AFTER covering, reading, studying, thinking, and writing about politics for the past 30 years, I now look forward to a non-election year — a time that used to be about everything else except the next election. This year, however, the “non-election” period lasted only about five months. Over a year before the next election, the campaign season — whether we like it or not — has already begun.
As someone who once wrote an editorial titled “So You Want to Run for Governor. Are You Nuts?” — and who now believes it should be revised to read, “So You Want to Run for Office. Are You Nuts?” — I often wonder what politicians see when they look at the bleak economic and demographic landscape of the CNMI while hearing the concerns of ordinary voters.
It seems that — around the world, in fact — many politicians share voters’ belief that everything can be fixed by tweaking laws, passing new ones, or simply showing “leadership” and exercising “political will,” which they promise to do once elected.
In each election year, many candidates and voters fail to notice that campaign pledges are often the very same promises made by previous politicians — individuals who were no less educated, seemingly capable, and professedly principled. Did they lie? I don’t think so. They simply overstated their case because many voters expected a lot from their elected officials.
However, whatever you may have heard from politicians, the local economy will only begin to show signs of life if tourist arrivals improve significantly; a legitimate major investor — God knows why — chooses to do business here; or the Republican White House and Republican Congress decide to act out of character just for the heck of it, and bail out the CNMI government to the tune of half a billion dollars.
Like the boy in the fairy tale “Emperor’s New Clothes,” it was a local economist, Matt Guerrero, who, in an economic forum over two years ago, brought attention to an unyielding fact that most politicians seem to be unaware of: Economic development is hard.
There’s no quick and easy fix. But there are a lot of fancy words and handy bromides that politicians can say to impress many voters like “diversifying the economy,” “new industries,” “leveraging geopolitical reality,” “forward-looking,” “fresh start,” “put the people first,” “change,” “hope,” “working together,” “better future,” “our children deserve better,” “it’s time to put politics aside and work for the people,” “the status quo is not working,” and — my all-time favorite — “we need real leadership not empty promises.”
The last time I heard a strikingly original campaign pledge was from a gubernatorial candidate many years ago. The economy, much like today, was in decline, and he understood that it wouldn’t miraculously improve in a year or two. So, he said that if elected governor, he would authorize the NMI Retirement Fund to return to its members the money they had contributed, and direct the MPLT to distribute all its funds to NMDs.
Imagine the controversy — not to mention the outcry and the lawsuits — that would result if such a plan were actually implemented. But at least the candidate spared us the usual meaningless political pabulum.
The more discerning voters should also realize that most political pledges or platforms are based on what politicians believe the CNMI “needs.” But who speaks for the CNMI? It is not a single entity — it is made up of individuals, each with their own wants and aspirations. Why do we assume they will agree with everything their elected officials claim is good for them? This is how even the most well-intentioned legislation or government programs flounder — once they come into contact with actual human beings, who rarely behave the way government planners assume they will.
Many politicians and would-be saviors of the CNMI tend to forget that local residents have multiple career — if not lifestyle — options, made even more accessible by the fact that they are citizens of the U.S., a vast nation with the world’s largest economy. They can, for example, choose not to put up anymore with stagnation and tax-and-spend politicians. They can leave.
As Father Francis X. Hezel noted in yet another insightful monograph, “Micronesian on the Move,” the ability of islanders in the U.S.-affiliated Pacific to migrate to the U.S.” is not considered a “regrettable occurrence,” but is “seen as a necessary provision to permit the drain-off of excess population…and a safety valve in the event that the [jurisdiction] fail to meet its economic development goals…. Migration could be legitimized as a sound economic strategy, not necessarily seen as an admission of failure.”
To paraphrase a Yiddish proverb: Politicians plan, citizens book a flight.
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