1 Boring Old Man

Maybe it’s always this way, right at the end, and I just haven’t paid enough attention. I recall an incident in 1970. My wife and I were new parents, and political up to our foreheads. My wife was a Memphis precinct captain for Al Gore Senior, long running Senator in a pitched battle with Bill Brock,[of Brock Candy], a Conservative Republican. We didn’t know it at the time, but it was the first campaign with the "dirty tricks" that were to flower in the coming 1972 Presidential elections. It was hotly contested, with negative ads and smear tactics abounding. Towards the end of the campaign, the air was electric. On voting day, we were dressed in our best, standing in the cold outside our voting precinct handing out literature, stumping for Gore. An older man turned and said, "Do you really think you’re going to change anyone’s mind today?"

I was 28 years old and passionate about good and evil. But even at that, what he asked had the ring of truth. I’ve thought about that a number of times recently as my email fills up with frantic requests for last minute donations and entreaties to send out emails, make phone calls, work the polls. I’ve given some. I’ll do some more. But in my heart, it’s over. The ads are getting nastier and nastier. The blogs are full of revelations and scandals. But, I really think it’s over. The season for influence has passed. In spite of the mythologic stories of Bush’s last minute stumping and visit to Bobby Jones University pulling in those extra votes in 2000, I don’t think that is the case this time.

The stakes are too high; the issues are too public; the country’s political polarization is too strong for many people to be sitting out there musing about what to do. We’ve got 10 more days of frantic mud slinging rhetoric, political ads at every break, and reams of pleading emails to go, but I personally think the die is cast. If it were 36 years ago, I might still hang on to every second, but not anymore. I’m just anxiously awaiting the outcome, sort of like the week before Christmas as a kid, only the presents aren’t assured.

What I do want to say is that it feels like America again to me. The Press is alive with the truth, unlike 2002 and 2004, interspersed with the average expectable number of exagerations. People are out and about talking about things. Lynn Cheney’s spitting at Wolf Blitzer. Michael Fox is being a real stand-up guy. It’s noisy. I like the feel of it. It’s more like it’s supposed to be. If the Republicans prevail, or do better than I want them to, it will be a real disappointment, but, at least I’ll feel that they got a real run for their money. If the Democrats prevail, I’ll be delirious, probably cry, and within days begin to wonder how in the hell they can begin to untangle this awful mess we’ve gotten ourselves in. But there’s no chance that I’ll feel that America was asleep during the whole process.

As it turned out, Al Gore Senior, the "Silver Fox," lost that election in 1970 after fourteen years in the House of Representatives and eighteen years as a Senator because he was ahead of his time in Civil Rights, because he was a Liberal, because of the Donald Segrettis of the world who were honing their "dirty tricks," and because there was a tsunami of Conservative sentiment gripping the land. It was as crushing as 2004, though closer. I guess I was standing out there in the cold handing out flyers in a desparate attempt to stop something I could feel but couldn’t control. I sure hope the tables are turned this time and that some young Republicans get to feel the pain of being overwhelmed by a wave.

It really is "our turn."