Tom Keane

What’s really at stake in council election

IT’S BEEN a busy few weeks for the Boston City Council. Members are trying to push Massport to pay employees a “living wage.’’ The body recently congratulated the Transgender Political Coalition on its 10th anniversary. The council is close to passing an ordinance limiting retail sales of knives, while it recently voted to raise the dropout age to 18. And a number of councilors are pushing to ban noisy nighttime trash pickups.

It’s easy to mock this stuff — small bore, penny ante, we pay 13 people $87,500 a year for this! — but an alternative view is that these are the core issues of public policy: economics, individual rights, public safety, education, and the balancing of the interests of people living and working in close quarters. Granted, it’s not as media-worthy as Occupy Boston, but for most residents, it’s far more important.

Elections for the council are just over three weeks away — on Nov. 8 — and, with three exceptions, they promise to be tepid affairs. Of the nine district seats, only two are truly contested. Long-time Dorchester councilor Maureen Feeney is retiring, and the two top vote-getters from last month’s preliminary - Frank Baker and John O’Toole - now square off. Meanwhile, Bill Linehan, in office for four years, faces a surprisingly strong challenge from Suzanne Lee. She’s from Chinatown; he’s from South Boston. Some read this as a referendum on Southie’s political strength; others as a referendum on the mayor (he’s with Tom Menino; she isn’t).

Meanwhile, Michael Flaherty - also from South Boston - seeks to return to the at-large seat he left two years ago to run for mayor. Flaherty’s run irks many. There are four incumbent at-large councilors, and for Flaherty to succeed, one of them needs to be knocked out. The speculation is that Ayanna Pressley, just elected in 2009 and not especially well known, is the most vulnerable. But the stakes are somewhat larger here than merely Pressley’s personal fortunes: the City Council has a problem when it comes to both race and sex.

Race first. Boston is what some call a majority-minority city. The council doesn’t reflect that at all. Two district members (representing largely African-American sections of the city) are black. One at-large member, Felix Arroyo, is Hispanic. Pressley is the sole at-large black member. Is she loses, the body is down to just three non-white councilors out of 13.

Even more striking is sex. With Feeney’s departure, Pressley remains the council’s sole woman. If Flaherty edges her out (and if Lee fails to best Linehan), the council will be all-male - understandable for a fraternity, not so understandable for a representative body. The puzzle is why and there’s no easy answer. Calling Boston voters more racist or sexist than voters elsewhere is an easy, but untrue, accusation. More likely, it’s a holdover from the days when politics was a family business, handed down from father to (usually) son. That combined with the personal nature of local politics - people vote for those they know or those they’ve heard of - make it hard for newcomers to break in.

Perhaps the Occupy Boston demonstrators might take up the challenge. This is not in jest. By my count, 60 of the 141 individuals arrested last week were Boston residents. Camping out and taking the occasional stroll around town may get you interviewed, but in the long run, change in a democracy only occurs when new people with new ideas run for and win office.

Stephen Murphy, the council’s president, observes that compared to other legislative bodies - i.e., Congress - the council has been a place of late where members have focused on results instead of personal battles. (This despite the conviction earlier this year of Chuck Turner, a councilor accused of taking a bribe.) And even as his police were arresting the Occupiers, Menino acknowledged that their issues - foreclosure, corporate responsibility - are the same ones that he regularly engages.

The Tea Party activists quickly figured out that for their anger to mean anything, they had to get elected, and they mobilized with stunning speed. They now occupy seats at all levels of government, making their voices far more effective than those who would simply occupy Dewey Square.

Originally published in the Boston Globe on October 15, 2011.

Will Obama Stay in the Game?

THE COLLAPSE of Barack Obama’s presidency may not be as sudden as the September disintegration of the Red Sox, but it’s been as unpleasant to watch. Hope has given way to recrimination. The soaring expectations of January 2009 have been replaced with futile admonishments for Congress to “pass this bill.’’ The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has lost the enthusiasm of the young and left-out who once funded his campaign.

On the last day of March 1968, President Lyndon Johnson appeared on national television with a surprise announcement: “I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party as your president.’’ Could the same happen this year? It is a speculation making the political rounds. Dick Morris, Clinton triangulator now turned Tea Party maven, pushes the idea, and it’s a notion that has been picked up elsewhere, mostly in the conservative media.

