In the warmth of the post-Election Day glow, if I may inject a short infusion of pragmatism: with all the money spent on campaign literature, signs, advertising, pony rides, campaign events, and--you caught that, didn't you? And I was trying to be so clever....so now what should I do with the saddle?
Anyway, with all that money spent on the electoral equivalent of fireworks or party favors, how is it that there's never enough money budgeted by anyone's campaign to pay for the pick-up and clean-up the day after they burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away (and how come there's never room in the van for all the crazies that were howling at the moon throughout the campaign)?
Tale of two days near where I live in Norwich: a major intersection of two highways where traditionally, the Monday before the election candidates and their supporters cluster and hold up their campaign's lawn signs as commuting motorists whiz by in, and towards, every direction as the lawn signs are waved and horns get honked (or vice versa for all I know).
In the thirty-four years of living here and speaking with all kinds of folks who've sought office and taken part in this ritual, I've yet to meet any candidates who've suggested they've gained even a single vote by so doing.
I've asked voters if they have ever changed their minds about a candidate because he/she was standing out on the intersection in the rain, fog, locusts, sleet, or chill (see pony rides, above, for inclusion of locusts), waving a lawn sign, and the answer is 'nope.' And yet there was the whole gang on Monday waving signs. No one knows the reason, only the history.
Join me now on that same corner, same time of day-but yesterday when all the laughter had turned to sorrow. Solitude (and carbon monoxide) as far as the eye can see. Meanwhile, the other lawn signs, the ones in front of houses that neighbors are losing to mortgage companies and banks and foreclosures, will wave in any breeze at anyone.....
-bill kenny
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