Thoughts on Money, the DuPonts, Delaware...and John Edwards

I'm sitting here in a hotel room in Delware, the state known for a tax-free holiday, any day of the week, any week of the year for any good you need - or want - to consume. Delaware, the state of Joe "let's divide all these folks up in Iraq to solve our problems" Biden (and after driving through downtown Dover today, I can tell ya - dividing folks up by ethnic group is something that struck me as being something organic in this state).

This is the state of the DuPont family, the folks that made their money off of chemicals and death-in-the-form-of-selling-gunpowder. It's the state of the super rich, who own multiple mansions...and the super poor, like Phillip Reid, an 18-year-old walking down the 1400 block of W Forth Street in Wilmington when he was shot dead by a 17-year-old stranger who passed him on the sidewalk and said, "You got a problem?" (In Section B of "The News Journal" today - yes, I'm referencing newsprint!)

Yesterday, my husband and I took our kids to a local Chick-fil-A (they don't have these in New England so whenever we travel to more southernly climes we try to stuff our faces with these heavenly, fatty, fried chicken sandwiches. And sweet tea). Our children are young, and so moving them physically around can generally be somewhat of a challenge. This time an older woman with her teenage daughter saw us struggling between a stroller and a four-year-old, attempting to get both of them going in the same direction, so she took pity on us and opened the door to help us herd the little ones inside.

She briefly smiled at my husband and said, "Don't put your kids in public school. Been there, done that. It was a disaster."

Yes, it was an odd thing to say in front of her own teenage daughter. Yes, it was even odder in that it was a complete nonsequitor, without any lead-in, without any conversation about schools, or kids, or anything.

Here's the even odder thing: when you look at the statistics of public school rankings nationwide, Delaware as a whole isn't that bad. It's ranked #7 in spending per pupil, and average academic achievement is generally above national percentages (with huge disparities between white students and all other minorities, it should be noted - link here: http://www.all4ed.org/states2/Delaware.p df)

That got me thinking about how we look at money and public institutions. I'm a self-described liberal - progressive, even - and most of us on this side of the political spectrum love the idea of public institutions. Public parks. Public libraries. Public schools. And public - or universal - healthcare. But there are some of us at times (and I don't exclude myself from this assessment) who like the idea of the public institution more than the reality of it. Sure, public parks are great...but sometimes you just want to have the nice, expensive treehouse-slide-swingset-fort playcenter in your own backyard. Yeah, public schools are wonderful institutions...as long as I live in the right neighborhood. If I'm "pioneering", you know my kid's going to that nice private school down the road.

Public institutions are looked upon in this country too many times as places of last resort. In fairness, more often than not they are. But should they be?

The people who built the original colonial towns in this country built them with greenspace. Either a commons, or a town green, or some area around which the main business of the community could be conducted. People could interact with each other. Sometimes, it was used for a collective place to graze your cattle, or hang people. Sometimes the best and the worst of the community was on display in these areas. But it was a public place that the public used, and it was a vital part of the community...and not just some area that those desperate people utilized because it was their last resort.

All of this leads me to John Edwards and his decision to use public campaign financing. Serious politicians aren't supposed to use public financing now, not if they "really want to win". Only if you're desperate, only if this is a complete area of last resort, is one supposed to use this imperfect public institution as a means to become President and help set an agenda for all of our imperfect public institutions.

And we want to know why our government doesn't work for us. Hmmmmm....

Edwards is a rich guy. Not only that, his campaign has raised some serious dough - more, I might add, than a good number of his Republican counterparts. But all of us on the left, all of us who want to protect and expand our public institutions have been sold the meme of the "money primary", that somehow "most electible" means "person with the most campaign cash". Not best ideas. Not best strategies to move the country forward. Not even best in running against candidates from the other party in the general election.

Just...cash. Money. Mulah. The almighty dollar-ino.

Personally, I think we need to change the way we look at this whole thing, if we believe in Martin Luther King's admonition that your ends are in your means. Maybe, just maybe, Edwards - this independently wealthy guy of $400 haircut fame - took a look at this insane methodology we're using to pick our presidents and thought to himself, "You know, I could either run on money or on people and ideas. Let's just go the public campaign financing route." I don't know if this was the thought process - I've never spoken to the man before in my life. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

It's never too late to change, and it's never too late to do the right thing. I'm glad Edwards took this step, even if it is somewhat late in the game. I'm not saying that all of the other candidates have to "join him", far from it.

But maybe they - and we - should step back and think about how this process has been corrupted. Maybe we should consider how this affects our country if our ends are in our means.

Maybe we should really start being the change we want to see.