Obama, runs the argument, is too far down in the polls to ever recover. He’s flailing in the job, out of his depth and beset from right and left. And they say, he’s unhappy. He smiles little, he’s abrupt and uncomfortable. Even spouse Michelle no longer seems to enjoy the limelight. “These folks aren’t having fun anymore,’’ observes Morris.

And if not Barack Obama, then who? Hillary Clinton, naturally. After some initial stumbles, Clinton has acquitted herself well as secretary of state. Many Democrats are feeling buyer’s remorse, wondering if perhaps they should have chosen her four years ago. She would have been a tougher negotiator with Congress. She wouldn’t have blithely ceded cherished Democratic programs for little or no return. And whispering in her ear, of course, would have been Bill, whose eight-year term in retrospect looks ever the brighter.

Perhaps one can gauge a president’s desire for a second term by his smiles, but much of this seems dubious, a mixture of wishful thinking and pop psychology. LBJ didn’t pull out because the job lacked amusement. For one, the prospects for Johnson’s re-nomination looked tough; he faced internal challenges from both Gene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy.

More importantly, Johnson believed that the great issue of the day - Vietnam - required him to make decisions unfettered by political considerations. War-making is an area where presidents, as commanders in chief, have nearly unilateral authority. Indeed, in the same speech in which he took a pass on a second term, LBJ unveiled a plan to halt US raids in North Vietnam in a bid to kick off peace talks.

But Obama’s problems are domestic, not international. Even if he were to pull out for some grand purpose, it’s hard to imagine what that would be. It’s not as if Republicans would suddenly rally around a jobs bill merely because Obama exited the race. Far from it. As a lame duck perceived as a quitter, his influence would simply evaporate.

Nor does Obama face any meaningful challenges from within the Democratic Party. So the case for Obama to leave is that he does it for the good of the party, essentially conceding it is impossible for him to win. It’s here where the analogy to the Red Sox breaks down. The Sox lost at the end of their season; Obama’s campaign has yet to begin.

Granted, some polls show that a generic Republican could beat Obama. But the problem for Republicans is that they have to move from the generic to the specific, and right now the president’s campaign team has to be chortling. The Republicans are at each other’s throats, desperately casting about for a candidate. Mitt Romney is detested by many in the party, Michele Bachmann has faded, Rick Perry is stumbling badly and Chris Christie keeps saying no (and appears to mean it). One on one, Obama is a formidable campaigner, and each of the GOP’s candidates has serious flaws. All the support Obama may have lost from his base over the last year or so will likely return to the fold when the stark choice comes down to him versus the Republican nominee.

Who knows what’s in the president’s head. Maybe he really is so discouraged that he follows LBJ’s example. But emotion aside, logic suggests he press on.

Originally published in the Boston Globe.

The second-hand truce

Since e-cigarettes aren’t a threat to non-smokers, let people puff away

I’M SITTING at a bar and the guy next to me pulls out a cigarette and starts smoking. I’m inwardly seething, wondering what to do. Ignore it? Complain to the bartender and let him do the dirty work? Or confront the smoker myself? And if I do, then what - words exchanged, perhaps a fight?

And then I realize the smoke isn’t bothering me at all. Indeed, I can’t even smell it.

I lean over.

“What is that you’re smoking?’’

“That,’’ it turns out, is an electronic cigarette. The smoke I was looking at was water vapor - steam - and nothing else. The device itself is a small marvel, containing flavored liquid and some nicotine, and it delivers the taste of a cigarette - and the drug - as the user inhales. To complete the effect, the tip even glows. It is, it occurs to me, an excellent way to bring about a truce between those who smoke and those who don’t - a way for us, once again, to occupy the same places in bars, restaurants, and ball fields.

So why won’t Boston let that happen?

Smoking bans are a relatively recent phenomenon. Boston was one of the early adopters, putting in a full-scale ban - covering almost all workplaces, including restaurants and bars - in 1998. Today, 26 states have bans and the US Centers for Disease Control expects that by 2020 all states will have put one in place. And for good reason: one’s right to smoke stops when it hits someone else’s lungs.

