The New York Times likes Jon Tester:
Every 15 minutes of a senator's waking life in Washington is fully scheduled with meetings, hearings and votes, and much of the rest is devoted to a frantic search for money to fuel the next campaign. "Of any free time you have, I would say 50 percent, maybe even more," is spent on fund-raising, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa told the New Yorker recently in a scathing portrait of an overstressed and utterly ineffective legislative body, one that measures acts of real significance in the single digits per term.
So it was refreshing to hear how Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat of Montana, is spending his summer vacation. While other senators drove the campaign trail, dialed for dollars or lounged on a beach somewhere, Mr. Tester went home to his farm and harvested wheat....
If more members had a life outside of campaigning and lawmaking, it might help put petty political disputes in a little perspective. Sit high up in the cab of a combine, stare out at an endless vista of swaying grain, worry about wheat futures and drought - your opponent a leaf-eating insect - and, suddenly, it should seem a little ridiculous to block an important piece of legislation back in Washington just because it would give the other party a victory.
First, while I've certainly had my legislative and ideological differences with Montana's junior Senator, there's no doubt he's the real deal. He's exactly what he seems: a farmer from Big Sandy. That's why we elected him.
Second, I'm glad the Times likes that Jon has a farm to put legislating in perspective. But as an advocacy strategy for Senate reform, wishing for more Senate farmers is a bit unrealistic. For starters, as my economic-obsessed friends might phrase it, all the incentives encourage a different kind of Senator. Senate campaigns are expensive, and growing more expensive all the time.
But it's not just the money: the inside-the-Beltway crowd - including the Times' talking heads - don't take blue collar candidates seriously. Remember, Jon wasn't favored to win his primary. The Beltway crowd liked the other John. And the state of politics - the incredible divisiveness brought on by the political right since the 60s and 70s - demands a different kind of Senator, one that's obsessed by the daily message, the political squabbling, the 5-second sound byte. You can blame the media for that too, rags like The Hill supplanting coverage by DC-based local reporters.
Here's hoping that Jon keeps the farm. |
