Tag: presidency

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What’s Called For

When you have to write a column a couple of days in advance, there’s always a danger of being overtaken by events.

This one didn’t even make it to 400 words.

“THEY CALLED PENNSYLVANIA!!” Heather shouted from the bedroom as I wrote on Saturday morning.

My brain abruptly turned into a train derailment as my fingers skidded to a stop.

“You’re kidding!” I called back.

“No! NBC, CNN, now ABC …”

I looked at my incomplete draft. And then reached for the backspace key.

Maybe I ought to buy that lottery ticket after all.

Like most of us, I had gotten used to the thought that “Call Me” might be a nice Blondie song, but it was unlikely to be seen in real life for quite some time. After all, this is how it works, right? Trickle of votes, adjust the lead, back to the count. Trickle of votes, adjust the lead, back to the count. Over and over in an endless news cycle, sort of like Peter Jennings meets Bill Murray.

To be honest, the catch-and-release pattern gave me a rueful chuckle. This used to be my former life as a newspaper reporter. In the Super Bowl-like enthusiasm of Election Day – marked by newsrooms with high adrenaline and higher pizza bills – there would always be at least one race that would defy deadlines. In a ballot full of easy calls and quick turnarounds, you would somehow draw the one that looked you in the eye and screamed “Meaningful results? TONIGHT? HAHAHAHAHA! See you in the morning, sucker!”

So yes, this is familiar. It’s just on a larger scale.

It’s also more challenging.

As a reporter, I had a job to do, a story to write at the end of it all. As a voter, it’s less obvious. After all, we’ve done our job, right? We made our call, said our say, and now we can finally be thrilled, or disappointed, or eager to see if armies of lawyers can manage to beat each other to death with briefcases.

But it’s not that simple.

When the election ends, our job is just getting started.

There’s been a lot written lately about peaceful transitions of power. That’s not just a courtesy – it’s a recognition that elective offices are under a permanent job review. Fortunes can change as easily as the tides, yesterday’s “outs” can be tomorrow’s “ins,” and when it’s your turn, you had better show the same grace on the way out that you hope to receive on the way back in.

And that job review? That’s us. Regardless of party. Regardless of faction.

And that goes on long beyond a cast-and-counted ballot.

It means watching the people we choose, and not just as a fan club. It means separating truth from fiction, learning what’s going on, learning what it means for people beyond our own sliver of the world. Not silencing our voice, but learning to hear the voices of others as well. As any choir will tell you, that’s the only way to create harmony.

It means holding people accountable for their actions, even the ones on our “team.” I use the quotes, because our real team is ultimately the country itself. No one deserves our blind support. Praise what makes us better, challenge what makes us worse, and always look for a way to bring more light and less pain to the world.

I’ve said it before – this country is never finished. We need to make sure the next chapter is one we can all be proud of. Even if we have to rewrite it in midstream.

Now and always, that is our calling.

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Seeing Through the Walls

Big Blake’s tail didn’t thump when we walked in the room.

His eyes were … there but not there.

Even the magic word “Food!” provoked only a little attention and some reluctant movement – maybe. For a dog who had always been ruled by his stomach, that was the scariest of all.

“I think we’d better call the vet again.”

It would be his second trip in two days. Yesterday he had been moving fine and eating fine, but with rather messy results out the other end. He’d been checked out and sent home with something for an upset stomach – but this seemed like a new ballgame.

There are moments in a crisis when all the walls turn transparent. You can see all the possibilities but you have no idea which one the path leads toward. Were we looking at an intestinal blockage? An injury, from a slip as he left the car the day before? Something more insidious that had been waiting until now to show its head?

All we could do was take him in, hope, and watch the clock.

Two hours later, the call came. Two minutes later, so did our reaction.

“It looks like what he’s having is an extreme arthritis flare-up . We’ve added some pain medicine to his NSAIDs for now ….”

I think our collective sigh of relief must have re-routed hurricanes in the Gulf.

We could see the path at last. And it actually led somewhere that we wanted to be.

Now, with our furry friend beside us, we get to watch another moment of clarity and uncertainty – this time on a national scale.

As I write this, the drama of COVID-19 entering the White House is still going on. So many questions are still hanging in the air. How many more names will we hear that we recognize? What does this mean for the country? Headlines about confirmations, debates, economies, elections, and yes, very real lives – those actually infected and those affected by them and their choices – continue to whirl and spin across the landscape like a Kansas tornado.

Once again, the walls are transparent and the path unclear. The nature of the virus almost guarantees it. Some get sick and get well and get on with things. Some require much more intensive medical care. Some recover, but with serious after-effects that can hang on for months.

And yes, some die. Too many have.

Again, you’re reading this later than I’m writing this. You may already know the next chapter of the story. But if we’re still watching the news, wondering what’s next and what it will mean – well, I suppose in 2020, it isn’t all that surprising.