Sometimes the bans have been framed as a workers’ rights matter - tobacco fumes in effect create a hazardous work environment. No one, the argument runs, should have to risk their health merely to wait tables. Other times the bans are a weighing of rights. Some patrons smoke, some don’t, and as the number of nonsmokers has grown it’s easier to make those who do give way to those who don’t (usually by just letting them sneak outside for a moment to get a fix). Either way, the bans are deservedly popular. Even some smokers like them; they may not mind inhaling their own smoke, but don’t want to breath someone else’s.

This has all come at a cost to smokers, however, who find themselves increasingly pushed aside and isolated. One doesn’t have to be an enthusiast of smoking to recognize there is some legitimacy in smokers’ complaints that these various bans are in some ways an infringement of their rights.

But the logic for all of those bans plainly disappears if the smoker poses no harm to the non-smoker. That is what makes a recent proposal by Boston’s Public Health Commission so puzzling. Electronic cigarettes are so new that they are largely unregulated and the Commission is now leaping into the gap. (Nothing, one suspects, so quickens the pulse of a regulator as the prospect of new terrain.) One proposal - to limit sales to adults - makes sense; nicotine is a drug after all. But another proposal - to treat electronic cigarettes the same as the tobacco-stuffed kind - is nonsense. By their very nature, electronic cigarettes pose no hazard to anyone except, of course, the person choosing to use them (and, since electronic cigarettes have none of the cancer-causing tars and other byproducts of tobacco, that hazard is far less). So what is the commission’s rationale?

I suspect it’s just a back-door effort to ban adults from smoking. An outright prohibition would still generate much resistance (and, as we have learned from Prohibition and the war on drugs, would ultimately carry negative consequences far greater than the benefits of any ban). But by sharply limiting where adults can use electronic cigarettes, it is in effect trying to accomplish the same thing.

Granted, we all wish people would live their lives as we wished. Personally, I’d ban motorcycles, skydiving, and mountain climbing - dangerous and worthless pursuits all. But the hallmark of a genuinely free society is that we permit people to engage in those and other risky activities as long as they don’t impinge on others’ freedoms. If electronic cigarettes pose no threat to me - and apparently they don’t - then you should be allowed to sit beside me and puff away.

Originally published in the Boston Globe.

Economic sunshine in the Bay State

THERE SEEMS to be a disconnect between what our eyes tell us and the drumbeat of economic misery we hear every day.

Three years ago, Boston’s fashionable Newbury Street was dotted with boarded-up storefronts while shoppers were sparse. Now the place is bustling. The same is true of the city’s other commercial hotspots, such as the waterfront, the North End, and the South End. Restaurants and stores are packed on weekends, to be sure, but increasingly during the week as well. New areas, such as the South Boston Waterfront, now draw crowds and developers. Granted, Downtown Crossing is still a disaster, but its problems are less a function of today’s economy than they are hangovers of the 2008 crash that left us the big empty hole that was once Filene’s.

It isn’t only the city that seems alive. Local shopping malls are packed with cars. The major routes to vacation spots on the Cape and in New Hampshire, Maine, and the Berkshires have been packed this summer as well. Traffic jams have returned, an aggravation that is also an indicator that people are back on the roads, commuting to jobs.

Anecdotes can be misleading, but data back them up. Massachusetts’ unemployment rate in July was 7.6 percent, well below the national average of 9.1 percent. Granted, it’s still too high, and hidden in those numbers are those who have simply given up looking for work and others who have taken jobs paying below what they once made.

Still, it’s better here than elsewhere. For what the national averages themselves hide are the states that are truly economic disasters. Michigan, for instance, has 10.9 percent unemployed - and the number is rising. Nevada is at 12.9 percent (a fact casino opponents might well emphasize). So is California - the Golden State we all once envied.

How did we get it so good? At its core, we have the kind of new-era economy that everyone else says they want, one based on invention and creativity. Financial services, technology, and health care all thrive in Massachusetts. But why are we the way we are? In a state that still mocks itself as “Taxachusetts’’ and (often-deservedly) suffers a reputation as being anti-business, how are we managing to succeed?

Consider three factors. First, we are a tolerant state, accepting of alternative lifestyles, of gays and lesbians, and of immigrants. That may offend some, but it is hugely attractive to others, especially those that urban theorist Richard Florida calls the “creative classes.’’ It’s that group that Florida and many others argue drives cutting-edge economic development.

