Tribal Politics in Washington

Abstract

In 1990 when the editors of Spy magazine decided to make a diagram of the American political universe, they did not place the President of the United States at the center, nor the leaders of Congress, nor the richest person in the country, nor the strongest lobbyists. They selected radio and television reporter Cokie Roberts who serves as a political reporter for ABC News as well as for National Public Radio. As a reporter, Cokie Roberts certainly is not the best known personality in the country, but her selection by Spy reveal an inside look of how Washington works. To understand why they named her as the focal point, we need to examine where she fits into the system.Cokie Roberts is the daughter of Congresswoman Lindy Boggs of Louisiana's second district from 1972 until 1990. Cokie Roberts' father Hale Boggs represented the same New Orleans district until his death in an Alaska plane crash in 1972, and he had served as the House Majority Leader. Cokie Roberts' brother is Tom Boggs, a major Washington lobbyist who one ran but lost an election for representative from Maryland. Cokie Roberts' sister is Barbara Boggs Sigmund who ran for the Senate from New Jersey and later became mayor of Princeton, New Jersey. On her mother's side Cokie Roberts is related to Rhode Island's Senator Claibome Pell; Cokie's full name is Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claibome Boggs Roberts. Senator Pell is the ranking Democrat on the Foreign AffairsCommittee and the senator for whom the Pell Grants were names. His father, Representative Herbert Pell, served in the House, representing New York. Other political members of Cokie family through the Claibome and Pell connections include former Senators William Claibome and George Dallas. The ties even stretch back well before the founding of the country to John Pell, who served as a minister in the British Court of Oliver Cromwell in the seventeenth century and whom history credits with introducing the mathematical notation for the division sign to the English-speaking world.Growing-up as a member of the congressional kids club on Capital Hill, Cokie Roberts knew the other kids in the club such as young Al Gore, Jr., the son of Senator Al Gore, Senior of Tennessee and young Chris Dodd Jr., son of Senator Christopher Dodd, senior of Connecticut. While Cokie Roberts pursued a career in broadcasting, these other kids grew up to follow their fathers into political careers.

Pig‐feast democracy

“…Thus, pig feasts seem to share the ideal of the modern democratic system, which relies on competition and merit as the foundation for political leadership (Sahlins, 1963). Yet, despite this compatibility and the importance of extra‐electoral institutions, especially kinship (e.g., Bjorkman, 2014; Bowie, 2008; Herzfeld, 1987; Phillips, 2010; Weatherford, 1993), many studies of elections have negatively characterized the encroachment of traditional pig feasts as a revival of patrimonial and patron‐client relations. In West Papua, in particular, pig feasts have also been associated with tribalism and exclusionary identity politics, so called, according to which Papuans are accused of mobilizing their customs and tradition solely for narrow political goals (Lefaan, 2021; for Melanesia, see Fukuyama, 2011).…”