Election 2003

The by-annual cataclysm is over for this year. I deposited my ballot in the mail box in the fond hope that the results would match my vote. Well, you can dream, can't you?

This one has been more exciting than most off year elections, with water and taxes and gambling and a new library on the ballot, to say nothing of six men running for two spots on the school board. As I write this, I am going to have to wait several more days before I know the results and it is getting pretty tense.

I have lived through a lot of post-election Wednesday mornings. When I was a kid we had to wait until the results came along in the Rocky Mountain News Wednesday morning and the Post in the afternoon.

Then in 1924 KOA came on the air and we could get a few results on the crystal set Dad and I built out of an oatmeal carton and copper wire. Somewhere along the way we bought our first radio and then we could get results faster. Our house was either a happy, wonderful place to be, or a place for a kid to get out of as soon as possible. My mother was a political junkie. She was quite certain that "In the beginning there was the Republican Party."

I outgrew my upbringing, but never had the nerve to tell her. After all she was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and voted for Wendell Willkie. I'll never know whether I became a political junkie through heredity or environment.

It seems to me that the arguments are more bitter this year than in the past. Actually, though, every election has its battles or they wouldn't be any fun.

We had a Depression, but as I remember it, people were more scared than mad at each other. We had a president resign and a couple get impeached and we survived without bloodshed -- much. We had some pretty wild activity during the Vietnam war, but there were more flowers than stones. Of course we had the beginning of the new feminist movement, but only the women got excited about that.

One difference, of course, is the media. In my younger days we really didn't know everything that was going on across the country. In recent years we have instant access to news.

Another addition to the overall confusion is talk radio which has opened the microphones to every crackpot in America. I hope Rush is enjoying his rest in de-tox.

The 2004 campaign has already started and, as usual, we seem to be in deep disagreement over just about everything. Some political pundit commented that we don't know yet what the social issue of the presidential campaign will be -- abortion, same sex marriage, right to die, or something else that will emerge before November, 2004. Personally I hope the issues are the war and the economy and that we can leave religion out of it.

This year we have debates among the nine Democratic candidates. Lincoln and Douglas would have been horrified at the scripted performances, but they might have enjoyed the air conditioning. Their seven debates took place in the boiling Illinois summer sun, pitting the short, powerful "Little Giant" Douglas against the 6 foot 4 inch "Honest Abe" Lincoln. Both were skilled politicians, brilliant orators and experienced dissemblers. They went head to head in front of a handful of people who couldn't even vote. Now those were debates. One does wonder about the progress television has brought.

Maybe elections over the years haven't changed as much as I thought. The country goes on as it has for 200 years. Elections are like street cars. There's always another one coming.

But this year I think F. Lee Bailey is right. "Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn’t even get our of committee."