Elections in the Spring, Football in the Fall

One week to go! In only seven days, plus a few hours, we should know whether all the effort, all the angst, all the bloviating punditry (mine included) of Election 2006 got us the results we wanted.

There’s very little to say, at this point, that hasn’t already been said. Little value, I think, in making my own endorsements. Like it’s a secret or something, anyway.

So instead of re-hashing the candidates and the issues, instead of spending yet more time comparing the heroic wisdom of the Republican candidates with the obvious corruption and/or dense obliviousness of every single Democrat candidate, allow me to indulge an old pet peeve.

Why do we have elections in November?

Easy answer: because it says so in state law. Which begs another question: didn’t the people who made those laws watch football?

A change is in order, I think.

Major-office elections – from President and Governor all the way down to county dogcatcher – are partisan elections. They come in November. Party affiliation (or at least a statement of belief) required.

Local – town, city, school board, county board – are non-partisan. No party affiliation. We hold those in April.

You’ll notice that the biggest, most important, most oxygen-depleting and global-warming races happen in the Fall, when the biggest questions really ought to be whether Ohio State will beat Michigan and when (not if!) Brett Favre will throw his 421st touchdown pass.

So, a solution: let’s hold all the elections – partisan and non-partisan – in the Spring.

It would be more efficient. Cheaper, to open the polling places once a year, instead of twice. People will value each election more. Plus, turnout is always lower in the Spring. Adding the major-office elections will change that. More voters will cast votes for those smaller local races.

Another reason: the weather. The Fall election season really begins in July – when it’s warm, sunny, nice to be outside. The Spring cycle begins in January. Dead of Winter.

Want to know who’s really dedicated to the race? Who really wants to win? Anybody can knock on doors in August, but who’ll go out in January and February? That’s your hard-working candidate.

Politics too nasty for you? Well, people are happier in the Spring. It’s just nicer. Days are getting longer. The green is fresh and alive. We’ve finally emerged from another long winter slog. Surely, the warmth and growth of a new Spring will help take the edge off the divisiveness we all notice and condemn every year. A little.

Plus, the holiday season is right around the corner, just waiting to be ruined by post-election bitterness. True, Spring elections might, on occasion, run into Easter (in fact, Easter Sunday will fall on the Sunday before Election Day in two of the next three years).

You know how those Christians get when something interferes with their religious observances. Campaign commercials during Holy Week? There’ll be riots, for sure. Gangs of youths throwing rocks, and torching cars.

Oh, no, wait. Wrong religion of peace.

Okay, so maybe the holidays are a wash, but Fall elections are interfering with a couple of not-quite-holy days. I don’t have to tell you, hunting is a major tradition in Wisconsin. Not to mention, Chronic Wasting Disease isn’t going away. We need all hands on deck for each and every hunting season, to keep our whitetail herd healthy. Having the most intense part of Election Season overlapping Hunting Season is preventing some of us from getting out there.

And, of course, the biggest reason of all. Football. Greatest of sports. Played, mostly, on Saturdays and Sundays, which also happen to be the days most people are at home, thus the days when it’s easiest to contact the voters.

We should be poring over yards per play, not voters per ward. Arguing over point spreads (for entertainment purposes only, of course), not polling margins of error. Quarterback ratings, and defensive secondaries – not spin doctors and ad campaigns.

Nobody paints their faces and fires up the grill for a road trip to the polling place. It’s not natural. I know, the elections are important. But this is interfering with my football.

Do I need another reason? Let the drumbeat begin. Move the elections to April.

If I Eat Another Donut, The Terrorists Will Have Won

We, Americans, are fat. We, Americans, use too much gas.

Truisms, if not outright facts. And for the first time, they’ve been linked. One is at least partly a product of the other, according to this new study:

Weight gain means lower gas mileage

Want to spend less at the pump? Lose some weight. That's the implication of a new study that says Americans are burning nearly 1 billion more gallons of gasoline each year than they did in 1960 because of their expanding waistlines. Simply put, more weight in the car means lower gas mileage.

