Farewell, Michele Bachelet

On to female politicians I like: Michelle Bachelet will step down as Chile's president in March, after her four-year term ends. (Chile, like many Latin American countries, prevents presidents from serving consecutive terms as president. Their constitutions include these provisions to guard against the region's history of caudillos, though leftist egotistical presidents there have lately sought to change this.) Amazingly, she takes about a 70 percent approval rating with her. Disappointingly, she wasn't able to transfer her popularity to her coalition's candidate to succeed her, Eduardo Frei, son of a former president, who lost last week to the right's candidate, Sebastian Pinera, a billionaire businessman.

Chile's post-World War II political history has always fascinated me: A democratically elected Socialist president, followed by a military coup that brought a brutally repressive dictatorship and remarkable economic growth, followed by a return to democracy that has sustained that economic growth so that it's reaching a 30-year run now and created a peaceful, exciting, vibrant country. That the coup's date was Sept. 11 and within a week of the day Chile declared its independence from Spain is odd, to say the least. That the dictatorship brought such growth, to the point that Chile's economy is stronger than other South American country's except Brazil, is perhaps the ultimate morality test. Which would you rather take?

Bachelet's personal history reflects the country's tangled one. Her father was a military general under Salvador Allende, the Socialist, who died as a result of the Pinochet regime's torture. Bachelet and her family lived in Germany in exile for many years. She returned to Chile for her medical degree -- she's a doctor by profession -- and upon the country's return to democracy she worked in public health, eventually becoming Chile's health and defense ministers. As president, she sustained economic growth, though at a slower rate during the global recession of the past two years, while bolstering the country's social programs.

Mary Anastasia O'Grady, the WSJ's columnist on Latin America, took Pinera's victory, which featured a remarkably low turnout among people younger than 30, as confirmation that Bachelet's administration and her coalition's policies hurt the Chilean economy and the free market should be unfettered at all times. But then, the Journal's editorial pages writers and editors are as dogmatic as Stalin, and never waste an opportunity to try to make the richest of the richest of the richest even richer. Chilean youth's lack of interest in politics is something I discussed in a political science course in 2005, and is nothing specific to Bachelet. And her coalition, Concertacion, had held the presidency for all 20 years of Chile's current democratic era, so restlessness among voters was bound to set in at some point. It has here in the U.S. with Obama and the Democrats after only one and three years, respectively.

Even Pinera says he plans to keep the country's balance of growth boosterism and social spending as it was under Concertacion. Nothing suggests that the country won't sometime in the mid-term future return to left-center administrations. If anything, Bachelet demonstrates that democratic capitalism can create growth while still creating a more equal society when managed wisely.

Update: My fiancee and I discussed whether I need to remove "Michelle Bachelet and the side streets of Provi[dencia]" from my Facebook profile's list of personal interests, now that she's leaving office, but we decided it can certainly stay.

So Much For Martha Coakley

Martha Coakley's loss last night to Scott Brown in the special Senate election is astounding and yet deserved. Massachusetts' liberalism is overrated, but its Democratic roots aren't: People here care about helping the poorest and disadvantaged, creating a social safety net, having strong policy programs and regulation, and having a strong education system to serve as the base for an economy driven by intellect and innovation. Until last night, all of the state's Congressional delegation had been Democratic since 1997 and both senators have been Democratic since 1979.

The reasons for Coakley's loss are plentiful, but the greatest one is Coakley's inability to tap into this tradition. She ran a campaign that seemed disdainful of campaigning. Her initial strategy assumed that few people would vote in a special election in January that had a super-compressed schedule, so she relied on elected Democrats at all levels of government and people involved in the apparatus -- political and union activists, for example -- to drive everyone they know to the polls. However, this is pure top-down campaigning that relies on the political machine, which the broader public rightfully dislikes. Coakley often went days without having any public appearances and infamously told the Globe she finds shaking people's hand outside in the cold pointless.

