post-Weinstein era (to the extent that the two are even different from each other to begin with) — reflects a new energy among certain groups of people (especially middle-aged suburban women of all races) that can be channeled into Democratic politics.

Don't get me wrong, I really hope Silver and Lind are right here. But the bitter reality of my experience is that the political gods don't in fact punish the wicked and reward the righteous. After all just two days after Nate assured us the Democrats where making the right call politically his own website published an article about how it's quite possible the Democrats will lose Franken's seat in the special election that will happen next fall. Sure 2018 is looking to be a good year for Democrats overall, but there will probably be a contested endorsement process (with lots of angry party activists who were the key to Franken winning back in 2008 just looking for someone to take it out on) or maybe even a bitter fight all summer long before the August primary. Add in that in terms of statewide politics Minnesota basically a purple state and Tim Pawlenty the popular former governor could be the GOP pick and, yeah, I'm still waiting for that handsome reward from Nate.

Likewise while I hope Lind's theory that an army of suburban women materializes to come save us here in Minnesota now that we are facing a pretty crazy election next year is right, I have my doubts. I mean, I'll look for them at the environmental event I'm going to tomorrow in the suburbs (yes I am actually going to an event), and maybe they will show up! But then again maybe not. Or maybe they'll start fighting with each other about who the next Senator should be.

But it's not just the fact that Silver, Lind, and others of the "chutes and ladders" school of "Taking A Stand" are wrong about political costs, although I think they are, in my opinion it's unfortunately actually worse than this. In a way they are, whatever their good intentions, peddling a bit of a con. It reminds me a bit of dieters who try some new fad diet for a few weeks, get frustrated when it doesn't work, and just give up. They end up in a worse spot because now they think there's no possible way they'll ever be able to lose weight (I tried the diet! It didn't work!) and might as well just not bother trying. The truth is that they'd have been much better off if they went in with both eyes open, and admitted it would be a long and at times difficult process, but ultimately worth it because they would be glad for any number of reasons down the line.

In other words, Roy Moore might win, the Democrats might lose Franken's seat, Ruth Bader Ginsberg might get replaced by a conservative, and Donald Trump like most modern presidents might win reelection. After all returning Harvey Weinstein's money, as many progressive writers assured us the Democrats simply had to do or they'd never win another election again, was rewarded by the RNC getting back into the Alabama race. While Ralph Northam's decision to take wishy-washy position on issues important to progressives like immigration, which lots of progressive writers assured us would mean he'd lose, resulted in the punishment of wining in a landslide.  Likewise the decision to dump John Conyers, while the right call in my book, was rewarded by the Republican Governor of Michigan deciding that much of Detroit just doesn't get to be represented in the House until next November.

It's not that crazy to imagine a Democratic Party that after a few years of constantly being told they will be richly rewarded for "doing the right thing" and instead getting things like Senators Moore and Pawlenty voting to privatize Medicare, getting so frustrated they decide like the GOP in 2016 that winning is more important than any precious moral principles and acting accordingly. I think something similar happened in the 90s where liberals and Democrats got so fed up with the never ending stream of made up "scandals", the double standards, and lost elections a lot of them decided they just didn't care what happened when a legitimate scandal rolled around. I was just a kid but I sure didn't, and quite frankly I'm pretty "meh" about it to this day. Or feel free to ask James Carville about what's really at stake.

Doing the right thing is often times not the easiest thing in the world of politics, especially when the other side decides to turn that into yet another way to put you at an institutional disadvantage, after all if it was easy I'd be out of a job because nobody would be screwing up the environment in the first place! And despite claims otherwise doing the right thing can have real costs associated with it, (see noted political theorist Jimmy McNulty for more on this). Trying to wish these these hard truths away in the end doesn't really help anyone. I think (hope?) that doing the right thing now will pay off in the long term, maybe not at the ballot box but in functional political party that can get things done when it gets back in power. But this might not be true. Either way we'd be better off if people who thought Democrats should make real sacrifices on issues they care about like choice, health care, the environment, or taxes because establishing new norms around sexual harassment is worth it just came out and said that. At least then we could have an honest debate about trade offs and where lines should be drawn. And to be blunt ignoring these hard truths is making things worse.