I have a vivid image of the the 1992 presidential election. It is of a political cartoon that ran in my hometown newspaper after the second presidential debate. The cartoon showed George Bush falling through two old style safety nets - the kind you would image the three stooges holding out as someone attempts to jump from a building. The nets were labeled '1st Debate' and '2nd Debate' with the cartoon Bush careening towards a final net labeled '3rd Debate.'
At the time I was 11 years old and far more interested in presidential politics than any 11 year old should be. The message was not lost on me as I had spent weeks 'campaigning' in my classrooms and hallways of my elementary school - telling anyone who would listen about the great George Bush and all he was going to do for our country in his second term. I have no idea what those arguments might have been; what constitutes relevant political issues to a room full of sixth graders? But I remember staring that cartoon down -hoping against hope that my candidate would rise to the occasion in the third debate and secure the victory I was sure was his to be had.
I also had no concept of demographics or party loyalties and was genuinely shocked and frustrated that my fellow classmates in urban Minneapolis, Minnesota - a state that since 1932 has voted for a republican presidential candidate only once (Nixon '72) - did not immediately warm to my message of fiscal responsibility and national security. But I doubled down on my efforts. I worked it in to every conversation. I covered every inch of notebook, paper bag book cover, folder, trapper keeper and pencil box in my possession with some iteration of 'Bush for President' or Bush '92
I don't remember if I truly thought he would win, if I was watching the polls closely or had any clue what they were saying but I do know that on the Wednesday morning following the election I was genuinely shocked, sad, embarrassed and desperately wanted to stay home sick.
I didn't really know what was at stake in the election. I didn't know why my guy had lost or what it would mean for the country. I only knew that I didn't like how I felt. I swore off politics forever.
But of course forever is a relative term for an 11 year old and as one might expect from an 8 year old who recorded news coverage of the inauguration in 1988 to VHS tapes on his family's newly acquired VCR (and made concentrated efforts to memorize Bush's remarks) I have remained a bit of a political junkie. I ran my own campaigns for student government. I wrote high school papers on campaign finance reform. I went to college with the firm intention of being a Political Science major (luckily fate intervened but more on that later) I was an online volunteer for the McCain campaign, making cold calls from my boarding school dorm room in Connecticut.
But after that disappointment in November of '92 I also managed to maintain what I viewed as a healthy emotional distance from my interest in American politics. '92 left a mark and whether it was conscious or otherwise I made sure to not get too invested - lest I end up feeling like I did as an embarrassed and confused 11 year old quietly suffering through homeroom as the sole republican in a sea of Clinton enthusiasts.
And I did pretty well. Through triumphs and defeats I managed to keep a pretty even keel. I remained solid in my conviction that the individual office holders were not nearly as important as the office itself; that the system would adequately temper what any one individual could do. I slowly turned towards policy over personality and managed to avoid my pre-adolescence political misery. Some of this was gaining a better understanding of the political system, some of it was just getting older. Either way it worked for a long time.
But this week I found myself once again knocked sideways by a presidential election: shocked, saddened, embarrassed and wanting to just call in sick. How and why I (and millions others) came to feel that way will be addressed later. But it won't be the point of this blog.(Obviously, my politics have shifted quite a bit since I was 11 - plenty more on that later).
The main reason for this blog is inspired by another vivid memory from Bush's '92 defeat:
As I sat in class that Wednesday morning, silently wallowing in confused embarrassment and disappointment, I could feel the eyes of all my classmates. Mostly imagined, I am sure, but my sudden silence after weeks of regaling the class with political rhetoric was surely noticed. And there would have been no doubt to anyone in that room how I felt about the result. I barely listened to the teacher. I stared intently at my desk and fought off tears. No one said anything to me.
Then Charlie Ruce, a classmate and a friend but not a fellow Bush supporter, simply came up to me as I sat miserably in my chair. He but his arm around me and said, 'I'm sorry.'
I don't remember what else happened or was said that day but for 25 years I have remembered that gesture with gratitude and fondness.
My greatest fear following Tuesday's election is that the space for that gesture has all but disappeared from our nation. My hope is that for those who find it, this blog can be a small corner of the internet where people who disagree can none the less recognize each others hopes and sadness and bring it upon themselves to offer their arm and a kind word.
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