What's next?

Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king. That's why I did this: to protect you from yourselves.

-Sideshow Bob

Ok, we're all feeling devastated over the possibility that Scott Brown's unthinkable victory has doomed health reform, that Democrats have, once again, clutched defeat from the jaws of victory.  As I wrote yesterday, The Choakley establishes a whole new level of losing.


But get your heads up, it's time to move forward.  All is not lost, and health reform is not dead yet.  


Indeed, liberal bloggers spent the day explaining the myriad possibilities for passing the bill.  By far the simplest solution would be for the House to simply pass the Senate bill as is, and then "patch it up" across the next several weeks by passing separate legislation through budget reconciliation, which cannot be filibustered.  More complicated would be to break up the bill, passing the more controversial portions through reconciliation and then essentially daring Republicans to vote against the popular ones.  Heck, there's even a hint that with Scott Brown already facing tough reelection prospects in 2012, it may be possible to persuade him and Olympia Snowe to agree to a compromise bill and avoid a filibuster.





So passing the bill seems workable, and hardly time to throw in the towel.


But inevitably, there are already calls from the putrid punditry to abandon the whole shebang.  Martha Coakley's defeat, so the conventional wisdom goes, was actually a rejection of President Obama, health care reform, and the national Democrats by angry Massachusetts voters.  Her loss reveals, so these pundits say, that Democrats have shifted too far to the left--too liberal even for Massachusetts--and must therefore reign in their progressive policies to avoid disaster in November.


Frankly, I just don't see the logic.  I don't claim to understand the intricacies of Congressional procedures, but I do know two things: this election was in no way a referendum on the person or policies of President Obama, and abandoning health reform now would be political suicide for Democrats.


Take, for example, The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes, who maniacally cackles, "Obama's agenda, chiefly health care, took a beating in Massachusetts. In fact, it was the chief cause of Coakley's defeat."  Really?  On what basis?  For this to be true, you would have to believe that Massachusetts voters rejected Coakley because she supports a LESS liberal version of a health care policy already in place in their state--which Coakley's opponent voted FOR when he was in the state senate!  How can Scott Brown have won because of voters' opposition to health reform when he voted for a MORE liberal health bill himself?


Moreover, if voters opted for Brown out of rejection of President Obama, the polls would have been tight for months.  Instead, they show a steady double-digit lead for Coakley, which collapsed over the last two weeks.  Nothing happened over that period which would have made Obama's policies dramatically less popular in Massachusetts.  Simply put, there's just no logical way to spin this as a referendum on Obama's health reform package.


(For further reading, check out Nate Silver's post here, one of the smartest I've read.)


But even assuming that I'm wrong, and that this election actually DOES reveal health reform's deep-seated unpopularity, Democrats should NOT respond by moving to the right and abandoning the Obama agenda.  You can't beat a Republican by becoming more like one.  That's a foundational tenet of marketing: if you don't differentiate, you're dead.


Pretend you're a House Democrat.  The House could pass health reform right now and be done.  It's already passed its own health care bill.  For reform to fail now, it would mean that some House Democrats who had voted for reform would have to switch their votes and vote against the Senate bill--either you're a liberal who doesn't think the bill goes far enough, or a conservative who's spooked by Coakley's defeat.


Ultimately, I don't think House liberals will kill the bill.  The real worry is that "moderates" will abandon the bill to shore up their conservative credentials.


The key point is that if you're one of those wavering moderates, voting against the bill gains you nothing, because you've already voted for a health care bill.  Once you voted for the initial House bill, your die was cast, and nothing you do now can prevent the wave of attack ads for that initial vote.  What does abandoning health care now gain you except the privilege of saying, "I actually voted for health reform before I voted against it"?

More fundamentally, if you vote against health care, and you vote against climate legislation, and you vote against the stimulus, and you vote against financial regulation... what is left that defines you as a Democrat?  If you agree with conservatives on every major issue, why wouldn't a conservative voter just vote for a Republican and get the real thing?


As someone who does sales and marketing research for a living, I can tell you that you won't sell anything by making your product the same as everyone else's, by competing on the same attributes and features as your competitors.  You have to carve out your own space where you stand out.  Similarly, you can't beat a Republican if you have nothing different to offer.


I'll close on this note, by quoting Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic:

For all of the panic in Democratic ranks right now, the reality of the situation is stunningly simple. In the span of twenty-four hours, the House of Representatives--the House in which Democrats command a huge majority, in which liberals actually have some sway, and in which leadership actually has power--could put health care reform on the president's desk for signing.

One lousy vote. One lousy, stinking roll call vote. That's the only hurdle in the way of health care reform.

Are Democrats really willing to give up now?

Give your Congressperson a call and tell them not to give up now: pass the Senate bill and work out the kinks later.

UPDATED: More evidence that opposition to health reform is not what sank Martha Coakley:

•  82% of Obama supporters who voted for Brown support the public option, as do 86% of Obama voters who stayed home. 
  
• 57% of Obama voters who stayed home on Tuesday support the Senate health care bill or think it doesn't go far enough.
• And of Obama voters who cast a ballot for Brown, nearly half (49%) support the Senate bill or think it does not go far enough. Just 11% think it goes too far.  

