Yet Romney, a genuinely successful management consultant, would be the first to recognize the problem with David’s analogy of a customer unsatisfied with the fettuccine at the Olive Garden.  From a management perspective, yes, of course be polite to the customer, but the fettuccine must be cooked only according to the recipe – otherwise, there is no way to ensure quality control across the different restaurants.  After all, this was all planned out long in advance, the recipe tested in our kitchens, and management is merely executing the plan.  (By extension, if there is a flaw in the manner of how the recipe is being implemented at that particular restaurant, time to call in the head office, which will set them straight or find another franchisee.  Also by extension, mid-course corrections can be notoriously difficult, but a far sight easier in restaurant management than in, for instance, foreign policy.)

Whatever else they stand for, chains like Olive Garden signal to a prospective customer that the experience will be the same no matter where they are.  Successful Presidential brands generally do the same.  Certainly “Reagan” did.  To a large degree, so did “Clinton” and, with some variations, “George W. Bush.”  Romney?  No, other than a vague association with business success and the Olympics.  In politics, he’s only generally known for the Massachusetts health plan bearing strong similarities to Obamacare.  (The number of Republicans who think he served two terms – he served only one and declined to run for reelection – is surprising.)

And to pound the analogy flatter than veal scallopine, the next President will have many, many occasions to inform the “customers” that they cannot have what they want precisely how they want it – America simply cannot afford it.  Does the next President have the courage to do so?  What proof do we have?  Customer service and management consulting is a good model to run a company, even a large government agency.  (Business leaders work best in government at agencies that bear some similarity to business, such as Social Security or Medicare.)  But President?  No – the style of leadership we need in a President right now is very different than corporate leadership.  It’s far more about negotiation and persuasion than command, control, and organization management, to say nothing of the need for principles beyond customer service during the 3:00 AM phone calls made famous in the last campaign.  Prove those things first, to help decide whether someone might make a good President.  That’s why Romney’s triangulation on the tax deal – really, on raising taxes during a recession – was so disturbing and why it’s important to know what a person stands for before they become President.

The Post is right, of course.  May we now look forward to similar editorials from the Post if Democratic governors are elected in California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Maryland and they seek to use the redistricting process next year to disenfranchise Republicans?

But why should we be surprised?  After all, it is the party of Edmund Burke (half-Irish Catholic, known then as a “Rockingham Whig” but now regarded as a hero by the Conservatives), Benjamin Disraeli (Jewish background), Winston Churchill (half-American), and Margaret Thatcher (once cruelly maligned as a “grocer’s daughter”).

As Disraeli said, “In a progressive country change is constant.”  The Tories just proved that once again.

There are so many – and far more baseball reasons, of course – but here are ten:

1.) Two words:  Curt Schilling.  Seriously, read his blog.  Besides the Sox stuff, there are wonderful, clear explanations on conservative positions on everything from healthcare to entrepreneurship.

2.) Sports fans in the news:  Red Sox:  Scott Brown.  Yankees:  Sonia Sotomayor, David Paterson.

3.) No, Martha Coakley, Curt Schilling is not “another Yankees fan”:  Dissing the Sox, Schilling, and Fenway Park helped elect Senator Scott Brown.

4.) For parents:  Who would you rather have teach your children about relationships, A-Rod (who used to date Madonna) or Papi (who supports an orphanage)?

5.) Who would you rather have negotiate with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:  some striped-pants type or Terry Francona?

6.) No, John Kerry, the name of the All-Star DH is not “Manny Ortiz”.

7.) The Sox are raising $3.5 million for wounded veterans next month.

8.) In stadium financing, the Yankees put the “TARP” in “infield tarpulin”:

The Yankees have received a total of $1.2 billion in tax-exempt bonds and $136 million in taxable bonds . .  . [t]he city’s Independent Budget Office, a publicly funded agency that provides non-partisan information about financial issues, estimated the Yankees deal will cost the city $362 million, the Mets’ agreement [for the new Citi Field]  $138 million. Savings to the teams: $787 million over 40 years for the Yankees, $513 million for the Mets.

Other estimates vary, as figures in the complex deals are interpreted differently.

New York State Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, D-Westchester, the most vocal critic of the deals, says the taxpayers’ tab for Yankee Stadium eventually will total $4 billion. (He includes potential property tax revenue over 40 years given up in the deal, although stadium advocates argue the teams weren’t paying property tax at their old stadiums.)

“I don’t know what you think about bank bailouts, but the public is spending $4 billion to build Yankee Stadium, at a time we can’t fund the (subway system) and schools,” he says, adding the deals are a misuse of a financing tool called PILOTS (payment in lieu of taxes).

“It’s like you built a new house, and the local town tax collector came in and said, ‘You owe $10,000 a year in property taxes,’ and you say, ‘I’ll pay you but only on the condition you send it to my bank to cover my mortgage.’ That’s happened,” he says.

Call it “the house that Lehman built”?

9.) Ted Williams’ last television interview was in January 2000, where he endorsed George W. Bush in New Hampshire.  And he may have rescued the Bush campaign in New Hampshire in 1988:

10.) When at Fenway, visit a sports bar on Lansdowne Street.  Inform your fellow drinkers that the Taliban are Yankees fans who favor an increased British presence in the Six Counties.  The war will be over in two weeks.