Using recent gas prices of $2.20 a gallon, that translates to about $2.2 billion more spent on gas each year.

"The bottom line is that our hunger for food and our hunger for oil are not independent. There is a relationship between the two," said University of Illinois researcher Sheldon Jacobson, a study co-author.

Thanks to the New Jersey Supreme Court, national Democrats were desperately in need of their own October Surprise. Viola: being fat is bad for you in ways you never knew.

It’s bad for individuals, healthwise. It’s bad for society, because of the greater drains on health care resources. We already knew about those.

And now this. “(Researchers) estimated that more than 39 million gallons of fuel are used each year for every additional pound of passenger weight.”

It’s hurting average Americans in the pocketbooks. Not by much: the study says that if you lose 100 pounds, you’d save about $40 a year at today’s prices.

But collectively, as a nation, a billion fewer gallons a year means lower global demand, which should – absent other factors – bring prices down at the pump.

Not to mention the few billion dollars not going into the pockets of Middle Eastern terror-supporting dictators. Our ravenous consumption of beer and sausage and deep-fried Twinkies is helping keep our enemies fed!

Support the troops! Eat salad!

It’s the perfect issue for a Democratic Party poised to take control of Congress. Imagine: an issue both of national health, and of National Security, that the President continues to ignore!

Congressional investigations. CEOs of Hostess, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola testifying under subpoena. Lawsuits. Tax penalties on businesses which don’t provide nutritional counseling and exercise programs. New entitlement spending. Whole new bureaucracies. The U.S. Department of Six-Pack Abs, a Cabinet-level agency. Nanny state nirvana!

Democrats Care More about us, and about Peace in the Middle East. No, they won’t put more domestic oil on the market, but by God, they’ll use government power to save us from ourselves!

But it doesn’t stop there: this issue goes further. Big Food. Big Oil. Big Pharma. Wal-Mart. All the Dems’ biggest bugaboos.

A corporate conspiracy, hatched in the most palatial boardrooms. First, get the people hooked on the burgers, the soda, the fried, fatty, butter-drenched and Super-sized Culture of More.

Fatten them up, so Big Oil can suck them dry.

Forget comprehensive health care plans that include preventative care. Push employees onto over-stretched under-funded government health care, then let Big Pharma hook them on diet pills!

National security? Hah! We’ve got profits to reap!

And it doesn’t stop there. For example, I could lose a couple (okay, maybe ten) pounds. But what difference will it make? I’ve got four kids. They’re all growing, and the law won’t let me stop feeding them. That means our collective family weight is going up, not down.

Not only that, but what does every big family need? A minivan. A big, heavy minivan that seats eight plus the luggage and gets…what? Lousy gas mileage!

What segment of society is most likely to have lots of kids? The Christian Right, who are President Bush’s biggest allies. And President Bush is in whose pocket? Big Oil’s.

And try this on for size: what’s the latest Muslim scare? That they’ll take over, eventually, simply because they have more babies than the West. They’ll breed us out! We need bigger families, which means larger vehicles, carrying more weight but getting worse gas mileage….

…but that means spending more on gas, more money flowing into the Middle East, more financial support for terrorism…

…and therefore greater chance that Republicans – the party of national security – will retain power.

Karl Rove is beyond genius.

What’s that, you say? Twisted logic? That’s right. Twisted. Like a pretzel. A big, soft, warm pretzel, dripping with melted cheese, and a bottle of beer to wash it down.

The diet starts tomorrow. I swear.

Changing my mind on Iraq?

It’s hard to change your mind. Even a little. Especially about something you’ve believed, argued, defended for a long time.

It’s even harder when somebody’s waggling a finger at you, ready to say they told you so.

Two weeks ago, at a political debate, a gentleman – an anti-war Democrat – introduced himself to me. He informed me, with great relish, that former secretary of state James Baker was speaking against President Bush’s Iraq policy.

