Americans for the Arts (actually the Americans for the Arts Action Fund) has published a comparison of the arts positions of John McCain and Barack Obama.  I’m not wild about the list of issues they asked the campaigns about, since they address only very superficial considerations.  Still, it’s an interesting read.

A great nation needs all kinds of heroes.  Soldiers.  Diplomats.  Defense attorneys.  Firemen.  Graphic designers?

There is very little doubt that George W. Bush was elected President in large part thanks to a crappy ballot design.   (Really, it’s hard to imagine a worse layout.)  Following the 2000 election debacle, there was much talk of subpar ballots in use throughout the country.  Since then, however, very little has been done to fix the problem.

Richard Grefé and Jessica Friedman Hewitt of AIGA (a design trade association) are working to educate the powers that be about what good ballot design might look like.  Let’s hope someone’s paying attention.

Watching the Democratic National Convention last night, I was struck by one of the most significant but rarely discussed aspects of a potential Obama presidency.  Barack Obama would be the first president in memory - to my knowledge the first since Teddy Roosevelt - to come from an urban background.  He grew up in Honolulu and has spent time in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Boston.  This isn’t merely a biographical curiosity.  It contributes to an unprecedented focus on urban policy for a major national politician.

America’s cities are stereotyped either as enclaves of effete, intellectual socialists or as concrete wastelands packed tight with welfare-dependent leeches.  Authentic American individualism and entrepreneurship comes from the midwest, right?  Not so much.  The reality is that our cities provide massive subsidies to rural America.  This is perhaps best illustrated by a report from the Tax Foundation showing a breakdown of which states receive the most federal aid compared to their tax contribution and which receive the least.  (If you’re feeling feisty, check out this hilarious but informative rant from the day after the 2004 election.)

Over the coming years, America’s dependence on its cities is only going to grow, and our cities are going to play a bigger and more important role in the 21st century economy than they have in decades.  Mainstream policymakers are finally starting to understand the creative economy - which is inextricably linked to urban environments - and its potency as an engine for economic development.  Cities are hotbeds of creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.  At the same time, rising fuel costs and environmental consciousness highlight the benefits of mass transit and population density.

Yet the myth of rural/suburban authenticity and urban sloth is so entrenched that politicians with ambitions to national office wind up tripping over each other in an effort to see who can most shamelessly pander to the farm lobby.

All of this goes to show why it’s significant that Barack Obama has quietly made urban policy a centerpiece of his campaign platform.  His urban policy plan contains some of his most detailed prescriptions, including symbolic steps such as the creation of a White House Office on Urban Policy and major investments in things like public-private business incubators.

The Obama campaign has published an arts platform as well, but I believe its ultimate potential impact on the arts community would not be as great as that of a more broad-based investment in America’s cities.

Cities provide the social context for so much of our collective artistic output.  Yet rising real estate prices, deteriorating infrastructure, and a host of other problems are driving artists from cities like New York in droves.  Some are landing in places like Philadelphia that are savvier and more progressive regarding urban cultural policy.  But many others are bidding farewell to the US altogether and heading for foreign cultural hotspots like Berlin.

Retaining a vibrant arts and cultural sector in American cities won’t require massive public subsidies or a huge increase in the NEA’s budget.  Artists are experts at making do with very little and generally rise to the challenge when given a chance to prove their worth through merit-based processes.  What we need is a proverbial level playing field.  In part, that means paying our cities even a fraction of the attention we’ve historically paid to rural America.

P.S. - Mainly out of genuine curiosity but also in the interest of fairness I did some research on John McCain’s urban policy and arts policy positions.  Alas, it turns out that he doesn’t have either (at least not published by the campaign).  The only comments I could find from McCain on urban issues were, uh, a bit scary.

A colleague of mine who is currently attending the PolicyLink Summit in New Orleans just sent me a great resource for non-profit organizations who are politically active. A publication of the Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network, Nonprofits, Elections, and Voting is

a 15 page guide to permissible, nonpartisan voter participation activities for 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. The Guide is specifically tailored to the needs and concerns of 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations and is updated annually.

I haven’t read the whole thing, but it appears to be chock full of useful, practical guidance on what is and isn’t permitted, both in general and in an election year.

It’s a common misconception that 501(c)(3) charities must remain politically neutral and disengaged at all times. Many of my peers in the field are so afraid of running afoul of the rules that they’re never even willing to state a position on issues that affect their constituencies. This is unfortunate, as it puts a significant artificial limitation on the organization’s ability to carry out its mission. Kudos to the Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network for bringing some much needed clarity.

The U.S. House of Representatives today approved a spending bill that increases the National Endowment for the Arts’ budget by about $20 million. President Bush is considered likely to sign the bill, which will represents a 16% increase over the NEA’s budget from last year.

Some of you may know that I haven’t always been the biggest supporter of the NEA. Still one can’t help but feel a bit warm and fuzzy about this validation.

They like us, they really like us! Or at least, they don’t despise us quite as much as they used to. We still spend roughly 1/200th as much per capita on the arts as Finland.

Guess which current presidential candidate was recently responsible for the following quotes:

I tend to think that one of the greatest mistakes in education over the past generation has been that many school districts have cut their budgets in music and art programs. And in doing so, they’ve done one of the dumbest things that could ever be done that really is harmful to students in this country.

The one cultural norm that transcends all of the generations, all languages is the transmission of our culture through our art forms. It is the one way in which one generation speaks to the next.

Would it help if I told you that this quote appeared in an article in The Baptist Press, whose tagline is “News with a Christian Perspective”?

As it turns out, the comment came from none other than GOP candidate Mike Huckabee, who was speaking at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Apparently Huckabee’s belief in the importance of the arts grows out of his religious beliefs:

… It makes perfect sense when you think that even in the way that God designed us, we were designed to be creative. After all, if He is the Creator and He has made a creation and we have been created in His image, it would be the logical conclusion that in His image, since He’s a creative God, that part of what He has created in us is a creativity that ought to be stimulated and enhanced and somehow not put aside.

The really jaw-dropping part, though, was when he recommended to students that they read The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida, adding that “[t]he accommodation of the creative class really is the foundation for the future of our nation’s economic strength.” (If you don’t know why this is jaw-dropping, you should read what Florida has to say about the importance of a visible gay community for economic development.)

And just for you cynics who are convinced there must be some bizarre political motivation underlying this, it is my duty to report that, as Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee signed a law mandating that every child in Arkansas public schools have weekly music and art classes under the instruction of certified teachers.

Whodathunkit? In the arts community, it’s a given that nearly everyone leans left politically. It sometimes surprises us, therefore, when sincere support like this comes from unexpected corners (i.e. the far right) of the political spectrum.