Angelika On November 2, congressional elections will once again take place here in the USA, and the final phase of the political mudslinging has begun. In the House of Representatives, 435 seats are up for election, and in the American Senate, one-third of the 100 seats. Experts predict that the Democrats are highly likely to lose their majority in both houses, and Obama, like Clinton before him, will face a politically hostile Congress. This would spell the end for further reform attempts. The country is polarized, and many citizens are angry. The left wing of the Democrats feels that Obama's reforms did not go far enough, and the Republicans are now blocking every Democratic proposal on principle. The economy is recovering very slowly, and the unemployment rate is still almost 10%, even 12% in California.
Now it is part of American tradition for flamboyant individuals to run for political office. For a while, it seemed to be the norm in California, for example, to transition from an acting career to politics. However, a new trend is emerging in our sunny state: former CEOs are aiming for Sacramento or Washington. Meg Whitman, who led the internet auction house eBay, is running for the position of California governor for the Republican Party. She invested $140 million of her personal fortune into the campaign, resulting in her advertisement playing every time we turn on the TV. Another former CEO is also in the race: Carly Fiorina, the former head of Hewlett-Packard and also a Republican, wants to represent California in the Senate.
Interestingly, the two former company executives are running against seasoned Democratic politicians. Jerry Brown, now 72 years old, had politics in his blood from birth. His father, Pat Brown, had already held the governor's office, and the son followed in his footsteps, serving as California's governor from 1975 to 1983. He then held the office of Mayor of Oakland from 1999 to 2007 and has been California's Attorney General since 2007. Carly Fiorina, on the other hand, is facing Democrat Barbara Boxer, who served as a representative in the House for 10 years and has been a continuous member of the Senate since 1993.
The question now arises whether the position of a company CEO prepares one to be an efficient and good politician. One can be sure that Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer know all the political tricks in Sacramento and Washington. Thus, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are trying to distance themselves from the old political guard, promoting the idea that they want to break up the entrenched structures. However, many have failed in this endeavor, not least Arnold Schwarzenegger, and not to mention Barack Obama.
For neither a senator nor a governor operates in a vacuum and can act as a big shot. In California, the issues lie within the system or the Californian constitution: Passing the budget or tax increases requires a two-thirds majority in the Californian parliament. The extremely popular referendums ("Propositions") also shake the state, as their outcomes often massively restrict the senate's room for maneuver, either by dictating or limiting what the Californian state spends tax money on.
One of the most notorious ballot initiatives in California is the so-called Proposition 13, which came into effect in 1978 and ultimately ensures that homeowners pay very little in property taxes, which has a devastating impact on the California budget. It would certainly make sense to roll back Proposition 13, but no politician would ever win an election with such proposals. And so everything remains the same. However, after the last budget debacle in 2009, there were efforts to fundamentally change something. Citizen initiatives were formed, such as "Repair California" who sought a change to the California constitution to make California governable again. Unfortunately, the citizens' initiative ran out of money.
Congressional elections are furthermore in the stranglehold of the so-called Tea Party movement. This right-wing conservative protest movement seems to be angry at everything and everyone, and wants to abolish the state, taxes, and all social programs as much as possible. The movement's followers chose its name in reference to the Boston Tea Party of 1773. In Boston, there was an uprising of citizens who resisted the tax policy of the British colonial power and angrily threw the heavily taxed tea into Boston Harbor. However, columnist Thomas Friedman ironically dubbed the Tea Party movement the "Tea Kettle Movement" in the New York Times because the followers reminded him of a tea kettle releasing steam. New York's Mayor Bloomberg also mentioned in an interview that angry slogans alone are not enough to make politics. One could dismiss the movement as the work of some crackpots. Unfortunately, however, many Tea Party sympathizers won the Republican Party's nomination and prevailed against moderate candidates of the party in the primaries (e.g., in the states of Alaska and Delaware). Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate, has meanwhile risen to become the idol of the movement.
The movement first came into the spotlight during Obama's stimulus program, as it protested massively against the renewed government spending that increased the budget deficit to stimulate the economy. The financial bailouts for the banks were also a thorn in their side, as was healthcare reform. According to the latest surveys, almost 20% of the American population now aligns with the Tea Party. Its supporters are typically white, male, married, and over 45. However, there are no efforts underway to establish a third party alongside the Republicans and Democrats, as the movement is made up of too many individual groups.
Funnily enough, the satirist Jon Stewart, who became a cult figure through his Daily Show, has started a kind of counter-movement. He is currently organizing a rally that will take place on October 30th in Washington and runs under the motto: "Rally to Restore Sanity" Stewart is expressing his discontent over the fact that approximately 20% of the population, with their extreme views, are determining politics and television news in the USA. The whole thing initially started as a reaction to the "Restoring Honor" demonstration conducted by the conservative TV and radio commentator Glenn Beck on August 28 in Washington. Beck is, of course, closely associated with the Tea Party movement. One might dismiss Jon Stewart's efforts as merely a comedic show, but Jon Stewart is extremely popular in liberal circles and can be sure that many will either be present live in Washington on October 30 or follow the rally on television. The hope is that the spectacle will shake many voters who are close to the Democratic Party out of their lethargy and lead them to the polls on November 2.