This will be Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, all rolled into one. I have resisted making any comments about politics or choosing a political side on other sites like Twitter and Facebook, and I will do my best to continue to not make political comments here; at least so far as trashing any politician for whatever their political or social stance they have, that I may not agree with. As a former political science major, history teacher and debate coach, I have always loved politics. As a person who ran for every high school and college office there was, I have always taken the political process very seriously. I enjoy politics. I especially love American politics. The history of it. The romantic nature of it. Founding fathers. The Constitution. I eat that shit up.
I imagine that the world of American politics is really like The West Wing. I still get chills when I watch re-runs and President Bartlett played by Martin Sheen, slips his hands in his pants pockets before announcing something extraordinary to the nation. I get goosebumps while watching Independence Day and President Whitmore, played by Bill Pullman, give an amazing speech about sacking up and kicking some alien ass. Morgan Freeman is President Beck in Deep Impact, and despite the fact that the entire world is getting ready to be destroyed, he re-assures us that we'll be OK, and we believe him. Harrison Ford is President James Marshall, and terrorist be damned, no one messes with his air force one.
But now. . . where are we in the world? Washington, Lincoln, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton. Regardless of their politics, these men seemed larger then life. I don't want to get into the issues, because let's face it, in today's world, there's simply to many issues to even list them in the order of importance. I wouldn't even begin to to try and tell you that I had the faintest idea of how to solve our nations problems at this point, but what I can tell you is that I don't think the men and women we've elected know the answers either. Elected officials used to care. Or at lest we all perceived that they cared. I don't know if we were better or worse of 10, 20, 50, or 100 years ago, but I do know that Americans perceived that things were getting better. We made progress as a nation. We strived to be the best. We became a better country. Great strides were made in education, science, and civil rights. We were envied or despised, the world over, because we were the best, and everyone knew it. Who got us there? Our elected officials. Our statesmen and representatives.
The difference to me, is that those builders of our country, these powerful men and women of our past, were not politicians by nature. They were farmers, actors, and doctors. They were placed into politics, urged into running for office, by the people around them because of their previous successes in business, medicine, and education. They were the pillars of their communities first, their states second, and then lastly their country. Now? Now it seems that people simply start as politicians. As if its a chosen profession like salesmen or mechanic. It's a course in college that anyone can take. I'm not saying that all politicians are the same. Romney was a successful businessmen. Obama a civil rights lawyer. But by and large, Americans don't relate to their elected officials anymore and have become disenfranchised with politics altogether.
I could go on and on but it basically boils down to this: I want Robert Redford from The Candidate to run for office and then I want Michael Douglas from The American President to run the country. I want the fairy tale. I want truth. I want change. I want to see it, know, and believe in it. I want Tom Selleck, Magnum PI himself, Jesse Stone, and Commisioner Frank Reagan all wrapped into one to care, run, and win. It has happened yet, and doesn't look like it will but at least we have President Bartlett and re-runs to fall back on.
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