Politics at the pro level is broken.
Turn on your television if you don’t believe me. Or answer your phone. Or check your mailbox. Tens of millions of dollars are being spent in Alaska for nothing but attack ads and telephone surveys.
Given that newspapers are nearly extinct, how does the average voter sort through the damning allegations of one side over the other? Does anyone have anything good to say?
This is what Citizens United has wrought.
Eight years ago, I dipped my toe into pro-league ball with a last-minute, low-budget run for the Alaska Legislature. I had about $5,000 in savings to spend on my campaign and friends pitched in about $2,500 more.
But my Democratic opponent had amassed a war chest of $60,000 and the Republican in the race raised $55,000.
A savvy friend in Juneau clued me in. “Tom, you need to phone 10 people every night and ask for the maximum campaign contribution, $500. And start with your family.”
Asking for money? I’m bad at asking for more than a few pennies from the change cup at the grocery store. So I resigned myself to amateur politics at the local level although I did have fun knocking on doors and chatting up strangers in Juneau. Politics is an adventure in speed-dating.
Serving as Haines Borough Mayor was a thrill, an education and a root canal all wrapped up in one.
I drew inspiration from my three political heroes: Ray Menaker, Jay Bullworth and Skink, and in that order as Ray is the only one not a fictional character. Once you scratch the surface of politics, real heroes are rare.
Menaker founded the Chilkat Valley News, operated it for 18 years and never took a penny from it. He helped launch another half-dozen noble efforts in this town while teaching school and raising three children and as many foster children while holding down a full-time job as a public school teacher.
He was a remarkable doer and thinker and he served more than 20 years on the Haines Borough Assembly. During his life he was vilified as a socialist and a greenie, but he was an astute thinker who drilled down to the details and asked incisive questions.
That last part is critical. Ray didn’t advocate much. Instead, he gave bad ideas a close questioning, effectively sinking them. Then he donated all his borough pay to Chilkat Valley Preschool.
People trusted Ray, and they elected him again and again, not by great margins but by enough. Patience, humility, fortitude and a Herculean forbearance were his superpowers. It’s a crime he’s not honored in a prominent location here.
Jay Bullworth was the star of “Bullworth,” one of the best movies about U.S. politics. Without giving away too much of the plot, the movie is about what happens when a politician tells the unvarnished truth, a fantasy for news reporters and something that never happens in the real world. See it.
In the brilliant, comic novels of Carl Hiassen, Skink is the former Governor of Florida who sought final refuge in the mangrove swamps. In a guerilla fashion, Skink still works for the public. His fate is the logical endgame of professional politics.