Each morning I feed Ralphie his K-D Feline breakfast, fix that easy Keurig K-Cup of coffee and dive into The Examiner while gulping vitamins and Lipitor. My DNA propels me first to Maryland politics then the op-ed and editorial pages. Photos of the heavy hitters lend gravitas as they opine. I look to Ralphie for support and say, “No! That?s so wrong,” or, “Amen brother, that summed it up!” Ralphie chirps soft, half-throttled meows in what seems to be agreement.
Is the political rhetoric more vicious than ever? Was Caesar surprised to feel the cold blade as he allegedly posed the rhetorical question, “Et tu, Brute?” Fast forward to the 1950s. My dad?s opponent displayed a grainy photo of a jaw-dropping mansion during a TV speech the night before the election. We cried out, “Wow! Who lives there?” as we adjusted the rabbit ears and stared at the fuzzy black and white image on our 10-inch screen. The accusation was that we lived in a lavish manse. Later investigation proved it was a postcard of W.K. Vanderbilt?s Marble House in Newport, R.I. How could he mistake Baltimore City?s Northwood for Newport?
A few have taken their lead from that slim little book George Washington wrote when he was 14, the 110 “Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation.” We reward those civil leaders and decent luminaries we love by naming parks, pavilions and granite buildings for them. Some are memorialized in heroic horseback. Whenthe young in our midst ask who they were, none of us can rattle off a complete list of achievements, but we do remember how they were with us. In the wider view, there are the odd cases of luminaries being unceremoniously scrapped. Elton John took back his song from Norma Jean Baker and gave it to Princess Diana. I was disappointed.
Even in a hurry, he was capable of writing another with his enormous talent. Under the heading, “Tail Wags Dog,” Wall Street financier Ivan Boesky pledged millions, and Princeton agreed to name their religious center for him. He went to jail with the pledge incomplete. Princeton unscrewed the plaque and puttied the holes. I wasn?t disappointed.
Apparently, how we feel as that one soul Steinbeck?s Tom Joad talked about, can be detected in polls. I am ambivalent. If my candidate is up, I believe. If he?s down, I doubt the results. Are polling organizations and questions “non-partisan?” This is a “nonword” with no meaning. It assumes the nonpartisan one grew up in Plato?s cave seeing only shadows on the wall.
I was polled once. It was about foreign- vs. American-made cars. I wanted to wave Old Glory, but the exact answers expected to the questions posed were dragging me grudgingly to a conclusion I didn?t want.
In looking dispassionately at my own ego, if ever polled again I would want that anonymous questioner to think that this anonymous respondent was scrupulously fair and especially smart. This might force me to adopt the prevailing popular thought for an answer. Hopefully, the pollster will assume that I was groomed in that rarefied atmosphere of an Ivy League institution.
Who are these mysterious, thoughtful “undecided” in the polls? I considered being “undecided” once just to have both sides chase and cajole me, court my vote and smooth my ruffled feathers for 15 minutes. I really knew which way I was leaning all along. I always know, but often can?t pinpoint the reason. I like to think it?s the lofty and scholarly principle, “for America,” “for the children,” or is it really because the candidate reminds me of a guy I used to know when I was 17 who was such a fabulous dancer that other couples would gather round to watch us. Of course, I was dancing backwards and in high heels like Ginger Rogers.
After being “undecided,” I decided to compound the problem by being “independent” but was told at the polling place that I wasn?t eligible in a primary to vote for a Republican or Democrat, but only for an independent, if there was one. There was, but I had no idea who he was.
So that ended my self-imposed special status of being an “independent” because I was “undecided.”
In the end, the elected officials elevated and the ones served are the same. We love our families, walk our pets, do the best we can and make mistakes along the way. We are trying to get home, whether home means your front door tonight, or that kodachrome picture in your head of retirement, your political party in the catbird seat, or as I sometimes tell Ralphie, that Big Cattery in the Sky.
Stephanie Esworthy was director of Media and Public Relations and the Baltimore City Film Commission for former Mayors William Donald Schaefer and the late Clarence “Du” Burns and served as head of Baltimore City?s Bureau of Music in every city administration since Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin. Her personal experiences in local politics started in the early 1950s as the daughter of state?s attorney and chief judge of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Anselm Sodaro, now deceased. She may be reached at [email protected].
