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On Friday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stood before some 200 people at the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County to set straight a nasty rumor about Senator Barack Obama, intended to strike fear into the hearts of Jews. The rumor holds that Obama is really a Muslim, who will not support Israeli or even American interests. Bloomberg went to South Florida to tell Jews the real story, and his actions lead to this question: Will each of us stand up when our turn comes?

Over the years Bloomberg has not made it a habit to talk publicly about his Jewish faith or ties to the Jewish community. Nor is he an Obama supporter. He even tested the waters for his own presidential run this year, and he is known to be close to Senator John McCain. But according to The New York Times, Bloomberg told the Palm Beach crowd that the rumors about Obama represent "wedge politics at its worse, and we have to reject it - loudly, clearly and unequivocally."

In Make Hope Real, I dedicated Chapter 3 to what I call, "A New Breed of Leaders," and included Bloomberg among individuals who are exhibiting a new, promising kind of leadership.

"The new leaders are people who have highly pragmatic approaches to policy, who seek to find ways to make public life and politics work rather than to disparage it, who vigilantly look for opportunities to engage people in the ongoing process of governing and improving their lives, who try to avoid hyperbolic and heated rhetoric." (pg 26)

But there was another point in that chapter that I have come to believe is just as important. Over and over again, people in communities have asked me, "How communities can get the leaders they need to make public life and communities work?" My response: We must stand by our good leaders when they come under fire, even when we do not agree with their positions or political party when, to vouch for their principles and values.

That's what Bloomberg did last Friday for Obama. Instead of standing on the sidelines watching people take pot shots at Obama, he stepped forward. He did so because he knew that he held special credibility on this issue with fellow Jews; and he knew that many of the people now living in South Florida once lived in his beloved New York City.

The Times quoted Elizabeth Sadwith of Delray Beach as saying, "There was no other evidence, so I believed the [rumor-filled] e-mails." There are many people across America who might make the same statement; indeed, perhaps my 103-year old grandmother from Brooklyn, who now lives in North Miami, has entertained such thoughts.

Whether or not people end up supporting Obama is their personal business. But whisper campaigns to make people fearful must be fought head-on. Bloomberg has done that, and I gratefully and enthusiastically applaud his actions.

Now, the question for each of is: When a good leader comes under fire, will we stand next to them and vouch for their integrity and good will, even if we do not agree with a particular position or their party?

If we want to change public life and politics, then more of us will need to follow Mayor Bloomberg's lead.

Download Make Hope Real
and learn more about this new breed of leaders

It's jolting and ominous. Indeed, the dueling Clinton-Obama "red phone" ads are a throw-back to previous eras, a time of the cold war, a bear in the woods, daisies and detonation. The red phone is an icon of fear, often used when other arguments fail. But that's just it: the red phone is about the past. I want to look to the future, one rooted in our present-day reality.

This campaign has given us Senator Obama, who has captured many people's imagination; Senator Clinton, who has demonstrated just how tough she is; and Senator McCain, an American hero. But my concern here is not about media buys, "get out the vote" operations, or how to excite people and motivate them to vote. I have no problem with tough-minded ads.

My concern is that I want candidates who call us to look to the future by genuinely reflecting and understanding the present. We're squarely barreling into the 21st Century, whether we like it or not and things have changed dramatically from the 1990s, or even from 2004. For instance:


With fundamental shifts taking place in this country and around the world, old discussions about the same old issues won’t work. Nor will simply updating various policy proposals, arguing endlessly about who voted for NAFTA and what they think today, or talking about speeches vs. solutions.  

I remember sitting in a restaurant in New Hampshire in 1995 with a group of citizens I was interviewing for a project with the Pew Center for Civic Journalism. The project was built around listening to Americans talk about their concerns and hopes. People talked movingly and with deep frustration about how their factory jobs had gone overseas.  They were clear that something was changing in America, but weren’t exactly sure what, and they were holding on for dear life to the past.  Of course, that's not uncommon, we all do that.

But there's little doubt today that the world has gone through a major transformation and that we are not returning to the 1980s, or even the 1990s. What's more, no president alone can shape the future, or craft a new, complete and cogent narrative for the nation. Such changes emerge only over time. And yet, a candidate for the presidency and future president can help us "turn" toward the future, so that we can begin to see it and address it. You see, the fundamental choice before us is not simply a matter of debating one policy or another, but a choice about our orientation concerning the next leg of our common journey.

When I was 23 years old, several presidents ago, I was a young aide to senior staff for the Mondale for President Campaign. That campaign also produced a red phone television ad, one used against Senator Gary Hart (D-CO). Just a few short years later, in 1987, I made the decision to start what has become The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, in part because I felt that politics had become more about striking fear into people's hearts, than tapping into their aspirations and solving problems.

In many respects, politics is on the upswing this year. The positive changes have been a long-time in the making, a manifestation, I believe, of Americans' long-held aspirations for a better politics and public life. Which leads me back to the red phone: this year's race, I believe, is the first in recent times to be squarely about the new century, about an era already upon us, one which represents a fundamentally different trajectory for our nation. If, as I believe, our trajectory is fundamentally different from eras past, then I want a campaign which talks about that different path and how we can take it.

(Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)
 Last week the Washington Post ran a front page story that Americans may be too angry to embrace your message of hope, and instead are aching for a heated partisan campaign of division and resentment. I think they’re wrong. But I also believe that you and other leaders who care about hope must be vigilant in how you engage Americans on hope. It is too easy to misstep here and for politics as usual to triumph. Thus I’ve listed below five key points for winning the public fight on hope. Know that my concern here is not your election, though I wish you luck; instead it is the task of rebuilding hope in our land.

One of the most searing insights I have gained from my 20 years of work across the country is the centrality of hope in people’s lives – and also its fragility. I say this after tirelessly seeking new ways for individuals, organizations, and communities to address social ills and act on their aspirations. And yet, the surfacing and expression of hope is uniquely beautiful, enabling people to stand up and step forward even in the face of adversity and when odds are dead set against them. But false hope is insidious, a contagion that breeds skepticism and leads to cynicism the likes of which causes people to retreat and disengage.

There’s been enough false hope in our society, we all know that. Nonetheless, many leaders continue to engage in an assortment of unseemly and nasty games in public life at the expense of our common interests. They tell those of us who care about hope that we should toughen up or get out of their way. The upshot is that those of us who pursue the path of hope – whether we are a presidential candidate or a local public innovator – must marry our conviction for change with the ability to be ruthlessly strategic in our actions. For if we fail in our current attempts to pursue hope, I fear we will squander the opportunity to re-engage and reconnect Americans.

Here, then, are five key points for us to consider in the pursuit of hope – you as presidential candidate and those of us who live in communities across the country.

Key Points for the Pursuit of Hope

1.    We must always keep in mind an important distinction when talking about hope: the difference between false hope and authentic hope. Anyone who wishes to be a champion of hope must be clear about maintaining their focus on authentic hope. This will require immense personal discipline not to blur lines into false hope in the name of convenience or easy wins, and to maintain the clarity of purpose among those who surround you so as not to be pushed off course.

2.    When opponents question your motivations, go after you on policy, or attack you personally, you must keep focused on authentic hope. The moment you engage in a tit-for-tat in public discourse, you will erode your own authenticity and your claim to authentic hope. BUT, this does not mean that you should never fight back. Indeed you should and must! But when you do, train your arguments on substantive matters and provide clear contrasts of vision. Do not back down; but nor should you fall prey to playing politics as usual if you want your position to be compelling and forthright.

3.    Remember that “hope” is a result of your articulated vision and related positions, not proclamations about hope! When notions of hope become overly familiar – that is, when one makes it their stock and trade – it loses meaning and currency. Hope is not a message unto itself, but over time the byproduct of actions we take and results that emerge. Thus I would urge you and others not to overdo talk about hope; instead, people should see hope as a result of the change you wish to bring about. Otherwise, hope can become an empty slogan.

