Some Rocks Are Diamonds; Some Are in Your Head
Tattlesnake activates his sharp-as-a-stuffed-sofa memory banks to bring you a slice of political life from nearly two decades ago.
The inept typist you are currently reading was sitting in a bar (gasp!), amusedly watching a candidate for alderman pester innocent civilians with his handshakes and patter. Following this lumpy middle-aged caucasian was a 'rainbow coalition' featuring a young white woman, a slightly-older black guy, and a 40-something Latina lady. The black guy was sentenced to holding a sign instructing voters to remember Lumpy on election day.
He rushed up and down in front of the train station across the street with his entourage, trying to intercept tired commuters coming home from a long day at work, about half of whom rejected his extended paw and quickly brushed past him in the same way you'd avoid a purveyor of Moonie pamphlets or the bubonic plague. (I was anticipating an 'Airplane' moment, but an appearance by an in-a-hurry Robert Stack wasn't in the cards.) Others politely shook his hand, listened to his guff for a few seconds and accepted a flyer, all the while their exhausted eyes pleading, "Leave me alone. I need a drink."
Eventually, Tattlesnake and a friend moseyed out onto the sidewalk to get some air and enjoy the last of the sunshine on a pleasant fall day. We were standing there talking when I felt a tug on my shoulder.
Uh oh -- it was The Candidate!
He grabbed my hand and blurted, "Hello there, I'm Lumpy Leadhead (not his real name, you might guess), and I'm running for alderman!"
Tattlesnake stood there momentarily stunned, gazing at Lumpy's abused beet-red handshaking mitt, and his vacant ear-to ear campaign grin. Finally, something came to mind.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Certainly," Lumpy preened; he was ready for questions from the voters!
"What do you think of Vanilla Ice and his 'blue-eyed soul' style of rap music?"
(Sidebar: Vanilla Ice and his silly "Ice, Ice, Baby" was big on the charts back then and I had just heard it on the jukebox in the bar.)
The question kicked Lumpy out of his comfort zone; the plastered-on smile sunk to half-staff and he looked confused. Several long seconds ticked by as he held my hand and tried to think of something. 'Damn this idiot,' I could sense him thinking, 'why didn't he just ask me about zoning or parking like everybody else.'
Finally, in one of those improbable and delectable moments that sometimes happen in real life, he turned to the black guy with the sign behind him and said, loud enough for me to hear: "What do I think about rap music?"
The black guy cupped his hand and whispered into Lumpy's ear. Lumpy turned back to me, his smile and confidence recovered, and announced fatuously, "I like all kinds of music and many different artists. I'm sure Mr. Ice is an excellent musician! Don't forget to vote now!" And then he and his hearty little band quickly trundled off to annoy the drinkers in the bar.
(Another sidebar: Cheapskate Lumpy didn't even pop for a round for the habitués, and the sons of habitués, inside the saloon.)
Tattlesnake was amused, but not impressed. If he had dismissed me for asking an irrelevant question -- which is what I expected -- that would have been fine; if he had shown a sense of humor and laughed at my silliness, that would have been better. But to take the ridiculous question seriously enough to turn to someone else to find out what he thinks? What a lame tool. (Full disclosure: I ended up voting for the guy anyway, only because his opponents were even goofier than he was. Lumpy won, and now occupies a seat in the Chicago city council. He actually, at least in contrast to most of the other benighted alder-people, hasn't done a bad job.)
'OK,' I hear you wondering, 'that's a mildly funny story, Tattleface or whatever your name is, but why did you bring it up?'
Here's the point: If you wonder why the Democrats seem so out of touch with the people and so cowardly, it's because they are. Lumpy was just running for alderman, politically a relatively low-level job, and he was so numbed from campaigning, and so afraid of offending fools asking him irrelevant questions and losing their votes, that he didn't even know how to respond without help from his campaign staff.
Magnify that to the Big Show in Washington: Most of our assorted elected officials have no idea what average people think, and some don't even care. They inhale the rarefied fumes of Capitol Hill and baste in the money of lobbyists like Jack Abramoff and come to regard anyone not at their aristocratic level as an 'outsider' to be caressed and cajoled for votes, but otherwise useless. It's not that they do this consciously, but it comes with the territory. They depend on their campaign staffs and pollsters, who are nearly as isolated and insulated as they are, to tell them what the Pee-Pull think and what weasel words will be in effect for that day. (There are, as always, rare exceptions.)
This is the present state of the Democratic Party. With polls showing a majority of Americans are fed up with Bush, Republican mumbo-jumbo in general, and the Iraq War, the Dems aren't capitalizing on the GOP's meltdown because their staffs have told them not to offend, run to the middle, and play it safe, reprising Clinton's playbook from 1996.
The media and the political parties are always about ten years behind where the rest of the country is going and if the Dems don't smarten up and start listening to their constituents and responding to their concerns, they'd better not count on winning a majority in either House of Congress in 2006 or the presidency in 2008.
The Bush Republicans are on an inevitable slide to the bottom, but that doesn't mean the Democrats will necessarily be elected to fill the gap, as they have been in the past.
Many Americans may declare their independence from both parties, tired of having only two choices in the voting booth that are basically the same, and that might not be such a bad thing at all. It's called 'representative government,' and it's about time we had some.
If the Democrats want to be the party of the people opposing the corporately-owned Republicans, the time to start showing that is now by standing up forcefully to the GOP and demanding accountability and, if necessary, impeachment.
If they don't, they may soon be as laughable and forgotten as 'Mr. Ice' himself.
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No Quote, But A Short Anecdote
Picture Perfect
A teacher told me his school had a portrait of George W. Bush up in a vestibule featuring a gallery of presidential portraits last year, but they finally had to remove the thing since it was defaced so often.
Curling Snidely Whiplash mustaches, 'raccoon eyes,' vampire teeth, devil horns, cartoon tongues lolling out, and drool flowing from the side of his mouth were among the students' additions to the picture, plus a few other touches not fit for a family newspaper to print.
After replacing the glass in the frame six times, the school authorities gave up; now, just the plaque remains: "George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States" with an empty space above it. Appropriate, isn't it?
The other presidential portraits in the gallery, including every president since WWII, were not disturbed.
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