Thoughts on Tolerance

My school is a diverse place, with students whose families represent faiths far and wide, including Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, and probably a few other faiths I've forgotten. The students are comfortable in their diversity in ways that always impress me.

By and large the young men and women debating the issues in my class discuss questions of race and religion in ways underlined by a fundamental ethic of tolerance. Some of them are first or second-generation Americans; many are students who speak one language at school and another at home.  They are proud to be Americans, and they certainly understand the importance of historic American liberties.  In my history and government classes, they read their copy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and I encourage them to take comfort from the notion that their culture and beliefs are respected and protected by our nation.

Current politics are a cornerstone of my government classes and the issues of the day always receive a dissection in my classroom.  It is with some regret that I approach a school year as our nation is immersed in a debate about the Cordoba Initiative's proposal to build a Muslim cultural institute and mosque in Lower Manhattan.

My concern isn't with the folks at Cordoba, which is led by Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, a man who has repeatedly condemned Al Qaeda and terrorism and is committed to a peaceful dialogue.  My frustration is with the dubious public discussion that has emerged.  Republican critics such as Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Rudy Giuliani are far too eager to engage in demagoguery than they are willing to actually lead.  Witness the firestorm of ignorant condemnation of the building of the cultural center in lower Manhattan.  The willingness of the professional right's naysayers to paint American Muslims with the broad brush of intolerance isn't just fool-hardy.  It's dangerous and offensive.

More to the point, it violates the very cornerstone of our founding and our Constitution.  We are a nation with a proud historic tradition of religious tolerance and diversity. As a distinguishing characteristic it may be the most important thing that we demonstrated to the world: that people of different faiths can live together in peace and cooperation.  To take such a history for granted and to condemn other faiths in the name of our so-called "Christian" nation is to abandon all that we have ever stood for.  I want to hand my students the world that they deserve: one of fundamental tolerance.  The mean-spirited invective against the cultural center is making that awfully difficult.

You Go, Girls

The 1992 elections were proclaimed the "year of the woman" and, for the first time in history, the number of women in the U.S. Senate began to creep upward.  Four women were elected in 1992; that brought the total of women in the U.S. Senate to six.

For years, the path of career advancement for women in the political world was to join the Democratic party.  Women tend to be more liberal than men and so this made sense; of course they would find an ideological home in the the more progressive of the two political parties.  At the same time, the Democratic party made a much greater effort to funnel talented women into the leadership pipeline, supporting their ambitions and advancing the issues which mattered to women.

There were exceptions, of course.  For example, in 1978 Kansas elected a Republican woman to the U.S. Senate in the form of Nancy Kassebaum.  Kassebaum came from a Republican political dynasty of sorts (her father was Alf Landon) and she was an exception.  Most women in American politics were Democrats.

Though their numbers were slim at the national level, many more women served in state legislatures, where party representation was more equal, though the Democrats still enjoyed an edge when it came to female candidates.  A number of political scientists identified this as the talent pipeline and they were confident that the number of women seeking (and winning election) to national office would continue to rise.

I've been thinking about all this because this year, 2010, may actually be the year of the woman.  There are plenty of Democratic women in races big and small and that's good.  But the main reason that 2010 is breaking ground in terms of gender is that there are a host of races with Republican women facing off against Democrats, a sign that both parties are now hospitable to female candidates.

Most of these Republican women are not candidates I find impressive, at least when it comes to the issues which matter to me.  But I am heartened to see so many women seeking office.  In terms of Senate candidates, the GOP has Sharron Angle in Nevada; Linda McMahon in Connecticut, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, and Carly Fiorina in California (she's running against Democrat Barbara Boxer). The Democrats, long the leader when it comes to women candidates, are in the mix as well.  In North Carolina, Elaine Marshall is seeking to win a Senate seat.  Robin Carnahan of Missouri is looking to translate her state-wide popularity into a Senate victory.  Incumbent Democrats Patty Murray from Washington, Kirsten Gillibrand from New York, Barbara Boxer from California, and Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas are seeking to stay in Washington D.C.

The upshot is the 2010 election cycle might see the number of women in the U.S. Senate rise from sixteen to twenty-one.   For my personal politics, it will be no great victory should these GOP women win their races.  But from a demographic point of view, the prospect of one-fifth of the Senate finally being women is awfully exciting, especially for prospect of gender equality that it represents for today's boys and girls.

Reading the Tea Leaves

It's primary day in New Jersey and a handful of other states.  There have been a number of these sorts of elections in the last few months.  Most of them are primaries; a handful of Congressional special elections have also been held.  Eager for evidence of how things might play out in the November 2010 midterm elections, the media has paid attention to most of these races. 

A consistent theme has been hard to find, but I think that there is one: anti-incumbency.  Many voters, frustrated by the endless list of American problems, have decided that the folks currently in office are to blame for our troubles.  And anti-incumbent waves like this, which don't come along all that often, can be dangerous for both parties.

The surprise Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts in January of 2010 was read by the mainstream media as evidence that the Tea Party branch of the GOP was ascendant.  But I believe that Brown's victory is better understood as the edge of anti-incumbent wave, one that has caught both parties in its fury.  Voters are looking to defy expectations.  In Utah, loyal GOPer Robert Bennet was seeking a third term in the Senate.  But he was cast aside by his party at their convention.  Newly-minted Democrat Arlen Specter, who joined the party after 2008, reasoning that he could not win re-election to his 5th term in the Senate as a member of the GOP, lost the Democratic primary and found that he just couldn't win re-election to the Senate.  It wasn't their party affiliation which cost Bennet and Specter their seats.  It was their insider status.

Today's races feature a handful of Tea Party candidates looking to replace party-favored candidates on the GOP line come November.  The Tea Party seems to mostly be partisan-driven and from the right, forcing mainstream GOP candidates to tack right in primaries.  But winning the general election requires a moderation that Tea Partiers might find hard to swing (consider, for example, the public relations disaster that Tea Party fave Rand Paul has proven to be in the Bluegrass State).  I'll be watching the Tea Party candidates in Nevada and South Carolina tonight.  In  Arkansas, incumbent Democrat Blanche Lincoln is hoping to avoid the specter of losing her party's nomination to Democrat Lt. Governor Bill Halter.  I suspect she's about to lose. 

There are other contests as well, as this handy Washington Monthly post notes.  It's likely to be an interesting evening, though the big meaning of it all won't be truly understood until November.  And this is politics, so November is a long time from now.

Update: I was wrong about Arkansas; Lincoln held on. The Tea Party candidate in Nevada, Sharron Angle, won the right to face Democrat Harry Reid in Nevada.  Two California Republican self-financed women, former CEOs Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, earned the right to run for Governor and Senate, respectively.  It was an interesting evening.