At the time, I hadn’t heard this. I still haven’t, exactly – Baker is part of a task force, which will make recommendations on Iraq sometime soon. That’s it. I didn’t know that then, which made it hard to respond. As much as I wanted to.

Because the guy was so smug.

It makes life difficult, doesn’t it? The smugness of our opponents. Real or perceived. Makes you hate to even consider changing your opinion, even by a hair, because it might be interpreted as capitulation.

On Iraq, particularly, there’s an element of the Withdraw Now! side that will see any change, any hesitation, any “defection” from an absolute “Stay the Course!” mentality as vindication – proof that their side was right, and Chimpy McBushitler and his zombified followers were wrong the whole time.

That’s the vibe I got from this guy, right or wrong. And, right or wrong, it made me dig in my heels.

I don’t want to be another “ah-ha!” moment – not another wedge for appeasers to use against the war effort. “See! He supported the war and now he doesn’t!” So I feel like I can’t even question what we’re doing in Iraq.

On one hand, I shouldn’t let myself worry about that. None of us should. Especially when the issue is putting our troops in harm’s way, worrying over a petty “gotcha” or two should be last on the priority list.

We should be tough enough to change our minds when events and information require it, and damn the gleeful laughter coming from those who thought we were full of it from the first.

So here it is: I have my doubts. This month’s toll on U.S. troops is the highest in two years – a fact that is, I think, linked to our upcoming elections. Regardless, those are real people with families, who are in harm’s way because of policies that I supported, and for the most part still do.

I can’t help wondering: when is this going to stop? Should we have done something different? Should we start doing something different?

On the other hand, what exactly am I changing my mind about?

Am I about to admit that Bush Lied? Nope. We have to put that to rest. At the very worst, President Bush was wrong. There was no lie.

Or, if there was, then every major national Democrat lied with him. So did the United Nations.*

Am I about to decide we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq? No again. Saddam was a vicious and tyrannical supporter of international terrorism. There’s nothing linking him to 9/11, but that doesn’t matter. We weren’t looking only to punish the 9/11 sponsors – we were looking to take the fight to worldwide terrorism, and Iraq was the likeliest route for doing that.

Have I decided that we should pull our troops out, whether or not the time is right to do so?

No, no, and no again.

So am I “staying the course?” Well, yes. And no.

If current levels of violence don’t fall – or better, disappear – starting next month, we’re going to have to do something else. What, I’m not sure. But something. This can’t go on much longer.

On the other hand, well, it’s the “you break it, you buy it” rule. Even if Saddam was a misunderstood teddy bear; even if the bounties he paid to suicide bombers’ families were really just charity; even if the childrens’ prisons were really just boarding schools; even if the torture chambers and mass graves were simple Halloween pranks, we’ve destroyed and re-created Iraq. We have a responsibility to see things through.

And more: we have a responsibility to continue the fight against terrorism. Where better to have assets ready to do that? Texas? Germany? Or in the Middle East?

And if we don’t, and in a decade Iraq has fallen back into despotism or, worse, jihadist fascism, will the activists who demanded immediate withdrawal in 2006 accept responsibility for that?

If so, well, I won’t be smug about it. Promise.

* This link leads to a UNMOVIC document (1.5 MB) detailing the status of Iraq disarmament, dated March of 2003 - same month the invasion began.

2008: All Cheese, All the Time

If you’re thinking that we’ve heard this story before, well, it’s because we have. Nobody takes it very seriously – almost nobody, anyway – but it never quite goes away.

Tommy Thompson, running for President.

Aides to Thompson, 64, announced last week that he was launching a political action committee, Forward America, and mulling a run for the White House. That comes after discussions with key advisers and a pair of visits to Iowa, whose caucuses kick off the presidential nominating season.

Ahead, aides said, Thompson plans a trip to New Hampshire, which hosts the first primary of 2008.