4.    As strange as it may sound, none of us “own” hope. We must remember that hope resides within individuals and communities. Hope is the result of people tapping their own potential to make a difference and joining together to forge a common future. Anyone who talks about hope must know that they are merely a messenger or carrier for something larger than themselves. Therefore, when talking about hope, the focus must be on people, always the people. I know this is difficult because talk of hope can be personally intoxicating; I have experienced this in my own small way. We can mistake people’s response to hope to be about ourselves. When we make that mistake, we can lose our way.

5.    We must deliver big on a message of change and authentic hope if people are not to fall sway to heated partisan appeals. This requires that we step forward and articulate a clearly different point of view; hold up a mirror to people so they can see their shared realities; make meaningful entreaties to people to re-engage and reconnect. Some people will aggressively attack you and others who take this path; so be it. But if you and the rest of us straddle the fence in presenting an alternative; if we seem to be accommodating special interests under the cover of new rhetoric; if attempts are made to soft peddle what must be said, then all that will be left is the muddled pursuit of hope. Then people will reach for partisanship and its fleeting comfort of surety rather than our lukewarm hope.

I should say that I admire anyone who steps forward to illuminate possible pathways toward authentic hope. I know that attempts to generate deep change on issues before us will not yield immediate results; but I also know that we can and must place a stake in the ground about what we value and how we seek to move ahead. My own belief is that our task now is to make hope real for people. This too is a long-term endeavor. And no doubt there will be many enemies of the public good who will try to block us along the way. But people are waiting.

Today’s Republican debate is a vital test to see whether any candidate is willing to authentically engage voters – to step forward and speak to us honestly. Just over a week ago the top-tier Republican candidates skipped the Morgan State/PBS debate focused on African American and Latino concerns. I have returned to issues surrounding the Morgan State debate because I believe it offers a crucial lens through which to view the candidates early in this campaign.

Weary of the acrimonious and divisive nature of politics and the lack of adequate progress on a host of issues, people yearn for leaders who can pull us together, get things moving in a positive direction, and engage with the realities of our lives—we are searching for a “new breed of leader.”

I wrote about a “new breed of leader” in my essay, Make Hope Real.  Unlike many of the “outsider” leaders who emerged in the 1990s and spoke about a hostile takeover of government, disparaged public service, and exploited wedge issues, today’s new breed is highly pragmatic on policy issues, seeks to make public life and politics work instead of tearing them apart, and actively engages people in coming together to solve problems.  Instead of dividing us one from another, this new breed of leader believes in calling upon people to come together to improve their lives.

As I travel the country I sense the slow but steady growth in the number of such leaders. I see a new breed of leader emerging all around—the mayors of Newark, Washington, D.C. and Youngstown, as well as Michael Bloomberg in New York City.  And after tonight’s debate we should be able to answer a fairly simple question: Are any of these candidates part of the new breed of leader that we see emerging across the country. Will any of the major candidates step forward and address their absence at the Morgan State debate, or will they avoid the question like they avoided speaking with voters at Morgan State?

Last week I wrote that if Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the Republican party, were alive he would have welcomed the chance to attend the Morgan State event. I believe he represented a different kind of politics. He would have seen the debate as an opportunity to talk about pressing issues of race, prejudice, social and economic justice, and responsibility in our land; and he would have challenged us to look beyond what we already know – or think we know – about these concerns.  If he were alive today he would be among the new breed of leader.

However, when the top-tier Republican candidates skipped the Morgan State event they sent an unmistakable message: they value fund raising over rebuilding communities, politics over people, and have little regard for those with little money or political clout.

So the question for today is: Will any of the Republican or Democratic candidates for president emerge as part of the new breed of leaders? Tonight’s debate provides an opportunity to gauge the kind of leader that each of the major candidates for the Republican nomination will be.  When the candidates debate in Dearborn, Michigan tonight, I am looking for those who skipped the Morgan State debate to address their absence in two important ways.

• First, they should make sure the issue is on the table. If a direct question is not put to them, then they should raise the topic themselves, no matter the time limits, ground rules, or angst they create.
• Second, when talking about Morgan State, the candidates face a fundamental choice: do they dodge the issue or make excuses about busy schedules while reciting talking points crafted by spin doctors, or do they speak clearly and directly about their absence and what we should make of it.

Usually I would caution us not to read too much into a single event, that the test of people’s authenticity comes only over time. But the truth is that tonight actually brings into sharp relief a question many people have had about these candidates: who are they and what do they value. This is a crystallizing moment in the campaign and the nation: will any of the top tier candidates step up and speak to us?

Click here to download a set of questions to consider as you think about these candidates' answers to questions about Morgan State

John and Elizabeth Edwards have tapped into and stirred up an important conversation. It’s about politics, but much more, too.

We Americans are thirsty for authentic leaders. So many of us are tired of the false hope and silly bravado of many national figures. Our presidential candidates are packaged through and through, so much to the point that they endlessly try to find ways to make their campaigns more human and believable. But these efforts can further distance the candidates from us when they seem manipulative, which many do.

So, last week, the Edwards announced the recurrence of cancer in Elizabeth. There they stood at the Carolina Inn, a place I visited just a couple of months ago, taking questions from a large news media contingent. I suspect many people may have asked, Is this simply a made-up media event? Are they gently trying to manipulate their personal story to win votes?

Such questions may make us uncomfortable. What do you think?

• Is it possible in this day and age for a candidate and his or her campaign to reveal such a deep personal challenge without us feeling manipulated?

• Do you believe the Edwards when they say we shouldn’t vote for John simply out of sympathy?

• Some people are saying that Edwards should drop out of the presidential race because he won’t be able to focus on the campaign or the presidency, if elected. Do you agree?

• Is there a different standard for candidates who face these kinds of health risks from those who have committed adultery or have been married three times?

For me, I take the Edwards at their word. This is not the first time they’ve had to confront deep personal heartache. After all, they lost their teenage son and faced up to breast cancer once before. They realize the real-world pain that accompanies such family events. They also have some sense of how they respond under duress. I suspect they have thought long and hard about what they value and cherish in life.

I don’t know if any of this would lead me to vote for John Edwards. But I do know that I have come to respect him and his wife more. They speak with clarity and credibility about what is important to them. Like former President Gerald Ford and his wife Betty, who also faced personal challenges, through their own pain they have allowed us to hold a mirror up to ourselves, and they have done so with grace and love. For many candidates, indeed for many of us, such clarity can be elusive.

So, under what conditions can a candidate reveal something about him or her self and still be authentic? What do you think?

On this President’s Day, who is your favorite president? Take a moment to think about that and then write back so we can all see. For me, it’s Abraham Lincoln – hands down.

 

Of course, there have been many U.S. presidents I admire. And there have been some I could do without. How about you?

 

Lincoln, for me, was the most special. Yes, one can cite chapter and verse his leadership during the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Gettysburg Address not to mention other achievements.

 

But what emerges most for me is his personal strength in the face of enormous adversity – and I don’t just mean the Civil War. Indeed, his story, as we all know, was not one of an easy journey. History books tell us that he suffered some kind of melancholy; he had to weather the storm of his child’s death while in The White House; he lost multiple elections before getting to The White House; he barely made it to his second term as president.

 

His achievements, as we know them today, were not readily apparent back then.

 

So, here we are on this President’s Day as we watch the next presidential contest begin. The candidates are aggressively jockeying for position, endorsements, and donations – long before they will ever ask anyone for a single vote.

 

On this President’s Day, I wonder what potential do these individuals hold? What standards should we apply to them? What personal journey will they be on? If Lincoln were to run today, he probably would not make it given our emphasis on packaging and the like. What, if anything, should that tell us about any of the current candidates? About ourselves?

 

Lincoln’s journey was made up of seemingly endless ups and downs. Through it all, he somehow kept on going. He engaged his rivals and often won their admiration; he gained the respect and devotion of the men who made up the Union Army, even while they themselves endured enormous hardship.

