Left and Write

So today, kiddies, we're gonna hear Miss Sue wax on about politics...

I am so proud of President. I just use the one word as an expression of respect. I cannot believe how many folks and news outlets just refer to President by his last name. It always strikes the wrong chord in my ears.
And unless it was to refer to a specific program--the Bush Tax Cuts--I don't recall this happening with the forty-third U.S. president. (And I hate to bring that up so partisanly, that's just how I recall it is all.)

I have been a political beast almost as long as I've been writing. I went to a local Democratic County Convention when I was a pre-teen and it was thrilling. The late Senator Robert Byrd was there and even played his fiddle for us all. I got to meet Robert Mann, at the time, my favorite local pol. Years later, in my twenties, I shook Ernest Holling's hand...and proudly proclaimed: "This is the hand that shook the hand of Ernest Hollings!"

I worked for Tom Harkin when he ran for the presidency. Before that, I made a scrapbook of President Carter's campaign season. Before that, my mother referred to John Fitzgerald Kennedy simply as President. That's where I get it from, I suppose.

I campaigned for John Kerry, and spent four long days sick as hell when he lost. And I know many others who suffered the same fate whether they got drunk and impersonated Howard Dean while atop a table at a hotel Kerry party or not.

Back in my journalism days, I had the great honor of spending a day escorting/interviewing the lovely late Senator Paul Simon of Illinois around central South Carolina as he campaigned. I have a terrific photograph of him we took at a festival where Mr. Peanut showed up. Senator Simon was a very warm and delightful companion that day. We should miss the likes of him.

I slung banners across my yard in 2008, put (and still have) bumper stickers on my cars, and even got my folks to re-register and vote for our wonderful President Obama. I will do so again. (Disclaimer: I've moved during the first term and need to re-register myself in my home state.)

My dad tells the story of his dad (died long before I was thought about) going around the depression-era South listening to all the stump speeches. I'll bet that was grand. I'll bet we'd have a lot to talk about. I'll bet that politics is in my blood.

So other than the obvious, who are my heroes today? In no particular order: Bernie Sanders, Barney Franks, Barbara Boxer, Jim Clyburn, Jerry Brown, to name but a few. Who do I miss the most (whom I haven't already mentioned)? Barbara Jordan, Paul Wellstone, Ann Richards, Hubert Humphrey, Adlai Stevenson (though I wasn't exactly his contemporary), J. Patrick Moynahan, and others. I'll never forget the keynote speech Barbara Jordan made at the Democratic National Convention. As soon as she was done, my mother turned to me and said, "Now THAT is how you speak." She was brilliant was Barbara Jordan, and she had that voice, that commanding voice. To me it is the iconic female voice to take into consideration when one has a character who must speak in a tone to be reckoned with. (My male character vocal love affair is with the late and so loved, Charles Kuralt.) I'll tell my Charles Kuralt story in another post when the time seems well-chosen.

I love politics. Not that I don't question, complain, get disappointed, get dismayed, rage often...I do. But I just love everything from the feel of the green felt desks in Constitution Hall to the topic of debate on Morning Joe. I love the history and the game. It always lures me in and shows me who I am and who I want to be.

In sixth grade I made my favorite thing, my best work other than kids and books and love. I made a huge diorama of Colonial Williamsburg. It was so big I had to store it perched atop my canopy bed frame. I remember carving sponge bushes for the Governor's Garden. I remember all the sunny yellows and bright whites of the buildings. That thing was fantastic and I wish I had it still.

I love politics. I am a political wonk. I love how alive it makes me feel to think. My political interests make up a big part of my personality. Politicians may be foolish, may be affronts to the honor of the offices they hold. But politics is our history and our important national salon.

As Robert Redford said in "The Candidate": "Vote once, vote twice, but vote for the candidate of your choice."  I just love that Mike Barnacle was in that movie....