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The evening of June 23, Emanuel
Cleaver walked onto the stage as if on air. Poor Jamie Metzl could
only look heavenward.
But that’s the way the campaign for the Missouri 5th Congressional
District shines these days. Metzl is out in the street hustling up
votes the old fashioned way. Cleaver, the embodiment of political
royalty, just sort of shows up to the hush, boos and amends of an
adoring public.
Sad, too. More than one attendee went to the debate the Jackson County
Committee for County
Progress because they had met Metzl and liked Cleaver. They wanted
to see the differences between the two on policies and plans.
So, here’s what they did find out: Metzl is a pretty interesting
and ambitious guy (www.jamiemetzl.com).
He’s a veteran of the Clinton administration’s National
Security Council and all-around Washington knockabout. He’s a
teacher at the UMKC Law School with a Ph.D. in History and a law degree
from Harvard. Plus, he’s just published a novel.
Cleaver, on the other hand, preaches and lives here.
But we already knew that. What he wasn’t saying is that he’s
an astute Washington insider who knows the game of political knockdown
better than anyone in this town.
In short, Metzl’s hungry. Cleaver thinks he’s a shoe in.
In terms of policy and plans for office, the debate audience learned
that Cleaver hasn’t really thought enough about the specifics
and that Metzl’s been thinking too much. Both are, thank God,
committed Democrats who are alike on more issues than they are different
— philosophically anyway. Metzl’s supporters were more apt
to listen quietly to what each of the men said, while Cleaver supporters
were more likely to hiss when Metzl brought up Cleaver’s shoddy
business record. Then, when Cleaver said something they liked, it
was Amen, Amen.
So, who to vote for? Personally, I was Cleaver leaning-though-skeptic
when I walked in (www.cleaverforcongress.com).
Cleaver used to have a great personality, which has, in recent years,
been transformed by fame into a PR device. His views, particularly
with regard to the death penalty, gay marriage and bringing minorities
into the mainstream, are solid and attractive.
But Cleaver’s downside is his arrogance. He is no longer the
well-meaning reverend who passed out literature for Jackson County
Democratic clubs, minority or otherwise. He is no longer the man who
relates to the working stiff. His constantly refers to distasteful
characters he used to serve on the city council with — Aggie
Satchels, Ken Bacchus, Jim Glover — without acknowledging that
one of the greatest eras of public corruption regarding casinos, land
developers and outright neighborhood destruction happened when he
was involved in city government. He constantly declares that he, all
by himself or with the help of the few mentioned above, did great
things for the city — Bartle Hall expansion, 18th and Vine, the
Glover Plan (without, of course, mentioning that 18th and Vine has
been a monumental flop or that, despite the success of the Costco
and the Home Depot, a whole neighborhood at the site is gone and the
entire place is an architectural nightmare, or that the rest of Main
Street and much of Broadway and Gillham languish).
Most irritatingly, Cleaver demands that people look the other way
when it comes to his underhanded business dealings. Can a staunch,
allegedly progressive Democrat be all about labor, the working poor,
a fair and livable wage when he doesn’t practice the principles
at his own business? The idea is not that he shouldn’t be in
business, but that maybe he should have thought harder about the business
he went into and what that would do to his profile as a politician.
Good Democrats, as far as I know, pay their taxes, are above board
in their business dealings and pay their workers enough to live on
— and that’s that.
Moreover, Cleaver is taking Metzl’s public service and trying
to make political hay out of it. Because Metzl has been in Washington
doing the work of the country, often as an appointee or volunteer,
Cleaver wants to make a big deal out of Metzl’s residency. The
issue, however, is a non-starter except for those Amen’ers not
thinking very hard. When a person goes to do public service, they
necessarily have to leave home. They don’t necessarily give up
home. Plus, once someone is elected to Congress, they literally spend
the next two years away from their constituency.
Metzl’s problem is that most voters like someone who has the
right kind of scars, either from political fisticuffs or from trying
to be civil in a mean political climate. Metzl has neither. He is
an Organization Man (after William H. Whyte Jr.s famous mid-1950s
critique of the emerging post-War corporate stooge), trained to come
to consensus and work in groups. Though he talks fight, he has rarely
been in on the side of anything like a clear demarcation between what
might be considered the forces of social enlightenment and the retrograde
forces of social conservatism.
That’s not all bad. Metzl is untried in elective office. If elected,
Metzl may prove to be a stand-up guy. But we don’t like stand-up
guys. (One of the last stand-up, no compromise guys in the Congress
was Jesse Helms, and that was the wrong kind of stand up.) We don’t
elect stand-up, no-compromise people to Congress. We may send them
to the Missouri State Assembly, but we don’t send them to do
the work of the nation — as evinced by the lack of opposition
to Bush’s Iraq powers, the USA Patriot Act, current prison and
detention practice in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay Cuba.
The fact is, from my research, Metzl is one of the most sickeningly
clean politicians who’s ever run for Congress. He showed that
he’s a newcomer when Cleaver’s suave dodges beat the pants
off of Metzl’s insistence on focusing on Cleaver’s dismal
business record. Metzl was similar to a young tough out to prove himself
with wild swings and amateur jabs against a seasoned professional
boxer.
Appearance doesn’t count in this column but it will in the media
and in the street. Metzl’s well-defined policy and philosophical
positions wind up being rigid and sometimes forced. He’s scary
on the issues of homeland security, which contradict his stances on
the Patriot Act and civil liberties. But at least he’s thought
about this stuff. He has an environmental stance, and Cleaver doesn’t
do much thinking of the environment, homeland security or the specifics
of civil liberties.
A major failing for Metzl is that he doesn’t seem to know the
difference between elective office and serving as an employee, appointee
or volunteer. Elective office is a fight for life, career and reputation
every single day. Appointees just get moved around when they become
someone else’s good or bad PR.
Or maybe he does know the difference and he thinks you don’t.
But, what’s evident is that Jamie Metzl likes you. He wants you
to like him. Emanuel Cleaver doesn’t seem to give a damn.
I like Cleaver, or at least I want to. Metzl seems too much to want
to be my friend. In the end, there’s really no clear choice.
What we do know is that a Democrat will take the Missouri 5th again,
and that is comforting. But for the first time ever in this column,
the recommendation is “Close your eyes and vote.” Either
one of the Democrats will do fine.
The tone here may imply that voting Aug. 3 is a something that doesn’t
matter. For the record, it does, and it will. Whichever of these men
goes to Washington, they will enter a struggle and, hopefully, they
will be good, progressive Democrats above and beyond anything else.
It’s up to us to make sure they know who’s sending them.
Patrick Dobson can be contacted at poetrysheet@earthlink.net.
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