A local business owner on CentrePointe, Lexington, Kentucky, and the world.
Mitt Romney has taken multiple-choice campaigning to dizzying postmodern heights, demonstrating a well-documented, disturbing adeptness for adopting any position which provides a momentary political advantage.
But in last night’s debate, he disqualified himself from the presidency. Rachel Maddow nailed the very human costs of Romney’s strategic “issue position-switching”:
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In the past 48 hours, we’ve seen some truly epic logical contortions from Mitt Romney’s Republican presidential campaign.
Yesterday, hoping to slow his public opinion nosedive two weeks ahead of the Michigan primary, Mr. Romney attempted to defend his infamous 2008 “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” editorial with a second editorial in the Detroit News.
In his new valentine to Michigan and the auto industry, Mr. Romney somehow managed to simultaneously take credit for and attack President Obama’s successful 2009 bailout of the industry. Witness (my emphasis):
Ultimately, that is what happened. The course I recommended was eventually followed. GM entered managed bankruptcy in June 2009 and exited it a month later in July.
Then, two short paragraphs later:
By the spring of 2009, instead of the free market doing what it does best, we got a major taste of crony capitalism, Obama-style.
“They did what I told them to do, and it was a disaster.”
Not only was yesterday’s editorial internally inconsistent, it was also inconsistent with Mr. Romney’s 2008 editorial, which actually called for increased goverment involvement and investment, rather than simply leaving the “free market” to its own devices.
On Monday, Mr. Romney pre-empted President Obama’s 2013 budget release in an e-mail to reporters (my emphasis):
This week, President Obama will release a budget that won’t take any meaningful steps toward solving our entitlement crisis.
The president has failed to offer a single serious idea to save Social Security and is the only president in modern history to cut Medicare benefits for seniors.
I believe we can save Social Security and Medicare with a few common-sense reforms, and – unlike President Obama – I’m not afraid to put them on the table.
Mr Romney starts by attacking Mr. Obama for not addressing entitlement spending.
Then he attacked Mr. Obama again for addressing entitlement spending.
Then he attacked Mr. Obama a third time for not addressing entitlement spending.
And Mr. Romney accomplishes this amazing flip-flop-flip in three successive sentences.
And to make Mr. Romney’s linguistic artpiece even more mind-blowing: all three assertions are demonstrably false. Mr. Romney is lying.
First, President Obama’s 2013 budget proposes cutting $360 billion in Medicare and Medicaid spending over 10 years.
Second, the Affordable Care Act did not cut benefits for seniors. It created provider-side efficiencies which reduced future Medicare spending to the tune of $500 billion.
Finally, Mr. Obama proved all-too-willing to put entitlement reforms “on the table” during last year’s debt ceiling negotiations. (It is worth noting that Republicans walked away from the difficult discussions, not Obama.)
Mr. Romney was already renowned for his serial flip-flopping.
It seems that Mr. Romney has now taken his fact-free postmodern candidacy to a new plateau with his most recent linguistic art project.
His new statements don’t just thoroughly contradict previous ones; Indeed, Mr. Romney’s most recent statements thoroughly contradict themselves.
On November 2nd, Lexington chooses its mayor. I’ve spent much of the past few years observing the two candidates in action.
Here, I address why one candidate is the right choice for Lexington, and why he will lead our city to a more prosperous and successful future.
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I first got to know Jim Gray personally about a year and a half ago. After I had written about Lexington several times, I was pleasantly surprised when he asked to meet with me.
I had long admired Jim’s accomplishments as a successful businessman and civic leader. But as we talked about our backgrounds and about his experiences as Vice Mayor, I realized that this was the man Lexington needed to lead our city to a better future.
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Jim Gray is the right person to lead Lexington back to prosperity. Let’s explore why.
Humility
For all of his accomplishments and personal achievements (more on those in a bit), Gray is surprisingly humble about his success. Gray’s humility manifests itself in a number of important ways.
While his humility helps him lead and inspire those who work with him, it doesn’t always serve Gray well in politics.
