April 15, 2009 10:57 PM UTC
My breakfast with Michael
31 Comments- by: DavidThi808
( – promoted by redstateblues)
I had the opportunity this morning to talk to Senator Michael Bennet. Michael describes himself as someone who has been lucky in the opportunities that life has provided him. I’d phrase it that Michael has worked hard to insure that many opportunities have come his way and then worked hard to make use of them. As Nolan Bushnell said “Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.”
One item of personal (to me) interest, Michael is the proud father of 3 daughters. As a fellow father of 3 daughters, we traded a couple of stories of being the one male in the household. He clearly loves his family.
Ok, on to the interview. Michael is running for election in ’10. This is his first time on the ballot and so he has to close the sale with all of Colorado. Time is short and there’s a lot of campaigning to do. So Michael dove right in to discussing… how the Denver Public Schools are doing, and what needs to be addressed in our public school system. Some of it was on changes that had been wrought in DPS and their effect, and much was on things that remain to be done.
I think he happily could have spent the entire hour discussing public education, and we did spend over 10 minutes on it. Michael clearly enjoys talking about how to determine the root cause of the problems we face, and how to fix them. And gravitates to that, as opposed to selling himself for the next election.
Add to this Michael’s work history, where he has moved to significantly different job after significantly different job (albeit with a consistent theme of organizations that are in a world of hurt) and it draws a picture of an individual who is driven to solve complex systemic problems. (Which begs the question, I wonder if he would have been interested in the Senate if the country was running fine.)
So then we launched in to what is he doing for the next 2 years. I postulated that getting elected is a significant part of his time and he agreed. And with that he has his covering the state mapped out with what has been hit, what is coming, when each part was hit, etc. He is very focused and serious on winning in ’10.
But he launched in to discussing the financial mess. He had an interesting twist on the problem, that having this occur at the end of a deeply unpopular president’s term significantly exacerbated the problem. And that it hit hard before we knew who the new president would be. And yes, the response from the Bush administration was pretty minimal and disjointed.
He then talked at length on the work he is putting in with Senator Warner and others under the direction of Senator Dodd to come up with the needed regulations to insure this does not happen again. He dove in first to the asleep at the wheel regulators we had. And the fact that not only was there minimal to no regulation, but the banks were being encouraged to leverage themselves even more to 20:1 or even 30:1. Clearly he saw this as insane.
At the same time he talked about the need for the regulation to work well. That it cannot be too light, but neither can it be a heavy hand that restricts the ability of the market to provide the best product and for the companies to operate efficiently. This is a very difficult issue and it will take time to know if any solution works well, but he does see the trade-offs here.
From this he talked about how the economic mess impacts people. And he talked about dreams deferred by people who are graduating from High School or College and will be in a different job, or no job, as opposed to the career they hoped to get started on. He talked about retired people who have seen their savings cut in half and are wondering what they are going to do. He sees this as individual pain that is impacting person after person.
This was surprising that someone who has worked the numbers in most of his jobs did not talk about unemployment levels, credit tightening, etc – he talked about what the impact is on individuals. Michael Bennet is focused on turning life around for people. And this means that if we get the financial markets working well again he won’t say problem solved, he’ll be asking if things are better for people. He wants to fix the real problem.
He next talked about healthcare. His major discussion was once again systemic, the fact that we have hit a rare point where everyone, individuals, businesses, government – everyone – sees the need to fix what is a broken system. And he followed that up with it is absolutely incumbent upon the elected leaders in Washington to step up to that challenge and solve the problem.
He also talked about how the present system is not sustainable. That the yearly double digit growth in medical costs flat out cannot continue. This growth will break the federal budget via Medicare & Medicaid. And that companies cannot continue to poor more and more money into health insurance (damn straight!).
And to address this Michael then discussed the advantage of Obama starting out high-level laying out the major criteria that any solution needs to meet and getting agreement there before diving into the how. As he said, the beauty of this as opposed to the approach of starting off with a detailed solution is you get buy in across the board on coming up with a solution before you hit the details where you are going to get arguments.
I don’t think he has a specific solution in mind. Nor do I think Michael will be one of the main drivers as to what the details will be. But he clearly is applying time and attention to getting up to speed on the alternatives and will probably be a voice at the table as they work out the specifics of the solution. In other words, it does have his attention, but it does not have a boatload of his time.
