Bill Richardson was in Los Angeles yesterday talking mass transit. He was touting the success of commuter light rail in New Mexico and said light rail would be equal to highways in a Richardson administration.
“I believe light rail is for the future,” he said. “The president can be a partner, working with state and city and local communities in joint funding.”
This obviously is a nice compliment to recent Calitics discussions about High Speed Rail in California and the broader concerns over responsible growth management and community development. But what strikes me most is that Bill Richardson isn't talking about Iraq. He's free to talk about things like light rail because for him, Iraq is no longer an issue. Bill Richardson unequivocally wants all troops out of Iraq now. He thinks that congress should de-authorize the war, and if he were to become president, all American personnel would leave Iraq. That's it, next question. Say what you will about the rest of his platform and framing (I have), but by dispatching with Iraq and leaving no doubt about his plan and commitment to ending the war, Richardson is free to talk about everything else. You know...the stuff that actually makes up a presidency.
I've bounced around the idea lately of a president maknig a major commitment to subsidizing commuter mass transit around the country, and it's interesting to hear Richardson coming out as a proponent. But this isn't about supporting or not supporting a presidential candidate or about the merits of public transportation systems. This is about framing the debate in Democratic terms. This country has decided the war needs to end and the troops need to leave Iraq. The debate is OVER. We should be expecting our candidates to accept that and move onto the rest of the business of being President.
At the California Democratic Convention, most of the major candidates talked a lot about Iraq and about clawing out of the hole that George Bush has dug this country into. All important, and all great ways to get the crowd excited. But amid all the rhetoric about recovering from Bush, there's very little discussion about what happens after. Bill Richardson has, in many instances, simply taken it for granted that the first step is reversing every failed Bush policy, and the rest of us in the party should be taking that for granted as well to a certain degree. We shouldn't presume that our party leaders are actually going to do that, but we should not accept this as the parameters of the debate. It's just a given. Talk to me about what comes next.
Bill Richardson is talking about what comes next. Whether you agree with his ideas about what comes next or not, it is, in itself, something that we should be demanding of our other candidates. We shouldn't be stuck talking about how various candidates will restore us to 1996. We should be talking about the things that nobody's thought of yet.
