POST-MORTEM DEPRESSION
in which I write the last word on the
election
I'm tired.
It's been only three days, but already I'm sick and tired of the post-election recap, reaction, analysis, paralysis, dissection, vivisection, hand-wringing, and garment-rending. I've read about the impact that everything from economic populism to evangelical Christians, from gay-marriage initiatives to Guardian invectives, mighta kinda maybe had on the election results. I've heard rants from the left and gloats from the right, a gracious, emotional concession and a smug, delusional acceptance.
All of these things, on their own, are quite enough to wear me down, but coming on the heavy heels of a jigging, jack-booted election year, I just can't take them anymore. They may be right, they may be wrong, I may be crazy. But it doesn't matter. Because I feel today like I felt the last three Januarys, in the wake of all those NFC Championship games, not wanting to hear or read or think one more word about the Eagles after six months of complete and rabid philly-phan consumption. I didn't want to hear about the losers or the winners, and I sure didn't want to hear about the Super Bowl -- or, in this case, the Four More Years Bowl -- I just wanted to scrape my disappointment off the floors and walls and anywhere else I'd flung it in disgust and just fade away into the simple silence of my own resignation.
(This January, I hope -- D.M. and T.O. and the good Lord willing -- will be another story. But that's another story...)
But before I slink away to that simple silence, and with apologies to all of the other interesting and often entertaining post-mortems I've read so far, I do feel some small, compelling need to reiterate my own pre-mortem, a prediction I offered to anyone who would listen over four months ago, one that, to the best of my knowledge, no one else has seen fit to offer up. Perhaps because it's so freaking simple:
John Kerry was Bob Dole all over again.
Staring down a sitting President they simply couldn't stand, sensing a soft underbelly of vulnerability despite the incumbent's rabid base, the challenging party offers up a long-time, well-respected, if reasonably undistinguished senator who, bringing great gravitas, undeniable intelligence, and a decorated military career to the table, cannot, even when his political life depends on it, make real, emotional, sustained connections with real, emotional, skeptical voters. Never heeding or simply ignoring that problem, blinded, perhaps, by such scorching animus for their opponent, the party plays the status and stature card against a guy whose relative youth and lack of experience and cavalier personal history make him, they think, an easy target, all the while forgetting or dismissing not just the guy's ability to engage the electorate but also the electorate's need to engage and understand the guy they're going to vote for.
In 1996, the people who despised Clinton would have just as eagerly voted for a garden hose from Home Depot as for Bob Dole, just as, this past Tuesday, the people who hated Bush would have just as happily voted for an end table from Ikea. But the anti- vote was never the problem.
Nor was it the solution.
Because elections in America -- especially in a divisive, divided America weighing challenger against incumbent -- are all about those moderate/swing/undecided/bi-polar voters. The ones who, given a choice, still seek and hope to find reason to vote for someone. I'm not Bush, like I'm not Bill, was neither reason nor platform enough.
The Democrats were so worried about avoiding the mistakes of 2000 that they failed to avoid the mistakes of 1996.
And those who do not learn from the past are doomed to re-elect it.
It's been only three days, but already I'm sick and tired of the post-election recap, reaction, analysis, paralysis, dissection, vivisection, hand-wringing, and garment-rending. I've read about the impact that everything from economic populism to evangelical Christians, from gay-marriage initiatives to Guardian invectives, mighta kinda maybe had on the election results. I've heard rants from the left and gloats from the right, a gracious, emotional concession and a smug, delusional acceptance.
All of these things, on their own, are quite enough to wear me down, but coming on the heavy heels of a jigging, jack-booted election year, I just can't take them anymore. They may be right, they may be wrong, I may be crazy. But it doesn't matter. Because I feel today like I felt the last three Januarys, in the wake of all those NFC Championship games, not wanting to hear or read or think one more word about the Eagles after six months of complete and rabid philly-phan consumption. I didn't want to hear about the losers or the winners, and I sure didn't want to hear about the Super Bowl -- or, in this case, the Four More Years Bowl -- I just wanted to scrape my disappointment off the floors and walls and anywhere else I'd flung it in disgust and just fade away into the simple silence of my own resignation.
(This January, I hope -- D.M. and T.O. and the good Lord willing -- will be another story. But that's another story...)
But before I slink away to that simple silence, and with apologies to all of the other interesting and often entertaining post-mortems I've read so far, I do feel some small, compelling need to reiterate my own pre-mortem, a prediction I offered to anyone who would listen over four months ago, one that, to the best of my knowledge, no one else has seen fit to offer up. Perhaps because it's so freaking simple:
John Kerry was Bob Dole all over again.
Staring down a sitting President they simply couldn't stand, sensing a soft underbelly of vulnerability despite the incumbent's rabid base, the challenging party offers up a long-time, well-respected, if reasonably undistinguished senator who, bringing great gravitas, undeniable intelligence, and a decorated military career to the table, cannot, even when his political life depends on it, make real, emotional, sustained connections with real, emotional, skeptical voters. Never heeding or simply ignoring that problem, blinded, perhaps, by such scorching animus for their opponent, the party plays the status and stature card against a guy whose relative youth and lack of experience and cavalier personal history make him, they think, an easy target, all the while forgetting or dismissing not just the guy's ability to engage the electorate but also the electorate's need to engage and understand the guy they're going to vote for.
In 1996, the people who despised Clinton would have just as eagerly voted for a garden hose from Home Depot as for Bob Dole, just as, this past Tuesday, the people who hated Bush would have just as happily voted for an end table from Ikea. But the anti- vote was never the problem.
Nor was it the solution.
Because elections in America -- especially in a divisive, divided America weighing challenger against incumbent -- are all about those moderate/swing/undecided/bi-polar voters. The ones who, given a choice, still seek and hope to find reason to vote for someone. I'm not Bush, like I'm not Bill, was neither reason nor platform enough.
The Democrats were so worried about avoiding the mistakes of 2000 that they failed to avoid the mistakes of 1996.
And those who do not learn from the past are doomed to re-elect it.
Posted: Fri - November 5, 2004 at 01:34 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM