Kurt Vonnegut had a word for people who find a phony association or affinity which is based on a meaningless connection: Grandfaloon.
So two Americans meet in a bar in Paris and discover not only are they both from America but from Indiana, and it's "Hey, then! We are both Hoosiers! Imagine that. Two Hoosiers meeting in a bar in Paris!"
Of course a person from Indiana has no more in common with another person from Indiana than he has in common with someone from California or Maryland.
When Scott Brown tried to run for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire he was accused of "carpet bagging."
Now we have Maura Sullivan, who has no prior connection to New Hampshire, but who apparently moved here because by her calculation and by the calculation of those dark money figures backing her, New Hampshire's open Congressional seat was ripe for the picking for a woman who had served in the Marine Corps.
I'm not sure if she was an Army brat or a Marine Corps brat, but kids who are raised in families of soldiers move every 3 years and grow up in a variety of states, wherever the fort is located. They are not Granite Staters or Californians, but Americans.
Levi Sanders has been vilified as a "carpet bagger" because he lives in the New Hampshire 2nd Congressional district and he is running in the New Hampshire 1st, as if that strange line drawn by unknown functionaries has any meaning. As if were he to move 10 blocks across some line on a map, well then he would be more qualified to represent the New Hampshire 1st.
Looking at that district, it roughly conforms to the liberal/conservative split in the state (including the People's Republic of Portsmouth, the university town of Durham, the cosmopolitan Seacoast in the 1st, and the rest of the more rural and remote parts in the 2nd.) At least, in that sense, the map maps sense. But look at other Congressional districts across the country, and it looks as if they were drawn by drunken kindergarteners finger-painting five minutes after being awakened from nap time.
Amidst all this Sturm und Drang about carpet bagging nobody ever seems to recall that Bobby Kennedy was the United States Senator from New York, not Massachusetts. Apparently the good citizens of New York did not care that Bobby hailed from Massachusetts. They knew who they were voting for.
Same for Hillary Clinton, who did not run for the Senate seat in Illinois or in Arkansas, but was Senator from New York.
One might argue that United States Senators represent the entire state, but Representative represent local interests of their district, so if there is a Naval base in the first, that's up to the Representative from the NH 1st to protect, but that has never been true in New Hampshire where all the Congressional delegation supports the Portsmouth Naval base, which, actually is not even in Portsmouth, but across the river in Kittery, Maine. (Such is the irrelevance of lines on maps.)
As for constituent services, on the rare occasion I've had to request such from my Representative, I did not get much help, but one of my Senators came to the rescue over a problem which arose when my income tax return got bounced back when I tried to file it and somebody had stolen my identity and tried to get the refund. In a state of 1.3 million people, distinctions about districts and even state borders seem pretty silly. Our two Senators both come from the 1st district (Exeter and Dover). Nobody cries much about lack of geographic spread when it comes to U.S. Senators.
In my own mind, state borders are artifacts of a now obsolete and useless history, and we should likely redraw state lines, if we still want to have states. There would be the state of the New York City metropolitan area, which currently overlaps New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. There would be the Dallas/Houston state vs the rest of rural Texas and maybe the state of Austin/San Antonio. And surely the state of the Seattle metro area should be drawn off from eastern Washington, and so forth.
What does rural Pennsylvania have to do with Philadelphia or Pittsburgh?
The whole idea of a "carpet bagger" dates back over 150 years to the time after the Civil War when men from the North, which was primarily industrialized, grabbed a bag and rode the railroad to the agrarian South and got themselves appointed and even elected to represent the former slave owners and poor White share croppers, because they could get a nice government job that way. They clearly had no sympathy with the people they were suppose to represent; they were doing it for the money, for the job.
How different were their motivations from the average Congressman of today, who often could not get a better job which pays more ($174,000 annually) than that of U.S. Congressman?
If we are trying to send to the national Congress, representatives of places with common interests, then we would circumscribe most big urban and metropolitan areas and group the exurban and rural areas.
As has been noted so often, most states are like Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia with Alabama in between. People in rural Wisconsin share more with folks in rural Mississippi or rural Texas than they do with folks in Milwaukee.
In fact, you see Confederate flags in rural New Hampshire and people from rural Ohio often sound to the East Coast ear as if they are from the South.
What difference is there between most of Montana, Idaho and the Dakotas except for Missoula, Boise and Sioux City?
But, for now, we are stuck with our state borders, arbitrary and meaningless as they are. We are not stuck with voting for people who happen to reside, in at least one of their homes, in some geographic area outlined by some unseen hand on a map.
So two Americans meet in a bar in Paris and discover not only are they both from America but from Indiana, and it's "Hey, then! We are both Hoosiers! Imagine that. Two Hoosiers meeting in a bar in Paris!"
Of course a person from Indiana has no more in common with another person from Indiana than he has in common with someone from California or Maryland.
When Scott Brown tried to run for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire he was accused of "carpet bagging."
Now we have Maura Sullivan, who has no prior connection to New Hampshire, but who apparently moved here because by her calculation and by the calculation of those dark money figures backing her, New Hampshire's open Congressional seat was ripe for the picking for a woman who had served in the Marine Corps.
I'm not sure if she was an Army brat or a Marine Corps brat, but kids who are raised in families of soldiers move every 3 years and grow up in a variety of states, wherever the fort is located. They are not Granite Staters or Californians, but Americans.