Brown, on the other hand, went to campaign events everywhere, no matter how quaint or caricatured, which has been his reputation as a state legislator. People notice whether you care, and it became clear in this race that one candidate cared and the other didn't. Furthermore, since she was talking so little at public events, Coakley didn't explain well what she believes in, how she would represent her constituents' values, and why she would make a good senator. This is actually disappointing because as attorney general, Coakley has been successful. She was one of the first prosecutors to tackle subprime mortgages and lending abuse, which most notably led to a large settlement with Goldman Sachs, and she charged lots of companies with misconduct following the collapse of one of the Big Dig's tunnels.

In her absence, Brown filled that void. Despite Massachusetts Republicans' tendency to be more centrist than their national counterparts, he adhered to the national conservative line, opposing health care reform, climate change and wiser financial regulation, and supporting torture, military tribunals and unsuccessful unilateral international policy. He'll quickly fall in line with the Fox News-McConnell right. However, he was tireless, likable and charming, which obscured this, and he successfully tapped into a broader, very understandable frustration and unease people have about the country's future, which is particularly strong among white people. (Here it's worth noting that Obama's approval ratings among whites are about 40 percent, lower than any president in the past 30 years, and one of Brown's most-played radio ads had many people talking in that thick South Boston-South Shore accent -- the conservative Democrat who most fits this category and is most likely to jump parties.) Everyone deserves to be concerned about their country's future and Coakley didn't allay it.

Most comically, Coakley is still attorney general for the next 20 months, so all Massachusetts Democrats unhappy with federal politics because their Senate majority is no longer filibuster-proof can now see her face every week to remind them why things have gone astray. The politicians who would've been lobbying the Legislature to appoint them attorney general -- a jockeying that was once getting nearly as much coverage as the race itself because Coakley's victory seemed so assured -- are now, I assume, getting ready to run against her in the 2010 primary. And all those annoyed Democrats will be glad to vote her out.

Update: Rick Holmes, an excellent and criminally underrated columnist for my alma mater the MetroWest Daily News, who's also their editorial page editor, has very good analysis on what happened. The column is here.

Me and My Sneaks Down By The Schoolyard

Earlier this week, for the first time in nearly six years, I bought new sneakers. The newly replaced ones, a pair of Reebok's, shown at left, were perhaps the best ones I'll ever own: brown and oblong like many of the faux-indoor soccer shoes popular among hipsters, yet different than the models typically found on sidewalks. I bought them in Alto Las Condes, an expensive mall in Santiago, Chile, a full size too big because I knew I'd never find them anywhere else. I waited at least two years too long to buy a new pair because I knew I'd never find a comparable pair anywhere else. I never found them anywhere else. I finally caved because a small hole opened on the right shoe's side.

That one's shoes speak any volumes about one's fashion (or other) sensibilities is strange. Shoes should be the most utilitarian part of a wardrobe -- something to shield our feet and make walking comfortable. Unlike other clothing, they're all the way on the ground, never in the field of view like a shirt, pair of pants or haircut are. Yet there are thousands upon thousands of models -- basketball, tennis, high heels, pumps, flats, running, walking, cross-training (huh?), "sport style" (huh?) -- that have, in part, spawned a cottage industry of stereotypes about how much women are obsessed with shoes. None of the women I know well are obsessed with shoes, though I certainly don't treat shoes as purely utilitarian. When selecting a pair, I think about the message I want it to project: attractive but not too attractive; cool but not trying too hard; noticeable but not too noticeable.

Luckily, I like the new pair I bought, the New Balance 574. They give me a bounce in my step, after a long time shuffling with shoes one size too large. Now all I need to contain is my penchant for developing an emotional attachment to my inanimate belongings and blogging about their departures.

This Blogger Loves You

Neko Case's newest record, "The Middle Cyclone," is easily the best of 2009 because it's simple and genuine, yet beautifully different. In her years as a solo artist, Case has often been classified as alt-country, though her music is too flamboyant and intricate and surprising for that category. In her other band, the New Pornographers, which released four excellent albums of its own in the past decade, she turns what would be a group of nerdy guys playing power pop in their basement into something electric, her vocals jumping up and down next to the music, taking it somewhere it never could go without her.