To be fair, that poll was commissioned by MoveOn.org, but they're some interesting numbers nonetheless.


RELATED POSTS

Levels of losing: The Choakley

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There's no money in selling insurance to sick people: more reasons free markets don't work in health care

The Takeover: What opponents of health care reform don't get

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Levels of losing: the Choakley

                I'm not here
                This isn't happening
                I'm not here
                I'm not here

                   - Radiohead

The Dead Man Walking.  The “This Can’t Be Happening.”  The Stomach Punch…… The Choakley?

Bill Simmons’ ingenious “Levels of Losing,” which ranks the myriad ways a sports fan can have his heart broken by a crushing loss, captures a universality of emotion with which any fan or political junkie can immediately empathize.  Watching Martha Coakley surrender Ted Kennedy’s seat to a Republican, I couldn’t help but wonder where Coakley’s epic fail would fall in the levels of losing.


After reading through Simmons’ sixteen levels of losing, I’ve narrowed the list down to the top five I think best describe Coakley’s defeat.  In making the list, I’ve kept in mind that Coakley’s loss is so much more than a failed individual contest, but that it represents the possible failure of everything liberals have been working for across the last year—indeed, the last half century—just at the precipice of success.

#5. The Role Reversal

Simmons’ definition: “Any rivalry in which one team dominated another team for an extended period of time, then the perennial loser improbably turned the tables… For the fans of the vanquished team, the most crushing part of the ‘Role Reversal’ isn't the actual defeat as much as the loss of an ongoing edge over the fans from the other team. You lose the jokes, the arrogance and the unwavering confidence that the other team can't beat you. There's almost a karmic shift. You can feel it.”

Why it fits: Well this doesn’t take a genius.  Massachusetts hadn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972—that’s twelve straight elections without a Republican victory.  The seat won by Scott Brown had been held by Ted Kennedy, the arch-liberal of the Senate, for over 40 years.   Massachusetts has a formidable Democratic get-out-the-vote machine, and had voted for Barack Obama by 26 points just 13 months ago.  By all accounts, a Democrat running for Senate in Massachusetts should have been a juggernaut.

#4. The Dead Man Walking

Simmons’ definition: “Applies to any playoff series in which your team remains ‘alive,’ but they just suffered a loss so catastrophic and so harrowing that there's no possible way they can bounce back. ... Especially disheartening because you wave the white flag mentally, but there's a tiny part of you still holding out hope for a miraculous momentum change. ... So you've given up, but you're still getting hurt, if that makes sense.”

Why it fits: This is exactly how I felt in the two to three days before the election.  Every poll showed Coakley losing, and Brown had all the momentum, and yet still I held out hope—even predicting against all rational evidence that Coakley could pull it out.  Heck, even Nate Silver wrote two posts that offered up some sliver of possibility.  But ultimately, as we all knew deep down it must, the miraculous momentum change never came.

#3. The Broken Axle

Simmons’ definition: “When the wheels come flying off in a big game, leading to a complete collapse down the stretch. ... You know when it's happening because (A) the home crowd pushes their team to another level, and (B) the team that's collapsing becomes afflicted with Deer-In-The-Headlitis.”

Why it fits: Whether a new poll showing a surging Scott Brown, a fresh gaffe out of Coakley’s mouth, or a new media story chronicling Coakley’s collapse—and all three feeding each other in a self-fulfilling death spiral—it seemed the wheels kept falling off the Coakley caravan even after there were no wheels left to fall off.  First she scoffed at the basic duties of politicking: “As opposed to standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?”  Then she called Curt Schilling “another Yankees fan.”  Two insults to the Red Sox in one campaign?  Stick a fuahk in ‘ah, she’s done.

#2. The “This Can’t Be Happening”

Simmons’ definition: “You're supposed to win, you expect to win, the game is a mere formality. ... Suddenly your team falls behind, your opponents are fired up, the clock is ticking and it dawns on you for the first time, ‘Oh, my God, this can't be happening.’”

Why it fits: Now we’re really starting to dig deep into the dark depths of Democratic despair.  Do I even need to say anything here?

#1. The Stomach Punch

Simmons’ Definition: “Any roller-coaster game that ends with (A) an opponent making a pivotal (sometimes improbable) play or (B) one of your guys failing in the clutch. ... Usually ends with fans filing out after the game in stunned disbelief, if they can even move at all. ... Always haunting, sometimes scarring.”

Why it fits: This is #1 because it not only captures the emotion of the final “this can’t be happening” days of the race, but because it encompasses the entire timeline of the health reform battle—a true political roller coaster ride if there ever was one.  We started with such promise, watching entranced on a frigid but hope-filled January morning as a young new president called us to “set aside childish things… to choose our better history,” the cold clarity of the bitter air crystallizing the hard but noble work that must now be done.  Swept into power on the promise of reforming America’s health care, economy, and climate, the new president had a 365-electoral vote mandate to carry out his agenda.

