Politics & Power Quote by Bob Filner

Filner’s line tries to do two things at once: sanctify a federal program and make it sound like plain common sense. “The government gets it right” is a rare bit of bipartisan bait from a politician who knows that “government” is usually the villain in American rhetoric. By declaring a policy win up front, he invites the listener to suspend their default suspicion and treat Head Start as an exception worth protecting.

The real work happens in the phrase “providing opportunities.” It’s the safest moral language in public life: aspirational, non-punitive, and hard to argue against without sounding cruel. Filner frames poverty not as parental failure but as a constraint (“may not be able to afford preschool”), shifting responsibility away from individual blame and toward structural gaps the state can legitimately fill. “Underserved areas” functions as a soft-focus stand-in for race and class. It signals inequality while avoiding the politically explosive specifics that could trigger backlash.

Then there’s the pun: “a running or Head Start.” It’s corny, yes, but intentional. Wordplay turns policy into something you can repeat at a podium, clip for local news, and remember as you leave the room. The subtext is persuasion-by-familiarity: if the program’s name feels like a self-evident good, the funding fight starts half-won.

Context matters because Head Start has long been defended as both anti-poverty and pro-workforce policy, constantly audited, contested, and re-justified. Filner is staking a claim that early childhood education is not charity; it’s infrastructure for human potential, with government cast not as a meddler but as a starter motor.