Once again, we have to wait. And to keep doing what we need to do while we’re waiting. Because life doesn’t stop for the rest of us.

We still need to hold out hope for the future and caution for the present, looking to a day when things can be better while taking the careful steps needed to make it there.

We still need to look to each other as friends and neighbors, giving and accepting strength.

We still need to look to our own care, so that whatever the world sends us tomorrow, we’re ready to meet it.

Ready when the path starts to re-emerge.

For now, we’re once again walking the path with our dog. Big Blake’s tail is thumping. His eyes are bright. And his attention to food is as laser-sharp as ever.

It’s the moment we didn’t dare hope for.

And we couldn’t be happier.

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Un-Conventional

The flash commanded immediate attention, filling the bay window for a dazzling instant. And then came the signature.

KRA-KA-BOOOOM!

If you were in Longmont on Friday evening, you know exactly what I’m talking about – a window-rattling, house-shaking thunder burst fit for a Beethoven video. The sort of close strike that makes you wonder what just blew up, or when the invasion began.

I gave a nervous glance to my front yard maple tree – untouched, thank goodness – and to social media, which was lighting up even faster than the sky had. But the skies themselves had other business; with their Big Boom out of the way, the agenda had moved on to a gentle rain rather than an extended battle.

Which in turn meant peace in Chez Rochat. Our mighty dog Big Blake, known to cower under desks on the Fourth of July, was on to his usual food-swiping and eye-begging ways within moments. Our disabled ward Missy, who jumps and yells at the sound of a backfiring motorcycle, kept rocking out to the tunes on her stereo.

There had been plenty of buzz. Lots of chatter. But no lasting effect.

This time of year, that seems especially appropriate.

Right at the close of convention season.

I spent 16 years as a newspaper reporter, most of it covering governments of one kind or another. I used to joke that it was a lot like following a soap opera: when you first sit down, the actions seems utterly incomprehensible, but over time it becomes addictive as you start to understand the characters and the plots.

Even so, I never saw the point of a national convention. To torture the metaphor a little further, it always felt like a “sweeps week” – a chance to juice the ratings and draw in some casual fans with a gimmicky plot that had little relation to the rest of the season.

Granted, that’s a recent thing. Once upon a time, the national party conventions were the ultimate bargaining table. History could be made with a quick deal that swung enough delegates behind your candidate. A potential president might emerge to find half his cabinet already filled from backroom promises or standing on a party platform with a few curious planks to bring in the stragglers.

These days, thanks to the greater weight of primary elections, everyone knows who the major-party nominees will be long before Day 1 of either convention. The event is no longer a bargaining session – it’s a week-long ad meant to generate a “bump” in the polls. And with one convention following hard on the heels of the other, the bumps have been getting smaller and shorter-lived.

It’s a thunder burst. Flashy. Noisy. But not really good for anything except a moment’s brief attention.

The lasting work in any storm comes from the rain. The sustained effort that actually grows something.

That’s where we come in.

Elections don’t need conventions. But they do need informed voters. Individuals who pay attention for longer than a few speeches and sound bites. Citizens who care not just about who wins, but about where we’re going  and why.

Grass needs rain. Democracy needs us.

I know, it sounds idealistic. It always has. But if enough of us dedicate ourselves to repairing what’s broken and even building something better, a difference can be made. Not easily. Not without a struggle. But not without hope, either.

The rumbles have died down. The flash has left the sky. But the real work is still ahead. Our work.

It’s time for us to take our part in the storm.

Long may we rain.

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Riding Out the Storm

The Snowpocalypse returned to Longmont on Wednesday. If you read social media at all, I’m sure you saw the shock and horror.

“A blizzard in March? Really?”

“Go home, Mother Nature, you’re drunk.”

“Happy spring, everybody!”

The thing is, if you’ve lived on the Front Range for longer than a couple of years, you know that this is what happens in a normal March. You’ve heard (probably ad nauseum) that “this is the snowiest month of the year.” We know what to expect, and when.

And yet, when the storm hits, it still fascinates us. Like an old sweater or Christmas decoration, we drag the jokes out of storage to be displayed for another year. Heck, I’ve told them myself. When you go from a 70-degree day to 15 inches of beautiful springlike weather literally overnight – well, as Willy Loman once said, attention must be paid.

So we let ourselves be amazed. We cast aside the other fears and demands of the world to focus on digging in and then digging out, sprinkling appropriate touches of profanity as we struggle to remove the concrete-heavy snow from our driveways and sidewalks or navigate the slushy, soon-to-be icebound roads.

Once again, we’ve survived the end of the world as we know it.

And in an election year, that should feel mighty familiar.

Granted, most of us, if given the choice between surviving a presidential campaign season and a blizzard, would probably pick the blizzard. Especially this campaign season.  There seems to be a feeling, on left and right, that this is the year the Great Democratic Experiment meets its greatest test. Elect the wrong man/woman/alien from Planet Mongo, we’re told, and it’s time to flee to Australia – Canada may just not be far enough.