"This Tornado Loves You," the first song on the "The Middle Cyclone," is told from the first-person perspective of a lovesick tornado that won't stop rampaging until its love is requited -- or at least that's the best I can tell. The acoustic guitars twitch in the background, like this tornado's mind must. Her voice rides through the air triumphantly, but with a twinge of sadness. The song culminates with Case with repeating the title and moaning, probably to the tornado's crush, "Why won't you believe me?" Brilliant. The rest of the record builds subtle and wonderful instrumentation on top of itself, including the "piano choir" of old grands Case has assembled on her Vermont farm (another reason to love her), and joyously rides the long coattails of her voice, which combines tones, moods, harmonics and words like few can. Above is her performance of "This Tornado Loves You" on Letterman, so decide for yourself.

Elsewhere in music I only bought a few new records, but here are two other favorites:

* Do Make Say Think - "Other Truths": Essentially, they're a band that can do no wrong. During their excellent performance at the Middle East in November, there was a moment that the music was so ubiquitous no other thoughts could enter my head.

* Camera Obscura - "My Maudlin Career": I like how they've built a successful yet accidental career out of being shambolic. Many other indie-rock bands have done this before -- perhaps most (in)famously, the Replacements -- but Camera Obscura adds a nice sweetness to it.

And among the songs:

* Animal Collective - "Summertime Clothes": Considering these boys have been such merry pranksters for so many years, when they utter "I want to walk around with you" -- this song's hook -- it actually becomes romantic. And yet, when they performed this song on Letterman, they had alien dancers dressed in full-body suits in the background, subverting all that momentum and adding to it at the same time.

* Girls - "Lust for Life": Catchy, and its unofficial video, with lots of nudity, introduced me to what "NSFW" means. (As in, I now know what the acronym stands for, not that I learned its meaning the hard way by playing it at work and having my boss discover it. It means "Not Safe For Work.") To maintain these pages' PG-13 rating, I won't link to it.

* Grizzly Bear - "Two Weeks": The vocal harmony in the chorus is brilliant.

* A.C. Newman - "There Are Maybe Ten or Twelve...": If the rest of his album had been as unexpectedly moving as this song, it would've been a good album.

"Wait, That's Richard Blumenthal's Music!"

When the wife of the WWF's chairman is running for Senate (as a Republican in Connecticut), it's hard not to compare politics to professional wrestling. Gigantic hat tip to Peter Applebome, the Times' trenchant Metro columnist, for exploiting the similarities in his column yesterday on the latest developments in the campaign. Who needs to impose it on a joint mayoral campaign when it's actually happening?

Applebome revels in the humor of it all: "When Senator [Christopher] Dodd dropped out of the 2010 contest and Mr. Blumenthal stepped in on Wednesday, it had the feel of something Ms. McMahon might find far too familiar for comfort — the time-tested W.W.E. plot twist of the wounded brawler being rescued by a tougher, fresher one who is not even scheduled to be in the fight." And he exposes the hard-hitting truths: "Like professional wrestling, politics is now increasingly about polarizing brands. As in wrestling, the atmospherics mean more than the substance. As in wrestling, almost anything goes, though it’s in politics that the Swift-boating draws real blood."

Dodd -- whose decision to retire next year at his term's end allows Blumenthal, Connecticut's longtime attorney general, to come catapulting in over the top ropes -- represents that strange brand of longtime Washington politician. He has much to love and much to loathe. A true believer in Democratic causes, he was one of the chief authors of the Family Medical Leave Act and the committee he led (in Ted Kennedy's illness) produced the most liberal of the proposed health care reforms, among other accomplishments. Yet as he helped regulate the financial industry, he received millions of dollars in donations from it (and the pharmaceutical one), creating that always blurry line between personal conviction and personal convenience. And when his career and personal life ran afoul -- which happens simultaneously for public officials -- such as his circa 1980s carousing bachelorhood, ill-gotten discount mortgage from Countrywide Financial and ill-gotten profitable real estate deal in Ireland with a businessman convicted of securities fraud who was later pardoned by President Clinton at Dodd's request, his standing wasn't hurt in Washington because senators value seniority and camaraderie above all whenever they can.