But as that agenda launched into action, the roller coaster began, and we felt that our better history might still be some time in the making.  The emotion reached a fever pitch in the August town halls, and liberals felt enraged and defensive over lunatic cries of “death panels,” “rationing,” and “government takeover.”  Frustrated progressives begged the President to abandon bipartisanship, and felt vindicated as each successive “moderate” Republican spurned the President’s open hand.

The President, however, stood firm, and delivered a game-changing speech.  By November, the bill had passed the House, and the Senate was even considering a public option—or not, as liberals again turned their rage toward Joe Lieberman for scuttling it.

Still, Joe played ball on the rest of the bill.  Health care reform was alive, and it had gotten further than at any time before.  With the public option gone, and after some stomach-turning horse-trading, we finally had Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, and Ben Nelson on board.  Filibuster after Republican filibuster failed, and on Christmas Eve, the second chamber passed health reform.  Just reconcile the bills and get them on the President’s desk.  The long, hard-fought slog was nearing its end, and universal health care was finally, inevitably, coming to America.  And with the finish line in sight… the wheels came flying off.  This isn’t happening.

...

Truth be told, I don’t think any one of Simmons’ levels of losing, by itself does justice to the disbelieving despair felt in liberal circles right now, because there’s a unique twist: the Ted Kennedy factor.  Here was universal health care’s most passionate advocate, so close to achieving his life’s work, cut down by a tumor just short of seeing his dream become reality.  Here was the man chosen to replace him—by the people Kennedy had served for forty years—unraveling his life’s work in the final mile.  Even the most rabid Republican has to feel some level of sympathy—even moral uncertainty—over Scott Brown’s stomach punch to a dead man’s last wish.

And to top it off, Massachusetts, alone of all states, already has universal health care!

Is there a sports analogy?  A star player who’d led his team through the playoffs, only to meet with a tragic accident and have to watch from the sidelines (or heaven) as his hapless replacement choked away the chance for greatness?  Texas’s Colt McCoy comes to mind: the winningest quarterback in NCAA history, who had to sit out the 2010 BCS national championship game after pinching a nerve five plays into it.  McCoy was replaced by a true freshman, who showed his inexperience by throwing a crucial interception that was returned for a touchdown with less than 20 seconds left in the first half.

But even that analogy only goes so far.  The freshman at least grew up quickly, and gave Texas two second-half touchdowns.  That’s more than can be said of Martha Coakley’s choke-job.

So it looks like we have no choice but to create a whole new level of losing based on recent events: The Choakley.

Definition: When a team’s star player is injured in the final game of his career, either (A) in a championship game in which the player’s team has a big lead, or (B) after a long playoff run but before the championship game, in which that player’s team is heavily favored… and that player’s replacement proceeds to throw away the game through sheer ineptitude.  As the other team chips away, the fans watch the jumbotron in dismay, as the injured star watches helplessly from the sidelines as his work unravels.  It’s not just the loss that gets you, but that the injury’s arrival at the last minute, rather than any skill on the part of the other team, is what led to the defeat—and that the star player will never get another shot.  Double points if the replacement player was a late season trade from a team with which he had previously won a championship.

Where does The Choakley rank in Simmons’ levels of losing?  I’d put it at #2—right behind the 1986 World Series.  But I could be persuaded otherwise.  After all, the 1986 loss has been exorcised, twice, albeit 18 and 21 years later.  Let’s just hope Ted Kennedy’s wish doesn’t have to wait that long. All I can say is, I'm glad I have health insurance.

Massholes get a chance to vote for Obama a second time on Tuesday

No one thought it could end like this.  There were many scenarios for health reform’s demise.  But who could have imagined that, just as it looked like passage was inevitable, the fatal coup de grace would be dealt out of nowhere by the nation’s most liberal state—no less by replacing health reform’s most passionate advocate, who was felled by a brain tumor just months before realizing his life’s work, with a Republican?  It’s irony a Greek dramatist might have dreamed up.

But as the saying goes, sometimes life is stranger than fiction, and if recent polls are to be trusted, this ironic tragedy may well play out.  Incredibly, polls show a statistical dead heat in the Massachusetts Senate race between Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown to replace the late Ted Kennedy—and Brown has the momentum.  If the unthinkable were to happen, and a Republican won Ted Kennedy’s seat, it would give Republicans 41 votes in the Senate—and with it, the power to doom health reform.  To all my friends in Massachusetts, we must not let this happen.  For once in the state’s recent history, YOUR VOTE MATTERS.

Make five get-out-the-vote calls now

I know, I know, it’s painful to have to vote for such a clueless candidate as Coakley.  Just the other day she inexplicably dismissed Red Sox legend Curt Schilling as “another Yankees fan”—about as big a gaffe as possible in the heart of Red Sox Nation.  After last week’s Patriots disaster, voting for a sports-challenged Senator may be the last thing still-reeling Bay Staters want to get out and do. 

But let’s remember what’s at stake here.  As a friend from Worcester said, “A Coakley defeat would bring a whole new meaning to the term ‘Masshole.’”  (And if you don't like Coakley, do you really want this guy representing you?)

