infinite improbability

Politics. You've gotta love (and hate) it

I love politics. I hate politics. I love the back room wheeling and dealing of politics. I hate the backroom wheeling and dealing of politics. I love game of politics. I hate the game of politics. Enough of that, I think the picture's pretty clear that I have a love/hate relationship with politics. Whatever else is the case, I don't think it's possible to be anywhere near politics and to retain idealism for any period of time. You either get disillusioned and drop out, or you become a cynic. As for me, I'm probably a cynical realist, if that's a possible combination.

I've dabbled in politics for a number of years, was even a precinct committee woman on the county Republican Executive Committee for the year between when I turned 18 and when I left for college (technically, I was an elected official, but only once in a blue moon is it a contested position). My parents have both been on the Executive Committee for 8 or 9 years now, with the exception of the few years where my mom got fed up with everything and she quit. The one particularly useful thing about being on the Executive Committee is that you have connections to the real powerbrokers in the community (especially so if your party is the dominant one), and you get to see the behind the scenes party politics that most people don't even know is going on. That's also kind of the downside, because to some extent it's nice not to know all the messy power plays that are going on. It can be pretty funny to watch the way that people with political ambitions kiss up to the folk that they think could help advance their political careers.

Speaking of behind the scenes politics reminds me of a story from a few years ago that reminds me of precisely the reason that I have a love/hate relationship with politics. Before the election a few years back, there was an open house at the county republican headquarters, which all the local candidates attended, of course. In the course of a conversation with one of the state house candidates, one of my parents asked him his position on abortion (this happens to be a very useful question that can tell you a lot more about the candidate than just his or her position on that particular issue, as you will soon see). This particular candidate took the "personally opposed, but support the woman's right to choose" position, and our attempt to discuss the issue further resulted in the candidate flying off the handle and storming off in anger. When we got home that evening, my mom wrote an e-mail about the encounter, expressing concern that a candidate who loses his temper and flies off the handle when someone disagrees with him would not be very well suited for the office. She sent the e-mail to quite a few people, and it ended up going to one of the school board members (who happened to be running for re-election and had the same campaign manager as the house candidate), and he sent it out to his personal e-mail list. The e-mail ended up getting back to the house candidate, who threw a fit and said it was all lies, and was so mad that he tried to get his campaign manager to quit managing the campaign of the school board candidate. This huge brouhaha was all going on behind the scenes, and since it didn't make it to the press the general public never found out about it, and went to the polls with no clue as to the guy's temper. Since the public didn't know what the guy was really like, they elected him, and ever since have had to put up with his feuding with anybody and everybody, including the entire county legislative delegation and the entire county commission, and he thinks he answers to nobody.

Ain't politics grand?