Second, we are actually making our schools better. Back in 1993, the state legislature pushed through education reform, a series of measures that gave us everything from charter schools to MCAS. Despite resistance through the years, we have stuck with those reforms, and we have reaped the benefits. Our kids now consistently rank better than those from other states; an analysis this year from the American Institute of Physics, for instance, rated Massachusetts first by a large margin in preparing children for careers in science and engineering. Smart workers make for strong economies.

Third, we have a remarkably cohesive political culture. It is striking to see the vicious politics of other states and Washington, D.C., and compare them to the almost genteel way we here in Massachusetts air our disagreements. One can see that in the reaction to US Senator Scott Brown. Yes, of course Democrats want to defeat him next time around. But meanwhile we see Boston’s strongly Democratic mayor last week praising Brown for his work ethic and focus on constituents. It’s hard to imagine that kind of acknowledgement in the poisonous politics of other states, and it speaks well to how the Bay State uses politics as a way to solve problems rather than just to slay the foe.

All this is to our good. Still, Massachusetts is not an island. If a sick economy is like a disease, it may be that we have just resisted longer than others and will eventually succumb to the nation’s maladies. The alternative is unlikely, but still worth considering - that the things Massachusetts does right could spread elsewhere, a kind of positive contagion that could help bring about a cure.

Originally published in the Boston Globe.

Without Jobs, it won’t be the same

FANS OF Apple Inc. say Steve Jobs’s resignation as CEO is no big deal, predicting that the company will still retain its cutting-edge ways. Technology analyst Farhad Manjoo is typical of those claimants, writing in Slate that “Apple today operates in the image of Steve Jobs - and it’s going to remain that way long after he’s gone.’’

It’s as if the person no longer matters. The organization that is Apple - almost 50,000 employees strong - has somehow absorbed the character and genius of Jobs. The real flesh-and-blood man is no longer even needed.

But this is a claim of fantasy. However smart a company Apple is, individuals still matter in the real world.

Now 56, Jobs co-founded Apple Computer in 1976 when he was just 21. Booted out the door in 1985 after a power struggle, he founded NeXT Computer (a financial failure but technological triumph) and purchased what became Pixar from Lucasfilm (both a financial and technological triumph). Meanwhile, Apple’s fortunes had suffered and, in a move of embarrassed desperation, its board in 1996 asked Jobs back.

Over the next 14 years, Jobs unleashed a torrent of products - including the iMac, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, and the iPad - that profoundly remade consumer electronics. None of these was as much ground-breaking in technology as it was innovative in design. Jobs has an uncanny ability to think about devices from the perspective of the user and of understanding the importance of beauty and simplicity.

And now the guy who’s done all that is, effectively, gone. One can understand the motivation of investors, employees, and even Apple fans who adamantly assert that Jobs’s departure won’t matter. It’s in their interest to say this, so they rely upon clichés about how the company is bigger than any one man and how no individual is irreplaceable.

And they’ve got support from those who think the future of innovation belongs to corporations and crowds.

It is fashionable to think of businesses as almost living entities themselves. Mitt Romney’s assertion that “corporations are people’’ was bone-headed politically but reflects the widespread notion that organizations are far more than the people that run and staff them. And that couples with another, seemingly new trend: a faith in the wisdom of crowds. Recent years have given us phenomena such as crowd-sourcing (taking a job originally performed by an individual and outsourcing it to a large group of people), crowd-funding (having groups choose which inventions to back) ,and crowd-creation (group innovation). At the heart of all of these is a belief that there is wisdom, creativity, and insight from the collective that is not possible from one person or small group of individuals.

Count me a skeptic. The fact that at one point 62 percent of Americans weren’t sure Barack Obama had been born in the United States itself should make one reconsider group wisdom. Granted, something like crowd-sourcing - really just an updated version of the company suggestion box - can mean that people who might not otherwise look at a problem will tackle it. But group thinking itself tends to hover around the middle. Voices at the extreme - those who would urge a radically new way - quickly get drowned out.

It is hard to imagine that a crowd of people would have come up with the inventions that Jobs pushed through Apple. Indeed, the fact that so many other well-established technology companies did not do so speaks not only to Jobs’ singular genius but also to the flaws of corporations themselves. Once they have figured out a mission, they can be very good at managing and executing. They are not especially good at constant innovation, however. They are often so focused on protecting the business they already have that they can’t take advantage of whatever might be new.