For conservatives, the choice is clear:  Let’s Go Red Sox!

The Exsultet (for convenience, I’ll use the official Roman Catholic version here, though Anglicans and Lutherans have similar versions) is above all a prayer of rejoicing.  Chanted at a point in the service where there is only one candle lit in the church, it anticipates the great theme of light and the bursting open of Jesus’ tomb.

Yet as we pass through the third or even fourth year of the “Great Recession,” candidly these words can ring hollow or, even worse, simply become spiritualized as we fail to make a connection to the sometimes painful realities of our daily lives and our attitudes to the conditions we may face.

What does it mean to rejoice when unemployment is high, when many people are worried about losing their jobs and homes, when those economic difficulties cause tension in people’s lives that often come to the surface and endanger human and family relationships?  What does it mean to rejoice when the news seems mostly bad and little good, when we hear of earthquakes and massacres, when international tensions are rising, when power and the order of things we have known seem to be slipping away, when forces beyond the control of the average person seem to take away freedom, autonomy, and economic security?  While we may not be quite to the level yet of W. H. Auden’s “low, dishonest decade,” at times it seems that way.

To these very real and present concerns, the Exsultet offers both a verbal and a physical answer.  The verbal answer is simple:  at Easter, the earth has become once again “in shining splendor, radiant with the brightness of your King!  Christ has conquered!  Glory fills you!” – and here “you” clearly means not only the earth but each of us who believe in the power of Jesus’ resurrection.

The physical witness is even more profound.   The hymn celebrates the lighting of one candle, but that candle will soon be multiplied, until the church is filled with light, as Jesus himself said “I am the light of the world.”  Is there darkness in the world?  That’s the point of all this.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus is arrested, he says, “this is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53).  James Russell Lowell’s majestic poem “Once to Every Man and Nation” speaks of the world’s present condition in the famous words “Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;/Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong.”  The Exsultet responds:  yes, but it doesn’t last – rejoice! “Christ has conquered!  Glory fills you!”  There may be only one light now, but light will fill this place in God’s good timing and it will fill the world.  As John writes in the preface to his Gospel, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  In fact, all it takes is one candle for the process to start.

At Easter 2010, are you concerned about the state of the world, about the seeming triumph of evil in such things as the behavior of nations and threats to peace, economic injustice, the persecution of minorities and dissidents, and human trafficking?

Christ has conquered!  Glory fills you!

Are you concerned about your own family, wondering how it will cope with economic difficulties, about your children’s future in a world often hostile to the virtues of faith, hope, and love?

Christ has conquered!  Glory fills you!

Are you unemployed or worried about losing your job or home, lonely, in sickness of body or mind, in pain, are you or someone you know suffering injustice or under the tyranny of alcohol or drugs?

Christ has conquered!  Glory fills you!

Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor, radiant in the brightness of your King!  *  * *  The power of this holy night dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings  mourners joy;
it casts out hatred, brings us peace,
and humbles earthly pride.
  * * *  May the Morning Star which never sets 
find this flame still burning:
 Christ, that Morning Star,
 who came back from the dead,
 and shed his peaceful light on all mankind,
 your Son, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
  Amen.

My best wishes for a blessed Easter to everyone.

Eric Liddell: Hey, do you not know what day it is?

Boy: Yeah.

Eric Liddell: Tell me then.

Boy: Sunday.

Eric Liddell: The Sabbath’s not a day for playing football, is it?

Boy: No.

Chariots of Fire, 1981

For those who haven’t seen the movie, in the scene described above, the great British track star Eric Liddell has just had a muddy soccer ball hit his suit pants while on the way to church.  The scene foreshadows . . . well, see the movie.

This list from the fascinating and comprehensive historical materials carefully maintained by the Clerk of the House gives the best account of all legislative days that have occurred on Saturday and Sunday since the First Congress in 1789.  Sunday sessions are in bold.  The first Sunday meeting of a house of Congress appears to have taken place March 3, 1799, which was the final day of the Fifth Congress, next followed by a burst of Sunday activity in 1903 at the end of the Fifty-Seventh Congress.

The House Clerk’s office makes the excellent point that given the difficulties of travel in early America, it made sense for Congress to meet at least on Saturdays if business needed to be done.  Sessions were shorter and more intense than in today’s essentially permanent legislature.  Everyone was in Washington anyway, with no weekend trips to the district, so why not meet, get the job done more quickly, and return home to business or plow?

Reviewing the list of the Sunday sessions, one sees some of the crises of recent history but more the impression of occasional – and then in recent years more frequent – frantic work before adjournment.  From a Christian perspective, one may consider this a bit of an example of Matthew 12:11 (“Jesus said to them, ‘Which of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?”) with the normal human failings and delays leading to lateness here being the “sheep.”  Not ideal, tough on Members, their staff, and their familiees, but somewhat understandable as exceptions from the usual practice.  (It would be a fascinating study to see what bills were considered so urgent as to be discussed on those days – if one has been done, please link to it in the comments.)