 

Somehow Lincoln kept persevering. He must have had a keen sense of what he valued and was important to him; and he must have held enough humility to hear the voices of others and to know when to engage them and to examine his own path. If this holds any truth, then what should we be thinking about today?

 

More to the point, on this President’s Day, who is your favorite president?

I can’t get the pictures from Iraq out of my mind – soldiers who will never come home, others with multiple missing limbs and ingrained psychological trauma. Now, amid the rising hot air of the 2008 presidential campaign, a moment of sanity last week when U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) implored his Senate colleagues to “step up” and confront the Iraq issue squarely. “We owe it to those men and women that we send into that grinder,” he said.

Hagel asks nothing short of accounting for our own views, to me the most basic of public acts we must do in public life. In an impassioned two-minute plea, he asked his colleagues: “What do you believe?” “What are you willing to support?” “What do you think?”

I do not know questions any more fundamental than these. After all, it is the answers to such questions that reflect our deepest values and expectations; such questions prompt and prod us to reveal our own logic and take stock of our own heart. We can disagree about the war and the best course from here; but as we do, let us know that the grinder does not stop.

The grinder waits for no one.

In the last couple of years I have witnessed a remarkable tribute to our men and women in uniform. I am a regular ticket holder for the Washington Capitals hockey team and during many games in the Verizon Center people are asked to recognize those soldiers in attendance. A prolonged, standing ovation ensues; indeed, as opposition to the war has increased over the last year or two, the length and intensity of the ovation has only expanded. I cannot describe the feeling.

When we send our men and women into the grinder, we forge an implicit covenant with them – why are you going; under what conditions shall we bring you home; what is the nature of your service and how shall we support you?

When that covenant unravels, and when real disagreements arise about next steps, the next question becomes, “How shall we proceed?" Here, too, Senator Hagel has something important to say:

What I hear on both sides of this argument, impugning motives and patriotism to our country, not only is it offensive and disgusting, but it debases the whole system of our country and who we are. My goodness, can’t we debate the most critical issue of our time out front, in front of the American people?

This is a reasonable request but not an easy one to fulfill. I suspect that many members of Congress are deeply torn about the war and what to do. Each option for action comes with its own dilemmas and none easy to reconcile.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? We can debate this issue like we do so many others, as if the only considerations are political. Or, people can step up and engage, even if, perhaps especially if, they are torn.

You see, the grinder waits for no one.

Tomorrow night the president will stride into the House chamber to deliver a challenging State of the Union speech, which could easily be dead on arrival or so soft-peddled it goes flat. But what if you were to deliver the speech – what would be your main talking points? Let’s create the citizen state of the union speech!

I ask this because I’m wondering what people really want to hear – that is, how people want to be engaged? It’s clear that people want less rancor and partisanship in public life and politics; it’s also quite clear that there are tough issues before us.

Honest to God, the recent rhetoric around “let’s all get along” turns my stomach. It’s the polar opposite of the silly bravado and testosterone-driven shenanigans we’ve seen for all-too-long. Now, instead, we run the risk of false passivity, a kind of wolf in lamb’s clothing that will rise up to bite us all in the rear just when we’ve been told change was in the offing.

I’ve labeled this false hope in other venues! Sounds about right, but I don’t believe it has to be this way.

I heard this morning on NPR a political commentator suggest that we could gauge the meaningfulness of the president’s speech tomorrow night by whether congressional members on both sides of the aisle stand up and applaud for the same lines, or whether only one side stands to give their undying support. I had been thinking of the same notion this morning when I woke up. But then I thought better of it – utter hogwash!

I don’t care if the pols decide to stand up at the same time, so they can try to make themselves look good for the TV cameras and the voters at home. Oftentimes they look downright silly when they gregariously slap each other on the back and clap with unmitigated enthusiasm for someone they viciously attacked the day before. What I want to know is if they can reach some common ground on core challenges we must address.

So, for once, I wish the members of Congress would just sit there on their hands, not wiggling a bit, just listening attentively to the president. Let’s hear what he has to say; and let’s hear a real response from those who see things differently.

But, first, let’s hear from you. Please send in talking points for your State of the Union speech. Then let’s compare what you say with what we hear.

It’s been nearly a week since the mid-term elections. What can we now say about the public mood and the opportunities that lie ahead for forging a different path in public life and politics?

Later today, I will participate in a roundtable at the National Archives sponsored by the Kettering Foundation and the presidential libraries on “Democracy’s Challenge: Reclaiming the Public’s Role”; then, this Wednesday, I will host a teleconference on the meaning of the election for public innovators. What shall I say at these events?

For starters, we must know that this election was a long time coming; it didn’t just happen and we shouldn’t be surprised. People have held deep and profound anger about the state of American public life and politics for years; and that anger has been coupled with a sense of resignation – that people could not affect change. This was, in part, the topic of my recent book, Hope Unraveled: The People’s Retreat and Our Way Back.

Then a series of isolated events in recent years converged – from the ugliness of the 2004 election, to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, to rising uncertainties with the war in Iraq – helping to crystallize people’s views about public life and politics. What we saw in the mid-term elections, I believe, was just a sneak preview of those views.

The signal people are sending is unmistakable: they want a more respectful tone to guide public life and politics and more productive energies put into addressing people’s concerns and aspirations.

But merely depending on a sneak preview can be dangerous. For it’s the whole story we need to know. You see, dealing with the tough issues people want addressed will require that we change how we engage in public life and politics.

But beware, this doesn’t mean that people want a Miss Manners-type public life, where niceties are exchanged and uncomfortable issues are swept under the rug. Nor do they want obstructionist, testosterone-driven tactics employed. No, people want something more robust and vibrant, more focused on looking ahead, something that is rooted in and authentically reflects their daily realities.

The dilemma we now face is that we do not have the civic muscles to exercise this kind of public life and politics. So here are just three steps I think must be our focus if we are to have any chance of pursuing an alternate path for politics and public life:

1. We must focus our discourse and engagement on the search for the public good, and not fall prey to cheap and easy tactics to sell people on solutions that merely say to them, “Go ahead, focus only on you’re own good!” Self-interest is an essential element of human nature; that we cannot change. But we can ask people to see themselves more as active citizens and doers, connected to something larger than themselves, than as passive, isolated, me-first consumers.

2. We must take this opportunity to build the capacity of our communities for change. Wherever I go, I find many organizations and individuals doing good work, but by necessity they often focus on small niches. We need more boundary spanning, catalytic organizations that can bring people together across (purported) dividing lines; that can incubate new ideas; that can hold a mirror up to a community; that can create space for genuine collaboration. More and more I am finding organizations that want to step into this role – from United Ways, to community foundations, to community colleges, to public broadcasters, to others; moreover, there are new opportunities the online world offers to us. Now is the time to act.

3. We must focus on pursuing authentic hope and stop peddling false hope. I have written a great deal on this topic. All I will add here is that the mid-term elections created a new opening to engage people. But those who seek to pursue this engagement must be careful not to fall into old traps of pushing false hope by setting goals that cannot be met, exaggerating mandates, and failing to fulfill basic promises. In people’s lives, playing with hope is like playing with fire.

Over the past twenty years there has been any number of opportunities, akin to the recent mid-term election, to begin the process of changing the direction of public life and politics. Nearly every time, we have stepped forward to seize the moment, only to re-embrace practices that have deepened people’s sense of frustration.

Today, we are witnessing another opportunity.

I came to work today not wanting to write about the Rep. Mark Foley scandal on Capitol Hill. I didn’t want to simply vent over yet another congressional brouhaha. But I find I must turn my attention there.