This, I fear, is Apple’s fate. Steve Jobs seems happy with Tim Cook, his pick to succeed him, and Cook may well have Jobs’ sense of originality. More likely, though, he is a good manager. That will do for a while; there are rumors Jobs left behind plans to remake television. But eventually Apple will be eclipsed by some new entrant founded by an enfant terrible - in other words, by someone like Steve Jobs.

Originally published in the Boston Globe.

No malaise, please

President Obama’s disengaged style has evoked bad memories for some liberals

THE QUESTION is raised cautiously, perhaps over drinks at a bar or during a casual dinner among friends. The conversants are staunchly Democratic, and so to even raise the subject seems like disloyalty, but it is raised nonetheless: “So, how do you think Obama is doing?’’

To ask is to admit the answer to come. There are no rousing affirmations (“Great! He’s delivering just what he promised!’’). One word crops up most frequently: “Disappointing.’’

This has been a bad summer for Barack Obama. There is, of course, the vacation, a 10-day respite to the moneyed enclaves of Martha’s Vineyard. Democrats can dutifully recite the talking points: Obama has taken just 61 days of vacation, while after the same time in office George W. Bush had spent 180 days away from the White House, Ronald Reagan 112. On the other hand, Bill Clinton - in retrospect, his terms were the Democrats’ glory days - had taken but 28. And no one doubts that had Clinton been in office while the economy was tanking, the stock market collapsing, and more than 9 percent of Americans were failing to secure work, he would have understood the theatrics of it all and stayed at home. Or at least he wouldn’t have gone to the Vineyard.

This vacation came on the heels of the ugly battle over raising the debt ceiling, one that Obama largely lost. During that fight, some suggested Obama assert that, as president, he had the power to raise the debt ceiling himself, an argument imperfectly grounded in the 14th Amendment (“The validity of the public debt . . . shall not be questioned’’). Doing so would have given the president a powerful weapon he could have used to push back hard against House Republicans. Bill Clinton thought it a fine idea. Obama rejected the tactic altogether. It felt like unilateral disarmament.

There are other examples as well. The campaign for a national health care bill featured a disengaged Obama - who allowed Congress to put together a potpourri mess of a bill - coupled with partisan strong-arming to force its passage. Many wonder now, with the benefit of hindsight, whether that issue should have been joined at all, given the perilous economy Obama inherited. A focus on jobs alone would have been enough.

The consensus is that Obama is a good man: honest, smart, and well-meaning. These were all words that applied to former president Jimmy Carter, too. When one explores the meaning of the word “disappointing,’’ it lies in a sense that, like Carter, Obama poorly wields the levers of power. He campaigned on lofty ideals and vague words (“hope,’’ of course, being most notable). But on reflection, it turns out we want our presidents to get results, and doing so requires a willingness to use the scheming and manipulative dark arts of politics. Obama seems disinclined to tread that path. Suddenly the idealists who flocked to his campaign because he wasn’t, say, Hilary Clinton, now fret that he doesn’t play the game very well - or even, at all.

Don’t misunderstand. I find few Democrats ready to cast their lot with one of the potential Republican nominees. The Tea Party candidates - Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry - are anathema to what they believe, while Mitt Romney, an amorphous cipher, left a bad taste in their mouths from his days as the Commonwealth’s governor. Nor are there many (although there are a few) who would relish an intraparty challenge, a la Kennedy versus Carter. Obama, they all agree, will be the Democratic nominee in November 2012, and Obama, they also agree, will get their vote.

If they vote - and there’s the rub. Obama was swept into office by a wave of enthusiasm, much of it from younger people, African-Americans, and others disenchanted by national politics. The passion and enthusiasm of those days now seem far gone; the disenchantment is back. Barack Obama has advantages: he is a marvelous campaigner, may have about $1 billion in campaign funds at his disposal, and will be facing a fractured foe (Tea Party versus GOP stalwarts). But to succeed he must somehow, like a preacher before congregants that now question their religion, revive the faith.

Originally published in the Boston Globe.

The folly of easy solutions

IT’S HUMAN nature to avoid tough problems, using a combination of pretense and fantasy to wish them away. Three recent examples come to mind.

The battle over raising the debt ceiling centered on coming up with a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases that would narrow the country’s deficit. Unable to agree, Congress resolved the problem by punting: It specified an amount - $1.5 trillion over 10 years - and set up a committee to make the hard choices.

