Night Thoughts at the Beginning of Spring

Here it is coming on Spring of an election year and I am remembering my (late) (former) mother-in-law and the campaign of ’68. Bear with me…

She was having a bad year: she was sick, probably sicker than we knew, and just generally not having a good time. She did pay attention to the Presidential race. She didn’t like any of ‘em.

Oh, ho, I thought. That is what happened when you are old and lose your vim.

Flash forward to 2008. I’m a good deal older now than she was then (she died in ’69). Also a good deal healthier, and that’s a mercy. And as to the Presidential race, I …

I what? Well, actually, I cannot say I don’t like any of them. In a way, I like all of them. John McCain is indeed your loveable crotchety uncle. Barack is wonderful. For Hillary—okay, I guess “like” is too strong a word but I do respect and on the whole admirer her: she’s a wonky overachiever and her heart is in the right place.

But may I take you into my confidence, dears? Truth is, no one of them is really fit to be president. McCain? Yikes. For all his curmudgeonly charm, he’d be a lunatic decision maker. Hillary? Let’s face it, she never has learned the lessons of the health care debacle, and she’d probably screw it up the same way again. Barack? Well. I guess I said enough a couple of days back (link).

Mrs. Buce dismisses my cartwauling, with the observation that we’ve often—usually—endured mediocre presidents or worse, and have pretty much gotten away with it. There’s some truth to the general point but I do not find it consoling. I know that every candidate (in every race) wants us to believe that we stand “at a crisis,” but this time I’d say we really do stand at a crisis, in which we need all the craft and sagacity we can get. And we get this? This?

[Truth is, I’d give two seconds’ thought to a Bloomberg/Hagel ticket. Fortunately, it is not on offer—and the chances that we, in this environment, elect a Wall Street zillionare are pretty near to zero.]

And my mind wanders back to ’68. Recall the state of play that year: Nixon. Humphrey. Wallace. You knew who you wanted to vote against in that race, but it wasn’t quite clear who you wanted to vote for. I suspect my mother-in-law didn’t vote at all.

I’ll vote for somebody, and I’ll say a prayer that I got it right and that s/he’ll get it right. But oy, I wish I had another choice.

Fn.: Looks like I said all this before.