Let's Be Careful What We Wish For in Funk's Office

The "cool kids" of conventional wisdom are decrying the absence of a "seasoned political pro" in the Mayor's office. Kraske and most local bloggers repeat this conventional wisdom with the blase' confidence of people who simply don't have a clue about what they're saying.

Like most conventional wisdom, it is heavy on the conventional and light on the wisdom. What they're really saying is that Funk needs a savvy political insider who knows how to "get things done". What they're really saying is that things run more smoothly when you have someone like Steve Glorioso or Pat Gray running things in the Mayor's office. What they're really saying is that the rag-tag group of volunteers and friends that ran Funk's successful campaign (while people like Kraske were predicting he'd finish way back in the pack) aren't savvy like they are.

My bet is that it just isn't going to happen. Mark didn't fight this fight so that conventional political insiders can continue to manage the message. He ran because this city needs change, and he's going to bring it. And he's smart enough to know that you can't alter the way things are done by acting like nothing's changed.

I 100% agree that a seasoned political pro could have helped Mark avoid the Honda flap, and I also agree that it would have been better, at least in the short run, if he could have avoided that flap. I'll even agree that it's quite possible that the coming months will see similar dust-ups when Mark says or does something that bothers people - especially when he upsets the current power structure.

Here's some free advice from someone who understands how Funkhouser thinks far better than Steve Kraske does: Get used to it - it's going to be okay.

I've alluded to the fact that these next four (perhaps eight) years are going to be a civics lesson for us all. We're going to see how decisions get made, and we're going to see the real battles that are going on in our city. A seasoned political pro might have figured out how to get Semler on the Parks Board by cutting a backroom deal with Hispanic "leaders" before the announcement - perhaps by agreeing to put Fierro in as chair and a couple other concessions (probably involving city contract dollars for the "leaders"). The result would be almost the same, but it would happen in back rooms and we would know nothing about it. There would be a Friday afternoon press release that nobody would notice, and things would continue on in their Barnes-like way.

The only way to keep everyone happy in our city is to make no hard choices, and to spend money like a drunken sailor. If Mark wants a smooth term of office, he knows how to accomplish that. He's seen it done.

Smoothness may be a political virtue, but it's not high on Mark's list of values. In our discussion of the Honda flap, Heidi reminded me of the page where Mark set forth why he was running. On that page, Mark says that the four qualities Kansas City needs in a leader are authenticity, integrity, competence and transparency. That's what our little orange revolution was about - not smoothness and business as usual. If that is what we wanted, we had a fine man representing those values as his opponent.

I know that there are those that question whether Mark's integrity has been compromised by the Honda flap, or by the Semler appointment. I also know that if Joe Miller (Funk's director of communications) were more like Steve Glorioso, we might never had discussed those issues. They would have been "handled" outside of our view, and Kraske would never have noticed.

I'm not really an insider, but I'd bet you a thousand dollars that Joe Miller is not getting chewed out by Funkhouser for failing to avoid the public reaction to the Honda deal or the Semler appointment. Instead, I'm reminded of a conversation Joe reported on in his blog a while back:

I said to him, "I've been thinking about these insiders we keep talking about" -- a big part of our campaign platform was against The Insiders -- "and it occurred to me that a lot of these people were reformists 30 years ago."

At this, Mark kind of laughed and nodded his head.

"So do you ever wonder if we'll wind up the same way?" I asked.

Mark immediately said no, claiming he's "too old" to fall into such pitfalls. "Besides, that's why I have you," he added. "To keep me from (messing) up."

But, he admitted, there is this thing known as "The Iron Law of Oligarchy." It's an old political science theory, advanced by a man named Robert Michels in the early 20thn Century. Michels studied labor movements in Europe in the 19th Century and he found that they invariably lost their democratic and populist spirits and were taken over by exclusive groups of insiders. They inevitably became oligarchies.

When I pressed Mark a little bit on his optimism and resolve, he admitted, "I'm as human as anyone." But, he said, "I have a lot of faith in democracy."

That, my friends, is why we're not going to see a seasoned political pro come in and protect Mark from public opinion. I expect that as time passes, Mark will get a little better at anticipating and avoiding unnecessary outbreaks of negative public opinion (such as the Honda deal), but it's not really his highest priority. He accepts his own fallibility, and doesn't really want to appear perfect. He's not perfect, and what's the point in trying to lie about that? More importantly, though, he doesn't fear public opinion. In fact, he's counting on it. His Director of Communications is not there to protect him from public opinion, he is there to seek it out. And to keep him from falling in with the insiders.

Now do you see why Joe Miller is there instead of Steve Glorioso?