My editor extended this week's deadline long enough to give me time
to have my nervous breakdown on election night, and recover enough to
write about it. What neither he nor I expected was that the nervous
breakdown is scheduled to go on and on and on. With the new deadline
fast approaching, I still don't know whether to congratulate President
Al Gore or shudder over the alternative. In any case, whoever he is,
he will be our President. And we survived Franklin Pierce and Richard
Nixon.
It has been a long time since we have had a cliff hanger like this. I
do seem to remember the night in 1948 when Thomas Dewey went to bed as
President (he thought) only to wake up to find Harry Truman had the
job. Truman laughed all the way to the White House. It looks as though
this could be the first time in over a hundred years when the candidate
with the greatest popular vote loses in the electoral college. This
happened to Andrew Jackson in 1824, to Samuel J. Tilden 1876 and to
Grover Cleveland in1888. It may be time to look seriously at the
electoral college.
This morning Peter Loge on KPRN had what may be the best idea yet: a
co-presidency. Sounds like a great idea to me. When dealing with
matters of state and protocol and ceremony, pull the personality kid
away from the football game on TV and send him in to do the schmoozing.
When the problems are intellectual, involving thought and experience,
lock the serious brainy one in the Oval Office with the telephones
(including the red one). They would both be happy. They could put up a
wall and divide the living quarters, and require that the two men eat
breakfast together to plan the day. They might have to put a fence on
the front lawn to separate their dogs. But that could all be worked
out.
But every cloud has a silver lining, even if my guy loses. I can
celebrate the fact that the women have made a few more political
gains. Thank goodness for Hillary. I so wanted to vote for her, but
obviously she did not need it. She won big and she worked her tail off
to do it and she took a tremendous amount of flack. In one debate the
moderator had the nerve to ask her why she hadn't left her husband, a
question even her enemies found outrageous. Now Hillary Rodham Clinton
has stepped out from behind her husband's career and established herself
as an independent woman and one to be taken very seriously. Yes, she
is ambitious. Yes she is aggressive. Yes, she is highly capable.
Hmmmm, if she were a man would we criticize her for that? We will hear
lots more of her. Go, Hillary.
In addition to Senator Clinton, there will be three more new pro-choice
Democratic women in the Senate, bringing the total number of women to
13. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Maria Cantwell of Washington, and Mel
Carnahan, Missouri, who will fill her dead husband's shoes will be
freshman Senators. Diane Feinstein of California was re-elected.
In Colorado we were amazingly smart. We protested using the state
Constitution as a legislative device. Amendments 21, 24 and 25 went
down in flames as I think they should have. We pay a legislature (not
very much, to be sure) to govern. Why not let them govern or vote them
out? Side note: Can somebody sell Doug Bruce the Golden Gate Bridge as
a new home. It is probably tax free.
Personally, of course, I am breathing a great sigh of relief that my
favorite Information Store will continue to be available, not only for
me but for the 114,999 other citizens who use it. Twelve hundred
people go through the doors of the Mesa County Public Library every day
for research, reference, recreational reading, story hours and other
services which the library provides. Amendment 21 would have decimated
it.
This has been an election for the history books. What with a President
--whoever he is -- without a mandate from the people and a Senate almost
exactly split between the parties, it doesn't look very good for four
years of progress.
But the sun will come up tomorrow.