Elections and Definitions

When I was young, my father asked me to define myself. I talked about the various things I was against: bigotry, intolerance, over-orchestrated versions of folk music, and (in my admittedly faulty memory) a brilliantly constructed statement of everything that was wrong with the world.

My father sat through it all, nodding occasionally, then asked one of his "guaranteed to drive me up the wall" questions. "Where's the other half?"

I sputtered my way through some form of "If you were listening, you would have heard it" response, then realized he had that "teachable moment" smile on.

"It's easy to define yourself in terms of what you're against. Any idiot can do that. What happens if all those things go away? Are you just going to sit there and wait for whatever's next? What replaces them? If you don't have an answer to that one, you haven't thought it through."

It's worth noting that my father used "You haven't thought it through" as a euphemism for something between "You're being deliberately stupid" and "That's a crock!!" OK, there's another possibility at the high end of the spectrum, but I try not to use it.

Over the years, I have noted that people who define themselves in terms of negatives are, by and large, nobody you'd want to have over for dinner. Once they run down on their favorite things that are going to "Ruin the country [or the party, or the world, or whatever]" they've got nothing. Granted, you can have fun trying to get at what they're TRULY against: whatever lies at the bottom of this bundle of negativity. That can take some time, and the basic "Evil thing" is usually something you'd wish you never knew about that person. 

I recall a friend who turned every "problems of the world" conversation (these sort of things were fairly common on late night duty cycles and/or while driving long distances while on staff assistance visits) into "the evils of international treaties and alliances."  Over time (and it helped having a team chief who did his post-grad degree in applied psych) it all boiled down to a conviction that an obscure French Socialist/Internationalist splinter party had been running vast portions of the world for some time and was trying to get the full set. Apparently, they were tied up with Freemasons, who were (according to this guy) part of the International Jewish Conspiracy. So in the time it took to drive from Lago di Guarda to Civitavecchia and a long evening in the bar on the ferry to Olbia, we learned that his endless tirade against foreign entanglements came down to fear of the French with a nasty streak of antisemitism. As I said, something I'd rather not known about somebody I was going to have to work with for some time (the antisemitism, not the Francophobia ... most people have that), but at least it established some context.  

By virtue of my temporary residence in Southern California, I have learned very little about the Republic Party's candidates for the nomination for Governor. This might be surprising when I tell you that very few commercial breaks on the television or radio go by without one or two spots for each of them. I know that Meg Whitman claims she can rescue California by cutting taxes, reducing expenditures and improving education. She can do this because she was once CEO of eBay, knows how to run businesses, is not a "professional politician", and is a True Republican, unlike Steve Poizner. Mr Poizner, according to the Whitman "why you can't trust Steve Poizner" adverts, is unfit to lead California because he wanted some sorts of limitations to Proposition 13, and, in so doing, allied himself with  Liberal Unions, Democrats, and the Al Gore campaign. 

Mr. Poizner, from his own ads, is not a Liberal like Meg Whitman. He is apparently going to save California by cutting taxes, eliminating the billions of dollars spent annually on benefits for Illegal Aliens, cutting taxes, deporting illegal (and, it would appear, legal) aliens arrested for a crime, cutting taxes, and not being Meg Whitman (the closet Liberal). 

Since none of their "what I'm going to do" information (what there is of it) makes a blind bit of sense, all we know is what they are against. In the first 60 days of the campaign ( and remember, his is just for the nomination), just over 30 million USD have been expended in this educational process. Breakdown: 3 million by Poizner, 27.8 by Whitman. 

According to the local NPR station, Whitman leads Poizner by 40 points. Clearly, the electorate has not thought this out .... so far.