The Audacity of Hope

moron, or Congressman So-and-So is a bum. Sometimes a broader indictment is issued,
as in “They’re all in the pockets of the special interests.” Most voters conclude that
everyone in Washington is “just playing politics,” meaning that votes or positions are
taken contrary to conscience, that they are based on campaign contributions or the polls
or loyalty to party rather than on trying to do what is right. Often, the fiercest criticism
is reserved for the politician from one’s own ranks, the Democrat who “doesn’t stand
for anything” or the “Republican in Name Only.” All of which leads to the conclusion
that if we want anything to change in Washington, we’ll need to throw the rascals out.
And yet year after year we keep the rascals right where they are, with the reelection rate
for House members hovering at around 96 percent.
Political scientists can give you a number of reasons for this phenomenon. In today’s
interconnected world, it’s difficult to penetrate the consciousness of a busy and
distracted electorate. As a result, winning in politics mainly comes down to a simple
matter of name recognition, which is why most incumbents spend inordinate amounts of
their time between elections making sure their names are repeated over and over again,
whether at ribbon cuttings or Fourth of July parades or on the Sunday morning talk
show circuit. There’s the well-known fund-raising advantage that incumbents enjoy, for
interest groups—whether on the left or the right—tend to go with the odds when it
comes to political contributions. And there’s the role of political gerrymandering in
insulating House members from significant challenge: These days, almost every
congressional district is drawn by the ruling party with computer-driven precision to
ensure that a clear majority of Democrats or Republicans reside within its borders.
Indeed, it’s not a stretch to say that most voters no longer choose their representatives;
instead, representatives choose their voters.
Another factor comes into play, though, one that is rarely mentioned but that helps
explain why polls consistently show voters hating Congress but liking their
congressman. Hard as it may be to believe, most politicians are pretty likable folks.
Certainly I found this to be true of my Senate colleagues. One-on-one they made for
wonderful company—I would be hard-pressed to name better storytellers than Ted
Kennedy or Trent Lott, or sharper wits than Kent Conrad or Richard Shelby, or warmer
individuals than Debbie Stabenow or Mel Martinez. As a rule they proved to be
intelligent, thoughtful, and hardworking people, willing to devote long hours and
attention to the issues affecting their states. Yes, there were those who lived up to the
stereotype, those who talked interminably or bullied their staffs; and the more time I
spent on the Senate floor, the more frequently I could identify in each senator the flaws
that we all suffer from to varying degrees—a bad temper here, a deep stubbornness or
unquenchable vanity there. For the most part, though, the quotient of such attributes in
the Senate seemed no higher than would be found in any random slice of the general
population. Even when talking to those colleagues with whom I most deeply disagreed,
I was usually struck by their basic sincerity—their desire to get things right and leave
the country better and stronger; their desire to represent their constituents and their
values as faithfully as circumstances would allow.
So what happened to make these men and women appear as the grim, uncompromising,
insincere, and occasionally mean characters that populate our nightly news? What was it
about the process that prevented reasonable, conscientious people from doing the