If Massachusetts fails to elect Coakley, it will mean that the only state with universal health care will have ruined the rest of the nation’s best shot at achieving the same dream.  It’s as close to an up/down vote on national health reform as any citizen will ever get.

Make five get-out-the-vote calls now

If health care reform dies, financial regulation and climate legislation may not be far behind.  With 41 votes, Republicans would be able to block financial industry reform, dooming the US economy by further concentrating wealth in the hands of greedy bankers who sacrifice our long-term well-being for short-term bonuses (remember, not a single Republican voted for the modest reforms passed in December 2009).

Climate legislation—the most important legislation of our lifetimes—currently has some Republican support.  But if a Republican wins in the nation’s most liberal state, nervous purple-state Dems may interpret Coakley’s defeat as a sign that the party has moved too far left, and spook them into withdrawing support.  Remember, Scott Brown has admitted he is a climate change denier.  If cap-and-trade fails in the Senate, other countries will abandon their efforts to rein in their own CO2 emissions, dooming the world—and as a 24-year-old, my entire generation and our children—to centuries of unmitigated global warming and environmental disaster.

So there you have it.  Barack Obama campaigned on the promise to renew America by restoring four pillars of American society: our financial industry, health care, energy and climate change, and education.  Today, the Bay State holds in its power the ability to affirm or defeat three of those four great priorities that will determine whether our nation returns to hope and prosperity or enters into precipitous decline.


I've been pessimistic so far, but all is not yet lost.  Despite discouraging polls, there aren't that many of them, and unpredictable turnout in state elections makes polls notoriously unreliable.  And that is encouraging news, because it means you can do something about it: prove pessimistic predictions wrong by getting out and voting.  


Indeed, I'm predicting a Coakley victory, because I think the close election will turn Democrats out to vote (and there aren't that many Republicans in Mass, despite the excitement felt by the few who are there).  I've also got a hunch that many of the polled voters who say they'll vote for Brown will ultimately hesitate to pull the trigger for a Republican once in the voting booth.  It's possible that the campaign has left them with a feeling of Coakley as a terrible candidate, but that when they're actually staring at the D and the R on the ballot, their party identification will trump their views of the individual--remember, this is Massachusetts.  And most of all, I have to believe that the good guys will prevail.  Coakley will not fail because Obama must not fail.  BUT YOU HAVE TO VOTE!

                                                                  

If you live in Massachusetts, you’ve got a job to do today, and an opportunity.  In fact, I’m somewhat envious of you, because what you’ve got is a chance to vote for Barack Obama a second time.  A vote for Coakley is a vote for President Obama and his vital agenda.

Go vote for Martha Coakley for US Senate today.  Call other voters and remind them to get to the polls.  Because if you don’t, a Republican will win Ted Kennedy’s seat, dooming health reform and potentially President Obama’s entire agenda.  And trust me, that will be salt in the wounds of the Patriots’ playoff loss that will burn for far longer than Tom Brady is an NFL quarterback, and for a whole lot more of us across this country.

Forward this post to anyone you know in Massachusetts who needs to get out and vote for Martha Coakley.

The Wall Street Journal is Bad for Business

One of my favorite blogs over the last year-and-a-half has been the Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital, which covers issues at the intersection of business and the environment: energy prices, sustainable business practices, new technologies, science, politics, etc.  While I didn't always agree with the blog's analysis, its even-handedness and objectivity is a breath of fresh air on a publication given to writing outright falsehoods in its editorial page.  And as a 24-year-old with long-term career ambitions in the clean energy business, it is a daily must-read, as one of the best sources of sustainable business news and analysis on the internet.

So I was a bit shocked to visit the site today and find myself greeted by a headline announcing its cancellation: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Now, I know the Wall Street Journal's editorial page is a right-wing pigpen of nonsense, but this seems like this is a bad move for the WSJ from a BUSINESS standpoint - and you'd think that business concerns would ultimately trump ideology.  

Granted, Environmental Capital probably doesn't generate a positive ROI in the PRESENT.  But as a top source of news for those working in the clean energy and sustainability space, it would seem poised to grow its readership as the clean tech space takes off.  Indeed, given that this is the fastest growing sector of the global economy, it seems like particularly strange timing to punt on the issue.  Just look at US venture capital funding for clean tech over the last few years:

True, VC funding of clean tech fell by 34% from 2008-09, but TOTAL VC funding fell by a much greater 55%, and the deal volume barely changed.  Since 2003, clean tech's share of VC funding has risen from just 3% to 25%.

Looking forward, the evidence is even more compelling that clean technologies will be the next great industry.  A Deloitte survey found that clean technologies are the only category in which a majority of VC firms plan to increase their investments across the next three years - nearly twice as many as the next highest category (medical devices and equipment).  Only 6% plan to decrease investments:

So it's absolutely flabbergasting that the WSJ is canceling its well-regarded blog on the subject.  In doing so, the WSJ is abandoning its opportunity to grow with the clean economy.  Moreover, they're virtually ensuring they'll lose their share of readers in the 18-35 demographic, a growing percentage of which will find themselves employed in clean technologies over the coming years.

