Jobs, Jobs, Jobs and Jon Hulburd’s Campaign
As Americans struggle with the economy, congressional campaigns are struggling to come up with anything other than the economy to talk about. Some talk about a hierarchy of needs, of which economic survival is the base, so that nothing can be discussed when economic survival is in doubt. However, the needs of our nation are more complex than this simple model suggests.
Many of the supposedly higher needs – for a clean environment and a strong respect for constitutional rights, for example – are actually necessary for a healthy economy. The most talented people in the world seek to come to work here, not because economic opportunity in the United States is the best in the world, but because the United States gives them the chance to live in freedom. None of us who live here in the USA can contribute effectively to the economy if we’re sick from pollution in the air, earth or water. Without sustainable stocks of natural resources, the true foundation of our national wealth is diminished.
Yet, congressional candidates are having a difficult time retaining this sort of long view. The campaign theme of Jon Hulburd, the sole Democratic candidate for retiring incumbent John Shadegg, is the most obvious example of this. Where most candidates have a section of their web sites entitled “issues”, Hulburd has a section entitled, “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs… and other issues”. The “other” issues, “Our Nation’s Economy”, “Healthcare”, and “Education”, are economic in nature as much as “Jobs”. Other issues, such as the environment and the restoration of constitutional freedoms, are as of yet absent from Hulburd’s campaign.
When candidates like John Hulburd discuss the economy to the exclusion of other issues, they may be speaking to the concerns of voters, but they aren’t speaking to the long-term needs of the nation.
