The Real Maverick: Electing Howie Hawkins to represent us in Congress—now that's change
Syracuse New Times
Ed Griffan-Nolan
October 22nd, 2008
If you've never understood what political commentators mean when they use the term “bean counter,” you should meet Dan Maffei. And may I add that given the failure of Congress to provide oversight of our financial system, and the fact that we will be paying for that failure for a decade or more, having someone willing to count beans, 700 billion beans, doesn't sound like such a bad idea at all.
Maffei has the endorsement of pretty much every group that usually endorses Democrats—unions, environmentalists, social advocates—and a few more. He is the poster child for the Democratic Party's hopes for what they can do in post-Bush America.
But who is he? After he's been in the public eye for four years, few people have a gut feeling for Maffei. He was best described to me by someone who backs him as “a suit.” When you hear him speak, you know that he's smart, you know that he knows everything you can learn from a book or a PowerPoint, but you wonder sometimes where the heart is. You wonder if he has experienced anything relevant to ordinary people's lives.
The Republican critique of Maffei is that he comes from Washington. Jim Walsh says that Maffei has no connection to the 25th Congressional District, which isn't fair, given the family roots, the Nottingham years, and the vigorous involvement with community groups in the past few years. Still it is fair to say that most of Dan Maffei's adult life has been spent learning how to work in the halls of Congress. Which is not a bad thing, after all, when you consider that he's asking for us to give him the job of working in the halls of Congress. Also, Dan Maffei is the only candidate I know who has business cards printed up that say, under his name, “candidate.”
What's weird is how hard it is to find people who really know Dan Maffei. I've asked around, and mostly what you hear from his supporters is that people like his positions and his policies, but when you ask if they really know him well, there's a bit of a shrug. He is a hard person to know. That's part of the deal.
Dale Sweetland, his Republican opponent, is as easy to get to know as the weather. Sweetland is ordinary, and honest, and he certainly is representative of some parts of this Congressional District. He also has real-life legislative experience, which should count for something in a time when descriptions of relations between the two major parties start at poisonous, and get worse. Dale Sweetland couldn't utter a dishonest word under torture. He's as solid and straightforward as they come.
Yet you wonder if in his sincere heart he can ever really understand what goes on in the lives of people whose America is different from the rolling hills of southern Onondaga County. Can he really get it? Could he be counted on to genuinely represent people, say, on the South Side of Syracuse? Hard to imagine. Maybe not impossible, but it would be a stretch.
What you have to like about Dale Sweetland is that when he doesn't know something, he isn't afraid to say, “I don't know.” I just get worried about how often he has to say it.
Then there's this other guy, a little rumpled, wearing a borrowed jacket and tie. Like his hero, Ralph Nader, Howie Hawkins would clearly rather lose the tie and roll up his sleeves. He sounds like New Orleans more than New England, where he cut his teeth in the anti-nuclear movement, but his ideas, like the wind power he espouses, are a breath of fresh air in this largely scripted campaign. When he is barred from debates, as he was when the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce hosted one two weeks back, even the other two candidates seemed to miss him.
Howie Hawkins has run in a political race nearly every year since moving to Syracuse in the early 1990s. He still sounds like the community organizer he was (for many years more than Barack Obama), but he doesn't sound much like the stock politician he is not. He's a former Marine who wants to see massive redirection of military spending to public works. He's a member of the Teamsters union who is not afraid to talk about a living wage and guaranteed health care for all Americans. He's a radical, in the real sense of the word, meaning that he wants to get to the root of the problems, and he's not afraid to name names.
He's a peace activist (the only veteran in the campaign) who doesn't just complain that the war in Iraq was poorly run. He calls it a crime, and wants to impeach the criminals who ordered it. He stands for an end to the U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for an end to threats against Iran.
In running for Congress, Howie Hawkins may have found a job description that suits his talents. For all the valuable ideas he contributed to the discussion on public power in the mayoral campaign of 2005, no one has ever suggested that administration is his strong suit.
Legislators get to talk ideas. Today's problems are big and getting bigger. Everyone acknowledges that change is coming, that change has to come.
So why not vote for the guy who really wants change? If we could have Maffei's insider knowledge, Sweetland's winning ways with people, and Howie's fearless radicalism, that would be, like, totally awesome.
But we can't. So let's give it up for the man in green. Send Mr. Hawkins to Washington. It sure would be fun to watch.
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