November 4, 2008

If I tried with all my might, I could not do better than today’s entry in The Writer’s Almanac. Here it is:

Today is Election Day. It’s the 56th presidential election of the United States, and today is the first time in more than 50 years that neither the sitting president nor the sitting vice president is a candidate on his party’s ticket in the new presidential election. It’s also the very first time in history that the two main candidates for president are both sitting senators. The last sitting senator to be elected U.S. president was JFK in 1960. [I almost inserted a comment here that this paragraph contained and error because in 1960 John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Richard Milhous Nixon were both sitting senators, but then my head cleared and I remembered that although Nixon had indeed been a senator from California, in 1960 he had been Eisenhower’s Vice-President for eight years. Carry on. I’ll be in the area all day. --RWP]

Many parties besides the Democrats and Republicans have nominated candidates for today’s election; these parties include Green, Libertarian, Constitution, Prohibition, Reform, Workers World Party, Boston Tea Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the Socialist Workers Party -- whose presidential candidate, if he were to win the election, would not be able to serve as president, because he was born in Nicaragua.

Both Barack Obama and John McCain are best-selling authors. John McCain was on book tour for his memoir Faith of My Fathers (1999) at the same time that he was on the campaign trail in the 2000 election.

McCain wrote in his second memoir, Worth the Fighting For (2002):

“I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to become president.”

Barack Obama wrote his first memoir, Dreams of My Father, in 1995, after he became president of the Harvard Law Review but before he began his political career. His second book was The Audacity of Hope (2006). One journalist called it his “thesis submission” for the presidency, and it was the book, along with his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, that brought him to national attention.

He wrote:

“I reject a politics that is based solely on racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood generally. I think much of what ails the inner city involves a breakdown in culture that will not be cured by money alone, and that our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP.”

In Faith of My Fathers, John McCain wrote humorously about his poor performance at the Naval Academy, where he graduated fifth from the bottom of his class. He also wrote about his time in Vietnam, as a prisoner of war. He wrote:

“There are greater pursuits than self-seeking. Glory is not a conceit. It is not a prize for being the most clever, the strongest, or the boldest. Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself.”

And a good time was had by all...

I hope you are not as shocked by this photo as I initially was. It was taken by Damon Winter of the New York Times about 24 hours after this year’s third presidential debate between Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. Here they seem happy to see one another, unless they are just putting on a good front for Archbishop Cardinal Edward Egan of the diocese of New York. The occasion was the 63rd annual white-tie dinner of the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation in Manhattan. Al Smith had been elected governor of New York four times when the Democratic Party tapped him to be its candidate for president in 1928. He didn’t become president, however. He was defeated by the man from Iowa whom radio announcer Harry Von Zell once referred to as “the president of the United States, Hoobert Heever.” You remember Hoobert. He helped usher in the Great Depression.

But I don’t want to make you any more depressed than you already are or raise your blood pressure even a notch. Chill out, already. This white-tie dinner in Manhattan, a major fundraiser for the school system of the Catholic Diocese of New York, is a “must attend” function for politicians wooing New Yorkers for their votes. Apparently Johnny and Eddy and Barry there get on quite affably in a social setting, when the hot lights of the television cameras have been turned off and the national television audience has gone to bed. Both candidates spoke at the dinner, and both got off some real zingers. The dinner guests were practically rolling in the aisles, even Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (who must have one of the longest Wikipedia articles around, complete with 343 footnotes). I guess it’s just us chickens out here in the hinterlands who get all tense and uptight over a little thing like a presidential election.

Check it out for yourself. Here’s John McCain telling jokes (Part 1) and (Part 2), and here’s Barack Obama telling some jokes of his own (Part 1) and (Part 2). They even manage to say a few nice things about one another. I truly hope such civility catches on with their supporters.

Since Jeannelle broke her promise not to blog about politics, I feel no compunction about letting you in on what happens when the debating ends.

My one and only political comment of 2008

George Will, the pundit whose name is invariably followed by the words “Conservative columnist,” has made some memorable statements in his time. This is the man who once wrote, “You really don’t want a president who is a football fan. Football combines two of the worst features of American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.” This is the man who once wrote, “In the lexicon of the political class, the word ‘sacrifice’ means that the citizens are supposed to mail even more of their income to Washington so that the political class will not have to sacrifice the pleasure of spending it.” He is a younger version of the late William F. Buckley.

George made an appearance on the Good Morning, America television program this morning, and during the course of the interview he said something not only a little less memorable but also, I think, intellectually dishonest. It was a typical mainstream media comment if I ever heard one. This is the latest from George Will: “Barack Obama is more or less liberal; John McCain is more or less conservative.”

He probably figured he was talking to the millions of Americans who don’t pay any attention to politics whatsoever but who do watch Good Morning, America. The Great Unwashed, in other words. Well, as someone who watches television but also bathes occasionally, here’s what I thought. Saying that Mr. Obama is more or less liberal is like saying the flood in Noah’s time was more or less wet. And saying that Mr. McCain is more or less conservative is like saying snow is more or less green.

If Mr. Will was being facetious, my facetiousness detector is definitely on the fritz. Either George is slipping or he’s just not a morning person.