On the Simplification of Things
Suddenly, things are simpler. We’re down to four serious presidential candidates, two for each party. Once upon a time, their intramural competition for the two election spots would have taken place pretty much out of sight. Modern television news hadn’t discovered itself, hadn’t learned how different it was from print journalism. The process of self-discovery is still ongoing. Consider Fox News’s bundling of the Super Bowl on Super Sunday with the nationwide primaries on Super Tuesday. Super!
My aunt, like everyone I know, is very excited about Barack Obama. I would be, too, if it weren’t for Hillary Clinton. And if we weren’t seven or eight months away from the Democratic Party’s convention. Seven or eight months of fratricidal structure, conducted in full view of friend and foe alike! The prospect is so curdling that I take positive comfort in the “suspension” of John Edwards’s campaign. Perhaps, when the “black” candidate and the “woman” candidate have knocked each other out with their croquet mallets, Mr Edwards will return, to pose a serious threat to the Republican Party contender. Now that he is out of the race, however, the one thing that I am prolbablyh not going to do is follow my aunt’s advice and watch tonight’s debates.
Clearly I have become a deep-dyed cynic in my old age, like the Adolphe Menjou character in Frank Capra’s State of the Union — a film that I urge everyone to see every time a presidential election comes round. I really don’t care who’s in the White House so long aa it (a) is a Democrat but (b) is not Jimmy Carter. You would think that we don’t have to worry about the second part anymore, but Democrats have an alarming ability to bloom into Jimmy Carter hybrids. Mrs Clinton is just as tedious to listen to as the Georgia president, while Mr Obama has all of those outsider’s disadvantages.
If I were a normal person, I would find a candidate that I liked — at this point, with John Edwards out of the race, it would probably be Hillary Clinton (my mistrust of Barack Obama is as visceral as everyone else’s dislike of Hillary) — and content myself with hoping that she’d win in November. But I left that kindergarten behind a long time ago. I don’t allow myself to think how grand my favorite candidate would be in the White House any more than I waste my time plannint how I’d spend lottery winnings (it helps in the latter instance that I never buy tickets). I save that for the happy January day a little less than a year from now when, if things go well, a Democrat walks through the White House door.
Happily, I’ve got the victory party covered. My daugher has fixed the date for her wedding, a few days after the election. She may think that she’s just getting married, but if the right candidate wins, her nuptials will certainly be sailing a great wave of euphoria. And if not, I’ll still be happy as can be.