Average Folks Get Their Say on National Agenda

Average Folks Get Their Say on National Agenda

by Mary O'Leary
New Haven Register
10/10/04

NEW HAVEN — Republicans, Democrats and independents alike, they all had the same reaction. Getting a shot at hashing out their feelings about the war in Iraq, national security and outsourcing just before the presidential election was, as one participant put it, "kind of cool." Beyond that, they all expressed shades of another sentiment: Isn’t this what democracy is all about? "I feel as though everyone has a civic duty to do this," said Ron Carbone, 65, the retired football coach at Hamden High School, one of about 100 area residents who will participate in a discussion of important foreign policy issues Saturday at Yale University. The group was drawn from a random sample of Greater New Haven residents, one of 17 communities across the country that will hold almost simultaneous deliberations on the topics in the run-up to the election. "By the People: America in the World," an initiative of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions of the Public Broadcasting System is underwriting the series, and will broadcast a program on it Oct. 21, while Connecticut Public Television will have one on Oct. 22. Carbone and his fellow citizens will be stand-ins for the rest of us as they attempt to engage in civil discourse on the hot-button political issues that are likely to decide the election. They will get to talk in small groups and ask questions of a panel of experts before being polled on what they think after they’ve had a chance to reflect on the issues. "By the People" has sponsored a number of projects this year all with the same intent: Take a range of citizens and make global concerns relevant. FIVE PEOPLE, FIVE OPINIONS

Five participants interviewed by the Register had a variety of opinions on jobs and our place in the world, mainly informed by their personal experiences. Representing a cross-section of race, gender and ethnicity, there was an easy rapport among them at their first meeting, although it was clear they weren’t going to agree on everything. One of them, Cheryl Dini, 50, of West Haven could be the poster child for what a busy American looks like. She works seven days a week at Sikorsky Aircraft, five of them as a liaison between the workers and management and two days as a helicopter mechanic. She also takes classes at Gateway Community College and puts in several hours a week there tutoring other students. Not surprisingly, something had to give. "I was quite interested in this, because I’m not really up on politics and I felt this was a very good way to touch base with some other people," said Dini. She worries when Sikorsky subcontracts work and wonders whether it will eventually outsource some overseas. "I would like to see the jobs stay in the state. I would like to see the jobs stay in America," but she was at a loss as to how to prevent companies from going out of the country to snare cheaper labor. "Frankly, I’m just probably under middle of the road," she said of her own finances. "I just get by, but I don’t want to lose what I do have," said the mother of three grown children. Like Dini, Denise Santisteban, 47, of Hamden is back in school to give herself some career options. Trained in the arts, she worked as a stage manager in California before coming East and is employed as the production operations coordinator for the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven. Finding a job once the seasonal gig with the festival finished in June was never a problem. Never, that is, until this year. "The economy is just so bad and I see so many people hurting," Santisteban said. One of them is her aging father-in-law who has health problems, but can’t afford to retire. "I don’t want to be facing that in another 13 years." She has been told that the solution is for America to find the next major advancement in technology, which will then generate jobs. "I kind of agree with that, but that could come five years from now when people are in even more poverty," she said. She plans to use the deliberation day to find out what she can about the problem. "That’s the one I need to study more ." Carbone, who now works at Eli Whitney Regional Vocational-Technical School, sympathizes with anyone who loses a job, "but that’s part of the capitalistic system." And from his observations of people training at Eli Whitney, "Americans are very resourceful and industrious" and usually find their way when times get tough. New Havener Leocid Sigular, 46, said he feels rather insulated from the ups and downs of the economy. "I mean, I work in an industry where I will always have a job, because people always need to eat." Sigular is a chef in the cafeteria run by Aramark at the Knights of Columbus headquarters downtown. Until he was tapped to participate in the poll, he hadn’t thought much about the loss of 1.7 million jobs in the last four years. Sending work overseas, however, didn’t seem right. "Doesn’t that go against the American way?" he asked. HOMELAND INSECURITY Without exception, everyone was concerned about homeland security and the war in Iraq. Dini, who travels frequently with her daughter, thought the country had a ways to go on security, and she also questioned why there wasn’t more of a global coalition to fight terrorism. "It should be the old United Nations kind of thing. When you have someone like Bin Laden out there ... everyone needs to go after him," she said. As for Iraq, "I’m not sure I believe a full-out war is the answer. I don’t think when they originally went in there, they thought out what they were going to do." A registered Democrat, she says she doesn’t always vote with the party and will make up her mind this time after the presidential debates. Carbone too, despite coming from a large family active in Democratic politics, said he likes to judge "every issue on its merits. I like to make decisions based on reasoning, rather than as an ideologue." An independent, he was the only one of the five squarely behind President Bush’s policies in Iraq and on terror in general. He worries what Osama bin Laden’s threat to kill Americans will mean for his 10 grandchildren and he takes comfort in the president’s approach. "I admire the way he has addressed it unilaterally, not getting Kofi Annan or anybody else’s permission," Carbone said. Despite the 9/11 Commission’s report discounting a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, Carbone felt there was enough evidence to justify the war. Louis Matos, 39, a New Haven middle school teacher, and Santisteban represented the polar opposite of Carbone. Matos, who at one point was a registered Republican, said he feels national intelligence did not justify going to war. Beyond that, "there doesn’t seem to be any kind of cohesion to the war on terrorism." On national security in general, the New Haven resident didn’t feel we had done enough "to ensure the safety of our children and as a consequence I practically dread watching the news every night," said the father of three boys. Santisteban is afraid of the kind of world her 11-year-old will face, both from the terrorists and from the threat to civil liberties presented by the Patriot Act. The war, she feels, was wrongheaded. "I don’t understand why we are there. I really feel like the administration put us in a bad place, and I think it had more to do with oil … that and some personal agenda for the president," she said. BIG PLANS

Gail Leftwich, executive director of "By the People" at PBS, said the series is nonpartisan and puts the focus on what is at stake, not which candidate is favored. She hopes it sends a message to politicians that the electorate is up to the task of grappling with complex issues. Kenneth Dautrich, who directs the University of Connecticut Polling Institute, said this format does encourage more informed opinions. "It’s an interesting exercise, but I think it’s more of an academic exercise than anything else, because it doesn’t mirror what people really do in life when they are thinking about politics and elections," he said. "Most people form their attitudes from conversations they have with their families and ads they see on television and from discussions they have at the bar," Dautrich said. Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman and Stanford University professor James Fishkin would both like to see a change in how Americans make those political decisions. They are critical of campaigns driven by polls that are snap-shots in time, not reflecting much depth. The intellectual underpinning for the PBS deliberations can be found in their book, where they propose a national Deliberation Day — a two-day holiday in October before presidential elections. Following a debate of the candidates, citizens on Deliberation Day could ask questions of designated surrogates of the contenders at meetings across the country. At its most optimistic, Deliberation Day would bring together 50 million voters in 90,000 settings over the two days. Ackerman said the logic is to get ordinary citizens talking to others with whom they might disagree in order to precipitate a deeper conversation for everyone. He feels it has the potential to change the nature of campaigns. "You can see how even one debate has made people think," said Ackerman, referring to the face-off on Sept. 30 between Bush and Sen. John Kerry. The fact that millions watch is an indication of how hungry people are for information, he said. As for the PBS series, "We will learn a lot from the experience … maybe this is a stupid idea, but the only way to find out is to have real world tests," Ackerman said. "By the People" takes the professors’ core idea and adapts it in ways that are more pragmatic, said Seth Green, a founder of Americans for Informed Democracy, which is sponsoring the local event.