At least Michael Bennet didn’t don a cowboy or trucker hat when filming his first TV ad. The senator from St. Albans, Wesleyan and Yale is poorly cast as a populist dragon slayer, and looked awkward enough announcing a crackdown on Congress without taking his pandering to an even higher level.
Still, if you’ve got just 30 seconds to tell frustrated voters how you intend to shake up a “broken” governing system, shouldn’t you say something vaguely meaningful?
Bennet says he approved the TV message, which started appearing a couple weeks ago, “because I’m listening to Colorado.” What he’s been hearing, apparently, is that Coloradans want their senator to spend time formulating plans that have no chance of implementation — and which, if implemented, would have no discernible benefit. Bennet’s three-point fix: freeze congressional pay “until we get our economy back on track.” (What? No furlough days?) Strip Congress of health insurance “until they can stop insurance companies’ abuses.” (I suppose Congress is now off the hook on that one since health-care legislation has passed.)
And third: “I’d ban members of Congress from ever becoming lobbyists.” (So that’s why Congress is driving the nation ever deeper into catastrophic debt: because members can’t say no to former colleagues. Some of us had actually thought it had more to do with out-of-control entitlement spending, bailouts, stimulus packages, two foreign wars and other assorted commitments, most of which Bennet supports or at least has failed to lead the charge against.)
Will the exhibitionist gestures in the ad really pacify Coloradans worried about a frail economy and soaring debt?
It’s not as if Bennet’s “Plan for Washington Reform,” which he announced early this month and from which his ad’s empty calories are lifted, is entirely devoid of meat. It’s got interesting ideas about reforming the filibuster, for example, which I don’t necessarily embrace but which offer a serious alternative to the present system without gutting the rights of the minority party.
But those aren’t the ideas Bennet chose to emphasize in his paid ad, which opted for superficiality instead. Nor did he say anything specific about the debt and economic issues that polls reveal are at the forefront of voters’ concerns.
If you go to Bennet’s Senate website, you’ll be greeted with a large graphic labeled “Reducing the Deficit,” touting legislation to ensure “that repaid funds from the bank, auto and housing bailouts are used to pay down the deficit.” But this is less significant than it sounds. If the bailout money is returned, then federal accounts obviously will be in better shape than they would have been otherwise. But whether the deficit itself will shrink, let alone the federal debt, depends on the overall difference between spending and tax collections — which could still grow depending on other congressional decisions.
When Bennet was appointed 15 months ago, I figured he might turn out to be a political maverick — more left than right, of course, but often a centrist and at least not easy to predict. Instead, he’s evolved into something perilously close to a routine party drone, although one who pauses theatrically every now and then to strike a disgruntled pose.
Would he have answered to a maverick calling if he didn’t have a primary opponent nipping at his ankles from the left? Hard to say. Also now irrelevant. Bennet is what he is: a politician betting that voters’ anger is greater than their intelligence.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com.