The only explanation for the WSJ's decision is ideology: the editors concluded that Environmental Capital was a little too friendly to the environment, and decided an ideological purge was necessary.  From now on, it's likely that all WSJ publications will toe the party line of "clean energy bad, global warming fake," or risk crackdown and expulsion.

This too seems like bad business.  The paper must figure that no matter the politics of its business audience, they will still be captive customers to the country's top source of business news; a right-wing ideology only broadens its appeal beyond the business community by establishing itself as the leading paper for political conservatives.  But this is excessively short-term.  Young businesspersons are increasingly liberal on issues of science and climate change, and will increasingly distrust a paper that chooses to ignore the facts in favor of ideology.

It's a sad trend for a paper that was once--and still considers itself to be--the paper of repute for people of business.  The creep of right-wing orthodoxy seems to be reaching its tentacles into all aspects of the paper's coverage, even supposedly objective sections.  How can you trust the paper on business issues and investment advice when it bails on the fastest growing sector of the economy, when its coverage is driven more by ideology than business sense?

The blog's authors don't leave without a parting shot, which I think is further evidence that this was an ideological decision.  As Joe Romm points out, the title "So long, and thanks for all the fish" comes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

The phrase also carries a profoundly ironic underlying meaning given the context and the subject area of the blog.  Wikipedia’s entry on the not-bad film version explains:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Stephen Fry) narrates that the dolphins, the second most-intelligent creatures on Earth, attempted to warn mankind about the planet’s impending destruction, but humans interpreted the dolphins’ communications as tricks. The dolphins left the planet, leaving their final message to humans as “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

Was this intentional by Johnson?  You decide.

And the blog's second-to-final post was entitled, Who's Afraid of a Clean Energy Future?  I guess now we know who.

Smart businessmen know it's better to love the future than fear it.

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Haiti

The world has a cruel sense of justice.  Why does Nature reserve her harshest furies for the poorest people who are least able to cope with them?  Why do calamities seem to pile up on those who are already suffering the most?

This, to me, is what makes the earthquake in Haiti feel so different from other disasters to those observing it, psychologically and emotionally.  It’s not just the present suffering under the piles of rubble and cracked earth for which we feel, but for every past injustice thrust upon the Haitian people felt all at once—as if the collective weight of the sequence of miseries suffered by the poorest North Americans, wave upon wave, were revealed to us at once, crystallized in this moment of calamity.  We empathize not just for the current victims, but for the whole history of un-asked-for misfortunes which have repeatedly crushed the promise of whatever nascent hope this tragic nation has ever managed to cultivate.  “Poor Haiti… What could possibly happen to these people next?”

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, a result of colonial exploitation, rotten government, and repeated natural disasters.  Just in 2008, the country was hit with four consecutive hurricanes that killed 800 and left millions homeless.

Recently though, observers had been feeling a cautious hope for political stability—and eventually, maybe, some semblance of prosperity—in Haiti.  Just two months ago, the Economist noted:

FIVE years after the United Nations set out to build a nation in the poorest territory in the Americas, and after three years of relative political stability under President René Préval, outsiders have begun to express modest optimism about Haiti. Bill Clinton, a former American president and now a UN special envoy for the country, last month took a large group of foreign businessman to Haiti and told them that political risk there was “lower than it has ever been in my lifetime”.

But it was actually a story chronicling the growing chance that political instability could return; its title was “Rebuilding Haiti: A step backward.”  Indeed, in the wake of the earthquake, one commentator writes with tragic sympathy:

Haiti just can’t catch a break.  For nearly five years, the small island nation has made slow but steady progress toward economic development and political stability. But it seems that just as the country is poised to turn a corner, an act of God, like yesterday’s devastating earthquake, sends Haiti reeling back…

For every step in the right direction, Haiti has been dealt an equal and opposite blow. In April 2008 there were widespread riots to protest the rising cost of food. Similar riots occurred elsewhere in the developing world, but in Haiti, it resulted in the death of a peacekeeper and the ouster of the prime minister. The World Bank offered Haiti an emergency bailout to help mitigate the food emergency, but even as that crisis was settling, Haiti was hit again—and again, and again, and again. In the span of 30 days in the fall of 2008, Haiti was hit by four hurricanes and tropical storms. Flooding and mudslides killed an estimated 800 people and devastated crop harvests. The port city of Gonaives was virtually destroyed. Millions were internally displaced…

This is Haiti’s tragedy: Just as the trend lines shift in the right direction, calamity strikes.

61 hours at Dulles Airport (or how I started my Christmas vacation)

Well, it’s been about three weeks since I’ve posted anything, but I’m finally back at it.  I figured I’d start off the new decade with a story of how I missed my flight home for Chistmas and got stuck in the worst snowstorm in the history of Washington DC for three days at Dulles International Airport, from December 19-21, 2009.  It may be the best example of Murphy’s Law you will ever read—and some typically terrible airline service.

