Former Senator Bob Bennett was the keynote speaker at the latest University of Utah Business Alumni Association luncheon held at the University Guest House. About 80 alumni and students had a chance to hear from Bennett as he discussed the current political climate and his thoughts on the changes that need to be made.
Bennett, a self-proclaimed Pollyanna, says that though the political times we are in now seem desperate, they are far from the worst we’ve seen. History shows there was a time that politics were in such turmoil that it caused the country to be split, which led to years of deep anger and damaging policies. “Today, it’s not the gridlock that is the problem, but what’s behind the issues that is the bigger problem.”
Bennett explains that the problem, as he sees it, has two components; the first being the constant news cycle. It used to be that in a 6-year term you had two years to be a statesman, two years to do your job and two years to campaign. Now, because of the perpetual campaign, politicians are concerned with what the media covers and are hesitant to cooperate because they don’t want to upset their base.
In his 16 years as a senator, he saw first-hand that politicians took the opportunity to collaborate and compromise when the heat of the campaign was in the distance. Today, politicians on both sides of the aisle don’t feel they can risk appearing too far from the party line because it could affect a campaign years in the distance. In today’s digital age, everything a politician does is reported by the mainstream media, as well as bloggers and social media sites. This type of attention takes away from deals that need to be made in order for effective policy to take place.
The other reason the gridlock is different now than it was in the past is because of the reforms of financial contributions. Bennett points to the McCain-Feingold Act, which is a bill that limits the amount of money one individual can contribute to a campaign. Bennett says, “Now you’ve taken the money out of the hands of campaigns that know how to use the money to the advantage of the election.” The creation of super PACs allows an organization to run negative ads that distract from the heart of a campaign and keeps voters from coming out to vote. Candidates don’t have the ability to tell the super PAC to stop or to ask them to change the message because it is illegal according to the new bill. Due to the limitations, candidates are removed from the critical dialogue of the campaign, which can lead the well-intended super PAC marketing to have an inadvertent detrimental effect on the campaign they’re trying to help.
The alumni and guests were honored to hear from the former senator and ask questions about the current state of politics. Since retirement from serving as senator, Bennett has remained active in politics. Among his new roles are serving as the Chairman of The Bennett Group, as a Senior Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and a Resident Scholar at the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics.