James B. Hovland, the Republican mayor of Edina, will be switching to the DFL and is seriously contemplating entering the race for the Dem nomination for the open Third District congressional seat.
Hovland will be meeting with representatives of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee shortly (possibly tomorrow) to get acquainted and talk about the race.
I haven’t spoken to Hovland, this information is guaranteed from someone who has it from Hovland.
Hovland is a lawyer and has been president of Edina’s city Board of Directors since 2001. He was on the city council before that. Although these are non-partisan elections, he has publicly identified himself as a Republican. His plan to switch to the DFL is for sure and does not depend on whether he decides to enter the congressional race. He will officially decide about the congressional race within the next week or two.
Hovland will present himself as a fiscal conservative and social moderate. He is pro-choice. If Hovland is well-plugged-into political circles in Edina, he may start the race with some fund-raising assets. He may also start with a network of working working relationships with other mayors and municipal officials from around the district.
Hovland is married and has grown children, which may be a factor when so many possible candidates, who have young children at home, are citing family considerations as their reason for not entering the race.
Edina, once considered a Republican redoubt, was carried by Dem. Pres. candidate John Kerry in 2004 and then overwhelmingly by Amy Klobuchar in the 2006 U.S. Senate race.
Wait a minute. This morning Katherine Kersten told me that the stampede of political moderates were going to be Republican.
http://suddenlysouth.blogspot.com/2007/09/she-never-did-check-with-news-room.html
Mr. Black, can you ask for a trade back to the Strib so that you can take her columnist spot?
Can an office holder be a “fiscal conservative” and a “social moderate”?
First there is the implication that being a “fiscal liberal” or a “social conservative” earns one a lower rung in the circles of Dante’s hell. Is that true? And I really don’t know what a “social moderate” is – someone who compromises on social justice? Why? Why not be honest and say “social liberal”?
That debate aside, there is still something inherently puzzling about the juxtaposition of “fiscal conservative” and “social liberal” when talking about a person with his hands on the drawstrings of the public purse.
There’s no inconsistency for us private citizens in our private lives to fancy ourselves “fiscal conservatives” and “social liberals.” We watch our family budgets, plan for the future, pay our bills, limit our debt, tuck a little something away for a rainy day and always try to get value for the money we spend. That doesn’t preclude us from voluntarily supporting causes and charities that are near and dear to our hearts and supporting them generously. It doesn’t preclude us from going out of our way to be inclusive in our free associations or vigorously encouraging diversity.
But when one is spending the public’s shekels, just how does one balance fiscal conservatism with moderate or liberal social policy? The essence of social policy is spending public money generally collected to benefit a group or segment of the population lacking in some opportunity, with the vague justification that such spending will produce a common good - even at the expense of a federal deficit.
Case in point is the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act sponsored by the fiscally conservative and socially moderate republican Jim Ramstad and the “fiscally liberal”(?) and socially liberal democrat Patrick Kennedy.
Both Ramstad and Kennedy have firsthand experience overcoming addictions, for which they deserve praise. But is it not appropriate to distinguish between the experience and compassion of private citizens and those of legislators charged with spending other people’s money?
Do we really want legislators projecting their own personal situations into public policy in a way that creates a new “right” for one group and “collective obligation” for everyone else? Is it just a matter of time and priority and more troubled legislators before sooner or later all private risk will be subject to collective mandates? Whither goes fiscal conservatism in that scenario of social liberalism?
The opposition of “fiscal conservative” with “fiscal liberal” and “social conservative” with “social liberal” is a further example of why the conservative/liberal paradigm no longer works and is being replaced by a libertarian/communitarian model. The key difference is not whether one is personally a social conservative or a social liberal; the key difference is whether one believes government has virtually unlimited authority to pursue (some group’s vision of) a more prefect union – the communitarian approach – or one believes that government has no coercive social engineering authority – the libertarian approach.
Oh. My. God.
Here’s a legislator who projected his own personal situation into public policy in a way that helped out the family business:
http://www.vote-smart.org/bio.php?can_id=CNIP7879
Here’s the ultimate example of a legislator not projecting his own personal situation into public policy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Craig
See David Vitter, Ron Livingston, etc.
I think your wheels are spinning on the wrong axis on this one. “Social moderate” in this context isn’t what you are hinting at. It’s another way of saying that he doesn’t buy into the religious right combo platter of anti-roe v wade, anti gay marriage, and so on and so forth. These are mostly moral issues that are confined to the courts.
There doesn’t seem to me to be anything puzzling about the use of these labels to describe the beliefs of a public official. Someone that’s labeled as a “social liberal” is an individual that is concerned with issues of social justice and civil liberty. Someone that’s labeled as a “fiscal conservative” is someone that adheres to a responsible and accountable approach regarding the use of tax revenue.
There are certainly areas where these two items may intersect (i.e. mandating and funding for electronic voting machines with paper ballots), but there is no necessary connection between the two.
For example, one can see that it is wrong to deny civil rights through legislation or policy to one group because they are members of a certain race, religion, or sexual orientation without “spending public money generally collected to benefit a group or segment of the population.”
Oh, for cryin out loud - everyone _knows_ what he means by “fiscal conservative and social moderate”.
I find it ironic that the people that seem to get most cranky about these things are often the same ones that will throw the appellation “liberal” at anything they don’t like - like environmental conservation or opposition to “preemptive war”.
Sheesh.
Craig,
I certainly wasn’t confused by the labels “fiscal conservative” and “social moderate” and I don’t think anyone else was either. Lets use your hero Ron Paul as an example to try to straighten you out:
Ron Paul is a big fan of government spending on earmarks on important things like shrimp research (maybe he is projecting a personal shrimp situation?) so that would make him a fiscal liberal. Ron Raul is anti-choice, anti-gay and opposes civil rights legislation, so that makes hime a social conservative. Pretty easy, huh?
I know, I know, its not really fair to pick on a shameless hypocrite like Ron Paul.
Dan
I’m wondering if anyone has more news on Hovland’s potential run. My experience with him suggests that he is a genuine fellow who really gets the concept of public service. His work on environmental issues for the City of Edina has been quite progressive. I hope he runs.
[…] Hovland, the mayor of Edina who recently became a Democrat and has been exploring running for Congress from the Third District, told me Monday that he expects to make up his mind this week, that he is “strongly […]