* * *

Friday morning, December 18.  I jerked awake and sat straight up in bed, staring at the alarm clock in mortified disbelief.  7:30 AM.  My flight to Tulsa for the holidays was at 7:00.  Getting out of bed faster than I ever have in my life, and unleashing a string of profanities, I leapt to the alarm clock to see what was the matter with it.  Or rather, what was the matter with me: I’d set it for 4:30 PM instead of 4:30 AM.

As the reality of my idiocy sank in, I thought of a plan, and I thought of it fast.  “Wait,” I thought, “Flights usually spend the first 20-30 minute after the official takeoff time taxiing.  If it’s been delayed at all, maybe if I can throw all my things into a duffel bag, jump in a cab, and make it to Reagan National Airport (what I call Obama National Airport) in time to sprint through security and out onto the tarmac and stash myself up in with the landing gear.”  But no, that plan wouldn’t be realistic—the Northern Virginia traffic would prevent me from getting to the airport in time to put it into action.  Plus if I wasn’t crushed by the landing gear, I’d freeze to death in the air.  Clearly, much more realistic measures were in order.

Step #1: call the airline to see if they can put me on a new flight.  Or Mistake #1, depending on how you look at it.  After 45 minutes on hold, I finally got a customer service rep.  “I can put you on a flight out tomorrow,” she told me.  “With the new fare and the change fee, that comes out to… $900.”

“What?” I gasped.  “$900?  My original ticket was $280!  What about stand-by?”

“Well sure, but you have to be there within two hours of your flight leaving to do it without charge.”

I looked at my watch.  8:25.  I’d have to get there by 9:00 if I wanted to change my ticket for free.

Not only had she tried to see me a $900 plane ticket before telling me the stand-by rules, she’d waited to tell me there was a ticking clock until 35 minutes before the ticking clock was up.  My decision was clear: “OkIlltrystandbythanksbye.”  Click.

As fast as I could scroll through my phone’s memory, I called Envirocab, where you can clean the air for the same fare, and within seconds had a Toyota Prius taxi speeding toward my apartment.  8:27.

Figuring I had ten minutes before the cab arrived, I grabbed the first clothes I could off the hangers and stuffed them into a duffel bag.  I flung open my drawers—no clean underwear or socks.  “That’s fine—I’ll wash them at home.”  Clawing the top layer of clothes out of my dirty clothes hamper, I stashed the disheveled mess of cotton into the duffel bag as well.

The phone rang.  8:35.  The cab was here.  Crap, I still had to pack my laptop, cell phone charger, toiletries, and gifts.  Well, he was just going to have to wait three more minutes while I got the last of my things packed.  Heck, I even remembered the Italian Store cheese I’d bought for my dad.  Truly, panic is the mother of remembrance.

It was 8:40 when I got in the cab—20 minutes before the ticking clock on my ticket ran out and I’d be forced to pay potentially $900 for a new one.  But with Reagan National only 4.3 miles away, that should be plenty of time.

Then we hit the GW Parkway, and traffic ground to a halt.  Foiled—the Northern Virginia traffic!  It took ten minutes to go the first half mile.  Luckily, traffic thinned out after that, and we pulled into the terminal at 8:57.

No cash.  Envirocab takes credit card, but this one apparently had problems.  Because the cabbie had to run it three times before it went through.  Finally he printed the receipt—I signed it, grabbed my bags, and rushed inside.

9:01.

Airlines are not ones to make exceptions.  The only other flight I’ve missed was at Boston Logan, where you have to arrive 30 minutes in advance to get on the plane (I’d arrived 29 minutes in advance and they wouldn’t let me on).  But although I approached the airline rep with apprehension, I was pleasantly surprised to find that he was quite helpful, and did not seem to care that I’d missed the cutoff.

But that didn’t mean I’d be able to get on a stand-by flight.  There aren’t exactly a lot of flights to Tulsa to begin with, and the next one he’d potentially be able to get me on had 14 people in front of me on the stand-by list.  “Flights are all full,” he told me, “since there have been people switching to earlier flights all morning to get out of town in front of the snowstorm.”

Snowstorm?  What snowstorm?  I hadn’t heard of any snowstorm.

“Yep,” he said.  “Supposed to get 15-24 inches.”

15-24 inches?  What about global warming?

“Well actually,” he explained, “global warming increases evaporation, which increases the moisture content of the air, and hence the chances of extreme precipitation events.  So big snowstorms are exactly what you’d expect with global warming—they’ll happen less frequently, but when they do happen, watch out.”

Ok, he didn’t really say that last part—I read it on this blog.  So file a Freedom of Information Act request against me.

But the Continental rep did put me on a flight for 8:30 the next morning—which hopefully would take off before the snowstorm got really bad.  This flight was out of Dulles International Airport, which unlike Reagan, is about 23 miles outside Arlington.  Unless you want to park there for a week, you’ve got to take a cab or a bus.  And in any case I don’t have a car.

So I went back to my apartment, feeling like I hadn’t messed up too badly—I’d only be getting home for the holidays a day later than I’d planned.

At home, I read this Paul Krugman post a friend had sent me, which I should have taken as an omen of things to come:

That said, Washington in the snow is a sight to behold. The city doesn’t have the equipment to handle it; and beyond that, people have no idea whatsoever how to deal with it, especially how to drive in it.