And that’s it for policy and legislative activity. I wish there was time for more as he is a thoughtful and intelligent guy. But our political system is what it is. And for someone just appointed to the seat, who is a relative unknown to the voters, and his first election is in 20 months – this ain’t bad. Not if we want him in office 2 years from now.
Michael talked a lot about meeting the voters. He clearly likes doing this, he was excited about the meetings with voters he has scheduled today. (Note, I will be at a Democratic Women of Boulder County meet & greet he is doing this evening so I will get to see him in action.) He talked a lot about the variety of questions and concerns he gets at these events. I think he uses these not just as a way to introduce himself to people, but also to learn about what the voters are thinking about.
He then touched on the conservadem issue. He made a couple of very good points. First that he does not take the approach of to the winner goes the spoils and the Dems now should just ram through what they want. He sees the election of Obama as not just a repudiation of the Bush policies, but also a repudiation of the Bush scorched earth tactics.
Keep in mind that Michael is not proposing we must get Republican buy-off on each issue. His point is that we should try. We should talk and try to bring the Republicans on board. And he never once said the word cloture, he is talking about improving the political culture and reaching out to try and bring about that improvement.
He also was quite indignant about the group that meets being called conservative. He sees it as a group with a multitude of political views that is focused on trying to bring about a needed reduction of all out political warfare and instead have disagreement without it leading to strident posturing. And he proudly called himself progressive. (Ever notice how no one is liberal anymore – we’re now all progressive.) He finds a good measure in that in the more conservative counties he’s viewed as a bit more liberal than they would like.
I want to add my personal opinion here. I think it is critical that we get this country back to the mode where the Democrats & Republicans are working together for the good of our country. Yes there will be disagreement, and yes the majority party will prevail most of the time, but it remains a joint effort. If we don’t do this, we run the risk of becoming two closed camps where we divide the country in half – and that would be horrible. In addition, the Republicans do have a lot of good ideas and we need to make use of those ideas, and the critical review by the Republican members. Ok, rant over.
At the end I asked Michael if he walks into his office next Monday and Reid, McConnell, Pelosi, & Obama are in his office and tell him that he can hand them a bill and they will pass it immediately, what would it be. And his answer was he would like it to be healthcare but he would need more time to craft that bill. So it would be legislation to make alternative certification for teachers a reality.
This illustrates a major component of Michael Bennet. Many politicians would say healthcare. But to him the criteria is a bill that can be presented quickly and healthcare cannot be crafted that quickly. In other words, instead of a good political answer, he took the restrictions of that case to heart and thought through what could be done that quickly. This is someone who focuses on accomplishment rather than a good sound bite.
Second, he did think for about a minute to come up with the alternative certification idea. So when he had to drop back to an instinctive from the gut proposal, he went to education. And he came up with something that is eminently doable and would provide a lot of bang for the buck. All in all a damn good answer. And I think a clear indication that once he has more time, education will be something he puts a lot of effort in to.
I think Michael Bennet has the potential to do great things in the Senate. Thoughtful, a boatload of varied experience, and someone who looks at things from a systemic point of view. Add in strong empathy for what people are going through and a joy in meeting voters. All in all, very very impressive. Plus he’s incredibly personable.
You see that, primary agitators?!
No personal offense to David–I think we all appreciate the time he puts into this site–but is there any way to edit these pieces?
There are two basic mistakes in the first paragraph, “insure” and no comma before the quotation. And then the quote is just hackneyed and unnecessary.
Definitely didn’t need to read the second paragraph in his overlong piece, though if he wants to indulge himself while writing without pay, go for it.
In paragraph three, “Some of it was on changes that had been wrought in DPS and their effect, and much was on things that remain to be done.” As my high school English teacher would have written in the margin: awk.
And then there were these two: “And with that he has his covering the state mapped out with what has been hit, what is coming, when each part was hit, etc. He is very focused and serious on winning in ’10.”
Not to be rude, but I suspect David can do a lot better than this, and that the readers would benefit.
I won’t go on, and many will accuse this of being mean spirited. There’s some substance in here, and I do appreciate David’s devotion to Pols, but just because there aren’t editors doesn’t mean blog posts couldn’t use editing (by yourself, a friend, anyone).