At the very time I am watching the Foley affair unfold, I am reading a book on the meaning of “beauty” – On Beauty and Being Just, by Elaine Scarry. Wow! What a contrast, or is it? The basic point of the book is how something beautiful can help to engage us in thinking about justice; in short, when we come into contact with beauty, we are prompted not only to enjoy that which is beautiful, but also to recognize that which is not present or remains to be done.

But how about when we see ugliness? When we peer into ugliness, when we come face-to-face with it, what do we do then?

As I watch politicians and pundits respond to the Foley affair, I keep wondering, “How hard is it to respond to this scandal?” Does every issue demand a calculated political response? Watch even the clearest-minded politicians on this issue, and even they can’t seem to help themselves, returning time and again, after their initial comments, to taking political jabs.

At some level, politics is politics; it has always been a tough endeavor and not for the faint of heart. But merely to stop there would be to declare, even embrace, a defeatist attitude. It would be to surrender, I believe, to ugliness.

I’m still on my Hope Unraveled book tour and as I travel the country talking with people about their retreat from public life and politics, and their deep desire to find authentic hope, I keep hearing a similar refrain: Will someone please stand up and lead?

But let’s be clear. People are not waiting for the knight in shining armor to ride into town and save them. They know the situation is more complex than that.

Rather, what I think people want is for someone – their neighbor, the local United Way, a community foundation, faith leaders, the mayor, even themselves – to step forward and ask some basic questions: Is it too much to ask that public life and politics reflect something good in us; that it help to activate and animate our aspirations and hopes; that our intentions be driven by some notion of trying to do the most good?

The ugliness of the Mark Foley scandal should help us to see what we already know. Ugliness will always exist. But in confronting ugliness, we can also come to see that we need not accept it.

Who can hear us?

Here’s my new proposal: anyone who holds a leadership position of any kind should have to speak (let’s say, no less than three times a year) before audiences they know disagree with them, or are even hostile to their views. I’ve been thinking about this idea for awhile; but I was reminded of it again as I watched President Bush speak before the annual NAACP convention last week.

For six long years the president refused to make the trek to the NAACP podium. Indeed, NAACP and White House officials have been squabbling since day one of the administration. Who knows exactly who or what started the descent into disrespect? But the political calculations worked out this year and the two groups finally got together.

Let’s face it many leaders do everything they can to avoid audiences that hold opposing views. Such venues can be uncomfortable. It’s not unusual to hear leaders offer up contorted and silly explanations for why they can’t make an event.

But there are important reasons why we must force ourselves to enter into these uncomfortable spaces. Too often in public life and politics, we find ways to avoid one another; we too easily detach ourselves from the concerns of others; we can come to see people merely as opponents; we demonize people without second thought or reproach. Under such circumstances, the “other” becomes objectified – someone who lives outside our realm as if they occupy a different orbit.

Now, sometimes leaders split the difference and find ways to attend uncomfortable events. The conventional wisdom can be to go to the event, make nice, smooth over differences that may exist, even seek to appease the other side. It’s all an exercise in dignified civility. The question here is, when does civility become an excuse for failing to face up to our real differences?

So, I have something different in mind when I propose that we force ourselves to speak to audiences with whom we have disagreements, even where hostilities may exist.

• The mere act of showing up, and making oneself present, is a public acknowledgement of other people’s humanity – a very human signal of respect that despite our disagreements, we live in a common space.



• The pointing out of why real disagreements exist requires a leader to offer an idea, a line of thought, an argument and thus for others to see that there is a thoughtfulness and thoroughness that informs that individual.



• There is a kind of entreaty at work in this approach – a call and the potential for a response. Even if the response is negative, we know there has been an exchange.



• Clearly demarcating where there are real disagreements in ideas or policy allows for a discussion to be joined – there is something to be discussed and debated, even if it can’t be readily resolved.
• Showing up means that any attempt to demonize others must be done with full accountability. If you want to take the tough shots, you must be present.



• Finally, entering these less-than-supportive environments forces the speaker to use language that serves to engage and not push away people. For after all, the speaker seeks to illuminate his or her views, to take care in what they say, and to strive to be understood rather than to obfuscate or serve up platitudes.

Think about someone you know who gives speeches, maybe even yourself. Then consider the depth and resonance of their voice if they were present in the setting I’ve described. Would their voice quiver as their words ring hollow, or would their speech reveal the forthrightness and passion of their views?

Three times a year we should give such talks and listen for the sound of our voice. Who can hear us?

I’m often asked by people to name leaders I respect. What follows is my short list. What’s surprising is who is on it – and why. I wonder who makes your list.

I offer these names by way of saying that I believe most people who go into leadership do so for good and noble reasons. That’s been my experience. But what happens to these individuals along the way is another story.

People get caught up in their power; they lose sight of their roots and connections; they find themselves overwhelmed by forces acting upon them. They can seem more interested in pursuing their own personal interests, vendettas, and agendas than they are in acting for the public good.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. I hold a deepening respect for a growing collection of individuals who are blazing an alternate path – and who might be viewed as strange bedfellows:

• Lindsey Graham, the conservative Republican U.S. senator from South Carolina, who routinely speaks out on tough issues, even when he is at odds with his party and The White House;
• Mark Warner, the former Democratic governor of Virginia, who was forthright and civil in his efforts to get various programs funded, balance budgets, and work across the aisle in his divided state;
• Jay Williams, the relatively new mayor of Youngstown, Ohio, who has made a pledge not to over promise, and who is bringing that community together;
• Sam Brownback, U.S. senator from Kansas, another conservative Republican, who holds a deep Christian faith, and who pursues it openly while maintaining a deep respect for others;
• Michael Bloomberg, the Republican mayor of New York City, who has demonstrated that it is possible to govern, make tough choices, and see different issues from different perspectives – and remain firmly defined as a respected and effective political leader.

These leaders seem to march to a different beat. They are at once inwardly focused – understanding and staying true to their values, motivations, and beliefs. They have no problem taking a hit for sticking to their convictions. And yet they are outwardly focused, too – seeking to fulfill their obligations to those they serve. None of this seems to be a public relations game. Rather, these individuals come to their work on deeper, more human terms.

I purposefully left two darlings off my list – at least for now. First, U.S. Senator John McCain: as he makes his White House run, he has found himself zigzagging trying to find his voice and votes. Second is U.S. Senator Barak Obama, who is being pushed and pulled in every direction; only time will tell where he lands.

Tell me who you respect as a leader and why. Let’s compile a list together. And let’s keep growing it. While so many of us decry our leaders, let’s shine a light on those we respect.

Wherever I go on my book tour, one of the most pressing questions I get is this one: How can we find the leaders we seek? People’s disgust with the quality of leadership in the country, and in their local communities, is palpable and deep. What can we do?

First off, I am always quick to say that our leaders in Washington, D.C., will not the lead the way forward. In fact, I believe they will be the last ones to join in building improved conditions in public life and politics. They are too mired in their acrimonious and divisive ways; and they are too concerned with pursuing their own personal agendas, personal interests, and personal vendettas. I believe they can hardly see their way clearly to alternate paths in public life and politics.

But I am equally quick to ask the following question of the rest of us: How well do we support the good leaders in our communities? For instance, how often, when a leader comes under fire, do we:

1. Step forward to literally stand beside the individual and vouch for their integrity, even when we do not agree with a particular position?
2. Step forward to say clearly that the individual leader is a good person, and that we and others will not stand for scurrilous and mean-spirited attacks against them?
3. Step forward to praise an individual leader for taking a tough-minded and principled stand – whether we agree with them or not?

If we want better leaders, then we must exert our own kind of leadership. Only then will the quality of leadership improve. Those of us of good will must step forward to actively and visibly stand beside people of good judgment. We must let our voices and our views be known to others, so that we can put on notice those people who operate through fear and intimidation. Too many of our good leaders are left standing alone naked in the public square just at the moment when they need us most to stand beside them and vouch for their worthiness. If we want good leaders, then we must vow not to abandon them, and instead find ways to show our support. Our desire for good leadership will require us to act.