There is, for example, the apparent belief that if your car is stuck, you respond by spinning your wheels until you grind down to pavement …

Good points.  Washington drivers have a tough enough time with light rain—in snow, I think they’re worse than Tulsa drivers.  I thought to myself, I’d better call the cab companies to make sure I can make it to the airport early the next day.

Sure enough, all cab service to Dulles was being cancelled at midnight.  So I would have to get in a cab Friday night and sleep at the airport if I was to have any hope of making my morning flight.  And that’s exactly what I did.

Only problem was, with the snow just starting, all of the switchboards were either busy or out of order.  I called every cab service in the city, and got a busy signal for every one.  To get to the airport, I would have to go out and trek through the already-accumulating snow to hail down a cab (not as easy in Arlington as New York City).

It’s at this point I’ll mention that the telescoping handle had broken off my duffel bag earlier that day.  But I still had to take that duffel bag, as it was my only bag big enough to carry both my clothes and Christmas gifts.  So to find a cab, I had to drag this giant duffel bag around on its wheels by clutching onto a flap of fabric close to where the handle had once been attached, like some wretched dogsledder whose team had absconded with the ropes by which to pull the sled.  

But I found a cab—what may have been the last cab running in Arlington—at about midnight.

It was a harrowing ride.  The snow was just starting to come down in earnest, and with even an inch, the roads were already treacherous—something about this snow’s quality made it especially slippery, and I don’t think the most steeled Boston or Minneapolis driver could have handled it any better than my cabbie did.  Even going 15 MPH the whole way to Dulles, we managed to do a full 360 spin in the middle of the turnpike on the way to Dulles (which inexplicable had not been plowed)—almost becoming one of the countless cars already marooned on the sides of the road, dark and driverless like some white-ash-covered landscape from a post-apocalyptic world.

After about 90 minutes of this, we finally got to Dulles.  Unsure of how the driver would make it back to his family, I handed him $100.  I stepped out of the cab, then turned back and gave him another $20, seriously worried that he would end up stranded on the side of the road.

At about 1:30 AM, just thirty minutes after walking into the airport, my phone rang.  It was my brother.  They’d cancelled my flight.

With cab service cancelled, I had no choice but to camp out in line at the Continental counter, on the cold floor, and hope that when employees arrived at 4:30 AM, I’d be able to rebook—and that the flight I rebooked to would not be cancelled as well.  The next three hours were spent with me and both my parents on three separate phones, on hold, trying in vain to get through to the airline to rebook over the phone.

We were still on hold when employees showed up at the counter.  I was tired and cold, but at least I was first in line.  I handed the Continental rep my boarding pass and asked as cheerfully as I could if there were any available flights for later in the day.

That’s when she informed me, “This is a Continental flight operated by United.  You need to be in the United line.”

I’d waited 3 hours on the floor to be the first person in the wrong line.  United’s counter was on the exact opposite side of the airport.

Miserably clutching my duffel bag’s fabric flap, I dragged it and myself over to the United line—which looked to be about two hours long.  To add insult to injury, while United had just two employees courageously helping this long line of tired COACH travelers, they had four employees dedicated to checking in the first-class passengers.  THERE WERE NO FIRST CLASS PASSENGERS.  I walked over and politely asked if I could check in there.

“Do you have a first class ticket?  Then no.”

Can a couple of you come over to this side to help out with this long line?  After all, there are no first-class passengers in line, and you’ve got two other employees to spare.

“No.  We have to be here, just in case a first-class passenger shows up.”  (Well I guess, just in case FOUR first class passengers show up AT THE SAME TIME.)

Government inefficacy gets all the criticism, but I think corporate bureaucracy and rigid protocols are seriously overlooked.

“It” beats dealing with the airlines

After waiting 30 more minutes in the coach line and seeing no first class passengers show up, I’d had enough.  The girl in front of me and I went back to the first-class line, and eventually persuaded the United rep to help us out.  Once that bridge had been crossed, the United rep was actually quite helpful.  Not only did she book me on a flight to Tulsa for Saturday evening, she also booked me on one to Dallas for Monday morning (where my family would be by that point), in case the Saturday evening flight were cancelled—which we all knew it almost inevitably would be.

Exhausted, boarding passes in hand, I retired to a corner of the airport, curled up on the floor, covered myself in my pea coat, and passed soundly out.

Three hours later, I woke up shivering, teeth chattering.  Apparently it’s not enough to cover up on top—the cold marble floor beneath me conducted all the heat straight out of my body.  Getting up, I could think of only one thing.

Must find Starbucks.

And find Starbucks I did.  Merciful Starbucks.  Blessed, sacred Starbucks.  Despite the impassable roads outside, the Dulles Starbucks was fully-staffed and booming with business.  In fact, I think that the baristas, unable to drive home, had simply worked through the night, serving much-needed coffee to weary travelers.

THIS IS WHY STARBUCKS IS A GREAT COMPANY AND THE AIRLINES ARE NOT!

