Letter of Marque 9: The Broken Metronome and the Sands of the Coliseum
It's not about "Florida, Florida, Florida"
It’s been more than sixteen years since Americans lost Tim Russert. I was in the middle of a two week tour of Ireland when CNN reported his passing. His family lost a father, a husband, a son. But America lost a host, a voice of objectivity, an interviewer with compassion and insight. He could skewer the talking point of a guest while still being respectful of the individual. He asked tough questions regardless of their positions or political parties. But we appreciated his common decency, his representation of everyman whether that was in the smallest town, the largest city, or Buffalo, and his ever-present civility with a smile. He was trusted. No one has replaced him, and our political scene and body politic is the lesser for it. In elections that seem a lifetime ago, he would pound the mantra, “Florida, Florida, Florida.” As much as I loved Russert, the Florida issue may be as passe as “As Maine goes, so goes the nation,” which hasn’t been applicable as a bellwether for more than a century. With less than two months to go to the presidential election, I humbly offer my contribution in this era: it’s the Senate, the Senate, the Senate.
My mother was a classically trained pianist – so from her I came to know that genre just as I picked up an appreciation for mid-century jazz from my father. I failed to learn the piano as I was interested in other pursuits, like hockey; piano would have stayed with me far longer. But the device I remember most was the metronome. When you opened the obelisk-like case, a pendulum bar emerged. It pivoted on a fixed base and the tempo was determined by a sliding weight to the bar. It was paced, measured, certain. And no matter how far you moved the sliding weight up, the pendulum bar always returned to its pattern – unless, of course you removed sliding weight. That is the current condition of our presidential politics where the balancing centrism has been completely removed from the nomination process and elections. This is why, I argue, Florida no longer matters. Nor Pennsylvania. Nor Michigan. Nor a dozen other potential swing states. No matter who is elected, elements of the American system dependent on the party, will be pushed to the extreme. Whichever party fails to win the presidential race, will decry the other. The animosity levels will again rise.
This is why it is the Senate, not the presidency, that is more important to watch in less than two months. For a variety of reasons, I have a secular reverence for the institution. It is also the place I took some of my international students so they could see for themselves the corridors, the history, the procedures. And it was with that my last time a couple of years ago with them that I was embarrassed as we could not see the Old Senate Chamber, the old Supreme Court Chamber, and other places. What we saw, however, were stacks of Capitol Hill police anti-riot shields above the empty Visitor Center in the wake of January 6. But it was also here that permanent staff worked, such as the underappreciated Parliamentarian of the US Senate, Elizabeth MacDonough, who with her staff saved the electoral college ballots that day. She was one of the real heroes that day who sought to preserve our system, and the integrity of the process.
James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 63 that an institution like the Senate may “sometimes be necessary, as a defence to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions” or, as George Washington was alleged to suggest that the Senate was to cool legislation from the House like a saucer used to cool hot tea.
In a pivotal moment in the first Gladiator movie, Gracchus, played by Derek Jacobi, turns to a colleague and warns: “The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's the sand of the coliseum.” The Senate is also unappreciated for its role in this republic, given that the media pushes to cover the Super Bowl of showdowns every four years, the presidential race. To mix metaphors, the Senate has been relegated to baseball AAA or AA level coverage. And, I guarantee, the morning following the presidential race by 0800 Eastern whomever is the victor, political commentators will already start discussing the 2028 election. The Senate is one-half of one third of the federal government and yet with a third of the Senators up for reelection and the fate of the institution’s control for the next two years, coverage is practically anemic. Unless I ran this search incorrectly, here are the number of times that Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, and the Senate are mentioned in three major newspapers in the past thirty days:
Washington Post
Trump: 427
Harris: 353
Senate: 165
Wall Street Journal
Trump: 325
Harris: 315
Senate: 91
New York Times
Trump: 1,591
Harris: 1,348
Senate: 303
Democrats currently maintain a 51-49 seat majority in the Senate (three Independents caucus with the Democrats.) If Harris wins the presidency, Republicans need to pick up two seats in this cycle since a Vice President Walz would break a tie. This is the latest map on the Senate races from realclearpolitics:
Only seven of the races are considered toss-ups although that may be optimistic in terms of competition. Kari Lake is unlikely to win in Arizona, for example. But the Senate will not tilt near the 60 vote majority needed for cloture; nor will it produce more centrists who are now down to just a few compared to previous decades. That is the risk with these election cycles and the race to disparate limits rather than seeking opportunities to middle ground. It is also why media should be interested in all of these races, not just the presidential election. Perhaps in the future it would result in more centrist candidates who can work together. In the meantime, there will be some semblance of balance in the Senate force.
I think one of the most important things we could do to restore our Republic is repeal the 17th Amendment, and return the balance of power to the states.