We’ve heard this before, haven’t we? Just last December, the Simpson-Bowles committee came out with its own proposal to resolve the deficit. The bold plan received much comment and then promptly fell into the legislative dustbin.

This time around will be different, proponents promise. Composed of 12 members - six Republicans and six Democrats, including Senator John Kerry - the so-called super committee has until Nov. 12 to come up with a list of cuts and revenue increases, which then goes to Congress for an up-or-down vote no later than Dec. 23. The hammer that the committee has is that, if its recommendations get rejected, a host of undesirable across-the-board cuts goes into effect.

Granted, that hammer does make the super committee different from the toothless Simpson-Bowles. But the problem with recommendations from past committees also composed of smart, well-intentioned people wasn’t that they lacked power. It’s that enough people didn’t agree with them. The super committee was just Congress’s way of avoiding a difficult issue for a few months. The battles of August will doubtless be rejoined in December.

At home, Massachusetts has just ended a tax-free weekend, a (mostly) annual gift from the Legislature whose main purpose, it seems, is to make residents wonder why they shouldn’t move to New Hampshire. The illusion of the tax-free holiday is that we can both have taxes and not have taxes.

This year, 17 states will have sales tax holidays, which are wildly popular. Retailers use them to pump up sales while politicians claim to their constituents they are helping their pocketbooks. The problem is that such holidays are a gimmick. Studies suggest they do little to increase overall retail sales (they just change the timing of those sales), they don’t save consumers much (retailers often just raise prices during the holidays), they impose a significant cost on state budgets (the estimate is that up to $25 million will be lost in Massachusetts), and, as the nonpartisan Tax Foundation points out, they “distract policymakers and taxpayers from genuine, permanent tax relief.’’ If the sales tax rate is too high, by all means reduce it year round. But in fact, two years ago we actually increased our sales tax by 25 percent. Bay State pols are just trying to have it both ways.

Meanwhile, college administrators are trumpeting a new program, AlcoholEdu, that curbs binge drinking, and a new study seems to confirm it works. The program - a three-hour online course - reduces risky behavior by freshmen who take it during the fall semester. Alas, the effects seem short lived; by the spring, the study notes, the students are back to bingeing.

That should be no surprise. We have a contradictory approach to alcohol. It is deeply ingrained in our culture yet we have no idea of how to introduce it to children. Those ages 18 to 21 are regarded as adults in all ways but one: we prohibit them from drinking. Instead of alcohol being part of something - a glass of wine, say, at a meal - it is forced into becoming a secretive event in and of itself. Trying to teach kids not to drink may work in the short term, but in the long term we need to teach them how to drink, something the law says we are not allowed to do.

The thread of all these fantasies is a kind of self-delusion: believing an easy tactic - a congressional committee, a weekend respite from taxes, or an online course - will somehow solve a hard problem. But hard problems require hard solutions. If they didn’t, fantasies notwithstanding, they would have been solved by now.

Originally published in the Boston Globe.

Yes, our government still works

THREE OBSERVATIONS in the wake of last week’s vote to raise the US debt ceiling: Members of the House squabbled; senators were level-headed. There is hope for those who fear government is gridlocked. And the Constitution proved itself once again a well-crafted basis of government.

The vote, you will remember, came the day before the United States was set to default, an event, economists claimed, that would cause the stock market to crash, the world economy to sink into another recession, and the United States to lose its AAA credit rating. Luckily, the United States didn’t default, with the result being that the stock market crashed, the world began to sink into recession, and the United States lost its AAA credit rating.

So much for the predictive power of economics. Still, at the time members of Congress understood the apparent gravity of the situation before them and many behaved as if they just didn’t care.

That was especially true of the House. In the run-up to the vote, the members were locked in partisan battles between Democrats and Republicans and factional battles between Tea Party adherents and moderates. To those watching from the outside, it seemed an incredible thing, as if the nation’s overall good meant nothing to those determined to have their own way. And that didn’t end even when a compromise, approved by the president, was finally struck. Just three of Massachusetts’s 10 representatives (Bill Keating, Stephen Lynch, and Niki Tsongas) voted for the deal. The rest could not yield, even understanding the larger matters at stake.