That’s pretty exciting. And upsetting. Both intriguing and fatiguing. Gets the blood racing. And the stomach churning.

Talk about having mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I’ve been theorizing about a Thompson candidacy – if not a Thompson-Feingold all-cheese-all-the-time-throwdown for close to two years (also here, and then here). My former predictions of a Thompson candidacy were taken, shall we say, lightly. There was some scoffing, as I recall. There was some mocking.

This latest development means I get to say I told you so. That makes me happy.

Okay, so visiting Iowa and New Hampshire doesn’t exactly put Thompson on the fast track to the Big Chair, but it puts him a damn sight closer than watching football from his easy chair would.

The Journal Sentinel’s Mike Nichols thinks it won’t go any further than that. Thompson is just polishing his gravitas, Nichols writes. Bolstering his political influence, like a Hollywood starlet making sure her name stays in the tabloid headlines. Tommy isn't really trying for the job.

Which brings me to the other hand. Please, please, let Nichols be right.

I don’t say that because I don’t want Tommy to run. I do, if only for the fun it would be.

I don’t say it because I think he’d make a rotten President. I don’t. If anybody’s got the pedigree for wrangling massive bureaucracies and staying on message, it’s Thompson. There are few better resumes to be found this side of Dick Cheney.

I say it because, Lord, I’m tired.

The last six years have been rough on us political activists. First came the 2000 election, and whole new heights of intensity. Then the post-2000 ballot-counting mess. Then the first non-Tommy governor’s race in 2002. And then 2004 fell on us like a collapsing brick wall. If we thought 2000 was intense, we learned otherwise two years ago.

And here we are in 2006, with a tight statewide race for Governor, and a tight nationwide race for Congress.

I could really use a cycle off. And with a Wisconsin name anywhere on the Presidential ticket, we could have a cycle off.

It’s not so unlikely. Russ Feingold is already running for it. He has the resume. He has the charisma. He’s in good with the further reaches of the Liberal Left, and he comes from a state that’s been hotly contested two elections in a row.

If he’s selected as the Dem Veep in ‘08, the national parties will, likely, lay off Wisconsin. We’ll become Massachusetts. Such a reliable Democrat vote that there’s no point to contesting it.

And we get a football season off.

Thing is, if Feingold gets on the ballot, and Thompson is sitting there, a viable candidate, well…

Could we let it happen? Simply shrug and give the state up to the Democrats?

The 2008 Democratic National Convention is scheduled in August. The Republican Convention is in September. If the Dems choose Feingold (or if he wins the nomination), how could we not push for Tommy?

Feingold vs. Thompson just isn’t as far-fetched as people seem to think, if only for the historical significance. Two candidates, same state, same ballot. Since the very first elections, when Virginia was one-stop candidate shopping, has that ever happened?

And if we thought 2004 was something, just wait until it’s two of our own. Wait until it’s an all-Wisconsin ticket, with our two biggest political names pushing all their chips to the middle of the table, and the grandest political prize in the world at stake. The entire nation watching us. Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, Superior to Flatland, Wisconsin will be one giant front line in 2008.

If we think we’ve seen intensity before, we’ll find out how wrong we are. We haven’t seen anything yet.

Lord help us, we haven’t seen anything yet.

Pro-Lifers and the Second Congressional

Pro-lifers are a little bit miffed with Dave Magnum.

I’ve found this out, having been talking about Magnum and his (some call it quixotic but I’m not so sure) campaign to unseat Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin’s 2nd Congressional District.

The issue is embryonic stem cell research. Magnum supports expanding medical research using embryonic stem cells – cells taken from test-tube human embryos – because the medical payoffs for thousands of people could, in the future, be huge.

This puts him at odds with an important Republican constituency: pro-lifers. By taking that stand – and not just taking it, but broadcasting it in as public a manner as possible – Magnum declared his independence from interest-group politics. A lot of people are very happy about that.