Unfortunately this is about as good as it gets with my writing – this took me hours.
Don’t worry about “Commenter” – his post was actually hard to read…
Thanks for taking the time to write about your “Breakfast with Michael”.
(note the hyphen)
I’m going to accuse you of being shallow and having no ideas. The fact that you don’t do paragraphs is totally frivolous and I won’t bring it up.
If you have problems with what David wrote, or what Bennet said, then you should focus on that instead of stupid shit.
I’m not trying to kneecap David. I don’t take issue with David’s ideas, I’m not trying to score petty points, or make myself feel better. In fact, I like David’s posts and contributions to the site! Let me be clear: I like David’s posts, and largely agree with his politics. If you say I’m “being shallow” for writing my comment, I have to disagree.
This is a serious website dedicated to political and policy ideas, frequented by well-educated adults. And frankly, substance aside, this was a poorly written post by David. You seem to be suggesting that concerns for language and presentation are frivolous, “just words,” as Obama responded to his critics.
Well, words mean a lot. I respect David’s efforts, but I think we are all–myself included–capable of expressing ourselves with greater clarity and, therefore, substance and meaning. It is so easy to publish writing on the internet that language occasionally suffers, and I think we should be careful to avoid sloppy writing and thinking, and the sloppy discourse that will inevitably follow.
As George Orwell wrote in his essay “Politics and the English Language”: “If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.”
Now, I accept that this all sounds pompous and beside the point, to many, but all I’m trying to say is that I think language matters and that we should hold each other to a high standard.
P.S. Omitting the hyphen is, indeed, a solecism.
lights a candle
I’ve written 3 books and about 40 magazine articles and each one was edited – and that editing improved them. In a perfect world I would have an editor.
But what actually occurs is I do the interview, rush to work, get hit with a bunch of things, take care of them, start writing, get interrupted numerous times while writing (work won’t wait), and then 2 – 3 hours later it’s done. I re-read it and then post it.
And at the end of the day I’m behind and have pushed things off till tomorrow because of the time hit. So I’ll try something for another pass next time but resources are limited.
if you want some help, I will gladly edit these for you. I consider myself a good editor, but I didn’t want to do any major changes unsolicited.
Related side-note: I’ll gladly offer this service to anyone else, and as FP editor I extend the same respect to every Polster as I do David. It’s not just that, though. If I edited everyone’s diaries on this site for grammar, spelling, and style I would do virtually nothing else. As much as I’d love to do that, I have a life outside of Pols (shocking, I know.)
The mere fact that Dave does these is commendable–even though he gets a kick out of them, and rightly so. I promoted this diary because, David’s prose aside, he’s the only one doing them.
Scott Yates already volunteered and I accepted his nice offer. So I’ll try that first.
BTW – next will be Congressman Lamborn or Vivek Kundra
I’m an editor and CO Pols are editors (so is Laughing Boy technically, even though he’s [rightfully] pissed still.) The Dead Guvs make a tiny bit of money off ads, and I work for free. Personally, I would much rather spend my time on Pols taking part in the discussions than marking up the front page with a red pen.
As I said below, I’m not going to chop up any of Dave’s pieces unless he asks me to–even though it would make my OCD editor side a little less insane while reading them.
I can see where you’re coming from, and I think you have good intentions with your criticisms. It was a little harsh, but Dave can take it. Dave knows I’m not a huge fan of how he writes these, but I promote them because they spawn interesting discussions. He also happens to be the only one on this site sitting down one-on-one with these elected officials.
Ultimately though, you should be annoyed with me more than David. I’m way too nice of an editor.
Too harsh, I admit, and not particularly fair in singling out David (so sorry for that). I come here for the discussions, too… I swear!
They basically did to anyone who can put two and two together. Pols deleted the comments, and banned the user, but I think it took all the fun out of it for him.
I skimmed those infamous posts, and they didn’t really help me ID Laughing Boy. of course, I’ve never been good at math. But I wonder if those who’ve met LB assume too much knowledge on the part of those who’ve not met him (like me). But I’m pollyanna that way!
I read your post for content, not for grammar mistakes. They are usually thoughtful, and I appreciate the time you take to arrange these meetings, and post your thoughts.