Levi Sanders has been vilified as a "carpet bagger" because he lives in the New Hampshire 2nd Congressional district and he is running in the New Hampshire 1st, as if that strange line drawn by unknown functionaries has any meaning. As if were he to move 10 blocks across some line on a map, well then he would be more qualified to represent the New Hampshire 1st.
Looking at that district, it roughly conforms to the liberal/conservative split in the state (including the People's Republic of Portsmouth, the university town of Durham, the cosmopolitan Seacoast in the 1st, and the rest of the more rural and remote parts in the 2nd.) At least, in that sense, the map maps sense. But look at other Congressional districts across the country, and it looks as if they were drawn by drunken kindergarteners finger-painting five minutes after being awakened from nap time.
Amidst all this Sturm und Drang about carpet bagging nobody ever seems to recall that Bobby Kennedy was the United States Senator from New York, not Massachusetts. Apparently the good citizens of New York did not care that Bobby hailed from Massachusetts. They knew who they were voting for.
Same for Hillary Clinton, who did not run for the Senate seat in Illinois or in Arkansas, but was Senator from New York.
One might argue that United States Senators represent the entire state, but Representative represent local interests of their district, so if there is a Naval base in the first, that's up to the Representative from the NH 1st to protect, but that has never been true in New Hampshire where all the Congressional delegation supports the Portsmouth Naval base, which, actually is not even in Portsmouth, but across the river in Kittery, Maine. (Such is the irrelevance of lines on maps.)
As for constituent services, on the rare occasion I've had to request such from my Representative, I did not get much help, but one of my Senators came to the rescue over a problem which arose when my income tax return got bounced back when I tried to file it and somebody had stolen my identity and tried to get the refund. In a state of 1.3 million people, distinctions about districts and even state borders seem pretty silly. Our two Senators both come from the 1st district (Exeter and Dover). Nobody cries much about lack of geographic spread when it comes to U.S. Senators.
In my own mind, state borders are artifacts of a now obsolete and useless history, and we should likely redraw state lines, if we still want to have states. There would be the state of the New York City metropolitan area, which currently overlaps New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. There would be the Dallas/Houston state vs the rest of rural Texas and maybe the state of Austin/San Antonio. And surely the state of the Seattle metro area should be drawn off from eastern Washington, and so forth.
What does rural Pennsylvania have to do with Philadelphia or Pittsburgh?
The whole idea of a "carpet bagger" dates back over 150 years to the time after the Civil War when men from the North, which was primarily industrialized, grabbed a bag and rode the railroad to the agrarian South and got themselves appointed and even elected to represent the former slave owners and poor White share croppers, because they could get a nice government job that way. They clearly had no sympathy with the people they were suppose to represent; they were doing it for the money, for the job.
How different were their motivations from the average Congressman of today, who often could not get a better job which pays more ($174,000 annually) than that of U.S. Congressman?
If we are trying to send to the national Congress, representatives of places with common interests, then we would circumscribe most big urban and metropolitan areas and group the exurban and rural areas.
As has been noted so often, most states are like Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia with Alabama in between. People in rural Wisconsin share more with folks in rural Mississippi or rural Texas than they do with folks in Milwaukee.
In fact, you see Confederate flags in rural New Hampshire and people from rural Ohio often sound to the East Coast ear as if they are from the South.
What difference is there between most of Montana, Idaho and the Dakotas except for Missoula, Boise and Sioux City?
But, for now, we are stuck with our state borders, arbitrary and meaningless as they are. We are not stuck with voting for people who happen to reside, in at least one of their homes, in some geographic area outlined by some unseen hand on a map.
What!! Why Mad Dog-redraw state lines and take the fun out of being a Hoosier a Granite Stater or a Masshole??!! Blasphemy, sir!!
ReplyDeleteAs for Maura Sullivan-is the issue that she doesn't hail from NH or the notion she goes out of her way to hide that fact. Yes Bobby Kennedy and Hillary were not from NY-but they were famous and as you say, voters knew who and what they were voting for. This is not the case with Candidate Sullivan who in an attempt to distance herself from the carpetbagger label has distanced herself from her own history. That she shopped various locales before deciding to claim her undying love for the Granite State might convince some voters that she may not be as attached to the state as she claims..They might suspect there's more to Candidate Sullivan than meets the eye...or less..
When it comes to Levi Sanders, it is unfortunate that his campaign was tarnished from the start by the fact he didn't live a few miles down the road in District 1. Apparently in the minds of many, his running in District 1 rather than District 2 is "breaking the rules". Folks don't always take to rule breakers, now do they.
Can't abide by your plans to redraw the United States map sir. Yes financial status and whether one lives in an urban or rural setting are more significant similarities in many instances than what state you reside in. However, despite these cultural differences, residents of a particular state do share common experiences that unite them. Think Red Sox nation. There's some pride in one's home state-it's an identity...Now what's wrong with that Mad Dog? So what if it's based, in part, on fantasy-it promotes community participation and support and isn't that a good thing?
Maud
Ms. Maud,
ReplyDeleteAgreed Sullivan is not a problem because she is a carpetbagger but because she is dishonest about her lack of connection to the state she wishes to represent.
States were relevant when there were real differences, founded with different charters from the king and different rules: Catholic Maryland, Puritan Massachusetts, heretical Rhode Island.
Once was a time when the boy growing up in Texas had different touchstones from the boy growing up in Vermont, but once radio brought Bruce Springsteen (NJ), the Everly Brothers (Utah), Buddy Holly (Texas) Elvis, (Tennessee) to every corner of the country, state differences ceased to matter much.
We are more like each other whether we come from Texas or New York than we are like any Brit. We are now from the great state of America.