This isn't a Democratic stain or Republican stain. It's nonpartisan, and one of the hallmarks of senatorial service and life. It's also a reason why so many people are fed up with their politicians.

Update: The other thing to note about the 2010 elections is despite all the news stories and commentary saying the number of Democrats retiring is a sign of the party's weakness, a greater number of Republicans in each house isn't seeking re-election, with a similar percentage of those seats capable of changing hands. Sometimes it's amazing how the political class loses facts in search of a story.

O-H-I-O: One More About Ohio Sports

The Columbus Dispatch's coverage of Ohio State's bowl games is interesting because much of the writing has a greater subtext: Ohio's football symbolizes the state's place in the nation's political economy. OSU often plays in premier games against teams from the West Coast or the South. That pits the Steel Belt, with its unionized semi-skilled manufacturing labor, cold winters, conservative Democrats, small-town family values and declining population, against sunny climes, with their lower-cost labor and living, real estate economics and housing bubbles, liberal Democrats or hard-line Republicans (the West and South, respectively), carefree (or at least easygoing) living and growing population. Essentially, on one side of the field is the U.S. circa 1955 and on the other is the U.S. circa 1995. The former is trying to prove it still has a place in the national conversation circa 2010.

The difference also manifests itself in the teams' playing styles. Ohio State relies on the running game -- large corn-fed, Ohio-bred boys push forward as the running back behind them muscles his way for four yards, they collapse in a pile of tacklers, and then they get up to exert themselves all over again. It reminds me of farming and the serious life; you earn your rewards the hard way, through daily repetition and accepting the importance of physical labor, and there's no other way to do it in the cold weather. Meanwhile, their opponents, particularly the West Coast ones, have high-flying offenses with lots of passing, unusual formations and even, gasp, trick plays. Pretty boys trying to coast to victory. (The Times even had a story hypothesizing Terrelle Pryor, OSU's super-athletic star quarterback, would be having a more successful career if he had chosen Oregon, the Buckeyes' opponent in this year's Rose Bowl, over Ohio State. Ohio State's buttoned-up style hinders Pryor's talents, the story said.) The hand-wringing extends to the success of the entire Big Ten, Ohio's athletic conference, consisting of other large Midwestern state universities, during bowl season. The Big Ten's success reflects on the whole region's.

Thankfully, Ohio State defeated Oregon Friday, 26-17. After three consecutive bowl losses, the Buckeyes reinserted themselves in the national conversation.

Ouch, Part II

In Friday's Weekend section of the New York Times, music critic Jon Caramanica ripped into Vampire Weekend, the effete, WASP-y quartet of Columbia graduates who blew up two years ago and are releasing their follow-up record this month, with a ferocity rarely seen in the paper. Surveying coming albums, Caramanica coupled Vampire Weekend with the solo debut of one of the Jonas brothers and then let loose. It's such a direct punch in the face that it's worth quoting in full:

"Let's face it: Vampire Weekend is a boy band for 20-somethings with poorly paid jobs in art galleries, a strong interest in local food and Jonathan Lethem novels in their purses (or tote bags). They would have liked Nick [Jonas] had he come around a decade ago, and then dropped him as soon as they got to high school. They love the disheveled postprep clothes, and the sneaky global winks in the arrangements, a remembrance of semesters-abroad past (or at least ones they wish they'd had). They might be screaming per se at these shows, but the swooning here won't be that different from that at the Beacon [Theater; where Jonas is performing]: a fan is a fan is fan.

"In both cases all shows are sold out, though there's probably a path to bliss to be found with the aid of a reseller and, probably, Mommy or Daddy's credit card."

