By Ezra
As the nascent call for a Krugman Senate appointment gathers steam, it's worth playing contrarian for a moment and arguing against. What the Democratic party needs is not more folks willing and able to be Senators, we''ve got plenty of cleft-chinned do-gooders happy to take a free Senate-appointment and work diligently to be another smooth cog in the machine. No, what we need are more folks willing and able to effectively project the Democratic message out across an oft-hostile media. Krugman, through his perch at the New York Times, is able to argue the progressive case with neither interruption nor distortion multiple times a week in a paper with huge penetration throughout the rest of the media. That's valuable. As are his frequent appearances in other magazines, books, periodicals, and published venues.
On the other hand, Krugman is mediocre as a television personality, which is really the only form of communication open to Senators. Small, fidgety, and high-voiced, his points are unfailingly sound but his sounds are unfailingly too tinny to overwhelm whichever media monster he's pitted against that week. And in the Senate, he'd be able to do no more than any Senator can now. Minority Democrats in the Reid era don't lack for spunk -- see Boxer, Lautenberg, and Schumer for that -- it's the simple fact that they're minority Democrats that holds them back. And Krugman, as part of that, would be just as unable to pass legislation, bring bills to the floor, and ram through amendments. On the other hand, keeping him at the Times where he can continue arguing the Democratic case and making it, week by week, bit by bit, more likely that Democrats return to power -- well, that's not a job many others seem able to do, and having found an eloquent and respected champion, we'd be well-served to keep him.
