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By Anna Rahmanan
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Miuccia Prada built a fashion empire on a rather subversive proposition: that the ordinary could become extraordinary if someone could persuade the world to see it differently. She took nylon, a material more at home in parachutes than Milan, and made it an object of desire.
Iowa Governor-elect Rob Sand, who once walked her runway, now faces a comparable challenge in a considerably less forgiving industry: making bipartisanship fashionable in a state where Republicans still control the legislature.
At the risk of sounding cliche, the analogy is almost too well tailored (see what we did there?). Prada turned utility into luxury, and Sand must now turn political compromise, that most unfashionable of American pursuits, into something voters admire and Republican lawmakers find worth wearing.
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The difference? Miuccia controlled her collections, and Sand will have to negotiate his.
The 44-year-old Democrat's victory on November 3 ended a 20-year drought for his party in Iowa gubernatorial elections. And yet, at least for now, Republicans still control both chambers of the state legislature, which means that the folks who control much of his legislative agenda belong to the opposition. Will he be able to apply the principles he learned walking the Prada runway to make bipartisanship appealing to a Republican-controlled legislature?
His unlikely resume has become one of the more delightful curiosities of the election. Before becoming Iowa's state auditor, Sand modeled in Milan and Paris, appearing on runways for Prada and other designers. The former Brown University student has since traded high fashion for the more-democratic aesthetic of a Midwestern politician, where practical shirts and rolled-up sleeves are more useful than couture.
Yet his modeling career offers more than an amusing biographical footnote: we dare say it provides a surprisingly useful way of understanding the political experiment Iowa has just elected him to conduct.
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Prada's genius was to recognize that value is partly a matter of perception. When she introduced her now-iconic nylon backpack in 1984, she challenged an industry accustomed to equating luxury with precious materials and conspicuous extravagance. The fabric was ordinary, the thinking behind it was radical, and the experiment paid off…and then some.
Sand's political proposition rests on a similar reversal of expectations.
He campaigned on affordability, public education, government accountability and cooperation across party lines, hardly the stuff of political glamour. But neither was nylon until Prada got her hands on it. Sand's victory suggests he may have succeeded in making an ordinary, even unfashionable, political proposition desirable to voters in a state that has moved decisively toward Republicans. The harder question is whether he can work the same magic on the legislature.
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann described his party's legislative majorities as a "red wall." It is a big obstacle for a governor whose political appeal depends, at least partly, on the possibility of governing beyond partisan divisions.
Let’s not forget that Republicans have their own mandate, their own priorities and little obvious incentive to make a Democratic governor look successful, especially in light of the result of the midterms.
Sand, meanwhile, has the governor's executive authority and veto pen, a fact that leads back to the Prada comparison: can Sand make cooperation attractive by changing its political rewards, just as the designer made ordinary materials desirable by changing its presentation?
A compromise on property taxes or school funding may sound like the dreariest exercise in legislative bookkeeping, sure, but a deal that delivers visible benefits to Iowa families could give both parties something worth claiming. The political craftsmanship lies in making an agreement sufficiently appealing that neither side feels diminished by wearing it.
Sand’s mandate is akin to an art form: identifying areas where cooperation offers Republicans a better outcome than obstruction, while preserving enough of his own agenda to justify the confidence of those who voted for him.
The former model seems to have some experience with the approach: in an interview with CBS News, Sand discussed his decision as state auditor to appoint an independent and a Republican who had supported his opponent to senior positions. His argument was that political differences need not prevent people from working together. How…novel?
Success could give the new governor a compelling political identity: a Democrat who makes divided government productive in a Republican-leaning state. Failure, on the other hand, could leave him presiding over a collection of attractive proposals that never make it beyond the drawing board.
Miuccia Prada understood that making something desirable requires more than declaring it beautiful. After all, if the audience doesn’t see the beauty or believe in its value, the exercise will be futile.
Sand has already persuaded enough Iowans to try on a different political label, which is a big get, in and of itself. His next task is harder: convincing Republican lawmakers that cooperation is something they might actually want in their wardrobes. After all, even Prada needs someone willing to wear the collection.
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