Dream Meets Reality – Yoho v Wheeler

It’s the first Monday of October and the scene is the Meeting Room atop the Downtown Library in Gainesville, where the League of Women Voters is staging a debate between Republican Congressman Ted Yoho and his Democratic challenger Marihelen Wheeler. There are about a hundred people here, but only one black man, a young man in his 20s with a notebook. Mostly it’s an older liberal crowd that bespeaks this progressive stronghold in north-central Florida.

Allison Gerenscer of the League of Women Voters is the moderator. She’ll be asking the questions.

District Three is comprised of all of Bradford, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Lafayette, Levy, Suwannee, and Union counties – which are mostly all country folk, conservative, solidly Republican – and part of Alachua, Marion, Madison, and Union counties where some Democrats live. Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida, is solidly Democrat, and the gerrymandering lines have been drawn to cut it in half. District Three is a “safe” Republican District.

Marihelen goes first. She tells the audience that she has spent her life as a public school teacher. She teaches Art at Westwood Middle School and she has a degree in Special Education, and in the course of 30 years she has come to know and work with about 6,000 poor and working families in District Three.

Then comes Ted. He tells us that he is a veterinarian and that he and his wife Carolyn are products of the American Dream. He went to Washington because he doesn’t believe in kicking the can down the road.

The first question is about the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United, which allows corporations to be treated as people, thereby empowering corporations with political clout weighted in their favor by capital.

The League of Women Voters, the moderator tells us, is strongly against the decision.

Merihelen would like to do what she can in Congress to overturn the ruling, but the only way to do that is democratically, by voting, by getting people, not corporations, real live hard-working people, out to vote. “Corporations will be people,” Merihelen says memorably, “if we, the people, allow them to be – by not voting.”

Ted doesn’t actually mention the Citizens United ruling in what he has to say, but he tells us that he is worried about all the big money in politics and he supports campaign finance reform because he believes in accountability. He obviously liked Marihelen’s line because he co-opts it. “Corporations will be people,” Ted says, “unless people get out and vote.”

The next question is about infrastructure.

Here’s the thing Ted wants to say about our falling apart infrastructure – somebody needs to be held accountable. Sometimes they say the money is for this and they use it for that, and all they’re doing is kicking the can down the road and that’s what he went to Washington to stop.

Marihelen says our bridges and roads are falling apart and people need jobs, so why not put people to work repairing roads and bridges?

The next question is about Ebola. The UN says that a billion dollars will be needed to fight Ebola. What do the candidates think the US should do?

Marihelen points out that there is no way to live in a global economy without people moving around, so that when faced with a global problem, the US needs to do everything it can do in order to help solve the problem, and by “everything” she means everything, even changing our priorities to the extent that we subsidize health care in preference to war.

Ted wants to secure the borders, and he wants to make sure we don’t waste a lot of money on programs that don’t deserve to be funded. He’s a large animal veterinarian, remember, so he knows something about infectious disease, but what it is he knows he doesn’t say.

The next question asks how we might protect the state from climate change.

Ted says we do that by using “common sense science”.

Just try to parse that phrase: Common Sense Science. It seems like common sense would be one thing, while science would be another. It would seem like something would be either one thing or the other. It seems like if something were common sense it would just be plain common sense, whereas if something were scientific, it might well be counter-intuitive, it might well be not what you might think were you to apply just plain common sense. Science would seem to set the bar just a tad higher than just plain common sense, because if something were just plain common sense, you wouldn’t need to appeal to science for an answer.

Marihelen says the first thing to do is to say no to the gas pipeline proposed to subvert the state’s water systems to the benefit of big oil companies. The pipeline is not to benefit Floridians; its object is oil for export, and to that end Miami is already being dredged to make way for big oil tankers.

Ted doesn’t see anything wrong with the gas pipeline. He thinks it’s worth a try. He wants to improve the economy. There’s too much regulation anyway, and sometimes it doesn’t make sense, this being one of those times.

What about income inequality?

Ted finds the source of income inequality in two factors: high unemployment and illegal immigration, which devolve into one. You see people are out of work, and illegal immigrants are coming here to take our jobs.

Marihelen says something we can do right away to correct the problem of income inequality is to raise the minimum wage, but it has nothing to do with illegal immigrants – because those people aren’t coming here and taking our jobs; they’re taking jobs no one else will do and they don’t get paid enough to do more than survive.

In closing Ted says he wants to stay in Congress so that he can continue to reach across the aisle.

Really.

Ted mentions again that he and his wife Carolyn are products of the American Dream. Imagine a dream that produces products, and Ted and his wife are two of them – Ted, presumably, because he dreamed of becoming a large animal veterinarian and then he became one. He had big dreams. He would treat large animals and therefore he would know about infectious diseases and how to treat the Ebola crisis. His wife apparently dreamed of marrying a man with big dreams – a product of the American dream just like herself – and then she found Ted and the dream came true.

But unless Ted is the only product of the American Dream in the race, this won’t be a political advantage. What if Marihelen is a product of the American Dream too? Then it’s a wash.

By “product of the American Dream” Ted means turning your life into a success, to dream big, not just to be a veterinarian but to be a successful veterinarian, so successful that you needs must move on to bigger and better things – like running for Congress.

Marihelen Wheeler is just a public schoolteacher. That’s not what you call dreaming big and nobody ever applies the adjective “successful” to the common noun schoolteacher because unfortunately it is not the kind of profession you “succeed” at. You either do the job or you don’t. You can make it big as a veterinarian, but you don’t make it big as a teacher – you make it through.

The question for both candidates is: What do you do next?

What you usually do next after teaching for 30 years is retire. You’ve given your life to public service, you deserve a rest. Unless of course you’re not tired yet and you’ve got more to give, unless, that is, you could be of further service. Then you go on. You take on the incumbent Republican Congressman in the safe Republican district, the birther who would like the President impeached, who favors running a gas pipeline through our water, who is against raising the minimum wage, against gun control, who thinks only property owners should be allowed to vote, and who is proud of his role in leading the charge to shut down the government.

Marihelen says she wants to use what she knows and what she’s learned as a teacher to continue to help working families.

We are left to consider the qualities of the teacher versus those of the large animal veterinarian as befits one to hold public office. We are left to consider the dedicated public school teacher working with poor kids and their families on the one hand, and on the other the successful large animal veterinarian who serves needs of those who own horses and livestock.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida’s_3rd_congressional_district