Electoral Collage

The guest list at Easter brunch was ten in number and spectacularly intergenerational, being from early 20’s to 80, with almost every decade in between represented. It was pretty amazing since there were only nine of us covering seven decades. In addition we had one non-citizen (from Nigeria). Being Easter the subject of religion was unavoidable: the Nigerian is a catholic priest and he intoned grace charmingly if slightly incomprehensibly. But during the general pork-out, we somehow segued into a political discussion, usually forbidden, that got really interesting, mainly because Father Hyacinth (his real name) is fairly naïve about American politics and he was used as a sounding board for all our opinions. If he wasn’t confused before he certainly is now.

Our hostess seemed to think we should all decide (now!) who we are voting for in the ’08 presidential election and it was pretty obvious who her favorite is; Barak Obama. Before we got going we first pretty much participated in, and enjoyed, a session of Bush-bashing so it was very clear from the beginning that our selections were limited to non-Republican candidates and it was also fairly obvious how left-leaning we all are in one way or another. I even gave a little lecture about the Electoral College so Father H. could understand how Bush came to power in the first place. His understanding of our process was further complicated by the fact he doesn’t really get just how huge and diverse our country is; how politically comatose a majority of Americans are; and why millions of us don’t even vote.

Anyway, dear Paula, we don’t have to decide now and you might even be right about Obama, even though his only experience has been as a one-term Senator from Illinois. He seems to have all the right liberal platitudes at the tip of his silver tongue and he kind of has that “savior” look. Even more telling, he has some powerful media machinery grooming him for greatness. Paula has obviously bought into the hype. Well, maybe there is meat on those bones and maybe he can wrench the nomination from our current iron maiden, Hillary Clinton, and maybe one of them can wrest the election out of the hands of some honky from Texas. But I’ve been around too long to let hope overcome basic pragmatism.