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This piece was written as an editorial while John McCain was running against George W. Bush. The second half provides a quick overview of some of the more important elements of the Reform agenda. This was followed by another piece, The Reform Movement is Failing to Manipulate Voters, which has a very different tone. February 23, 2000 America has been waiting two decades for a leader of the reform movement who would realign our politics. At last it has him in John McCain, a conservative politician who has been willing to stand up to his own colleagues in the Republican Party so he can fight the corruption that dominates our political institutions. With McCain's win in the Michigan and Arizona presidential primaries, yesterday, it is now unambiguously clear that he has the ability to rise to the occasion -- and that the American people are prepared to support him. The question now is whether our distorted political institutions will be able to stop him from being elected. The next test of that will take place between now and the big primary day, on March 7, as McCain withstands the campaign of misinformation being waged by his opponent, George W. Bush. But all leaders are tested and if Bush's message of fake reform and narrow Republicanism wins, then McCain has to put loyalty to America ahead of party loyalty and seek the nomination of the Reform party, something he so far says he won't do. What matters now isn't the party, at all, but the man and the fact that, as he moves from primary to primary, he is forging a new political movement that has been waiting to be born. That political movement may not end up being confined to one "reform" party at all, not even the party where McCain ends up. Instead, as millions of people assemble behind McCain, we will see political leaders of many persuasions begin to espouse the goal of reform. George W. Bush's inauthentic effort to suddenly present himself as a reformer after McCain's message won in New Hampshire is only a small example of the way the rhetoric of reform will dominate the debate if McCain's candidacy picks up steam. But what is particularly fascinating -- and more than a little ironic -- is that all of this is taking place as America's ideological adversary, Iran, is going through a more extreme version of the same process, just to get to where we are now. There too people have had to stand up to a bad system. The good news is that Iran's reformers have now won their election victory, demonstrating that the desire for decent government is universal. It is hard not to believe that the message coming from Iran is that the reform movement has the potential to become global. But, if it is to have a future, the reform movement will need to be larger than McCain's most important themes of remaking campaign finance laws, and creating a simplified and more honest tax code. Our politics, marketplace, and media are rotten with the corruption of money and influence and we need a leader who sees the connection that ties all of that together. We need a leader who supports extensive privacy laws and even more extensive truth in advertising laws, to put an end to the con artist culture that now controls sales and marketing. We need to reshape government at all levels, from city hall to the Congress, so it is more open, honest and efficient, with citizen access to government records and meetings, and a greater role for financial and performance auditors who can expose negligence and disorganization. We also need governments that put the "livability" of the urban and suburban environment above the demands of wealthy developers, and that emphasize parks, plazas, open space, safety, clean air and water, and beautiful buildings. And we need leaders who recognize that much of the decline of both the physical environment and the virtual environment of the media, as well as of our politics, is about the dominance of profit over other values. All of that becomes possible -- or at least imaginable -- if we have a national leader who is willing to put his own integrity first. And it becomes imaginable that we will actually have someone to look up to again, in a society that usually encourages people to rise to the top who know how to get away with breaking the rules. John McCain was always larger than his petty detractors. He can now enlarge our politics if we are able to overcome the combined force of money and intolerance that has lined up against him.
Ken Sanes |
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