Jerold Duquette's blog

Please join me in making it official.

On April 7th (from 5:30 - 7:00pm) at the Community House on the Longmeadow green, I will be announcing my candidacy for the Longmeadow School
Committee.

David Brooks, a politically conservative columnist for the New York Times, wrote a very provocative column this week (9/12/04) about the difference between Democrats and Republicans. The column focuses on the difference between the way Democrats and Republicans think. Folks who lean to the right in America, according to Brooks, are "spreadsheet people," while the left leaners (likely Democrats) are "paragraph people."

Well, it looks like even the Mayor may be feeling a bit of buyer's remorse regarding the bailout package from the state.

The latest injurious insult is the hiring of another out-of-towner to serve as the $130,000 a year executive director of the board. The Andover businessman's own description of his new duties is telling. He was quoted in the Republican as saying that his job will consist of "getting to know the various city departments and making recommendations to the control board."

Politicians talk a lot about accountability and transparency during election campaigns, but after being elected they rarely are capable of giving concrete meaning to these laudable ideas. I do not believe, as is fashionable, that they use these ideas as cynical punch lines. Rather, they simply do not understand what it would really take to make these claims meaningful. Politicians operate in our candidate centered electoral system as islands. They promise to do and be many things without acknowledging, or even appreciating, the collective action necessary to make good on their campaign promises.

Ideas matter in politics. Few people believe this simple truth, believing instead that politics is all about the accumulation of power and self interested advocacy. People see electoral politics as the sum total of politics. Governance is popularly thought of as posturing and positioning for re-election, and little more.