On another note, I have heard Bennett referred to as the smartest guy in the room, quietly listening to the guy next to him, who thinks he is the smartest guy in the room. Expect him to do well.
For example, anything Evan Bayh does, and anything those associated do for him.
Just because you don’t actually care about the issues doesn’t make you less strident. The conservadems like to go around trying to trash both sides of any debate and elevating themselves above it to gain personal fame, without ever taking a position involving risk.
If that’s not posturing, what is?
Just because his priorities are different than yours and on some issues he disagrees with you does not mean he doesn’t care, it just means he doesn’t agree with you.
When I submitted my first book my editor threw it back at me saying it was about 1/3 the proper length and I needed to go into much more detail and repeat everything. I disagreed.
I ended up getting the person running that line as my editor (he had been an editor for years). He improved the book a lot – but it stayed at it’s initial length where I tried to get items across in as few words as possible.
My point is that there are two sets of complaints. For those that see sloppy phrasing, unclear wording, etc – editing will make a significant difference.
But for those that think I talked way too much about some items, and not enough on others – editing will have zero impact because that balance will stay.
As for paragraph 2 in the article – anyone who has 3 daughters gets a big plus for that, as I have 3 wonderful daughters.
I’d like to know what kind of paiseley chum you ate for this breakfast, other than a steaming-fresh stack of buffalo pies, or did coy Michael just call in this love-fest? I’d sure like to have read one direct quote from our boyish ConservaDem, not to mention an actual interview with back and forth.
I mean, look, it’s great that you contribute this for free and set aside time to schmooze with this guy, really; but it would have been far preferable to have tossed this fortunate insider a few hardballs or curveballs rather than gently throw him everything like a limp-wristed piker while blowing him kisses.
How about asking him about other issues? How about asking him about his reputation and stance (or lack thereof) on issues other than education? How long does it take to develop an opinion on unions, universal healthcare, educational reform (without voucher programs that suck the blood out of the public school system), and the crushing need to create jobs in Denver? As long as it takes to draw a breath and respond; unless you don’t want to voice how you really feel.
Hyphens and semicolons be damned, how about some meat on the plate?
Sorry, but I think everyone, everyone, should be getting tough insightful questions, if for no other reason, than the very fact that Bennet lives a life of obscene luxury on the taxpayers’ dime while the middle class disintegrates into uneducated, poverty-ridden zombies with no healthcare and no true elected representation in the state. Or is that irrelevant?
One more issue. I love children. Everybody loves children. Even Charlie Manson will tell you he loves children, especially with his morning cocktail. It warms the quivering cockles of my heart that you have children and love them and that Bennet having children makes you love him all the more.
Can this serving of pap get any thicker, dude? What does having three children have to do with what people are going through today? How does that relate to any issues? Does somehow spawning children elevate someone to knighthood and allow them to sidestep every issue because they wuvs their widdle cutie patooties?
…you’re high, right? That’s Ok, I’ve been there.
High on life, my hyrdocephalic friend! Seriously, what’s the point of your comment, or isn’t one required? Are you trying to say (somehow) that average working Americans aren’t suffering compared to Michael Bennet? Are you trying to say that Michael Bennet is not privileged or at the very least not more fortunate than most of us who have to actually work and make decisions for a living?
Furthermore, my monosyllabic friend, what does being “high” have to do with the topic at hand, that of Bennet being given too many softballs and kisses when he IS deserving of serious legitimate criticism; despite your aversion to the same? Sorry, I thought this blog was supposed to be a forum for (at least mild) attempts at political review – not just blind sycophantism (look it up).
Don’t despair, everything will be explicated to you on the magical TV box soon.
..that you’re a moron if you think Bennet is living in obscene luxury on the taxpayers’ dime, which is what you said. Is that clear enough for you, dearest?
Ok. Let’s look at your “arguement:”
Bennet doesn’t live in the lap of luxury because you say so. Um, duh, hokay!
More importantly, does he speak for the people he is supposed to represent or is he a Janus, a two-faced opportunist? Does the “Breakfast” piece take a soft touch to his candidacy and lack of real perspective? Is it a fawning piece? Those are questions that are even more relevant at this juncture–and if you think he lives in a one bedroom hovel, like quite a few Colorado citizens he supposedly speaks for, you are the simpleton.
Enough.
but let us now tend our garden