So, please, take the test: What leaders do you stand beside?

I watched President Bush and Governor Kaine last night in total shock and awe. Surely, they can’t believe the American people buy what they’re peddling. And members of Congress who keep howling and standing and clapping, surely they must know their posturing is silly. What about the real America?

There were three phrases that framed last night’s speeches: “There is no honor in retreat;” America is a “hopeful society;” and there is “no higher calling than serving others.” Wow! Too bad each of these phrases was maligned, abused, mangled, and appropriated.

The problem is this: I’ve crisscrossed the nation now six times in the last 15 years, and these three phrases, as they were used, simply distort people’s reality. Let’s take each phrase one at a time:

1. “There is no honor in retreat” – true enough. This phrase framed a huge portion of the president’s message. Unfortunately, much of America is in retreat. As I’ve outlined in Hope Unraveled, Americans have told me that over the last 15 years they have retreated from public life and politics into close-knit circles of family and friends. They have done so because they feel their reality is not reflected in public life and politics and that it is often purposefully distorted by, among others, politicians seeking their own gain.
   
   The phrase, “There is no honor in retreat” should have applied here at home. In fact, it reminded me of when someone turns a phrase on you in an argument – trying to get the upper hand. Last night the president should have engaged Americans in a conversation about how we can reverse our own retreat – here at home.
   
   
2. America is a “hopeful society” – not in the way this phrase distorted people’s reality last night. In many respects, people’s hope has greatly diminished over the past 15 years or so. Too much “false hope” is peddled in our society – overblown expectations, inflated achievements, unrealistic timelines, and manufactured heroes. Americans want to be hopeful – but that will require reflecting their reality, engaging them on a purposeful path, and acknowledging the real challenges they face in their daily lives.
   
   People will not be hopeful simply because we proclaim that they are, or because there is a litany of new proposals on the table. Understanding people’s reality, accurately reflecting it, and showing how one’s ideas relate to that reality are all necessary steps to move forward. Few of these could be heard last night.
   
   
3. “There is no higher calling than serving others” – yes, but too bad that neither the president nor the governor really talked about this. They discussed what government needs to do, what the private sector needs to do, but never really what each of us as citizens need to do. Let’s face it; there was no higher calling last night. Instead, the call went out that each of us should expect to get all we want, when we want it, all at a low cost – and with good, government efficiency!
   
   A hopeful society, a society not in retreat – these require each of us to step up and engage as citizens, to think about our common challenges, to consider how we each must contribute, to see how we are inextricably connected to one another.

Finally, consider this point: Hurricane Katrina was one of the most significant domestic challenges we faced last year and continue to face today. Where was it last night? Were they hiding it? Think about the three phrases above, and connect them to the fundamental challenges raised by Hurricane Katrina – about poverty, about race, about pubic schools, about infrastructure, about how levels of government must work together.

I know that Americans want a hopeful society. They believe they must not be in retreat. And they also believe that serving others is a higher calling. So why don’t we start to truly act on those sentiments?

What did you think of the speeches last night? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

This candidate for mayor of San Antonio may have failed the test of where to draw the line. How far will voters go?

Last week I told a story (see below) about where to draw lines on matters of convenience and ease. Well, last Friday, I read an article about Julian Castro, a candidate for major of San Antonio who couldn’t make it to the annual River Parade through downtown.

So what did he do? He sent his brother to fill in – only it was his TWIN! Unbeknownst to anyone but those on the parade barge with him, the twin was taken as Julian himself, the candidate. In fact, a television anchorman hosting the parade identified him as the candidate.

Now, this could be an innocent mistake. But, to me, it crosses the line. Here is a candidate running for mayor who sends his brother, a twin, to fill in for him at a parade. What are we to think? I can come up with all kinds of excuses and explanations, but each one begs the fundamental truth.

At a minimum, one would expect the mayor-to-be to make every effort not to appear as if he is trying to sneak one by the voters. His campaign could have easily told the TV anchorman, for instance, what was happening. But they didn’t.

And so what happened next? What every good campaign consultant would suggest.

Julian, and his brother, Joaquin, showed up at a press conference the next day in T-shirts, making fun of the situation and cracking jokes about it.

The line was drawn in the wrong place on this one.

Yesterday, Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich, in his State of the State address, chastised state legislators to be more respectful of the office of governor. Too bad there’s too little will and grace in Maryland right now – and in the rest of country – for such respect in politics to prevail.

Ehrlich has been engaged in hand-to-hand combat with members of the state legislature for months. Some people blame his efforts to ram through his agenda of slot machines and malpractice reform; others, including the governor, believe that state legislators are to blame. In his address, Ehrlich accused unnamed leaders of “playing the Capitol Hill game of demagoguing on personal ethics.”

My own reading of the situation is that there’s probably some truth on both sides.

But the real problem is that neither side wants to exercise the will to show more grace in their political dealings. The Harwood Institute has long worked on political conduct concerns in the nation; in fact, in the 1980s, that is where much of our work began. We undertook a five-year nationwide initiative to improve the conduct of political leaders, news media and citizens; I wrote a nifty little book on the subject, A New Political Covenant.

In that work, which was based on engaging Americans across the nation on their aspirations for political conduct, it was clear that people want political debate to be vibrant and robust. They want political issues and various perspectives to be aired out. They do not wish for what I call a Miss Manner’s kind of politics.

But nor do they want a politics devoid of grace. Robust debate does not mean rancorous and raunchy debate. Grace is, after all, a sense of propriety and good will. It requires one to tap into a sensibility of decency – to recognize that anything does not go, and sometimes one must refrain from saying the ridiculous or silly or the half-truth. Simply because it is possible to say something does not mean it should be said.

So, I urge the governor and his colleagues in the statehouse to read A New Political Covenant and to make that covenant real. If not for themselves, then for those they serve.

I’d be happy to send a free copy to any and all who would like one – just email thi@theharwoodinstitute.org with your request.

God only knows what’s in the Kool-Aid over at CNN these days. The network announced today the end of CNN”S “Crossfire” and it came not a day too soon. I congratulate them. I only wish I was afforded the opportunity to do so long ago!

“Crossfire” has been a crabby, cranky program filled with unnecessary hype in an age when people’s reality is regularly distorted. I know few people outside of Washington, D.C. who could watch that program and say it had anything to do with their daily lives, other than perhaps to provide some cheap entertainment, a verbal version of the hyperbolic World Wrestling Federation.

So, I applaud – and loudly – the decision by new CNN/US president Jonathan Klein who canned the misfire of a program. He was quoted in today’s Washington Post as saying viewers need “useful information in a dangerous world and a bunch of guys screaming at each other simply doesn’t accomplish that.” He’s got that right – and apparently much more.

I’ve been working with journalists in newsroom for nearly two decades trying to help them tap into the life of communities and the nation to find and illuminate important stories, cover them as whole stories, and reveal the real tensions and conflicts that exist in them. It can be done. In fact, CNN works pretty hard at it on some of their existing programs.

But more must be done. In fact I am just finishing up a manuscript for a book on how Americans have retreated from politics and public life over the past 15 years; the news media, as we all know, has played a major role in people’s decision to retreat. Now, they must play a role in re-engaging people.

So, CNN has just upped the ante: how can they produce better television news that truly engages the imagination of people. I actually find myself rooting for them this morning.

I have been wondering why I haven’t written anything since the presidential election. Each time I have sat down to write, I have felt compelled to turn away – actually, the feeling is closer to being repulsed.

The campaign left me feeling angry and disgusted. The candidates actively destroyed each other over the course of many months, and then had the audacity to call for unity the day after the election. How could they seriously utter such words? Did they really mean them? If so, how would they characterize what they had been doing up till then – simply playing a game at the expense of the American people? What about all the accusations, name-calling and questioning of each other’s personal motivations?

