Global
Here's an interesting example of how a D came to lose it completely because an R had only a loose grip. The Republican in question was Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, normally a placid fellow, who was on a Sunday chat show defending his team. They had arrived at the sore subject of the Republican riot at the Dade County Courthouse. (Let it be noted that this has not been certified as a riot -- so far, all we have is the appearance of a riot by some seriously hyperventilating Republicans.)
Keating suddenly blurted out that everything was fine until "the 27-inch-neck crowd" from Chicago showed up and convinced the commissioners to recount.
Wild turkeys haven't been seen in California since the Cenozoic era, but in recent years, two ranchers in my valley imported a few, and now they've begun to appear in our neighborhood in substantial numbers. I've heard reports of flocks of up to a 100 wild turkeys 15 miles up the Mattole river around Honeydew, an impressive quantity, though still far short of the 1,000 birds counted in one day by two hunters in New England in 1630.
The sizzling media fixations of yesteryear now seem notably trivial. In retrospect, how would you rank the conflict between skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan? All the obsessive and protracted O.J.-mania? The cable-TV-driven frenzy over little Elian?
After such breathless stories, the network anchors have been proud to report on the truly weighty spectacle of Gore and Bush operatives going all-out. But ironically, the "better" this story got -- the more that Democrats and Republicans clashed, litigated and spun at a frenetic pace -- the farther it moved from the essence of political leverage in America.
The R's best strategy at this point is to make the hand recount process into the zoo that they have been claiming it is for two weeks. Chaos! Unleash the dogs of war! Contest every ballot! Foul it up past the deadline! Protest every dimpled, preggers, hanging, swinging, light-shining-through chad in the entire bunch!
Scream, yell and threaten myocardial infarction over any chad that lands on the floor, on the grounds that it clearly constitutes electoral fraud -- and besides, someone might eat it!
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's problem with this strategy is that it would rather clearly indicate that his state is so loopy that it can't conduct a simple hand recount. This whole thing is a public relations disaster for Florida, which has now eclipsed, temporarily, both Texas and California as the most bonkers place in the nation.
When confronted by these problems, Carol Browner shrugged as if to say 'What's the big deal?' "I look forward to going to Chicago so that Mr. Harris can drive me," Browner testified at an Oct. 4 hearing before the House Committee on Science, which was investigating charges of whistle-blower abuse inside the federal government. The big deal is that racism appears to be running rampant throughout Browner's agency, and she has done nothing to stem it.
Voting whitens your teeth and sweetens your breath, and people who vote have better sex lives. This has been extensively studied, and all the researchers agree. However, there are also new studies strongly suggesting a causal link between voting and weight loss. Yes, going to the polls is more effective than dieting.
Besides, this thing is tighter than a tick -- I mean, your vote COULD make the difference. Honest to Pete, this is historic.
You may wonder why I am trying to inveigle you into participating in what we laughingly refer to as the democratic process. I know all the arguments against it. Don't vote -- it only encourages them. If the gods had meant for people to vote, they would have given us candidates. What is this geekfest? They're all lying. If I actually vote for one of them, won't I be responsible for what happens?
In regard to that last question, the answer is "no" -- you can only be held legally responsible for the government of the United States if you DON'T vote.
Actually, I didn't quite catch which side is into scarfing chad with salt and ketchup, but whoever it is, you know they'll stop at nothing.
I vote the Republicans the winners in this weekend's Huffy, Self-Righteous Indignation Fiesta Bowl. They were much more indignant about the number of military ballots that got thrown out (presumably favoring their man, George W. Bush) and so managed to imply that all Democrats are (a) anti-military, and (b) unpatriotic, and (c) would cheerfully send Our Young People off to risk their lives while denying them the right to vote.
The D's were reduced to plaintively pointing out Who Went to Vietnam and Who Didn't, but after milking that one for years, the R's now declare that it doesn't count. Hey, even Bill Clinton got to Vietnam over the weekend.
Henry B. Gonzalez opposed the bills for 22 hours straight -- still the record in the Texas Senate. Ronnie Dugger of The Texas Observer reported:
"A tall Latin man in a light blue suit and white shoes and yellow handkerchief was pacing around his desk on the Senate floor. It was eight o'clock in the morning. An old Negro was brushing off the soft senatorial carpet in front of the president's rostrum. Up in the gallery, a white man stood with his back to the chamber, studying a panel of pictures of an earlier Senate. The Latin man was orating and gesturing in a full flood of energy, not like a man who had been talking to almost nobody for three hours and had another day and night to go.
Because I think we're watching something important, quite aside from the fate of the nation and the future of The World's Greatest Democracy (except for Florida).
In a mild and in some ways not terribly important case (I may have to eat those words), we're watching why wars start. What we see is the constant presentation -- because the media love to polarize -- of people who are apparently incapable of imagining what the situation looks like from somebody else's point of view.
Is it a lack of empathy, sympathy, imagination? A few years ago, James Carville, the Democratic consultant, wrote a book called We're Right, They're Wrong, which is a great title. Since I don't believe in objectivity -- I think that poor Al Gore won this election fair and square and that the Bushies are trying to spin their way into the White House -- I'm not trying to split the difference here, as in, "You know, they could both be right." Possible, but highly unlikely.
Fortunately, cooler heads -- namely, the public -- prevailed. With the United States in its second post-election week while complicated legal proceedings unfolded in Florida, national opinion polls clearly indicated widespread patience rather than panic. Apparently, most Americans didn't mind waiting for final ballot tallies and court rulings -- despite all the agitation from media commentators frenetically projecting their own attitudes onto the body politic.