But the general rule has been:  no Sunday sessions.  Even the Constitution (Article I, Section 7) gives the President the clear option of a day of rest from considering bills that Congress has passed (“If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a law, in like Manner as if he had signed it.”

Whether the Members and staff worship on Sunday (or at all), surely they would benefit from a day of rest.  Why not give them one?  Why not let them clear their minds?  Why the need to continue the high-pressure sales operation?

So what’s the rush today?  No one really knows what’s in the bill outside of a few highly connected individuals, the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services can’t provide a cost analysis in time, and the Members and staff are presumably, tired, confused, and overwhelmed – not a good recipe for considering legislation affecting one-seventh of the economy and raising the prospect of massive Federal spending and deficits for decades.

In the movie, after the scene quoted above, Liddell tells the children to “come around” to his house the next day, Monday, “and we’ll have a game then.”

So come around, Madam Speaker, and we’ll have a vote tomorrow.  That’s not agreeing with the Republicans to start over, it’s merely giving people a day to think or, if they wish, to pray.  Anyone of whatever political and economic views whose convictions on what could be the most important vote of their careers cannot withstand a day of rest and a good night’s sleep shouldn’t be forced to vote today.

Anyway, Pawlenty’s approval rating in that poll sure looks a lot better when placed in context  — it turns out that only 25 percent of Minnesotans approve of the Legislature’s performance, of which 66 percent disapprove.  Not surprising when KSTP TV (which commissioned the poll) reports that “The first month of the legislative session has been a rocky one for the legislature and the governor. They have been at odds over health care, the bonding bill and the budget.”  Sounds like more Minnesotans blame the Legislature than the Governor for the budget troubles.   (And only 40 percent, which is a reasonable proxy for partisan affiliation, feel his political travel distracts him from his role as Governor, while 41 percent say it has no impact.  Democrats (locally known as the DFL) control both houses of the Minnesota Legislature.  It’s unsurprising that they would propose bills that a fiscally conservative Republican Governor doesn’t want to sign.  It’s also unsurprising that the DFL might want to try to rough up Pawlenty a bit in his final year in office – they are looking at 2012 as well as the Minnesota Governor’s race this year.

But it’s about 2010 right now – and all the GOP’s national leaders, including successful incumbents like Pawlenty, have a vital role to play in raising money and support for our candidates.  Let’s not take anyone off the field.

[Mayor] Fitzgerald, meanwhile, basked in the reflected glow of his favorite team, elated at all the attention the Red Sox’ winning ways had afforded him.  Back in 1904, he’d come close to purchasing the club, but had been headed off, most notably, by Ban Johnson, who was enough of a political operator himself to recognize one who was far more skilled at the job than he.  That hadn’t sullied Fitzgerald’s loyalties, though, either to his team or to the sport.  Baseball could solve a lot of ills, he believed, a philosophy especially helpful to him because his eldest daughter, Rose, had begun seeing a lad named Joseph P. Kennedy, a raffish, ambitious young financier whose lone redeeming quality, to Honey Fitz, was that he’d been a star baseball player at Harvard.

– Mike Vaccaro, The First Fall Classic, p. 42

Mayor John F. Fitzgerald (“Honey Fitz”) was the first American-born Irish Catholic Mayor of Boston, and the grandfather of President Kennedy.  The political smarts in the family started with him, and his election represented the triumph of the Irish in Boston, nearly 60 years after the great immigration, over the dominant Yankee elite.  Among his other accomplishments, Honey Fitz supported the building of a new baseball stadium – Fenway Park.

So here’s Martha Coakley, making fun of Scott Brown:

Coakley bristles at the suggestion that, with so little time left, in an election with such high stakes, she is being too passive.

‘As opposed to standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?’ she fires back, in an apparent reference to a Brown online video of him doing just that.

And here’s Red Sox great Curt Schilling, in his blog, reacting to the story:

Finally, has she forgotten who she’s talking to? What state she’s wanting to represent in the Senate? It’s Massachusetts. You do not make sneering insults about Fenway Park. What’s she going to do next, insult the Red Sox? That’d really just be the cherry on top of a delightful campaign. Fenway Park and the Red Sox are damned near sacred to Massachusetts residents, Bostonians in particular. Really, I’m starting to think that she just doesn’t want to get elected or something. Because anyone with half a modicum of sense knows that you do not go into Boston and mess with Fenway Park.

Two days later, she does just that, calling Schilling “another Yankee fan.”

Boston, heckuva town.  For all their faults, the Kennedys knew the folkways – and the starting pitchers.  They won.  Coakley lost.

That’s politics – and though it is no longer the “Kennedy seat,” somewhere, Honey Fitz may actually be singing “Sweet Adeline” tonight.  At a minimum, he would have admired Scott Brown’s incredible campaign.

I hesitate to comment on New Jersey politics, but my sense is that Christie will lose unless he wins a spectacular air war over the weekend.  I’m doubtful — another case of just coming close in New Jersey.

On the race for New York’s 23rd congressional district, John is right — Doug Hoffman will win, and be a victim of redistricting.