Wow. The rough part: Caramanica is probably right. Vampire Weekend is a quartet of dreamy-eyed guys who play breezy music that typically chronicles upper-class fashionable outings and generally uncomplicated, privileged lifestyles. Isn't that what "Gossip Girls" does? They named their new record "Contra," but insist it has nothing to do with the right-wing militants in Nicaragua illegally funded by the Regan administration in the 1980s. Politics is so lame these days, didn't you hear? And, when they performed recently in suburban southern California, they were mobbed by teenage girls, the New Yorker reports in this week's profile of the band. That Vampire Weekend came up through Pitchfork and the Brooklyn scene only gave them a two-year head-start on avoiding the "boy band" tag; it doesn't mean that they can't be labeled with it.

Then again, if Vampire Weekend is a boy band for 20-somethings and, as this year may prove, teenagers too, what's so bad about that? Their music is sophisticated, well composed and different -- their earliest attention came for using African rhythms and melodies in their drums and guitar lines, which has been imitated since. Their lyrics are heartfelt. Two years ago, when Vampire Weekend played "Saturday Night Live" as they were blowing up, I made three friends stay up to watch it with me. "Is this it?" I thought. Now, I find it pleasant and catchy, if certainly not mind-blowing, because that's what it is. If Vampire Weekend is what drives suburban high-schoolers crazy this year in the hallways and as they nervously flirt with each other, it's a vast improvement on what's been the background music for that in recent years.

Mr. Caramanica probably wouldn't disagree with the idea of being a boy band as not such a bad thing -- he's written positively about Taylor Swift and other top-40 stars in the Times. He probably just wants to call a spade a spade a spade, something that's easy to agree with. Anyway, to judge for yourself, here's Vampire Weekend's video for its song "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa," from its self-titled debut:



Update: Mr. Caramanica again writes about Vampire Weekend in today's Arts section -- quite glowingly, in fact, saying their music is "appealingly leisurely, technically accomplished and pinprick precise." I think his problem is the contemporary music market, the stylized audiences where image drives fandom and the ridiculously quick fan cycles that send bands bursting in the open and then discard them on the side of the (Internet super) highway. For an example of the latter, see his review of the Drums' and Surfer Blood's show this week at the Bowery Ballroom. Between them the bands have about one full-length yet receive so much buzz that they're having trouble keeping pace with the adoration, which Caramanica thinks is hampering their sound. Again, I agree with him on the broader point.

"Carry The Flag"

The Columbus Blue Jackets' motto, "Carry The Flag," is very well chosen as far as sports teams' slogans go. It could be the name or album title for an nth-generation emo band, certainly a mark against it, but overall, it's motivational and prideful. It also meshes well with the team's logo and nickname, a play on the Ohio state flag and the state's role in the Civil War, respectively, which is far superior to the nicknames chosen by post-1990 expansion and relocated teams, which usually are needlessly corporate or needlessly disconnected from the team. In fact, the Blue Jackets' game program is refreshingly educational: Who knew that a greater percentage of Ohioans served in the Civil War than residents of any other state?

But all that momentum was nearly halted at Thursday's game against the Nashville Predators, when during the national anthem, among the patriotic symbols shown on the Jumbotron was a flag honoring the Blue Jackets' deceased founding owner, whose family still has the majority ownership stake and owns a local diversified metals company. Later, during a taped sequence meant to charge the crowd, players said they'd "Carry the flag," and "Defend Nationwide," i.e. the arena, named after the insurance company, which is a minority owner in the team and venue. (I assume both things happen at every home game.)

A recurring theme in Tony Judt's collection of essays, "Reappraisals" is how the welfare state has been replaced by the corporation in the late 20th century -- and the accompanying destabilizing consequences. Apparently, this shift trickles all the way down to hockey matches. As we salute the U.S. flag, we also pay homage to some benevolent multimillionaire, and instead of promising to defend Ohioan pride, we'll defend the corporate pride of an insurance conglomerate (both of which are losing lots of money on the team). Sure, the founding owner and Nationwide have done excellent things for Columbus (and people and places farther afield), but do they need to insert themselves everywhere?