Tex and the City
-jeffery mcnary

With the Labor Day’s arrival, many of us have begun the process of shutting down Summer housing, pulling boats from the water, and preparing children for a new academic calendar. Most of us survived the political gatherings of Boston’s Fleet Center and of New York’s Madison Square Garden in spite of it’s often sectarian and verbal knifings. In real life, we don’t despise each other all that much. The summer left our psyche intact, with some of us amused when William Jefferson Clinton exhaled a 900 page pro vita apologia upon the shelves of non-academic bookstores on the same weekend that a film, produced by a large, unhappy man from the great American Midwest, hit the theatres and broke all time box office records for it’s genre. Some found family, if not pathos.

This summer we laughed at the zany and colorful garb sported by delegates at both the Boston and New York gatherings. “Delegates are not the noblest sons and daughters of the Republic”, wrote Norman Mailer once. “A man of taste, arrived from Mars, would take one look at a convention floor and leave forever, convinced he had seen one of the drearier squats of hell.” Conventions, since 1832 have played an evolutionary role in the selection of a party nominee. New technologies, with their impacts on emerging electorates, have changed things some. Prior to state primaries, sometime in the early 20th Century, delegates held the power to nominate a candidate themselves. There is more power to the people. What a kick in the status quo.

While the Democrats sought to calcify their avatar with some semblance of passion and policy, their four day run and manipulation of the national stage, produced, what Wall Street once referred to as a “dead cat bounce”, with little movement in very close poll numbers. I am from the school which holds that policy proposals and positions must possess solid factors and analysis. Approaches to managing the “peoples business”, should be forged and digested with realism rather than bunting.

The Republicans eased through Spring with a series of colorful, patriotic photo opportunities. A redux of the D-Day invasion of 60 years ago placed President Bush, ’43, posing on the cliffs of Normandy with European heads of state, some still disturbed with the invasion of Iraq. This was



followed closely by the dedication of the World War II monument on the Mall of the nation’s capitol, drawing a significant number of survivors of the “greatest generation”, including the President’s father, Bush, ’41, a participant in that struggle against tyranny and fascism. It was a sunny and picture perfect Saturday afternoon which flooded the weekend news coverage. Then, as the Summer rolled on, Ronald Wilson Reagan, ’40, went to his eternal reward, and the G.O.P. went on to garner five more days of pageantry and free coverage. ‘41’s voice cracked as he eulogized the patriarch of modern conservatism, that gallant and charming icon, whose fiscal policies he once referred to as “voodoo economics”. Then, near the Summer’s end, and as close as possible to the anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11, close as well geographically, the Party convened at the Garden.

If “strength” was the watch word in Boston for the Dems a few weeks earlier, “morality”, and “security”, “continuity” and “inspiration” set the tone in New York City, in spite of the largest political demonstrations in the republic’s history. Those orchestrating the convention carefully wove and linked the past to the present. During one session, the Convention paid tribute to Reagan, ’40, with an eight minute video narrated in part by Nancy Reagan, Bush ’43, Bush ’41, Vice President Cheney, former Mayor Giuliani, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Henry Kissinger, and Britain’s Margaret Thatcher. There was hardly a dry eye in the house.

Early on there were moments of civility, even elegance, as when Mr. Giuliani waxed, “I don’t believe we’re right about everything and Democrats are wrong about everything. Neither party has a monopoly on virtue.” He continued, “There are times when leadership is the most important”. And there was everyman, Senator John McCain of Arizona. Quoting Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Mr. McCain sermonized, “There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation has a rendezvous with destiny.” Continuing, “I don’t doubt the sincerity of my Democratic friends. And they should not doubt ours…We have nothing to fear from each other…we are arguing over the means to better secure our freedom, and promote the general welfare. Let us argue our differences”.

But in between the rituals of everyone smiling and nodding at everyone else, a truculent Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat from Georgia, rose like the passed over black bird in Swan Lake to launch an atrocious rail upon the Democrat standard barer. One could have thought Senator Kerry had severely mis-behaved on a first date with the Georgian’s sister. Had someone been touched inappropriately? “Kerry has been more wrong, more weak, and more wobbly than any other national figure.” He


continued his tirade, “Kerry would provide a ‘yes-no-maybe’ bowl of mush that can only encourage our enemies and confuse our friends…This politician wants to be leader of the free world…free for how long?” Mr. Miller also referred to his Senate colleague as “fainthearted” and “self-indulgent”. “Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending”.

It is not unheard of for politicians to create nightmares about their opponents. Adams and Jefferson engaged in one of the most brutal campaigns in the country’s history. But terms like “unpatriotic” and “unqualified to lead” are reserved for after hours banter, the stench not wafting to the tabernacles rafters. Even the skywriting of the President and Vice President attacked Senator Kerry’s record and promises, fair game in the American political genre. Personal attacks scar an already wounded process, and block off options mudding.

What will be coming our way this fall is hard to tell. Mr. Kerry responded in kind to his detractors within 45 minutes of the Convention’s close. The race remains too close to call, and similarities between the delegates are stronger than their differences. The ratio of male to female delegates in Boston was 50-50; in New York, 57% male to 43% female. 77% of the delegates at both gatherings we college graduates.

Most of us can recall long road trips with an adult driver in the front seat of the vehicle occasionally tuning down over active children in the back with the proverbial, “Don’t make me stop this car”. Because of the structure of the Democrat primaries, designed to secure an early nominee, we are experiencing the longest Presidential campaign in the nation’s history. Thanks to our dollars, it’s one of the most expensive. Rather than seizing the opportunity to explore viable options to debate wholesome ways to strengthen the republic, we are witnessing a phlegm fight we can hardly afford. We are as “the help watching rich people fight.” Our power lives not only in the polls, but in our pocket books. As ‘the People’, I hold we find a way to turn around and tell our candidates, “Hey, don’t make me stop this car.”