In a recent City Hall forum, the three leading Portland mayoral candidates—Eileen Brady, Charlie Hales and Jefferson Smith—all promised a more open government. Each, in their own way, committed to improving transparency within their prospective administrations.
In a recent City Hall forum, the three leading Portland mayoral candidates—Eileen Brady, Charlie Hales and Jefferson Smith—all promised a more open government. Each, in their own way, committed to improving transparency within their prospective administrations.
Brady’s angle was to make her calendar completely open to the public, so that we will know “who’s in the room, who’s lobbying [her] and who else is in that meeting.”
Hales said he would move city council meetings from City Hall into neighborhoods once a month. And Smith said voters should know everything the city is doing with schools, teachers, roads and parks.
Well, that should just allay all our fears, shouldn’t it? How strange that it doesn’t.
Yet this announcement was, no doubt, greeted by enthusiastic cheers and applause, as are most campaign promises. Despite the numbers of disgruntled and disillusioned citizens seemingly on the rise, there’s something about a rousing declaration, especially a vow (those are very popular), that just makes us forget about all our gripes and renews our sense of hope once again.
That is, until the day after the swearing-in ceremony.
Why do we still believe in campaign promises? Are we that gullible? Are we all suffering from an unfortunate case of amnesia, or do we legitimately believe our leaders are going to come through with their countless commitments?
We let the words of a virtual stranger convince us that one person can be Super Woman or Man and change our world, and then when they reveal their plain-clothed civilian alter-egos, we’re in disbelief that they can’t actually fly.
So, our Portland mayoral candidates say they’re going to fling the government wide open. Great — that is, until one of them decides to have, say, an illicit affair with an intern, do a little favor for a lobbyist or simply decide it’s not convenient to be transparent. Then they just hope we’ll have forgotten their speeches.
Taking a look at Sam Adam’s first state of the city speech in 2009: There was talk of making Portland the “greenest city on earth” and educating “our kids to world-class standards” regardless of race and finding our people more “family-wage jobs and affordable housing.”
Fast-forward to his outgoing address last month in which he admitted his administration hadn’t done a great job in the area of high school and college drop-out rates, high unemployment and deep racial disparities. Oops. Missed a couple marks there—or all the marks, unless you count those brown compost buckets.
The thing is, it’s not surprising that, in under four years, the environment, schools and jobs have not miraculously been revived. Why would we expect one person to solve problems in a few years that have taken generations to develop? That’s just silly.
But, essentially, that’s what we think and say every four years. Our ability to logically reason seems to go out the window when it comes to politics.
We want to see widespread, ingrained, systemic flaws wiped clean in the single flourish of a cloth called “Magic”; when four years are up and those pesky problem areas are still there, we hire someone else who says they have a better-looking cloth. We expect different results from the same format over and over again. One wonders why it all feels a little like insanity.
So there’s a reason politicians promise things—because it’s what we want to hear. Chances are very good they won’t get elected if they don’t offer us the moon. Even the most cynical person still wants to hear that someone has a solution. We’re the ones in a standing-room-only arena that cheer hysterically at the words, “Yes, we can!” We may not know exactly what it is we can do, but heck, we like the way it makes us feel.
What if a politician promised nothing? What if they stood before us and said, “I commit to nothing but an honest, earnest attempt to do my job.” It kinda lacks that certain ring. And it’s a little hard to chant or create a bumper sticker around.
But it’d be possibly the closest thing to reality we’ve ever heard.
If we stopped expecting our politicians to change the world from their offices, maybe they’d stop saying they would, and then we’d stop feeling bitter when they didn’t. But isn’t that just the way it goes? We’ve gotten so used to this cycle and our role as hamsters that we wouldn’t know what to do if someone just told us the truth.
Maybe it’s naive to think this will ever change, but maybe not. If we, as citizens, stop putting up with the hype and ask our politicians to work on one feasible solution instead of on our heart strings, things could actually change.
Why do we still believe in campaign promises? Because we want to. We really want to believe that things can get better. Now all we need to do is start holding our candidates accountable to more than just a barrage of sweet nothings.
If we do this by voting for those who offer us the plain, boring truth and then partner with them to “be the change” we want to see around us, cynicism might just be replaced with empowerment and real progress.