For one thing, bragging comes unnaturally to him – he finds it awkward and unseemly to crow about what he has done and how he has led.
For another, he is inclined to be magnanimous – sometimes maddeningly so – with his political opponents. While his opponent kicked off the campaign by attacking Gray, Gray has kindly maintained that his opponent “is not a bad guy, he’s just made some bad decisions”.
Accomplishments
Looking around the city and the commonwealth, Gray has left a lasting economic legacy which will serve our community long after his political career is complete.
Gray has led Gray Construction to be one of our city’s most innovative firms, and the company has a long record of job creation and city-building.
It starts with Gray Construction’s downtown Lexington headquarters, located in the old Wolf Wile building. Gray took a dilapidated building and transformed it into one of Lexington’s most inspiring workplaces. The building stands as a stellar example of blending historic preservation with economic development.
But Gray’s accomplishments don’t stop there.
From here at Lowell’s, we can see Sayre’s Buttery and Upper School. Both buildings use modern building materials and techniques, while maintaining consistency with our historic North Limestone neighborhood. That is a trademark of a Gray urban construction project.
In other parts of Lexington, Gray Construction projects include:
Gray was instrumental in the inception of the 21c Museum and Hotel in Louisville. Combining the best of old downtown Louisville with new design and materials, 21c has now been voted the #1 hotel in the U.S. for two years in a row.
South of Louisville, Gray built the visitors’ center at Bernheim Forest, Kentucky’s first LEED Platinum building.
In Georgetown, Gray built Toyota’s sprawling manufacturing facility, a vital part of our local economy.
Gray has changed the face of Lexington and of Kentucky for the better, and our community is more beautiful and more economically vibrant as a result. He knows what makes a city thrive. And he knows what businesses need to create jobs.
Insights
Jim Gray brought his experiences and insights from the business world to his (part-time) role as Lexington’s Vice Mayor. He has had a knack for asking the right questions and doing the right things while in office:
Some have dismissed Gray’s actions as ‘grandstanding’. But when we look back at the record, we see that he was right to ask these questions. Every time.
Vision
Gray has been able to synthesize his business experience, what he’s learned about city goverment, and what he has heard from our community into a new vision for what Lexington could be.
But beyond a simple and unactionable vision, Gray has also detailed a ‘Fresh Start’ plan to specify what he will do as mayor. The plan helps translate Gray’s vision into actionable steps.
Don’t agree with something in Gray’s plan? Let him know. Challenge him to make it better. Tell him how. As he says, the plan “is designed to be intelligently changed”.
Gray’s plan also reveals something even more important about Jim Gray: He has been thinking carefully about the future of Lexington. He has kept his eyes open. He has listened to our citizens. He cares deeply for our city.
And, he has very good ideas for making Lexington an even better place to live and work.
I think we should give him the chance to implement his vision.
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On November 2nd, I hope you will join me in voting for Jim Gray as Mayor of Lexington. I give him my whole-hearted endorsement.
On November 2nd, Lexington chooses its mayor. I’ve spent much of the past few years observing the two candidates in action.
Here, I address in some detail why one is the wrong choice for Lexington. Next, I’ll address why the other candidate will lead Lexington to a more prosperous and successful future.
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Last December – late in his third year in office – Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry proposed an ordinance to overhaul Lexington’s ethics laws.
Among other proposals, the ordinance suggested that lobbyists be prevented from serving as fundraisers or campaign treasurers for local campaigns.
Two days later, Newberry attended a $10,000 fundraiser for his campaign at the home of David Whitehouse, a registered lobbyist.
Proposed after the Urban County Council had adjourned for its winter break, little came of Newberry’s ethics proposal when council reconvened in 2010, and the mayor did little to promote his ethics initiative.
In microcosm, “Lobby-gate” encapsulates Jim Newberry’s tenure as Lexington’s mayor. Let’s look at a few themes which emerged from this incident:
Why would Newberry attend fundraiser in a lobbyist’s home only two days after suggesting that Lexington should eliminate such a practice? He either didn’t think – or didn’t care – about how apparently inappropriate his actions were.