Not so the Senate. After the House had failed multiple times to come up with an acceptable agreement, one could see a shift in power, as the Senate suddenly seized control of the process. It felt as if, having let the kids mess around for too long, the adults were stepping in. And they did so effectively, crafting a proposal that quickly won support from leadership of both houses.

And sure enough, as partisan was the House vote, the Senate was bipartisan. In Massachusetts, for instance, both Democrat John Kerry and Republican Scott Brown backed the measure. Both men were able to put aside their considerable differences - and diverging political ideologies - for the greater good of the nation. It’s an apt illustration of the dramatic contrast between the ways the two bodies - the House and Senate - think, operate, and vote.

And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

The creation of two branches of Congress in 1787 was itself a compromise on two key questions. One had to do with the nation itself: was it a coming together of a people or a federation of states? The second had to do with the proper role of democracy. One side favored a legislative branch that was entirely democratic, as directly as possible representing the people of the country. The other, fearing mob mentalities, urged a legislative branch that was more a body of wise men (women, at the time, being off the list).

We got both. The House of Representatives represented the first answer to each question and the Senate the second, which is why the two bodies are so different from each other. Members of the House, with two-year terms, have to be responsive to their constituents; reelection depends more on satisfying their demands than looking out for the nation as a whole. It also can change its political character quickly, responding to the changing whims of voters. We saw that in 2010 when the just-born Tea Party movement was able to make its influence felt in the election of a significant number of new US representatives.

Senators, on the other hand, represent broader constituencies with differing interests. Moreover, they only face reelection every six years. That allows them the latitude to rise above the parochial, making the body more conservative and slow-moving.

In truth, it’s a good and necessary mix. We need the free-wheeling political dynamism of the House to allow the people a voice as much as we need the calm, national perspective of the Senate. And for all of the ugliness and angst leading up to the debt-ceiling vote, the result suggests that, far from broken, the system still works.

Originally published in the Boston Globe.

Seeing good in the Greenway

IT’S SATURDAY afternoon and the Greenway is packed. Parents form a circle around the Rings Fountain, with squealing children running through its jetting spouts of water. There’s a line for the carousel. Shoppers stop by tents to examine wares from local artisans. Throngs cross back and forth between Quincy Market and the Aquarium. Tourists and locals wander through the newly installed Harbor Park Pavilion.

All of this comes as a surprise because, as is well known and much commented upon (including by me), the Greenway is a failure, a squandered opportunity that, much like City Hall Plaza, is just wasted and empty space.

But facts, as they say, are stubborn things. I have walked (and now biked - thanks Hubway!) the Greenway many times this summer and the masses of folks wandering, playing, and just hanging out suggests that, for all its flaws, the Greenway is a roaring success.

Part of the goal of the Big Dig was to reconnect the city to the harbor. The old elevated expressway was not only a physical barrier but a psychic one as well, making it easy to forget that Boston really was a waterfront town. That has changed. The three-lane surface roads that run alongside the Greenway - Atlantic Avenue and Surface Road (clever name that) are still obstacles to a crossing. But, now visible, the water lures and the hordes who want to get there take courage in their numbers, ignoring “Don’t Walk’’ signs and angry horns from motorists.

The other goal of the Big Dig was to knit together neighborhoods sundered by the old expressway. Doing so would have meant actually building structures across the land underneath the elevated highway so that, for example, Haymarket could be reconnected with the North End. But the design of the tunnels is such that buildings cannot feasibly be built overhead - or at least, not without enormous cost.

So instead, the Greenway, with its self-conscious echo of the north-south highway, still separates. But the Greenway Conservancy, the nonprofit charged with managing the place, has come up with a very good alternative: the parks are now meeting places, common ground between neighborhoods, destinations in and of themselves.

In the first few years of the Greenway’s existence, this was hard to see. But this summer, especially, the parks have come into their own. Partly that is because, as befits its name, the place really is green - lush, in fact. Some areas, such as the Urban Arboretum, are so chock filled with mature plantings that they seem forest-like. The other is that the Conservancy has worked hard to give each of the Greenway parks a distinct character, with attractions (fountains, things that move and places that sell stuff) that compel people to visit. One park has public art, another has a farmers’ market, a third a meandering path with odd gizmos that shoot off cooling steam.