Negative campaigning is one thing; but what we witnessed was a total disregard for people’s hopes and aspirations. The call for unity was disingenuous; it was insulting to people’s intelligence. Are we expected to buy this silliness?

Still, many people have told me simply to accept this outrageous behavior as politics as usual. Our expectations of politics – and ourselves, at times – are so low that we are willing to shrug our shoulders in despair.

But I also know from The Harwood Institute’s own political conduct work that people truly do hold aspirations for how politics and public life is to be conducted. And their sense of faith in the process is driven, in large part, by this conduct.

During the campaign, and especially the day after, I wanted to grab these two office seekers and shake them by the shoulders, and ask: “What do you think you just did during this election? What gave you the right to conduct your campaign in the way that you did?”

I would like to hear their answers – unscripted.

The talk about unity keeps unfolding across our land, but is it worth anything? What do we seek in the name of unity?

I have long argued that the political pundits and pollsters and professionals made more of people’s differences in this past election cycle than actually exist. As David Brooks said in a recent column:

The red and blue maps that have been popping up in the papers again this week are certainly striking, but they conceal as much as they reveal…In the first place, there is an immense diversity of opinion within regions, towns and families. Second, the values divide is a complex layering of conflicting views about faith, leadership, individualism, American exceptionalism, suburbia, Wal-Mart, decorum, economic opportunity, natural law, manliness, bourgeois virtues and a zillion other issues.

Strategies that play on people’s existing divisions too often dangerously pull apart the fabric of the nation and diminish our sense of social cohesion. At issue is whether leaders (and the rest of us) will have the courage to help people see what they might hold in common and how they can move forward together.

Still, that won’t be easy in today’s bitter environment. After last week’s vote, many people remain angry about the outcome. Others believe that the President should now take his victory and pursue his own brand of change – and never look back.

Indeed, last week on Wisconsin Public Radio, a caller was annoyed by my attempts to say that there is common ground to be found in the nation – and that we have an obligation to pursue it. The caller angrily asserted that the Democrats lost, and that they should now step back and capitulate. To the victor go all the spoils.

At times I fear the Democrats will simply capitulate, as many did after 9/11, or will now needlessly fight at each turn. Then again, I fear the Republicans will simply say it’s “my way or the highway.” Any way you cut it, the situation has the potential become a terrible mess.

But neither unity nor victory should be the ultimate goal. The pursuit of unity, for its own sake, will push aside the real differences that do need to be aired out; robust debate can lead to new ideas and innovation. And the pursuit of victory alone can lead to blind ambition, which never results in anything good.

The people I talk with in scores of communities across the nation seek progress on a host of concerns, including public schools, health care, jobs, immigration, and the budget deficit. While there are no clear answers to these and other challenges, my experience tells me that people have the capacity to see beyond narrow labels and even themselves on these issues – if they are asked. The question remains – Who will have the courage to call us to address these challenges?

For now, we remain lost in our own narcissism of seeking political gains and personal positioning. Despite the bitterness of the campaign, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Last night and still this morning I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. This campaign has left me feeling enormously empty and frustrated and wondering why we insist on going down the path we do.

Seeing the vast swath of red states sandwiched in-between the smaller blue areas took my breath away. It’s not that I didn’t see it coming; for God’s sake, this red-blue division has been the easy narrative of the campaign. But when I saw that it was actually here, a done deal, well, then, I was overcome by a terrible sinking feeling. It was final: the idea of red and blue states will rule for the days to come.

In response, all the false, silly and mind-numbing rhetoric of “civility” and “bringing the country together” has started, well, in earnest. I heard some commentators and politicos say last night that what the “next president” must do to repair the breach in the nation is to reach across the aisle to work in a bipartisan fashion and maybe even appoint a couple of cabinet members from the opposing party. Huh? Is that it? Do people who make such suggestions have any sense of where the country really is – and what it will take to move us forward?

It’s clear that the country is going through tremendous churn. I have been documenting this churn in a series of studies since the beginning of the 1990s (and, hopefully, will be publishing a book on this soon). Working our way through these changes will require that we address some key underlying concerns, as opposed to exploiting them, and that we pursue a different path in politics and public life to authentically deal with those concerns.

Unfortunately, it seems that we have made little progress in our political life since 2000, in either party. The states remain divided as they were during the Bush-Gore race. The issues are more gridlocked than ever. The tone of politics is even nastier. Does anyone feel a genuine sense of hope?

We need to craft a different kind of public agenda, one that will increase the potential for progress. We need to gain some small victories that will restore our faith in our collective ability to act and ignite even the smallest sense of possibility. I do not think this agenda will come from either party on the national scene.

Instead, progress must come from within our communities where people, when the conditions are right, can demonstrate that they have the capacity and will to tap their own potential to make a difference and join together to build a common future.

I know that there are people who want to figure this out, rather than be cornered into a red-blue division. All I need to do is to think about those people I have seen and talked with in just the past few weeks alone – in Atlanta, Silicon Valley, Jackson (MS), and Las Vegas. I am more hopeful as I sit here and write this entry en route to Milwaukee and Madison and Lake Geneva in Wisconsin, where I will visit with people who have been working hard to make a difference in their communities.

Those of us who are working to spark fundamental change in politics and public life are fighting an uphill battle. But now that I have caught my breath, I’m ready to get going again.

On this election eve, the nation is bracing itself: What will happen? Who will win? Will we even know the victor when we finally rest our weary heads on our pillows?

But I have a different thought in mind: Who will we become in the months ahead? As I have crisscrossed the nation in recent weeks, it is this thought to which I continually find myself returning.

Everyday we hear that this is a divided and polarized nation. Yes, there are ardent Bush and Kerry supporters on both sides. But the pundits and pollsters and prognosticators are missing the real story when they remain so ardently focused on the narrative of a divided nation.

The people I have talked with across the nation are in search of ways to come together, not to divide themselves. What’s more, the central challenges we face will not be eased or erased by this election. Not even a potential record voter turnout on Tuesday – maybe upwards of 120 million voters – will signal redemption for our political process.

People feel disconnected from one another and from the institutions and leaders that affect their lives. They do not have faith in our collective ability to join together and build a common future. There is a human spirit waiting to be tapped within people.

Now, as important as going to the polls tomorrow will be, voting alone will not restore this faith, or tap this spirit. Instead, all of us must engage in public life and politics in a fundamentally different way.

So, on Tuesday night, as we watch the television networks color their election maps red and blue, keep the following question in mind: What will it take to create the conditions whereby people can tap their potential to make a difference and join together to build a common future?

As you consider this question, imagine sitting in your kitchen with a room full of Republican, Democratic, and Independent voters, as well as the people who decided not to vote this year. What course would this conversation need to take in order to produce progress – rather than simply trying to divide one group against the other?

This Wednesday, at 5pm eastern time, I’ll be appearing on Ben Merens’ show on Wisconsin Public Radio, discussing the election. You can listen live through the WPR website.

In the coming months I’ll be writing more about the challenge to create the right conditions in America for people to step forward and create productive change. In the meantime, let me know how your conversations go.

Richard C. Harwood, President, The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation

What an abhorrent, insulting, incoherent and, most of all, disingenuous performance last night by the two presidential candidates. I literally wanted to stand up in my family room and boo so loudly they could hear me in Tempe.

Did you notice how when the two candidates gave their closing statements, all of a sudden their language, physical demeanor, and tone became “presidential”? And yet all we got during the debate were half-truths, unanswered questions, and even canned laugh lines. It made me want to turn off the TV.

On Tuesday of this week, I spent an hour on Wisconsin Public Radio doing a call-in program with voters in that swing state. Their frustrations about this campaign, their desire for real answers, their hope for genuine leadership was palpable. Then on Wednesday morning I wrote a report about how Las Vegas citizens and leaders view the challenges of their community; people there need to find ways to come together. Then, just the before the debate, on Wednesday evening, I was in a conference call with about fifteen civic leaders from Jackson, MS., who are looking for smart ways to move their community forward.