And a lot of people aren’t. Politically, this could hurt him. If pro-lifers decide to sit the race out, as a few pro-lifers have told me they will, it could turn a win into a loss.

Almost makes you wish he’d kept that particular opinion to himself. That might not have been honest, but, hell, does anybody expect honesty out of a politician anymore?

For the record, I disagree with Magnum. I’ve written about it before, more than once. There are aspects to the issue about which I’m ambivalent – I’m not sure what my opinion is, because I’m not sure what the right thing is – but on the whole, I say err on the side of life. We don’t harvest spare organs from coma victims. We don’t perform medical experiments on 90-year-old Grandma. They’re people, so we treat them like people.

And a person’s a person, no matter how small.

So Magnum and I disagree. And I still support him. I’ll vote for him. I’ll work on his campaign.

Why? Because his opponent is Tammy Baldwin. Magnum may not be perfect on pro-life issues, but Baldwin is as perfectly imperfect as it’s possible to be.

Baldwin got a 100% rating from NARAL Pro Choice America – the group formerly known as the National Abortion Rights Action League – because she votes against any and every limit to abortion-on-demand. Partial birth abortion, parental consent (and even knowledge!), minors crossing state lines, protecting unborn children from criminal violence – she voted against them all.

That should clue us in, if we need cluing in. It’s not about “legal, safe, and rare” to Baldwin. It’s not “every child a wanted child.” It’s about denying the personhood of unborn children, because to admit that unborn children are living human beings would cast doubt on the pro-abortion agenda. And she can’t have that.

Not voting in the 2nd Congressional this year – simply sitting it out – isn’t the same thing as voting for Baldwin. But it’s halfway there. If you support pro-life issues, you can’t possibly let this ballot go by without casting a vote against her.

Now, here’s the rebuttal to that argument: Baldwin is so very ineffective!

An excellent point. Baldwin ranked 424th out of 438 members of Congress this year in her ability to get things done. Barely ahead of Guam’s representative, and well behind those of American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

And they can’t even vote!

Baldwin’s as close to irrelevant as it’s possible to be. If we must have a representative in Congress who disagrees with us, isn’t radical disagreement plus complete ineffectiveness better than moderate disagreement but much greater effectiveness?

Well, let me ask you this: what if Democrats take control of Congress this year?

There’s a lot of talk that they might do just that. And if they do, Baldwin won’t be so ineffective anymore. She’ll be a leader. A mouthpiece for the pro-abortion lobby, which can pull the strings of national Democrats as easily as any puppeteer.

That right there is something to avoid.

Pro-life voters will go to the booths on Election Day, and they’ll make their decisions. If they decide not to vote, well, that’s their prerogative. Their choice. Their business.

But if we truly care about the pro-life agenda, we have to take this opportunity. Maybe we can’t get our ideal pro-life candidate, but we can sure improve the landscape.

It's Not a Robbery, so Watch Fast!

So. Local newscasts in the Midwest average 36 seconds of election news per show. Less time than is devoted to sports, weather, even crime stories. Less time, probably, than is consumed by the trivial banter we sit through so the newscasters can fill up spare seconds between segments.

And the election coverage we do get tends to focus on “strategy and horserace” plotlines, rather than substantive issues. So that 36 seconds per show is of very little help to voters trying to make up their minds.

No wonder candidates want to buy lots of commercial time. They can’t count on TV to tell the story. Left to the telly, voters would be reduced to staring blankly at their ballots on election day, wondering why they’ve never heard any of these names before.

And that’s if they knew there was an election at all.

The study was conducted by the Midwest News Index (MNI), something created by something called the University of Wisconsin’s NewsLab. They analyzed 1800 broadcasts from two cities in each of 5 Midwestern states.

Imagine having that job. Sitting in front of a TV with a stopwatch in one hand and a remote in the other, day after day after day, recording the exact amount of seconds each broadcast spent on each of various topics.

Thank God for interns, right?

