Barney Frank a tough sell
Yet voters have kept buying Frank’s nonsense
By Michael Graham
Friday, October 15, 2010
Could Don Draper sell Barney Frank?
Don Draper is the central character on the popular and (as I can personally attest) addictive TV drama “Mad Men.” He is a marketing miracle worker, the prototypical ad man from Madison Avenue’s heyday.
He’s a guy who can sell anything. But I bet Barney Frank would leave him stumped.
Who is Barney Frank’s market? If you’re a “good government” white-collar suburbanite, Frank’s been a disaster. When he’s not in a personal relationship with an executive at an agency he oversees (Frank’s former partner, Herb Moses, was an executive at Fannie Mae) Frank’s on vacation to the Virgin Islands riding the private jet of a Wall Street tycoon - another person whose industry he regulates.
So maybe you’re a results-oriented pragmatist who just wants politicians who keep the trains running on time. Has any congressman ever wreaked so much economic damage on his nation?
Even Frank admits that he had “ideological blinders” about Freddie/Fannie. His push to put the taxpayer on the hook for high-risk loans to special-interest borrowers was done in the name of liberal politics, not economic rationality.
He now claims he just didn’t know any better. But everybody knew better in the summer of 2008 when Frank claimed “Freddie and Fannie are not in danger.”
Two months later they were bankrupt.
Here’s just one frightening phrase from a memo in Frank’s congressional committee: Fannie and Freddie participated in transactions “that would not normally be considered to be economically viable.”
“Not considered economically viable” could be Frank’s campaign motto. From opposing Reaganomics to opposing welfare reform to opposing the Bush tax cuts, Frank’s been wrong on nearly every major issue since taking office in 1980.
Then there’s Frank’s (ahem) winning personality. Voters looking for a shaken hand or a well-kissed baby shouldn’t count on Barney. He’s branded himself as the “congressman most likely to scream at you as if he forgot to take his meds.”
Many voters remember Frank insulting a Lyndon LaRouche fan at a town hall (“Talking to you is like talking to a dining room table!”). But not long after he attacked the intelligence of a Harvard law student for asking legitimate questions about Frank’s role in the financial meltdown.
Cruel, cutting and cranky - is there really a political market for this?
And not to be catty, but, well, we live in a society where people are judged by their looks. Frank is, to put it kindly, the Susan Boyle of American politics - a role he highlights by frequently dressing as though he slept in a homeless guy’s clothes and forgot to give them back.
Bad policy, bad politics, bad attitude and bad hair - put on your Don Draper hat and tell me how you’d sell a voter on Barney Frank? And yet, political scorekeeper Charlie Cook says he’s likely to be re-elected yet again. Just like every year since 1980.
You’ve been to Newton and Brookline. Does Frank really represent the quality of those communities? If he had never been elected to public office and showed up to announce his candidacy today, would he even be taken seriously in an elite Massachusetts suburb?
If Frank is re-elected (and alas, I suspect he will be), it will be an indictment of the voters of his district - indisputable truth that these posturing, suburban liberals don’t understand the issues or care about results.
They vote Democrat for the same reason they pay $6 for coffee at a Starbucks, because “we’re that kind of people.”
Even if it means electing the kind of congressman that is Barney Frank
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