I blessed the baristas, “thank God you’re here” (and those behind me in line shouted approval to the wonderful workers), and gratefully took my venti Christmas blend in hand.  There was even an empty table at which to sit.  As I sipped the warming coffee and read my Economist, I thought to myself, “this is the greatest cup of coffee I have ever drunk.”

Embiggened by the caffeine, I even told myself, “you know, this may even be a good thing being stranded here: I’ll get some reading done.”  I walked over to the bookstore and bought Cormac McCarthy’s harrowing The Road (which, in reading its tale of a father and son struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic nightmare, made me feel not so bad about being stuck at the airport).  Figuring I ought to enjoy the snow but having no one to throw snowballs at, I went outside and practiced my aim on some of the street signs.

That embiggened feeling lasted right up until they cancelled my second flight that day.  Barring a Sunday miracle, I’d be stuck there for another two days.  With Metrobuses and cabs cancelled, there was no way to make it back to my apartment.  It would be a hotel night.

The only hotel with reliable shuttle service was the Crowne Plaza, making my choice easy enough.  In fact, despite the two feet of snow, their shuttles were running twice an hour, 24-hours a day. 

Of course, like every event of that weekend, the ride was not without incident.  Just one block from the hotel, we came to a semi truck which had parked in the middle of the hotel’s entrance road.  But while trying to get around the truck, our shuttle slid into a 4 foot snow bank.  And true to Paul Krugman’s prediction, the driver spun his wheels and only dug the shuttle in deeper.  I got out to help him dig the shuttle out of its predicament, and entreated the other passengers to join us.  They, however, preferred to stay in the warmth of the van and look on as we labored in vain with snow-frozen hands to dig the van free.  Ultimately, we had to walk the last block.

For $80 a night, the hotel was a steal, and I had plenty of time to watch the Cowboys-Saints game at the hotel bar/restaurant.  A bubbly Southwest Airlines flight crew invited me to take my Sam Winter Lager and dinner at their table.  Apparently, everyone at Southwest loves the company—despite being paid the same or less than competitors.  (Other airlines take note: whatever Southwest does to manage its talent, it’s doing something right.)  So despite being stranded in a suburban Virginia hotel when I should have been with my family, the night turned out to be a decent enough time.  The Cowboys even won, overcoming a missed Nick Folk chip shot and furious Saints drive in the final three minutes.

My plan was to sleep, then go to the airport around 10 AM the next day (Sunday) to try to fly stand-by.  But when I got to the airport Sunday, the line for United stretched literally from one side of Dulles to the other and out the door.  It had to have been at least six hours long.  So it was back to the hotel.

But I didn’t sleep there that night.  Having seen that six-hour line, there was no way I was going to risk getting stuck in one like that Monday morning and miss my 8:30 flight.  I made the call to sleep on the airport floor that night to guarantee I made my flight.  So I checked out, slept on a couch in the hotel lobby for a while, and left for the airport around 10pm.

Even at that hour, there was a two-hour line to check in.  And when I did check in, I was informed that I would have to return at 4:30 AM to check my bags (you can’t check bags until four hours before takeoff).  So I did the only sensible thing: slept on the floor in line.  At that point, another four hours on the cold floor didn’t seem like that much more.

Finally, 4:30 rolled around, and I wearily dragged my bag to the counter to check in.

“Boarding pass and government ID, please.”

I handed the two documents to the United rep.  Only after releasing them did I realize my error: I had placed my driver’s license underneath the much larger boarding pass, so the United rep could not tell I had handed him both.  My brain tried to signal my mouth to tell him.  Too late.  He dropped my driver’s license, and it slid into the 2-milimeter crack between the baggage scale and the counter.

What could possibly happen next?  Would I be accused of being a terrorist for having lost my ID?  Without an ID, there was no way I could get on the plane.  Would I have to spend $150 on round-trip cab fare (cabs had resumed Monday morning) to pick up my passport at my apartment?  I just stood there staring.

To get my driver’s license out, they had to call a mechanic to come take the baggage scale apart, reach in, and extract the vital document.  I was overjoyed—after 50 hours at airports and airport hotels, simply not losing a driver’s license seemed a small miracle.

I checked my baggage, made it through security without a hitch, and arrived at my gate.  In three hours, the flight should be taking off.  Despite my exhaustion, I resolved not to fall asleep and risk not waking up for this precious flight.  So with the help of another venti Starbucks coffee, I fought off sleep for three more hours, until finally 8:00 rolled around.  The announcer came on over the intercom—30 minutes before takeoff, I anticipated, he should be announcing boarding.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your flight to Dallas has no crew.  Your new departure time is 12:30 PM.”

Delayed another four hours, just as I thought I was escaping, because the flight crew was stuck in Atlanta.  Oh fates!

Mercifully, the flight did, indeed, take off at 12:30, so that four hour delay was the last.  From the time I’d left Arlington in the cab at midnight to the time I actually took off, I’d been in some form of transit—airport, airport hotel, airport hotel shuttle—for 60 hours and 30 minutes.  Hopefully I’ve got some good karma on the way.