New Year's Party

If Angus King worked in Washington, he would have a hard time celebrating the New Year.

The sixty year old New England lawyer, and recently departed Institute of Politics fellow, spent much of his career developing environmentally sustainable, alterative energy sources—first at a pioneering hydrogen and biomass company, and later at his own electricity conservation firm. For twenty years, King hosted the public television program “MaineWatch” and brought together local Democrats and Republicans, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, religious leaders and politicians to soberly reflect on public problems and agree on practical “common-sense solutions.”

In 1994, fed up that the tone of politics did not match the tone of his show, King ran as an independent gubernatorial candidate and narrowly defeated both parties’ nominees. For eight years as governor, he harped on “common ground,” “bridging differences” and “solving problems for the next generation”—familiar buzz-phrases that typically apply either to split-the-difference meaninglessness, or to George W. Bush-style hypocrisy.

But driven by a genuinely idealistic pragmatism, and by forging legislative coalitions of the willing, King actually accomplished dramatic change, and emerged among the nation’s most progressive governors—totally rebuilding mental health and corrections systems, instituting “e-government” to improve state services, doubling his state’s commitment to research and development, and adding more land to conservation than had ever been donated in Maine history.

In an interview, King harped on one accomplishment above all the rest: in order to make Maine students more attractive to employers and to keep jobs in the state, he explained, “we provided a laptop computer to literally every seventh and eighth grader in Maine, regardless of income, because we knew that computer literacy meant that our students got a huge competitive advantage.”

As the New Year begins, Angus King is a lonely reminder that smart, responsible government is possible—even as Republican Washington ended 2004, fittingly enough, by only reluctantly retracting its middle finger toward the international reconstruction effort in Southeast Asia.

Unfortunately, 2004 in our country cannot be remembered by American innovation in health care or education, American accomplishments in the arts or science or by the extraordinary generosity of the American people (who, in the days following the tragedy, actually offered more to tsunami disaster relief than the American government). Inescapably, 2004 was the Year of Missed Opportunity for America.

We missed the opportunity to launch a Marshall Plan for the Arab World, rebuilding our public diplomacy to challenge repressive regimes, encourage moderates and women and engage anti-modern zealots in a battle of ideas. We missed the opportunity to unite the West in our common goal of a successful Afghanistan, a stable Iraq, and victory against terrorism. We missed the opportunity to expand trade and technology to developing nations and lead the charge against global poverty with AIDS treatment, family planning and micro-loans to emerging small businesses. And, at home, we missed the opportunity to stop America’s twenty-first century decline—by rejecting the continuation of a near-sighted administration, and doing what it takes to rebuild our competitiveness: repealing Bush’s greedy tax cut that explodes our debt and socks a $30,000 “birth tax” on every young American and investing in math and science education, homeland security and energy independence.

The question for Americans mystified by the Grand Canyon that divides Washington from this country’s real challenges is: Where are the problem-solvers like Angus King?

Like every other too-good-to-be-true politico, King believes in public service as an avocation, not a career. “Governor then home,” he promised, and—like all the other promises—“governor then home” he would deliver. The centrifugal force that used to pull the best and the brightest to Washington now seems to keep the idealists and the uniters from getting too close.

Those who remain are so polarized (l00 liberals to 50 centrists to eight gazillion right-wingers) that, this year, the so-called civility retreat—a weekend in March devoted to bringing elected representatives together across party lines—has been cancelled for lack of interest.

Lots of us—after pledging to stop procrastinating, and to never again combine sake bombs and Jell-O shots—began 2005 with a resolution for our country: May the New Year be a better year for kids that have nowhere to go after school. May the New Year be a better year for working families that can’t afford health insurance. May the New Year be a better year for soldiers whose parents have to take out a loan to send them body armor in Iraq.

To make a difference, Angus King encourages young people to “volunteer at a school or work for a great nonprofit”–vital work, but our generation already does more community service than ever before. If 2004 taught us anything, it is that we can’t change America without changing who goes to Washington.

Brian M. Goldsmith ’05 is a government concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears regularly.