While ethics reform was a centerpiece of Newberry’s 2006 run for mayor, he waited over 3 years to offer a proposal, and did so only as he and his competitors were ramping up for the 2010 campaign.
When questioned by local media about the fundraiser, his response was less-than-satisfactory for a ‘reformer’: “I… will continue to operate by the rules of the world as they exist.”
With his ethics proposal, Newberry could now make the empty claim that he ‘delivered’ a campaign promise for ethics reform. Meanwhile, he would do precious little to see his half-hearted proposal – made while council was on break – into law.
Refusing to act on ethics reform allows lobbyist-contributors like Whitehouse (who represents a software firm that did work on the city’s financial systems) to operate without scrutiny or interference from the city.
Lexington’s ethics laws today are essentially unchanged from when Newberry entered office.
Isolated to a single incident, these flaws might be forgivable. But they are not isolated: We can see these tendencies consistently pervading Newberry’s conduct as mayor.
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Scandal Blindness
This administration has been plagued by scandal.
While actions in question failed to rise to the legal definition of fraud, the investigations into the Johnston affair revealed fresh concerns over how Newberry’s administration behaved – including audit breakdowns, ethical failures, privacy breaches, and retaliation.
After months of obstruction and delay in the Johnston affair, Lexington was left with a ridiculous predicament: the city government sued itself, and taxpayers footed both sides of the $50,000 bill.
While Newberry wasn’t implicated in these scandals, he has been indecisive and ineffectual in responding to them.
First, Newberry minimized possible wrongdoing. Then, he questioned the motives and challenged the authority of those who wanted to take action on the scandals, preferring to let the respective boards handle their ‘internal’ issues. As weeks and months of inaction (and, in some cases, obstruction) became deeply embarrassing, he finally ‘welcomed‘ the investigations which were already underway.
As scandal upon scandal broke, Newberry could have learned from each one – figuring out how to lead decisively in the face of scandal. Instead, Newberry seemed to intensify a kind of bunker mentality – choosing to hunker down until the uproar passed.
Failure to Lead
As seen with the scandals above, Newberry has demonstrated an appalling failure to lead just when his leadership was needed most.
Another area which needed strong mayoral leadership has been Lexington’s urban development, especially throughout downtown. Instead, Newberry has adopted a laissez faire attitude – opting instead to do little to help guide downtown development efforts.
As we’ll see more in a few moments, when the mayor actually does take decisive action, the results are questionable.
Hypocrisy
Without apparent shame, the mayor often maintains a stark and hypocritical disconnect between what he says and what he does. He seems to think that voters won’t notice if he does one thing while he says the opposite.
This serial hypocrisy is compounded by Newberry’s profoundly Bushian inability to admit mistakes. Such lack of humility means that he is unable to go back and fix the problems of his administration.
Newberry’s campaign is built upon the cynical belief that voters will remain ignorant of such hypocrisy.
Favoritism
There is a short list of mayor-driven accomplishments during the Newberry tenure: downtown streetscapes, the Lyric theater, the $160 million water plant, and CentrePointe stand out. As we look across this list, we notice a distinct pattern: the primary beneficiaries of the mayor’s action – when he chooses to actually take action – are Lexington’s richest citizens and companies.
If the mayor pushes through a $160 million water plant which lines the pockets of Warren Rogers and other campaign contributors – while making average families pay 65 percent more for water – that, too, amounts to corporate welfare and pay-to-play.These projects were among the most contentious that the council considered over the past four years. And on each one, the mayor was more active and vocal than usual in strong-arming them through council. For whose benefit?
Failure to Deliver
When we look over the Newberry record, we have to ask what Jim Newberry has really accomplished for Lexington. And that record is not impressive:
After so many fumbles, it is time to bench our current mayor.
Jim Newberry is the wrong choice for Lexington.
