Bill and Noël’s Excellent Adventure

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

In just a few hours, Noël and I will be boarding our flight to Rome. After a four-month hiatus, it’s time for me to write something again.

My sister, Noël’s Aunt Judy, was the inspiration for this trip, and it’s turned into quite the family outing. All eleven of us are somehow connected to the Lavezzi name. At times the webconferences we’ve used to coordinate the trip have covered four time zones. We’re traveling in six groups, on six different schedules. To keep it simple, here’s a brief summary of the itinerary Noël and I will follow.

  • We leave for Rome today and arrive about 11:00 AM local time tomorrow. (That’s 5:00 AM back home.)
  • On Tuesday, September 17, we start our journey north by driving our three-car convoy through Florence to Cicagna.
  • On Thursday, September 19, we head to Bettola, the home of Costantino Lavezzi (born 1813) and Rosa Raggio (born 1816), who were my great-great-grandfather and great-great grandmother and the common link among those of us making this trip.
  • On Friday, September 20, we have scheduled a side trip to Parma to meet the “big cheese”: Parmigiano Reggiano.
  • On Saturday, September 21, we head for Genoa.
  • On Tuesday, September 24, we leave Genoa for Rome.
  • On Wednesday, September 25, we return from Rome to Cleveland.

Cicagna and Bettola will not be familiar locations to most American readers, but I am assured that they are relatively large compared to some of the places we will visit up north!

This is my first trip away from North America; experienced travelers tell me to expect to do plenty of improvisation. So I’m planning to post observations here. There’s a good chance that I won’t have an internet connection every day, so I can’t predict how regular these will be; but you’re welcome to follow along if you like.

And along the way, I’ll be mindful of the observation of explorer Roald Amundsen (1872-1928): “Adventure is just bad planning.” I’m hoping he was just being ironic.

OEA Chooses a President

On Friday, the Ohio Education Association Representative Assembly elected my friend Becky Higgins to be OEA’s next President. Some mutual friends have encouraged me to post a few thoughts, and I’m happy to do so.

Most of the readers of this blog are educators, most of those are OEA members, and most of those are North Eastern OEA members; but if you’re not one of those and you run across this blog and wonder what in the world all the fuss is about, I’ll try to explain that too. The OEA presidency matters here because OEA is Ohio’s largest union and largest education organization. But its influence goes beyond our borders because Ohio has become a pivotal state, in both national political campaigns and all the ideological issues at play throughout the country.

To get to the statewide battle, Becky had to win a “primary” at NEOEA’s fall Representative Assembly. Last fall, Becky and André Taylor ran a spirited campaign as friends and competitors, and NEOEA’s delegates chose Becky to advance to the state contest. By then, valuable time had been lost in starting the statewide campaign, and it’s probably fair to say that Becky started the statewide campaign as an underdog.

After all, her opponent, Bill Leibensperger, was OEA’s sitting Vice President. He had served an apprenticeship as OEA Secretary-Treasurer and Vice President covering twelve of the last thirteen years. Since OEA, like many organizations, frequently elevates sitting Vice Presidents to the Presidency, a lot of smart people regarded him as the prohibitive favorite.

So why did Becky win? (Notice, I didn’t ask “how”: I suspect that insiders on both sides have already begun  formulating answers to that question.)

I don’t think it was because of dissatisfaction with Bill’s performance as Vice President. During the Senate Bill 5 repeal (the historic 2011 defense of Ohio public-employee collective bargaining rights), Bill had met privately with representatives of Ohio’s governor, and he had been criticized widely for that. Bill posted a defense of his actions online, but Becky didn’t use the incident as an issue in her campaign.

I don’t think it was because of NEOEA’s numeric superiority. Neither NEOEA nor Central OEA/NEA (Bill’s district association) has enough delegates to carry an election without winning over significant numbers of delegates from other parts of the state.

So if those things weren’t part of the picture, what was? I think it comes down to three things: first, Becky herself; second, campaign style and substance; and third (surprisingly, perhaps), experience.

First: people who have worked with Becky have found that she is approachable and kind, yet tough and knowledgeable. And I think that those qualities came across even among people who doubted her credentials. As OEA’s President, I think she’ll benefit from members’ good will–even from members who didn’t support her candidacy.

Second: I think the campaigns had something to do with it. OEA campaigns have often been based on candidates’ résumés, connections, and personalities, not so often on actual issues. This isn’t surprising: in organizations like OEA, candidates frequently agree on most issues, and voters have to base their decisions on something. But Becky ran an unusually substantive campaign, publishing weekly position papers on critical issues. (You can read them at beckyhiggins4oeapresident.wordpress.com.) Those “Weekly Issues” may have convinced  people that Becky had a good grasp of OEA’s situation and should be considered seriously as a candidate. Bill never really seemed to match that level of detail.

Finally, Becky was able to cite her experience as a local and district President. In questions from the delegates, Becky pointed out that presidents face situations and decisions that other officers don’t face. Bill pointed out that he comes from a large local and a district association that don’t change their presidents very often, so the opportunity to show what he could do as a president wasn’t open to him. A lot of the RA delegates are local presidents, and other delegates consider their presidents’ opinions when casting their own votes: I suspect that local presidents may have found Becky’s argument to be persuasive.

My own hope is that this contest has permanently raised the bar for these campaigns: that OEA delegates will expect more substance from future candidates for Association office, and that that expectation will trickle down to district associations and locals. I hope that delegates will have a better idea of what sort of experiences to look for in future candidates.

I also hope that within OEA, we will learn that the best use of Ohio’s unique district structure is not to form voting blocs but to give potential leaders an opportunity to demonstrate what they can do.

But most of all, I hope that delegates and members come to realize that sincerity, humility, and openness, when coupled with intelligence, toughness, and drive, can form a basis for effective leadership. That’s what I think Becky Higgins will show us in the years ahead.

(A disclaimer: Nothing here is any sort of official statement from NEOEA, and nothing here is based on insider information; it’s based on my own personal observations of this election as it took shape and was eventually decided, and the opinions and observations offered here are my own.)

Character Matters

Tomorrow’s Election Day comes without my writing much about this year’s Presidential race. Really, at this late date there’s not much reason to do so: everyone who knows me knows who I’m supporting, and I imagine that virtually everyone who might read this has made his or her decision–in fact, has probably voted already.

It won’t change a single mind or a single vote, but I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t write something about this most unusual Presidential campaign, and especially about the Republican candidate, because he poses a new problem for me.

I’ve been working on political campaigns for 48 years, and I’ve made it a point to respect my political adversaries and to assume
that whatever beliefs they hold, they probably hold sincerely. That habit has served me well: even when you suspect that it’s not realistic, it’s an approach to politics and politicians that keeps you humble and avoids bitterness.

But I haven’t been able to muster that attitude for this year’s Republican nominee. I don’t claim to have some ability to see the state of a person’s soul. I understand that he is a caring family man, he is said to be a generous benefactor, and he appears to show great personal discipline. But in a person who seeks the most powerful position in the world, we expect character that goes beyond  personal rectitude.

His constant changes of positions make it clear that he has no core political values except the desire to be elected. His manipulation of facts makes it clear that he will say anything to gain a vote. And his refusal to distance himself from the bigotry and hatred voiced by the President’s more extreme opponents shows that he lacks the courage needed in a Commander in Chief.

In Eyewitness to Power (2001), David Gergen quotes Alan Simpson as having said, “If you have integrity, nothing else matters.  If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.”

Those two Republicans have it right. Because of Mitt Romney’s lack of integrity, nothing else matters. Quite simply, he is not worthy of his followers’ loyalty.