My first reaction to this story was: so what? Who watches TV news anymore, anyway? Seriously, I don’t remember the last time I watched a national network news program. Even Katie Couric couldn’t lure me back. I watch local news for weather, and very little else. When I actually want information, I read the paper. Or, more likely, I head for my computer.

Turns out I’m in the minority. According to MNI, 69% of Midwesterners get their info from local TV news, compared with 58% who read the paper, and 32% who use the internet.

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign (Money is the Root of All Political Evil!) is aghast, and issued a long press release bemoaning the study’s findings. They, of course, bemoan the entire state of politics. Too much money, you know. Can’t have the candidates trying to get their own messages out themselves.

Of course, candidates are no more interested in educating voters than the newscasts. Just in flinging mud at the other side, and making sure they can pay back their contributors. At least, that’s what watchdogs like the WDC say.

How has the Republic survived this long?

Complaining about the content of TV news is of limited worth, I think, since there are the aforementioned newspapers and internet, not to mention radio and cable television.

And anyway, WDC isn’t against money in politics per se – they’re against private individuals giving so much money to politics. Money that can’t possibly have any purpose, other than to manipulate the candidate’s future votes.

Better that we should fund campaigns with tax money – remove the possibility that candidates might be unduly influenced by the people who pay for their campaigns.

Like most conservatives, I secretly support that idea. Fully funding elections with taxpayer money would make taxpayers the only interest group.

Let the undue influence commence!

Or, probably, I’m just being silly. Back to reality now.

There may be something to the WDC’s angst. The airwaves are public property, which means the TV stations, which make their living from those airwaves, are to some degree obliged to use them with the public good in mind.

Then again, maybe there’s nothing here that hasn’t always been here. When was this –the media not covering election-year issues enough – ever not an issue? I remember hearing the same complaints in high school, and even before.

And that was pre-internet. Options for self-education were far more limited.

Could it be that this “issue,” like so many others, exists only to give certain people something to complain about?

I think maybe yes.

Turning to the Goverment

I think Don Huebscher has hit the nail on the head.

Huebscher, editor of the Eau Claire Leader Telegram, is not a conservative. He’ll never be mistaken for Walter Williams, George Will or Charlie Sykes, and he’s probably just fine with that.

So he’s not someone I’d normally expect to praise, but there was a glowing nugget of wisdom in his column yesterday. An unintentional nugget, possibly. At least, he may not have meant what I inferred. Still. I went back and re-read it. Several times.

It’s just so very right.

The column is mostly a recap of an election-time health care forum – the usual how-do-we-insure-more-people-while-still-controlling-costs sort of thing. Huebscher predictably supports a new-tax-supported universal plan proposed by a Democrat, and unpredictably (to me, anyway) supports Health Savings Accounts, a Republican idea.

It’s your basic stuff, really. Nothing you haven’t read before, if you read the op-ed pages.

Except for this part:

“…when the private sector can’t or won’t solve a problem, we turn to government.”

It was a low-key sorta-justification. Part of an argument against arguments against government-run health care - that's all Huebscher meant by it. A throwaway statement of fact so obvious it barely warrants further thought.

But that sentence says a lot. It’s profound. Prophetic. It’s true. An encompassing description of America’s political and cultural landscape.

That’s exactly what we do. Got a problem? Tell the government, because they’ll fix it for you! In nearly every facet of American life (is it still only “nearly” every facet?), there’s somebody, some group, calling for more government action, more government spending. More government, to tackle any and every problem.

Wherever, whenever a problem exists, we expect something to be done, and government has, over the decades, set itself up – we’ve set them up – as the doer.

And it’s not only when the private sector “can’t or won’t” solve it for us. It’s when the private sector can’t or won’t do it cheaply, or for free, or RIGHT NOW, or while simultaneously juggling payroll and suppliers and a dozen different government bureaucrats with overlapping and conflicting demands.

The upside: government usually can solve the problem, at least in the short term. Until they end up making the problem worse, which naturally means somebody starts demanding that the government do something about that, too.

