I’ll admit it. I have been more interested in politics than normal these last several years.
I had the feeling I was in a bus driven by a madman, careening toward a cliff, and there was nothing anyone could do to turn the wheel. Now there are some other hands there.
But even before the votes were counted, the blogosphere and some TV networks began obsessing over the 2008 election.
Here’s the thing. The purpose of politics is to create policy. Elections are separated widely in time so that events can have their say. It’s not really about the pros – either in Washington or the grassroots. It’s about what happens and how we feel about it.
Does anyone doubt that the result of this election would have been different without Katrina? Or the scandals? Or Iraq’s steady slide into civil war and chaos? Events decided the result. All the work, and the $2.5 billion, invested in this exercise had impact only on the margins. That can be determinative in close elections, but most elections aren’t that close.
So I have a problem with political obsessives, no matter what side of the aisle they live on. If you go from Election Night straight into campaign mode you don’t understand the first thing about politics, which is that it’s not a football game. It’s policy.
You know how the 2008 election will be decided? By events, by history
that is yet to be written. And it won’t be decided in 2006, probably
not in 2007 either. (Although 2005 had a lot to do with 2006 results.)
For now, in other words, let it be. Let’s talk about issues — local,
state and national. Let’s discuss philosophy, the proper balance of
government and markets, the role of religion as applied to specific
questions. Let’s talk about organization, and the proper role of this
medium in giving people an ability to impact the government which
impacts them every day.
Let’s all go back to doing our job as citizens, and leave the
obsessives in their little Rainman hells…we’ll have time to visit
later, the way we visit Mel Kiper Jr. every draft day.
And to start the ball rolling…which one of these actors really was crazy? (Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.)