It’s not perfect. Of the 14 parcels that make up the Greenway, a few are still unfinished. The exits from Route 93 interrupt others. And the Chinatown Park, despite a clever fountain that turns into a waterfall and then a river, seems like an afterthought.

Moreover, it is striking the degree to which the buildings on either side of the Greenway were designed so that only blank walls face the parks. That made sense back when the elevated highway was there - who’d want to look at that? - but now it looks as if they have figuratively turned their backs to it. It will take time for them to reorient themselves to face the parks, although a few are trying, such as the Irish Times, with an outdoor beer garden, and Pasta Beach, a new restaurant at the massive Rowes Wharf complex (one of the few buildings whose design anticipated the removal of the expressway).

Still, much works brilliantly. The six Wharf District and North End parks in particular have a remarkable sense of energy and fun. I’d tell you it’s worth a visit but, judging from the crowds already there, I think you’ve figured that out.

Originally published in the Boston Globe.

Warren for Senate? No thanks

DEAR ELIZABETH Warren:

Please don’t.

You’ve gone to Legoland right now, supposedly to contemplate your future after a heady and, of late, bruising time in Washington. You’re the Harvard professor who connected with the little guy, writing a few popular money management books and even appearing on “Dr. Phil.’’ And then in 2008, as the financial world came crashing down, you went to D.C. to help sort out the mess, making to the cover of Time (the “New Sheriffs of Wall Street’’), which also named you - twice - one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. The Globe’s Sunday magazine awarded you Bostonian of the Year for 2009. And this year saw the formation of your brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

But it all soured of late. You should have been the first head of the bureau but, no, you weren’t even nominated. Perhaps that’s just realism; a concession to the fact that in these virulently partisan times you wouldn’t have made it through confirmation. Or maybe, as some have suggested, it’s sexism. I’d like to think we’re past that, but then again we have just been through a week’s worth of stories trashing a leading female presidential candidate because she has migraines (“Sorry, dear, I can’t negotiate weapons reductions tonight. I have a headache’’), so maybe I’m wrong.

But that’s OK, because the Democratic mandarins have a new job for you: candidate for Senate, slayer of Scott Brown.

Right now they’re in full woo mode, whispering sweet nothings about how much they want you and how good you’d be. No doubt you’re flattered and, really, who wouldn’t be? But still, it all sounds eerily familiar, the same kind of siren song Ted Kennedy heard in 1980 when the left pleaded with him to take on Jimmy Carter and he finally did, only to suddenly find himself abandoned by those who had courted him, his legacy that year a good speech and arguably throwing the election to Ronald Reagan.

The crux of the argument for those who urge you to run is that they need a savior: You, and only you, have the stature to beat the political phenomenon that is Scott Brown. Sure, there is already a well-formed field of Democrats eager to take on the task, but they’re Lilliputians, unknown and unready.

The Lilliputians themselves might object to the characterization. Alan Khazei, for instance, co-founded City Year, a do-gooder organization on par, at least locally, with the stuff you’ve been doing nationally. Setti Warren, the mayor of Newton, is a rising star (perhaps rising too quickly, some think, but politics is a game of ambition, not reticence). Neither will give way just because you’re in the race. Granted, they don’t have a lot of name recognition statewide, but then again - and I hate to break the news - neither do you. You’re better connected, perhaps, but not better known.

Moreover, I’m not really sure that stature is the way to win this race. Brown, remember, was also an unknown. But unlike his opponent, he was a better campaigner and connected with folks on the ground. You’ve done some great stuff, but campaigning is an entirely different skill-set: grinding, endless hours of fundraising, shaking hands, and dodging reporters trying to trip you up. You’ll be learning on the job, and that’s a tough thing to do (just ask Charlie Baker).

Then too, there’s a dirty secret about Massachusetts you need to know. We may be predominantly Democratic but that doesn’t make us liberal. Yes, we’re a socially tolerant bunch but, like much of the country, we don’t care for high taxes, free spending, or lots of government regulation. Brown understood that, and in office he has for the most part stuck to those themes, which is why even Democratic polls show him the most popular politician in the state. The lefties pushing you to get into this race don’t want you for your moderation, you know, and the message you’ll be pushing may leave mainstream voters cold.

No doubt, it’s gratifying to be thought a savior. But if you jump into this pool, don’t think you’ll be walking on water. Indeed, you may quickly find yourself drowning.

Originally published in the Boston Globe.