Tenacity, American-style.

The downside, which any conservative will tell you: a government can’t give something unless it takes something. A government can’t solve a problem unless we give it power.

And once it’s got power, well…

Let’s just take a random example. Just pluck something out of thin air. Anything at all. Let’s say…um…the environment.

The environment is important. We want to protect it, keep it safe. There are people in the world who will crap all over everything to make another buck. Wisconsin’s history has some excellent examples: lumbermen clear-cut huge swaths of forest in the 19th century, leaving desolate square miles of nothing but stumps. That was how they could make the most money.

So we turned to the government to care for the environment. Really, who better? We need laws, and people to enforce them, and that’s the government’s business. We gave them the power, and now they’ve got power over our property, our businesses, our homes, our livelihoods.

And they’re using that power. The latest anecdote:

Home improvement retailer Menards has decided to build manufacturing and distribution centers in Iowa and Ohio, resolving a longtime wetlands dispute with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, a newspaper reported.

Eau Claire-based Menard Inc. had wanted to build near its headquarters, but the DNR wanted to preserve two small wetlands on that site.

…

The company now says Eau Claire lost out on an additional 600 to 800 jobs that will by divided among distribution centers under construction in Shelby, Iowa, and Holiday City, Ohio.

Menards found a better environment (for business, that is) elsewhere. We can argue over how much of a factor the DNR was, but is there any doubt they were a factor?

We had a problem, turned to the government to solve it, and gave them the power to do so. And then we did it again. And again. And again. And it got bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

Can we learn our lesson now?

Change the System? Or Change the System?

It’s the latest fad. Well, not the latest. Pretty old, actually. But both sides are saying it. That seems new.

The topic: school funding. The fad: calling for a change at the state level. See, there’s not enough leeway at the local level, other than holding a referendum. State law created the system, so if we want more leeway, that’s what we have to change.

I don’t trust it. When people say “change the system,” I tend to hear “give us more money!”

That’s not necessarily what they’re saying. They could mean something else. But that’s what I tend to hear.

A brief recap: in 1993, the state passed revenue controls on all public schools, which tie school funding growth to the district’s student body – more students, more money. Fewer students, and still more money, but at a reduced rate of growth.

So: the schools figure out how much money they can spend, based on that formula. The state then pays 2/3 (less, actually, for the past couple of budgets) of that statewide cost (some districts get more, some get less), and the rest comes from property taxes.

Got that? No? Don’t worry. Neither do I.

If a district needs more (or thinks they do), they can hold a referendum, to ask for more.

That’s the real rub – the Spend More! faction hates that they have to ask. What a bother. Pesky, ignorant voters, expecting to have a say. Remove the referendum requirement! Let us spend more!

That’s what they mean, I think, by “change the system.” And if not, then the options are limited.

They might mean changing the way state aid is distributed. Change that formula, so our district gets more. But that would mean another district getting less – surely the local Schoolista cell isn’t asking for that.

More likely, they mean loosen the limits, or remove them entirely. Let Us Spend More, whether that means the state spends more (the state already spends 40% of all taxes on K-12), or local districts collect more (43% of all property taxes already support K-12), or both.

But that’s the Spend More! side. As I said before, the No More Taxes! side also sometimes calls for a change.

What do they mean? Something different.

Health care is a huge cost driver. Last year, the Legislature tried to give school boards more options in providing it, by using competition to control costs. That’s one idea.

There’s also the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO), which lets school boards avoid arbitration by offering a minimum 3.8% increase in salary and benefits.

Lowering that threshold would theoretically mean slower increases in teacher compensation. Since over 80% of school costs are salaries and benefits, that could mean a lot.

Does it have to be 3.8%? Why not three percent?

Of course, the teachers’ union would spontaneously explode, were such an idea ever to reach any legislative committee. Untold horrors would be unleashed. And then they’d protest, too. They’d hate that idea as much as I hate the idea of no more referendums.