As I watched the debate, I kept thinking about these people, in different states, in truly different parts of the nation, all with different political leanings. The debate last night did not speak to their concerns and aspirations. There was a total disconnect.

Instead of the candidates telling us who they really are, what kind of country they seek to help create and lead, and what values and beliefs drive their views, we got long laundry lists of proposals, long litanies of complaints, and long-winded answers, sometimes with little substance.

At one point in the debate I remember thinking to myself how odd it was that neither of the candidates felt compelled to articulate any sense of vision for the country. Neither of them was hopeful about the future. No one suggested that Americans have any obligations to one another, or if they did it was a fleeting moment. There were no themes, no ideas, and no sense of possibility. There was no calling us to a big goal or challenge, no sense that we belong to anything larger than ourselves.

Indeed, the moderator’s question about pulling a polarized nation together was almost embarrassing. How could either of these candidates honestly answer that question when it deserves such a genuine response?

Now, the candidates have three weeks to redeem themselves and to challenge this nation. God help them.

Richard C. Harwood, President, The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation

For me, the second presidential debate sounded almost like a real debate, until I awoke from my slumber and realized what was happening. The two candidates spun their talking points bravely but the campaign – despite people’s interest and engagement across the nation – remains stuck in place for now. But there is an alternate path. Here’s what I mean. The candidates have successfully gotten people’s attention in recent weeks. For instance, millions of us have been glued to our television sets watching the three debates. But now that we’re watching, all we got on Friday night were two men strutting across a stage imploring us to believe their exhortations, auctioning off tax cuts and new programs to satisfy us, and dutifully attacking one another to prove their mettle. None of these debating points helped tell us anything more than we already had come to know, which hasn’t been enough to engender our confidence and hope. The candidates and this campaign are mired in their own talking points and attack lines. It’s a tired routine that washes over us and fails to take us anywhere – to help us see who we are and what we can become. All this activity numbs us, despite our interest and belief that this election is important. We wish for more. So, here’s what I want them to do. Tell us for once what their heart says. Tell us what kind of America they seek to lead and help create. Tell us what we as people need to do, and what our obligations are to one another. This isn’t so much about policies and numbers; instead, it requires absolute clarity about underlying values and aspirations, about motivations and the reasons why they would endure such hardship to run for the presidency.

To follow this path would require each man to get off their talking points and delve into their souls. They would need to trust themselves enough to rely on their own sense of mission. We saw fleeting glimpses of this genuine passion on Friday night – when Senator Kerry discussed the Patriot Act, and when the President discussed the preciousness of human life – but we deserve to see much more. Then maybe these candidates could shake us from our impasse and help us to see a different future. I know that the candidates and their handlers want most of us to remain in place so they can argue over the last few undecided voters. But this year they have an opportunity for people to say, “Yes, this is the right man, for the right time, at the right place.”

Richard C. Harwood, President, The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation As I watched last night’s vice-presidential debate it was enormously revealing about the fundamental challenge Americans confront in this election: which truth to believe. Both candidates, both campaigns, and voters on all sides have talked passionately about the “distortions” in this campaign. There are too many to count. But the argument over these distortions fails to pinpoint our real dilemma.

After the first presidential debate I wrote about the clash between competence and certitude. Beneath this clash rests competing narratives about the state of the nation and our work abroad. We could see these competing narratives at work last night. How well is the war in Iraq going? How much progress have we made in ensuring that no child is left behind in our public schools? To what extent have we provided health care to all Americans? How well are American communities protected from future terrorist attacks? On each topic, there is a set of competing facts. And even though these facts are often distorted for partisan gain, the problem is that both sets hold some truth. They create different storylines which appeal to different versions of reality. This competition is most acute during significant periods of change when it becomes difficult to sort out how much progress has been made, and what remains to be done. It can be hard to see if any hope is in the offing. So, for now, two narratives about our current state of affairs co-exist, each one competing for our attention and validation. So long as these narratives are allowed to remain separate, they will clash. The campaign then boils down not to which candidate we like better or who has the better programs, but which story feels more right or comfortable about ourselves and the nation. For now we are stuck with these separate and equal narratives. They lead the nation to greater division as people choose their plots. Only by joining these two competing stories, and helping people interpret their meaning and see how we can move beyond the divides, is it possible to transcend the differences. But truth be told: that would require leadership.

Richard C. Harwood, President, The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation

The pundits were proven wrong, the candidates did engage, and the people won. Now we have a genuine race and a clear choice.

What was so evident to me last night was a clash in narratives between certitude and competence.

President Bush offered the candidacy of certitude. Throughout the debate, he consistently used words and phrases such as: “liberty, tyranny, freedom, precious, change the world, duty, keep our word, stand with you, injustice, resolve, steadfast, going to win.” It was a language of a Bush religion of public affairs, as if he was reading from its very prayer book.

Senator Kerry, on the other hand, presented the vision of competence. He infused his answers with such words and terms as: “getting the job done, my plan, get it right, diplomacy, alliances, realities, change the dynamics, reaching out, make sense, look you in the eye.” This is a language of someone who derives hope from hard work.

The question for Americans increasingly is which vision best reflects your values and engenders your trust? Which approach do you believe will bring about results we can live with? What kinds of risks are you willing to take?

For once, the two men did all Americans a favor. They were last night, for the most part, straight, clear-headed, and forthright. You may not have agreed with them, but you can see where they stand.

Now, we Americans should applaud them. Notwithstanding the silliness that ensued after the political conventions, we still have five weeks to have a meaningful campaign. Let’s tell them that last night we finally got a peek of the campaign we deserve and seek.

The Dan Rather fiasco over President Bush’s military service record is rapidly deteriorating into a free-fall for CBS News and a round-the-clock free-for-all for pundits and analysts. The problem is that we will miss the real issue in all this brouhaha.

CBS News rushed to use documents in a news story that were poorly checked out. They decided to stretch the truth as far as they could take it, hoping, despite warning signs, that everything would work out. It didn’t. It seldom does when we play with reality.

Jay Rosen, NYU journalism professor, wrote yesterday about the CBS News situation: "Today's announcement is just one part of a massive institutional failure at CBS, much of it still to be uncovered. When the case study is done, the part that will seem extraordinary, and most inexplicable, is the ignorant and high-handed reaction from word one in the game of doubt that began on the Internet shortly after the broadcast aired."

The real issue here is not merely about document forgery or journalistic ethics, but our very notion of accountability. How far will people go in looking you in the eye and telling you one thing and then doing another? We’ve seen that some in the news media and politics will go way too far. Their actions reflect a “dumbing down” of expectations in public life. Anything goes – so long as there is a wink and a nod.

The CBS News actions smack of the same kind of behavior we’ve repeatedly seen from the presidential candidates. Take the mean-spirited, negative, and downright frustrating expenditures by the so-called “527” groups (e.g., Swift Boat ads). First, Senator Kerry tells the American people he supports campaign finance reform, and often seizes the mantle of reform on the campaign trail. But he sits on his hands and won’t really do anything to halt the insidious 527 expenditures by fellow Democrats. Similarly, President Bush, who opposed campaign finance reform, and only reluctantly signed it, then had the gall to praise the new law when seeking cover during the Swift Boat debate; he said that he has always opposed “soft money” expenditures and, thus, the 527 ads.

Neither candidate has had the courage to take on these ads, and shame them off the air. They hide behind the legal separation between their campaigns and these “independent” groups. They say their hands are tied. I don’t buy it. Nothing is stopping either candidate from standing up and saying, “I denounce these ads both in form and substance. They have poisoned the campaign, and the American people deserve better. If you care about the future of this country, you will put a stop to these ads.”

If the President of the United States can put a stop to Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq, surely he can put a stop to some television commercials. And if the Democratic nominee can’t stand up and be a leader in his own party, how can we expect him to lead the nation? Instead of debating whether or not the candidates displayed courage thirty years ago, we must demand that both of them show some courage now.