I’ll be honest. I share in some of that feeling myself. I’d have to be Superman not to be touched by all the fear and worry in the air—and not only did I live my cape in the dry-cleaners, I genuinely feel that some of the candidates for office are worthy of our fear and worry.

But you know something? We’ve been here before. For any given value of “here.” Maybe not with these people, maybe not with this exact set of fears, but we have survived an awful lot, in terms of potential leaders and actual ones.

We’ve seen populist leaders lead movements with the fervor of a revivalist preacher, bringing anxiety to those already in power. (Hello, William Jennings Bryan. Or, from a more authoritarian side of the spectrum, Huey Long.)

We’ve seen political parties fracture and break under the stress of the day’s issues, opening the door to a “plurality president” who might have otherwise never set foot in the White House. (Check out when a Democratic split gave us Abraham Lincoln, or a Republican one Woodrow Wilson.)

We’ve had presidents who were drunks. Presidents who were conspirators. Even presidents who took action to silence enemies, or permitted the deportation or imprisonment of entire populations. (Look up John Adams and the Alien and Sedition Acts, Andrew Jackson and the “Trail of Tears,” or FDR and the Japanese internment.)

I’m not saying we should yawn or say “oh, well,” at any of this. Some of the things that have happened are truly horrifying. Some of it has even led us to swear at different times “Never again” and justified our vigilance as voters and citizens.

But my point is that we have survived all of it. Admittedly, sometimes by the skin of our teeth. But we have carried through. And we have continued to try to create something better.

We can do it again.

Yes, be aware. Yes, fight like crazy for  the vision of this country you want to see. No, don’t be blasé about what could happen if the person you’re most worried about seizes the controls.

But remember also – we can still survive. And we probably will. Especially if we look past the elections and continue our energy, awareness, and determination to build this country long after the final ballot has been counted.

We can be ready. We can be prepared.

And with enough of both, we can weather the storm.

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Debatable Value

The binders have been shelved. Big Bird has nested. The death stares and Joker leers have gone back to the DC comic book from whence they came.

Debate season, at long last, is over.

Can I hear an amen!

I kind of thought so.

It’s funny. I cover politics for a living. I love diving into a sea of government and coming up with a pearl of fact; I like turning the turgid mass of bureaucratic “English” into something that makes sense to you and me. Overall, I think democracy’s a pretty good system – one that asks a lot, but one that gives a lot, too.

But every election year, without fail, there comes a point where I start thinking “You know, monarchy doesn’t sound so bad.” One too many mailers, one too may robo-calls, one too many screaming ads on television.

And then, to cap it off, there’s the debates.

The debates!

Ideally, this should be the spotlight moment of any democracy. At a local level, it often is. You get a forum where the moderator gives an issue, the candidates give their take on it, and the audience comes away a little more enlightened than before.

At the presidential level? Give me leave to doubt.

It’s revealing, I think, to look at the question that gets asked when the dust has cleared. Ideally, there’s a few things people should be asking: “What did they say?” “Is it true?” “Will it work?”

But what do we ask when the debate is over?

Come on, you know this one.
“Who won?”

One more reality show. “Survivor” with a moderator.

I never really thought I’d say this. I kind of hate myself for it. But I think we’ve reached the point in the presidential race where the debates don’t really add all that much.

What do we get from them?

There’s still a few things, I know. A sense of how a candidate carries themselves. How they respond when challenged. Whether they’ve been able to get any sleep the night before. I’ve heard this called the job interview, and there’s still a little truth to it.

But a job interview where two applicants answer simultaneously, interrupt each other and compete to see who can come up with the most effective “zinger” about the other’s resume’ doesn’t sound all that useful to any employer I’ve ever met.

Is there a way to take it back? To make it about content and thought instead of charisma and talking points?

Or let’s ask the scarier question. Will it matter if we do?

Voters arguably have access to more information about their candidates now than ever. You can see their positions, and then see those positions fact-checked, criticized and defended to a fare-thee-well. And by the time the actual debates come around, most minds have been set.

I know, it’s fashionable at this point of the year to talk about the undecided voter. But I think that’s an endangered species. What we’re seeing now is the highly decided voter. Ones who have already decided which facts they believe, which narratives they’re plugging into. In a case like that, the debates are even less likely to inform, even more likely to confirm an existing bias.

I’ll grant that the first debate this year gave a fresh momentum to the Romney campaign. But was that because he convinced new supporters? Or because he was able to rally the existing ones?

If that’s the case – if the debates are becoming a pep rally with factoids – do they still serve the purpose they should?

I hope I’m wrong. I really do. Because if I’m right, we might get just as much value – and maybe even more information – from watching the candidates compete on a revived Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

Actually, that sounds kind of intriguing. But I’m not married to it.

It is, after all, open to debate.