I like it that I get to vote.

When we come right down to it, “change the system” isn’t a new argument at all. It’s the same old arguments, dressed up in different words. You either think the schools need more money, and a lot more, and right now, or you don’t. Or you just can’t.

Since I’m a reasonable, thoughtful guy who wants nothing more than for everyone to live in Coca-Cola harmony, I have a compromise: do both.

Relax the revenue limits, to allow school spending to grow by…let’s say another percentage point a year.

Then give school districts more flexibility on health insurance and other bennies. Loosen up the rules on negotiating contracts. If they can find a cheaper way to provide a service, they should have the option of doing so.

It won’t work, of course. Not for long. As long as the governments run our schools, the nebulous myth of Enough Money will remain just that: a myth, sharing a meal with unicorns and Bigfeet and Democrats who are serious about national security.

But that’s okay. As long as we get to vote. Whatever else happens, let’s never change that.

What Would I Do?

What do you do?

It was a cheesy line in an otherwise entertaining movie. “Speed,” starring Keanu Reeves. Reeves’ character and his partner (elite cops) kill time by asking each other what they’d do in various dangerous situations.

This week, we had occasion to do the same. An armed intruder enters your home, or your work, or your school, with intention to shoot. What do you do?

It’s entirely possible that the few adults who encountered Eric Hainstock, the 15-year-old who walked armed into Weston High last week, had already asked themselves that question. Possible, even probable, they’d already considered this very situation. That they’d played a similar game as the two movie characters – what if it’s not just one gunman? What if it’s more? What if they have a bomb? What if they takes hostages?

What will I do?

Ever since the Columbine killings, schools have been much more focused on security, and safety, and doing everything possible – even though doing everything isn’t possible – to prevent another such appalling event. So I’m sure the teacher, Chuck Keller, and the custodian, Dave Thompson, and the principal, John Klang, had at least considered what they might do.

I’ll bet they still felt unprepared for the reality.

If you’re unfamiliar with the story: Eric Hainstock walked into Weston High School on Friday, armed with a shotgun and a handgun. The teacher asked him what he was doing. He answered he was there to kill someone. The custodian got the shotgun away from him, and went to call 911. The teacher went the other way, to warn the school. That’s when the principal, John Klang, came out, confronted Hainstock, and was shot three times. He died later that day.

I keep wondering whether he really had to do that – confront the boy. I wonder whether he wondered that, too. Couldn’t he have stayed in his office, called a Code Blue, and waited for the cops?

Or, well, couldn’t he have? Weston is a small school. It’s likely that Hainstock already knew where to find his intended target and, armed as he was, would have been able to get past a locked door.

So, no. Can’t wait for the cops. Might be too late by then.

Klang was the principal. He was in charge. Responsible for the building, and everyone in it. Students and staff. Responsible for their safety. So he took responsibility, and acted. Placed himself in danger, hoping to keep everyone else that much safer.

He wasn’t exactly charging down the machine guns – he didn’t know he was about to die. I’m sure he fully intended to live. But. He knew he was headed into danger.

What was going through his head at the time? Anything? Calculating the amount of time he had to keep Hainstock occupied before the police could arrive? Noticing which classrooms were nearby?

What was Thompson, the custodian, thinking about, when he took the shotgun away? Anything? Or nothing at all? Were they simply reacting, making snap decisions to act?

What would any of us think about, if faced with something similar? What would I do?

We can talk that question over, and think about it, and even practice, like our schools do. But it’s a question we can’t ever really answer, until we’re face to face with a guy with a gun.

I hope I’d do the same thing Klang did, which is: what he had to do. Same as a cop, same as a firefighter, same as our soldiers. The right thing, despite the danger. Protect the people around me, despite the danger.

It’s not likely I’ll ever find out. I am now – and will always be – perfectly happy in that ignorance.

I wish nobody had had to find out on Friday. But, if somebody had to, I’m glad it was someone like John Klang.