Accountability is not just for CBS News anchors and presidential candidates, but for all of us. There is great temptation for us to hide behind rules, procedures, and the status quo. But to create change, we must have the courage to step forward and hold ourselves accountable for doing what we believe is necessary and right. If we start with ourselves, eventually our leaders will follow.

The eye on America is on each of us.

Today I feel compelled to talk about John Edwards’ speech last night, but I am continually drawn to the night before and Barack Obama. Indeed, with each passing moment, his speech burns brighter in my mind and heart.

There were certain qualities to Obama’s speech that make it remarkably authentic and incredibly refreshing. For me, it is not that he is new on the political scene; in fact, it took me awhile to get over the idea that the Democrats had even selected him for this coveted spot. He’s young and relatively inexperienced (I know those are the very reasons why they chose him!).

Still, in a time when political figures seem to have latched onto notions of engendering a sense of possibility and hope – something that I believe is vitally important in public life and which I have been writing about for years – Obama did us all a great service.

While his speech had a decidedly quiet nature to it, his words reverberated throughout the land. He talked about hope almost always in the context of historical examples, demonstrating that it is rooted in something larger than yesterday’s anecdote:

I’m not talking about blind optimism here—the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores … The audacity of hope!

He discussed hope in terms of enduring American ideals – about the place and role of the common person, the ever-expanding circle of inclusion, the ability of all people to reach for the American Dream:

The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to … But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.

He reminded people that these are the United States of America – that while our nation is big and diverse, we nonetheless subscribe to the notion of e pluribus unum:

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America—there’s the United States of America.

Even when he talked about his personal life story, it was not to brag about himself, or to ask us to like him, but illustrate that he knows in his bones of what he speaks.

My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or “blessed,” believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren’t rich, because in a generous America you don’t have to be rich to achieve your potential.

Indeed, his speech, his words and his delivery, asked the listener to explore his or her own conscious. What kind of America do you want? How will you engage? What are you willing to think about?

This year, in this election, we are called to reaffirm our values and commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers, and the promise of future generations. And fellow Americans—Democrats, Republicans, Independents—I say to you tonight: we have more work to do.

We have much more work to do. We live in a time when far too many Americans have retreated from public life, and form each other, into close-knit circles. We don’t trust many of our leaders. There is a lack of social cohesion. But most people are good and decent. They want to try and do the right thing. They want to belong to something larger than themselves. They want to make a difference.

At issue is whether we will re-engage – beyond the current argument about the War in Iraq. Will we look beyond ourselves and think about our relationship to public life? The sentiments in Obama’s speech offer a path of possibility. They are rooted in more than nostalgia, more than a heated argument, more than mere rhetoric. They come from the history and story of America and from our own inherent aspirations to reconnect.

Three cheers for Barack Obama!

(For other views on the speech, look here, here, and here)

On Monday night at the Democratic Convention all talking and rhetoric stopped for a moment during the solemn and touching remembrances for 9/11. (Click here, here, and here for accounts)

I often chagrin the fact that 9/11 is exploited for political and consumer purposes; last night was different.

A profound quiet seemed to come over the proceedings as a few speakers gave words to haunting memories that still swirl within us. This time there was no rhetoric; no pleas to go out and buy more consumer goods to bolster the flagging economy; no war-time language to persuade a nation.

No, this time we were quiet. This time the words revealed our souls to ourselves. We were not divided along red and blue states. This time we were Americans.

As I watched the events unfold, even the talking heads on television were at a loss. They could not explain how the nation has become so seemingly polarized just two years after 9/11. In the days that followed those attacks, Americans seem united – not just in the face of terrorism, but in their resolve to address pressing social ills such as our public schools.

People have not changed since those September days. Our souls have not been corrupted. Our aspirations have not evaporated. Our desire to do the right thing has not abated.

The memories last night of 9/11 should not be consumed as some kind of nostalgia or cheap tear-jerk. Instead, let it remind us of what is lodged in our souls. I say this not just to our political leaders, but to those in the news media who must choose how to cover politics, and to those of us as citizens who must decide whether to engage in public life and how best to do so.

We could see ourselves again last night – yes, for some that means as Democrats; but for everyone, it means as Americans.

The noise is deafening at times: the pundits and news media who tell us there is nothing newsworthy about the political conventions which start today. They’re wrong.

They, of course, want to use the master narrative of conflict as the gauge of newsworthiness. If there is no conflict – no floor fights, no battle for the vice-presidential spot, no tension between different party factions – then there is no news to report.

I don’t agree. In fact, the typical political conflict – “he said, she said” – usually turns most of us off from politics. It may make good viewing, but it doesn’t address our core concerns or hopes.

So, I happen to be one person who believes the conventions have a lot to tell us – even now, when prominent journalists have called the upcoming political conventions "staged," a "set-piece," an "infomercial," an "empty ritual," and, perhaps the cruelest characterization of all, "little more than a reality show."

I plan to watch the conventions to find out:

•What tone will the convention take – I’m tired of all the Red/Blue division. Will either party try to reach out and give people room to join them, or will they strike a highly-partisan tone, one that causes people to come out fighting and “take their corners”?

•What will they ask us to do – will the conventions pretend to ask people to “give of themselves” through “new social contracts” or “covenants,” but fail to really ask us to do anything significant?

•Will they pander to people or engage them – will the candidates and their proxies auction off the public treasury by “selling” programs and tax cuts to people; or will they level with people about what needs to be done, by whom, and what it really cost?

The planners of each convention had to make explicit choices when it comes to these and other questions. The answers reveal what they value and how they see us. That will tell us about them, their vision, and how they see America.

Throughout this week, I’ll pose more questions and ideas. Then we’ll follow the Republican convention, too. All in all, I think we can learn a great deal from these conventions. Stay tuned.

As we all follow the upcoming political conventions, please check back often. Next week, I will be offering frequent thoughts on what we are hearing from the Democratic Convention, and on what we should be hearing. I'm also interested in what you want to hear from the convention speakers, so add your voice in the comments section.

I went to see Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11 this weekend. It was a powerful movie. For those people who already believe the War in Iraq was a bad move, it only gives more ammunition to confirm their position. And yet, as I watched the film I found myself deeply disturbed. The film distorted certain facts by providing little context; used editing techniques to suggest seamless connections that actually were "jumps in logic"; pulled at people's heart strings (my own included) and yet did not give any air time to the complex issues surrounding Iraq and terrorism. In fact, it was not so much an argument or a helpful illumination of a tough situation as it was a long campaign message – only this time I had to pay to get in. It succeeded in squeezing out any ambiguity of a situation riddled by inherent tensions and competing options.

Recently, the Washington Post ran an article that showed how George Bush and John Kerry routinely use different facts to talk about the economy. Kerry emphasizes that 1.8 million jobs have been lost and that newly-created jobs pay less. George Bush argues that the economy is on the move, producing new jobs in recent months and showing signs of recovery. The story showed how both sets of facts are true. And yet both candidates argue as if the other set of facts simply do not exist.

There’s been a lot of talk about fact-checking during this campaign. The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania has an entire website devoted to checking the facts on every political ad that appears on the air or in print. Accuracy is an important piece of running a campaign, but we must focus on what creates genuine accuracy. Focusing on single facts alone never reveals the whole story. In a country where we are told we are divided, the question is whether people can see beyond their existing arguments; whether they can consider the full picture and its competing factors; whether they are willing to learn anything new about a situation; whether they can break through to reach some new common ground.

So long as public discourse revolves around distorted facts, and so long as it plays with people’s context, we undermine people's sense of reality. This causes people either to opt out of public life entirely (see the 50% of people who don’t vote) or to simply choose up sides before engaging. It allows all of us to lock into positions before hearing another side. Both Michael Moore's film and the Bush/Ke